"Players" - читать интересную книгу автора (Delillo Don)3 Lyle sat by a window at home, in T-shirt and jeans, barefoot, drinking Irish lager. Pammy bought fruit at a sidewalk stand. She loved the look of fruit in crates, outdoors, tiers of peaches and grapes. Buying fresh fruit made her feel good. It was an act of moral excellence. She looked forward to taking the grapes home, putting them in a bowl and letting cold water run over the bunches. It gave her such pleasure, hefting one of the bunches in her hand, feeling the water come cooling through. Then there were peaches. The earthly merit of peaches. Lyle remembered having seen some pennies in the bedroom. He went in there. Ten minutes later he found them, three, sitting on a copper-and-brown Kleenex box. He heard Pam take the keys out of her purse. He stacked the pennies on the dresser. Transit tokens on the right side of the dresser. Pennies on the left. He went back to the window. Pammy had to put down the bag of fruit before she could get the door opened. She remembered what had been bothering her, the vague presence. Her life. She hated her life. It was a minor thing, though, a small bother. She tended to forget about it. When she recalled what it was that had been on her mind, she felt satisfied at having remembered and relieved that it was nothing worse. She pushed into the apartment. "There she is.” "Hi, you're home.” "What's in that big wet funny bag?” "I may not show you.” "Fruit.” "I got you some cantaloupe.” "Do I like cantaloupe, he asked," Lyle said. "And these plums, can you believe them?” "Who'll eat all that? You never eat any. You eat a little bit when you take it out of the bag and then that's it, Chiquita. In the fruit thing to shrivel.” "You like plums.” "Then you say it's for me, look what I got you, world's greatest tangerine, glom glom.” "Well I think fruit's pretty.” "In the fruit bin to shrivel up like fetuses.” "Where's my beer?" she said. He had a look on his face, supposedly an imitation of her virtuous-fruit look, that made her laugh. She moved through the apartment, taking off clothes, putting the fruit away, getting cheese and crackers. There were pieces of her everywhere. Lyle watched, humming something. "A guy got killed today on the floor, shot.” "What, at the Exchange?” "Somebody shot him, out of nowhere.” "Did you see it?” "Ping.” "Christ, who? Puerto Ricans again?” He reached out when she went by. She moved into him as he rose from the chair. She felt his thumb at the small of her back, slipping inside elastic. She reached behind him to draw the curtains. He sat back down, humming something, arms raised, as she lifted the T-shirt off him. "I wouldn't want to say porta rickens. I wouldn't want to say coloreds or any of the well-meaning white folks who have taken up the struggle against the struggle, not knowing, you see, that the capitalist system and the power structure and the pattern of repression are themselves a struggle. It's not an easy matter, being the oppressor. A lot of work involved. Hard dogged unglamorous day-to-day toil. Pounding the pavement. Checking records and files. Making phone call after phone call. Successful oppression depends on this. So I would say in conclusion that they are struggling against the struggle. But I wouldn't want to say porta rickens, commanists, what-have-you. It be no bomb, remember. It be a gun, ping.” Pammy and Lyle, undressed, were face to face on the white bed, kneeling, hands on each other's shoulders, in flat light, dimming in tenths of seconds. The room was closed off to the street's sparse evening, the hour of thoughtful noises, when everything is interim. The air conditioner labored, an uphill tone. There were intermittent lights in the distance, high-tension streaks. With each discharge a neutral tint, a residue, as of cooled ash, penetrated the room. Pammy and Lyle began to touch. They knew the shifting images of physical similarity. It was an unspoken bond, part of their shared consciousness, the mined silence between people who live together. Curling across each other's limbs and silhouettes they seemed repeat-able, daughter cells of some precise division. Their tongues drifted over wetter flesh. It was this divining of moisture, an intuition of nature submerged, that set them at each other, nipping, in eager searches. He tasted vinegar in her spinning hair. They parted a moment, touched from a studied distance, testing introspectively, a complex exchange. He left the bed to turn off the air conditioner and raise the window. Evening was recharged and fragrant. Thunder sounded right over them. The best things about summer were these storms, filling