Americana

by Don DeLillo

  “Where the Navahos are.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Quincy, you’re the geography expert.”

  “Look, it’s not as though we’ll have any trouble finding them. The reservation is bigger than some states. It’s even bigger than some countries, some of the smaller postage-stamp kingdoms in Europe. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s bigger than Monaco for instance.”

  “Central Park is bigger than Monaco,” Reeves Chubb said.

  “Cocksucker,” Quincy muttered.

  “It’s out around Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and/or Colorado,” Paul Joyner said. “I happen to know that for a feet.”

  “Right,” I said. “And as I understand it the area has some fine cliff dwellings and pueblo ruins that we can use as natural backdrops. Monument Valley, in point of fact, lies right within the boundaries of the reservation, or so I’ve been led to believe. It’s a stark, beautiful, moonscape-type place.”

  “Why do we want blizzards?” Warburton said.

  “We want to show that despite all the problems, they’re making progress. Blizzards are one of the problems.”

  “I shouldn’t have thought you’d need a blizzard. Poverty and disease speak eloquently in their own right.”

  “It can’t do any harm,” Quincy said.

  “Ted may have a point,” I said. “The other major thing that pertains to me directly is the ‘Soliloquy’ thing. Everything is fine on that score. The show has been an airtight lead-pipe cinch from the very outset. Critics have loved it, by and large, and mail has been running four-to-one pro.”

  “I’ve never liked that title much,” Reeves Chubb said. “It’s pseudo something or other. I brought it up at dinner the other evening. We have some house guests out and I wanted to get their thinking on it. I taped the whole discussion in case you, Dave, or you, Quincy, wanted to hear it. They’re an extremely well-informed couple. Kate and Phil Thomforde. He’s done things with McAndrew at Amherst.”

  “Weede thought up the title.”

  “Did I?” Weede said. “One of my less resounding successes apparently, at least as far as Mr. Chubb is concerned. Regrettably, Dave, I don’t think the program will survive. Sometimes it’s difficult to break new ground without getting dirt in somebody’s eye. The sponsor has chosen not to renew and there’s been no interest elsewhere. Dave, you know I always go to bat for my people and I assure you this instance was no exception. I tried my damnedest to get Larry Livingston upstairs to convince Stennis to let the network pick up the tab. Livingston said quite frankly—and you have to admire his honesty—that the show is a crashing bore. He said there was no point in seeing Stennis about it because Stennis—and this mustn’t go any further than this room—Stennis has problems of an entirely different kind. The show was good. I say that unequivocally. But Chip Moerdler over at Brite-Write said it wasn’t selling any ballpoint pens. In this business you have to learn to expect disappointments. But don’t go away mad, David. We have every intention of putting your not inconsiderable talents to further and better use. I’ll be telling you more about this as soon as the Navahos are in the can.”

  “Chip Moerdler is a thundering ignoramus,” Warburton said. “I’ve had dealings with that man. He wouldn’t know quality if it struck him a blow in the solar plexus.”

  “Well and good,” Weede said. “But you can’t argue with a sales chart. Now I think we had better press on. There’s one more bit of business that concerns you, Dave. That’s the laser beam project.”

  “I’ve given Carter Hemmings a free hand with that. He seems to be something of an expert on the subject and I thought it was about time he got his feet wet. He’s several years older than I am, you know, and sometimes it’s best, for the sake of a man’s morale in a case like this, to let him develop something on his own. It’s always somewhat embarrassing for me to explain to Carter why he isn’t included in these Friday meetings of ours. His impatience is understandable and I’m sure it won’t be long before he joins us in solemn conclave. At any rate, Weede, Carter said he’s got the laser beam thing hammered into top shape. When I spoke to him last evening he said he wanted to see you about it first thing in the morning. He said it’s in absolutely stunning shape. Virtually ready to go.”

  “He didn’t talk to me.”

  “I guess I’ll have to resort to pressure.”

  And then, for no reason at all, I slid my foot several inches across the rug, and kicked over the empty coffee cup beneath Richter Janes’ chair. I put my heel on it and crushed it. Nobody seemed to notice. I felt sick and exhausted. I wanted to be back in Meredith’s warm musky bed, lost in the hollow of her breasts, swimming through fish-silver rooms, fathomless, deep in the shipwreck of sleep. I wanted to be with Sullivan in some lunar western wilderness, listening to Mingus on the car radio, and Ornette Coleman with his paintbrush horn, and Sullivan’s arms crossed on her chest in sarcophagus fashion, her invisibly taped features; going flat-out across the northern plains, climbing, Bartók in the Rockies, cowboy songs and the nasal grassy drawl of banjos, and there is Oregon, the seal-slick distant sea. That’s what I wanted. But I sat in Weede Denney’s huge office, in the blue chair by the window, feeling sick and exhausted.

