reservation at a boarding house three blocks away, Diddy carried their suitcases into the hospital as far as the admissions desk. Shy good nights. Then went back downtown to the Rushland, where out-of-town executives and salesmen always stayed at the companyâs expense when visiting the home office. Luckily, no one else from New York coming up for the conference was in the hotel lobby when he registered.
Nearly ten-thirty when Diddy was shown to his room. Unpacked, showered, then called down to the desk to inquire about the first edition of the local morning paper. It came out around 2 a.m. He asked to be phoned at that hour. (Now) eleven oâclock: Diddy turned on the television and found the program he wanted. From behind a desk a bland balding man offered an allotment of communiqués from the frontâlarge enemy losses exactly counted, our casualties lightâand politiciansâ tautologies; items about someone shooting his mother-in-law, a penitentiary riot, the impending divorce of a celebrated Hollywood couple; a condescending account of how the heavyweight champion smashed a young pretender in two rounds in Mexico City; and something about the weather: fair and colder, winds from the northeast. But no fatality on the railroad that afternoon. Perhaps such a death wasnât important or picturesque enough to rate inclusion in the âNews.â Diddy turned off the set, and decided to try turning himself off as well. Although the hour is early, too agitated to entrust himself to the open spaces of the city streets, with their possibilities of haphazard, impersonal encounters. But something seems almost as threatening, in a coy way, about the anonymous surfaces and the carefully neutralized smell of this room. He will have to go further into himself, away from all coherent rational spaces. Perhaps he can sleep. Of the twin beds in the room, Diddy chose the one near the window, though he didnât open the window or switch on the air-conditioner.
But he canât sleep; he can barely manage to keep his eyes closed for more than a few moments. A wide-angle photograph of the workman fallen across the track projecting itself on the inside of his eyelids, though this is (now) a stop-action shot repeatedly interpolated into a sequence of moving images, filmed with a shaky hand-held camera, that Diddy just watched on the âNewsâ: a dead GI, a large body on a stretcher covered from head to foot with a coarse blanket or tarpaulin, being loaded into the maw of a waiting helicopter which has alighted, blades flashing, motor roaring, body shuddering, in some alien rice field. Terrible to die, terrible to have life revoked before one is willing to give it up. And Diddy has done that to someone. Panicked, played the terrible landlord, foreclosed a life. Over and over, this time without picturing, he reimagines the encounter with the workman. Yet, it might be argued that what Diddy has done was excusable, even legitimate. The workman had, for no reason, provoked him. Was inexplicably menacing; was armed. Still, Diddy wasnât convinced that heâd acted simply in self-defense. Were Diddy his own judge, at a real trial, he would never have accepted that plea. The workman was uncouth, insolent. Yes. But insolence couldnât be assumed to augur more, more than just further insolence. And hadnât the man shrugged off his own behavior and, as if to prove the harmlessness of his intentions, turned his back to Diddy? To be sure, some suspicious movements had then followed. But maybe the man was just preparing to toss the ax in with his other tools, gather them all together, and go off. Where? To board the train? Unless he was too anarchic, too much of a loner, to have been one of the trainâs crew, submitting to group discipline. In that case, his destination was probably wherever the solitary laborer on duty was lodged, like a sentry, ready for any emergency or breakdownâperhaps in some
Nearly ten-thirty when Diddy was shown to his room. Unpacked, showered, then called down to the desk to inquire about the first edition of the local morning paper. It came out around 2 a.m. He asked to be phoned at that hour. (Now) eleven oâclock: Diddy turned on the television and found the program he wanted. From behind a desk a bland balding man offered an allotment of communiqués from the frontâlarge enemy losses exactly counted, our casualties lightâand politiciansâ tautologies; items about someone shooting his mother-in-law, a penitentiary riot, the impending divorce of a celebrated Hollywood couple; a condescending account of how the heavyweight champion smashed a young pretender in two rounds in Mexico City; and something about the weather: fair and colder, winds from the northeast. But no fatality on the railroad that afternoon. Perhaps such a death wasnât important or picturesque enough to rate inclusion in the âNews.â Diddy turned off the set, and decided to try turning himself off as well. Although the hour is early, too agitated to entrust himself to the open spaces of the city streets, with their possibilities of haphazard, impersonal encounters. But something seems almost as threatening, in a coy way, about the anonymous surfaces and the carefully neutralized smell of this room. He will have to go further into himself, away from all coherent rational spaces. Perhaps he can sleep. Of the twin beds in the room, Diddy chose the one near the window, though he didnât open the window or switch on the air-conditioner.
But he canât sleep; he can barely manage to keep his eyes closed for more than a few moments. A wide-angle photograph of the workman fallen across the track projecting itself on the inside of his eyelids, though this is (now) a stop-action shot repeatedly interpolated into a sequence of moving images, filmed with a shaky hand-held camera, that Diddy just watched on the âNewsâ: a dead GI, a large body on a stretcher covered from head to foot with a coarse blanket or tarpaulin, being loaded into the maw of a waiting helicopter which has alighted, blades flashing, motor roaring, body shuddering, in some alien rice field. Terrible to die, terrible to have life revoked before one is willing to give it up. And Diddy has done that to someone. Panicked, played the terrible landlord, foreclosed a life. Over and over, this time without picturing, he reimagines the encounter with the workman. Yet, it might be argued that what Diddy has done was excusable, even legitimate. The workman had, for no reason, provoked him. Was inexplicably menacing; was armed. Still, Diddy wasnât convinced that heâd acted simply in self-defense. Were Diddy his own judge, at a real trial, he would never have accepted that plea. The workman was uncouth, insolent. Yes. But insolence couldnât be assumed to augur more, more than just further insolence. And hadnât the man shrugged off his own behavior and, as if to prove the harmlessness of his intentions, turned his back to Diddy? To be sure, some suspicious movements had then followed. But maybe the man was just preparing to toss the ax in with his other tools, gather them all together, and go off. Where? To board the train? Unless he was too anarchic, too much of a loner, to have been one of the trainâs crew, submitting to group discipline. In that case, his destination was probably wherever the solitary laborer on duty was lodged, like a sentry, ready for any emergency or breakdownâperhaps in some
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