a room, almost medicinally, with weather, with variable light. Rain struck the window in pellets. They could see trees out back take the stiff winds. Lyle had gotten wet, opening the window, his hands and belly, and they waited for him to dry, talking in foreign accents about a storm they'd driven through in the Alps somewhere, laughing in "Portuguese" and "Dutch." She twisted into him, their solitude become a sheltering in this rain. They lost contact for a moment. She brought him back, needing that conflict of surfaces, the palpable logic of his cock inside her. Then she was gripping hard, released to the contagion of recurring motion, rising, as they ached and played, sunny as young tigers. It is time to "perform," he thought. She would have to be "satisfied." He would have to "service" her. They would make efforts to "interact.” When he was sure they were finished he moved away, feeling the barest spray of rain after it hit the window ledge. On their backs they reorganized their breathing. She wanted pizza. It made her feel guilty not to want fruit. But she'd worked all day, taken elevators and trains. She couldn't deal with the consequences of fruit, its perishability, the duty involved in eating it. She wanted to sit in a corner, alone, and stuff herself with junk. She is padding to the bathroom, he thought. It grew darker. She sat at the foot of the bed, dressing. The rain slackened. She heard the Mister Softee truck down in the street. It announced itself with recorded music, a sound she hated, the same cranked-out mechanical whine every night. She couldn't hear that noise without feeling severe mental oppression. To indicate this, she made a low droning sound, the tremulous "There really is a Mister Softee.” "I believe," she said. "He sits in the back of the truck. That's him making the noise. It's not music on a record or tape. That's his mouth. It's coming out of his mouth. That's his language. They speak that way in the back of ice cream trucks all over the city. I won't say nation yet. It hasn't spread.” "A local phenomenon.” "He sits back there dribbling. He's very fat and pastelike. He can't get up. His flesh doesn't have the right consistency.” "He has no genitals.” "They're in diere somewhere.” "Kidding aside, let's talk," she said. She crawled along the bed, wearing a shirt and jeans, and settled next to him, pressing contentedly. He made a sound, then started to bite her head. She scratched lightly at his ribs. "Better watch.” "I bite heads for a living.” "Better watch, you. I know where and how to strike.” He made gulping sounds. This seemed to interest him more than most noises he made. He evolved chokes and gasps out of the original sound. He began to drown or suffocate, making convulsive attempts to breathe. Pammy answered the phone on the fourth or fifth ring, as she always did, either, he thought, because she considered it chic, or just to annoy him. It was Ethan Segal. He and Jack were dropping over. What do we have to drink? Lyle called Dial-a-Steak. By the time the food arrived, everyone was a little drunk. Ethan shuffled to the table, a chess-playing smile on his face. They sat down, having brought their drinks with them, and began to strip aluminum foil from the steak, the salad, the potatoes, the bread, the salt and pepper. "It's Jack's birthday.” No one said anything. "I'm thirty.” "Welcome to Death Valley," Lyle said. "I feel different.” "But none the wiser," Ethan said. "I used to think thirty was so old. I'd meet people who were thirty and I'd think God, thirty.” "Wait till you're fortyish," Ethan said. "All hell breaks loose for about ten minutes. Then you begin to grow old quietly. It's not bad, really. You begin wearing house slippers to the theater and people think you're some unbelievably interesting man about to get written up in What's Happening, you know, or People Are Talking About, in "We forgot to open the wine," Jack said. "At what specific time," Pammy said, "does one become fortyish?” "Wine, Lyle.” "We're out. There is no wine. Our cellar was auctioned off to pay taxes on the estate.” "We brought wine," Jack said. "We came with wine.” "There is no wine, Jack. You're free to look around.” "It's in the cab," Ethan said. Jack said: "The cab.” "We left it in the cab. I remember distinctly that we had it when we got in the cab and I don't recall seeing it after that.” "Because you drank it," Pammy said. "Because I drank the wine in the cab.” "Do I hear diet cola?" Jack said. They were talking quickly and getting laughs on intonation alone, the prospect of wit. This isn't really funny, Lyle thought. It seems funny because we're getting half