Read Online Don DeLillo by Great Jones Street - Free Book Online

consoling remoteness to sound now. It lapped across the room in wave-shaped bands, touching nothing. What was said existed on a plane behind the words themselves. Opel was a lump in the bed. I drifted around the room, returning eventually to the circular chair, happy to dwell in the syntonic dome of well-engineered voices.
    “I don’t guess you care to hear about the galvanized tank under the choir loft. Back home’s what I’m talking about as a matter of fact.”
    “Tell me about West Africa,” I said. “How would you rate it in terms of its being timeless? Using, say, Yemen as the norm. Give Yemen a mean rating of ten even. Okay, where does that put West Africa?”
    “It’s too dull to talk about. I only mentioned it in the first place to get my point across. Thingness. If you’re interested in things, either take dope or travel to an ancient country. When’s the last time you consumed something?”
    “The last something I consumed was an animal tranquilizer. That was maybe eleven weeks ago, give or take five or six weeks.”
    “What was it like?” she said.
    “I really don’t remember. It was Dodge and me. We were on a hotel roof. We were looking down on the rooftops of the city. Whatever city it was. And I was trying to work out a theory about how you can determine the psychic state of a given society by looking down on its rooftops. Dodge meantime was cackling over this little plastic box he had in his hand.”
    “It’s quiet, isn’t it?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “What’s going to happen to all of us?”
    “All of who?”
    “I thought it was best to go someplace completely different. Everything was over. Nobody even knew what to wear anymore. The music didn’t mean the same thing. I used to absolutely disappear in that sound. But then it ended. What do you do when something ends? I thought it best to go away.”
    “Sure.”
    “What are you laughing at?” she said.
    “I don’t know. I really don’t.”
    “Then stop.”
    “I’m trying — really.”
    “Go ahead, laugh. Bastard. Laugh at nothing. It helps pass the time.”
    “I’m trying to stop,” I said.
    “No, laugh. I want you to.”
    “Should I laugh or not? I’m trying to stop. But now you’re telling me laugh. I can’t talk. Wait a minute. It hurts. Should I laugh or shut up? It really hurts.”
    “Laugh, idiot.”
    “Okay, it’s over now. It’s all over. Wait a minute. It’s not over. It’s starting again. It’s coming up from my appendix. It’s beginning to hurt some more.”
    “You were laughing at what I said. Bastard. All I said was the whole thing was over.”
    “And you were right to go,” I said. “It was better than staying.”
    “All through now? All finished with your private riot?”
    “I think so.”
    “When are you going back to them?” she said.
    “Back to them-who?”
    “Here it comes. Another five minutes. Choke, choke, sputter. Somebody give him a bedpan to gurgle into.”
    “No, I’m stopping. It was a flurry left over from the other one. When am I going back to them? I know exactly who you mean. The people. The crowd. The audience. The fans. The followers.”
    “The public,” she said.
    “When I have something to go back with. Something or nothing. Nothing takes more time.”
    She was sitting up now. I reached over the side of the chair and lifted several tissues out of the box on the floor. I rolled them up and decided to toss them over to Opel because I knew she would clap her hands softly as soon as she realized my intention and I wanted to witness that small gesture of hers, simple prefix to a game of catch, the mildest of handclaps transformed to a radiant act of grace by the beauty of the child reconstructed in the gesture. After the toss and catch we rested a while, allowing our brief symmetry to decompose.
    “I don’t guess you care to hear about my piano teacher’s biblical sky. This is down-home regional material you can’t get just anywheres.”
    “Hardly hear your