Don DeLillo - Americana

One summer evening my father came home from work and told the family what had happened on the 6:17 out of Grand Central. There was blood all over his suit and shirt.

"We were all reading our newspapers. All up and down the car you saw nothing but newspapers. The conductor came around and started punching tickets. At this point we were still underground and I remember I was just finishing up the stock page when the train boomed out of the tunnel and started going through Harlem. That's when the first rock hit. It hit a window across the aisle from me and glass went flying in every direction. Strange thing is nobody said a word. The next rock hit on my side of the train and the window two windows in front of me shattered and then I realized we were being bombarded by more than one or two wise guys and I looked out my window and then out the window across the aisle and there they were, standing up above us behind the fence, Puerto Rican kids, and they were flinging rocks like crazy, dozens of kids, a whole row of them on each side of the train, laughing and heaving rocks at us. Nobody was reading newspapers now. We were all scrambling under the seats and again it was strange but nobody said anything. It was as though we knew it was coming sooner or later. And today was the day. Rocks were bouncing off the side of the train and smashing through the windows. Little kids. Twelve, thirteen years old. Anyway it stopped then. It stopped for about ten seconds and we started coming up when the next barrage hit. These weíe Negro kids and they really busted up that train. Negro kids on rooftops. More windows went and there was somebody moaning at the back of the car, some guy either hit by a rock or who cut himself on the glass that was all over the floor. We thought it was over when we got out of Harlem and we started pushing the glass off our seats and a few guys even came out with some funny remarks that had us all laughing even though they weren't really funny. It was shock-laughter if you know what I mean. But the rocks started flying again in the south Bronx. All through the Bronx we got hit in flurries. It wasn't as concentrated there for some reason. But that's where some little spic sharpshooter hit my window and a piece of glass caught me on the hand. It finally stopped up around Woodlawn. The inside of that train looked like a tornado hit it. Glass, rocks, newspapers were all over the place. Nobody seemed outraged or bitter. Just mildly upset. And when I got off the train there were three or four other men getting off with me and we walked to our cars and nobody even mentioned that we had nearly been killed back there. Those little bastards. What did we ever do to them?"

"You moved to the suburbs," my sister Mary said. "Have a nice day at the office tomorrow, daddy. And if you decide to work late and stay in the city overnight, we'll all understand."

St. Dymphna's was located in southwestern New Hampshire and it was a nice place to be educated. It was quiet and picturesque. The leaves turned color in autumn and there was plenty of snow in winter. Everybody dressed neatly. Here and there a building was showing signs of falling apart but this didn't bother anybody; it was one of the traditions of the well-bred Northeast. The staff, wholly Episcopalian clergy at one time, now included many laymen, a few Unitarian ministers, a Duck River Baptist, and a lovable Irish janitor named Petey who was always challenging freshmen to identify the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. The student body was composed almost wholly of cynical little anti-religious boys. My guidance counselor was a layman and on Reciprocity Day he introduced himself to my mother and father.

"My name is Thomas Fearing. My clubs are the Millbrook Golf and Tennis, the Rhinebeck Tennis and Saddle, the Players of New York, the Nassau of Princeton, the Princeton of New York, and the Church Street Social of Millbrook."

"Most impressive," my father said.

During my third year a controversy developed. There was a boy on the basketball team named Brad Dennis who used to make the sign of the cross before taking foul shots. Brad's mother was a very militant Roman Catholic and apparently she had not only ordered him to bless himself before taking foul shots but had also told him that St. Dymphna was an exclusively Catholic saint and that the Episcopalians, as nice and neat as they were, had no claim to her patronage and absolutely no right to use her name in connection with one of their prep schools, as fine and proper as that school might be. Brad spread the word and for his trouble got himself black-belted on the ass by the dean of discipline. This only aroused him to greater fervor and to an early-Christian lust for martyrdom. I began to get interested. Brad was like an anarchist running loose in the Pentagon. He distributed literature published by the Knights of Columbus and he offered to debate anyone his age on the relative merits of the world's great religions. Some of us would meet illegally in his room after lights-out to hear him discourse on the transubstantiation and papal infallibility. It was evident that some of his zeal was being transmitted to the small circle of disciples which had gathered about him. The student body began to take sides and the subjects of free speech and the right to proselytize soon became the main topics of conversation. Since the faculty knew little or nothing of Brad's post-flogging activities, there was an exciting underground feeling to those days. Many sided with Brad simply because of his run-in with the dean of discipline, who was known as the Son of Dracula and was universally feared and despised. Others seemed genuinely interested in the doctrines he promulgated. Those who were against him called him a papist, a crossback, an anti-intellectual and a pissyhole. I decided it was time for me to get to the root of the controversy and that was St. Dymphna herself. I asked Brad for one of his leaflets. It was put out by the Franciscan Missions and it had these words on the front page:

ST. DYMPHNA

(pronounced dimf-nah)

PATRONESS OF THOSE AFFLICTED

WITH NERVOUS DISORDERS

AND MENTAL ILLNESS

"The Nervous Breakdown Saint"

It turned out that St. Dymphna had been born in Ireland, the only child of the pagan king of Oriel. When her mother died, Dymphna's father decided to seek a second wife. Ultimately he concluded there was only one female worthy enough-his own daughter. Dymphna, who had been baptized by a priest of the church, was fourteen years old. With all the persuasiveness he could muster, the king outlined his scheme to his trembling daughter. Dymphna sought safety in flight, settling finally in Belgium along with her confessor. Spies, however, traced the exiles' route and it all ended when the king drew his sword and struck off the head of his only child. In time, many people with mental problems were cured due to the intercession of St. Dymphna, whose fame as the nervous breakdown saint gradually spread from Belgium to Ireland and thence to almost every corner of the globe.

The story fascinated me. I felt much the same way I would months later when Jane would read her YWCA notes on the primitive religions of the world. All those magnificently demented people made me feel small and well-dressed. I even liked St. Dymphna's father. I pictured him with a red beard, drinking mead from a ram's horn and secretly worrying about his masculinity. I went to Brad Dennis' room to return the leaflet and hopefully to engage in a fiery conversation about science, religion and eternity. Miles Warren was in there with Brad. Miles, fresh from two weeks of atheism, was the most brilliant student at St. Dymphna's. When I gave Brad the leaflet and told him how much I had liked the story of St. Dymphna, he said he had given me the wrong material. This is a childish piece of whimsy, he said. With that, he handed me a booklet titled Some Preliminary Concepts of Metaphysical Psychology.