smashed. But nobody's really saying funny things. Tomorrow she'll say what a funny night and I'll say it just seemed funny and she'll give me a look. She'll give me a look-he saw the look but did not express it in verbal form, going on to the next spaceless array, a semi-coherent framework of atomic "words." But I'll know I'm right because I'm making this mental note right now to remind myself tomorrow that we're not really being funny. Shut up, he told himself. Jack Laws nurtured an element of hysteria in his laugh. His head went tilt, his hands came up to his chest in paw form and he shook out some cries of phobic joy. It was an up-to-date cultural mannerism, an index of the suspicion that nothing we say or do can be properly gauged without reference to the fear that pervades every situation and specific thing. Jack was broad-shouldered and short. He had a snub nose, small mouth and well-cleft chin. His face, over all, possessed a sly innocence that quickly shaded off Ethan was back in the armchair, smiling cryptically again. He was onto vodka, neat. Jack finished off Pammy's steak, talking at the same time about a friend of his who was in training to swim some strait in Europe, the first ever to attempt it north to south, or something. There was a comedy record on the stereo. It was Lyle's latest. He played such records often, getting the routines down pat, the phrasing, the dialects, then repeating the whole thing for people on the floor in slack times. This one he played for Ethan's benefit. He watched Ethan, studying his reaction, as the record played, as Jack ate and talked, as Pammy wandered around the room. After a while he followed her over to the bookshelves. "Did you pay the Saks thing?” "No, what thing?” "They're panting," he said. "They're enclosing slips with the bill. Little reminders. They're calling you Ms.” "Next week.” "You said that.” "They'll wait.” "Where did I tell you the battery was for the Italian clock when the one in there now runs out?” "I don't know.” "You forgot already.” "What battery?" she said. "I went to nine places, looking. It's one point four volts. You can't go around the corner. It's a certain size. Least you could do is remember where it is when I tell you.” "There's a battery "For when it runs out," he said. "It's a ten-month-some-odd life expectancy and we've had the clock nearly that long already.” "Okay, where's the battery?” "In the kitchen drawer with the corkscrews and ribbons.” Lyle went into the bedroom and turned on the TV set. That was the only light. He watched for a few minutes, then began coasting along the dial. Jack came in and he had to stop. It made Lyle nervous to watch television with someone in the room, even Pammy, even when he wasn't changing channels every twenty seconds. There was something private about television. It was intimate, able to cause embarrassment. "What's on?” "Not much.” "You watch a lot?" Jack said. "I do.” "Sometimes.” "It keeps the mind off things. You don't have to involve yourself too much. Listen, talk, anything.” "I talk all day," Lyle said. "Exactly, I know.” Jack hadn't moved from the doorway. He was eating a peach, standing in light from the hall. When he turned and laughed, reacting to something Ethan or Pam had said, Lyle saw the patch of white hair above his neck. He thought of saying something about it but by the time Jack turned his head again, he'd lost interest. "Bed's a mess but come on in, find a chair, cetra cetra.” "That's okay, I'm just snooping around.” "Nothing's on, looks like.” "But can you believe what they show sometimes? I think it's disgusting, Lyle. I can't believe. It's so sleazy. Who are those people? I refuse to watch. I totally do not watch. Ethan watches.” "Sometimes you see something, you know, interesting in another sense. I don't know.” "What other sense?” "I don't know.” "I totally cannot believe. What goes on. Right there on TV.” "What are you doing these days, Jack?” "I'm thinking of getting a scheme together.” "What kind?” "I know where I can get microfilmed mailing lists of two hundred thousand subscribers to these eight or nine health publications. I think it's A to M.” "You'll, what, sell them?” "Sell them.” "What else, of course.” "Sell them, what else?” They watched and listened for ten minutes as two announcers tried to fill time during a rain delay at a ball game. "We have two sets," Jack said. "I'm thinking of that.” "I made him get an extra.” He laughed lightly, ending on a note of apprehension, and went back inside. Pammy was sitting on the floor. With her index finger she kept tapping an ice cube in her glass, watching it plunge briefly, then surge. "You know what I don't think?" she said. "I don't think I can stand the idea of tomorrow.” She looked at Ethan, who stared into the carpet. "I really, it seems, I don't think.” "It's that time of night," Jack said. "It's just that I can't accommodate any more time than what's right here. It's, where we go, your friend here, together with me. Choose precisely the word, for this is important. Not place, which is the elevator's word. Not office or building, which are too common and apply anywhere.” "Environment.” "Thank you, Jack.” "Should I make coffee?” "No, no, this isn't a coffee conversation. This is a gut topic. Wait a minute now, I'll get to it. Don't think I don't know that your friend here has not in the longest time made the slightest remark to his job. Why? Because you know as well as I do, Jack, what happens to people. Your friend here used to joke. You recall it, Jack, as well as I do. We both heard this man. He'd be so funny about his job and those people in the field. The stories. Do you believe? Per diem rates for terminal-illness counseling? So if it drags on, forget it, we got you by the balls? And the woman in Syracuse? With the grief-stricken pet, what was it, canary, in Syracuse, that the other one died -not canary, what, shit, I'm screwing this up. But that's okay. You're dear friends. We're dear friends here. But he no longer does it. That's the point and he thinks I don't notice. Because it's so stupid. It's so modern-stupid. It's this thing that people are robots that scares me. And the environment, Jack, thank you.” "I never heard about the grief-stricken canary.” "Jack, you heard. We all did." She pointed toward the bedroom. "He still talks about it. Just say Syracuse to Lyle, blink-blink-blink, the way he laughs, right, with the eyelids.” Ethan made a sweeping movement with his arm, a gesture of cancellation. His cravat, an ironic adornment to begin with, had slipped over the front of his shirt so that he appeared to be wearing a child's scarf. "The thing is," he said. They waited. "To forge a change that you may be reluctant to forge, that may be problematical for this or that reason, you have to tell people. You have to talk and tell people. Jack sees what I'm getting at. You have to bring it out. Even if you have no intention at the time of doing it out of whatever fear or trembling, you still must make it begin to come true by articulating it. This changes the path of your life. Just telling people makes the change begin to happen. If, in the end, you choose to keep going with whatever you've been doing that's been this problematical thing in your life, well and good, it's up to you. But if you need to feel you're on the verge of a wonderful change, whether you are or not, the thing to do is tell people. 'I am on the verge of a wonderful change. I am about to do something electrifying. The very fibers of your being will be electrified, sir, when I tell you what it is I propose to do.' To speak it in words is to see the possibility emerge. Doesn't matter what. Don't bother your head over what. For the purposes of this discussion it could be mountain-climbing we're talking about or this friend of Jack, the oft-mentioned scaly chap who plans to swim the North Sea left-handed. Our lives are enriched by these little blurbs we send each other. These things are necessary to do. 'I am going back to school to learn Arabic, whatever.' Say it to people for six months. 'I am going to live in Maine or else.' Jack sees my point. Tell people, tell them. Make something up. The important thing is to seem to be on the verge. Then it begins to come true, a little bit. I don't know, maybe talking is enough. Maybe you don't want to forge the change. Maybe telling people "I think I know what you mean," Pammy said. "Do you see a glimmer?” "I think I see a glimmer.” "We'll hail a cab, Jack. Our bottle of wine will be in the back seat. It will complete the circle. I believe in circles.” "Jack, really, happy birthday, I mean it.” "I tried to get drunk.” "Needn't apologize," she said. "Tell your friend here I think I see what he means.” "Well I don't," Jack said. In the bedroom Lyle watched television. Pammy came in, sat at the end of the bed, where earlier she'd dressed, and undressed. It made little or no sense, all this undressing, dressing. If you calculated the time. Hours spent. After a while she stood up, nude, and walked to Lyle, who sat in a director's chair, his back to her. She put her hands on his shoulders. The volume on the TV set was turned way down. She heard cars outside, the sound of tires on a wet street, whispered |
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