  “Now it’s time to hear from our resident China-watcher. Look smart, Mr. Chubb. How is the China thing coming along?”

  “Weede, it’s shaping up as the best public affairs series I’ve ever been involved in. I’ve already discussed it with seven or eight top people in the State Department. I’ve got calls in to six universities and two foundations. I’ve been putting in nights and weekends. My secretary has some kind of female thing and I’ve had to borrow Chandler Bates’ secretary from time to time. The material is rolling in. Did you know that China had mastered most of the arts and sciences at a time when the Europeans were still combing fleas out of each other’s hair? My wife thinks I’m working too hard. This is a big opportunity for us. China is a riddle. It’s an enigma. Everything is being typed up. Mao Tse-tung and his followers walked six thousand miles to a mountain stronghold when what’s his name was chasing them. The Chink with the wife who went to Wellesley. As soon as all the stuff is typed up and proofread and mimeoed, I’d like to get everybody’s opinion on how it looks. Chandler Bates’ secretary is slow so I don’t know when it’ll be ready. I’m very excited about this series. The Yangtze River is three thousand four hundred and thirty miles long.”

  “What’s the series going to be about?” Warburton said.

  “The whole big thing. China inside out.”

  “Will it say something we haven’t already heard countless times?”

  “There’s a very real prospect of some exciting filmclips.”

  “Taken from a tall hill in Hong Kong, no doubt.”

  “The series will have a definite viewpoint. The stuff I’m getting typed up points that out very clearly.”

  “Points what out?”

  “That a viewpoint is necessary.”

  “What viewpoint?”

  “Yeah, what viewpoint?” Quincy said.

  “I’m working on that with the State Department. They’ve been extremely cooperative.”

  Warburton said: “I’d like to quote Kafka at this juncture. ‘Every fellow-countryman was a brother for whom one was building a wall of protection, and who would return lifelong thanks for it with all he had and did. Unity! Unity! Shoulder to shoulder, a ring of brothers, a current of blood no longer confined within the narrow circulation of one body, but sweetly rolling and yet ever returning throughout the endless leagues of China.’ That, I submit, is your viewpoint.”

  “Ted, that’s wonderful,” Weede said. “I think you’ve really given Reeves something he can sink his teeth into. The part about unity-unity is splendid. It encapsulates all the surging drama of a land mass whose people we can only guess at. Where did you buy that tie?”

  “It really sings, Ted. Maybe your girl can type it up for me. That part about the endless leagues of China is almost
as good as unity-unity. Might be a title in there somewhere.”

  “Might indeed,” Weede Denney said.

  The meeting droned on. I watched Warburton’s face. No, I could not have mistaken the flicker of mirth that worked at the corners of his mouth. I settled into the twilight, the lagoon, the mineshaft. A pigeon crossed the window ledge, nodding insanely, a fat prim spinster out for a stroll in Providence, Rhode Island, and then a distant boom of demolition sent it cracking into the air. I felt a tremor of pain at my temple. I tried to think of the Christmas shopping I still had to do. I would spend all day Saturday shopping for gifts and wrapping packages. I would buy something for Meredith and her parents; for my father; for Sullivan; for Binky; for my sister Jane and her children in Jacksonville; for three girls I had been seeing on and off; not for B. G. Haines; not for my sister Mary unseen and unheard from in years. I would take extra time and care wrapping the packages intended for Merry’s parents and for Jane and her children. (The concept of distances has always stunned me—meridians, latitudes, international datelines; swinging with the arc of the earth, while I am forever stationary, all distant places seem elusive to me, sliding away and under, hard to get mail to. For this reason I have always tended to be over-reverent toward parcels which are destined to travel hundreds or thousands of miles, as if they were carrier pigeons taking secret messages to the plucky guerrillas in the hills.) Then I had a mental picture of my sister Mary. She is sitting in a laundromat in Topeka, Kansas. She is smoking a kingsize filtertip cigarette and waiting for the clothes to dry. She is wearing a gray cotton dress. There was no reason for me to think of her in that particular city or state or place of business, in that gray and whitewashed hell, clothes spiraling like mechanical embryos in experimental bellies, and yet I felt it was a true vision broadcast to me in some extrasensory way. It made me unaccountably sad. The entire left side of my head was radiating with pain. There was another explosion several blocks away. The voices buzzed in and out of dark hives. I looked at his face again. Then, suddenly, it struck me, with all the mindblazing beauty of a brilliant astronomical calculation. Warburton was Trotsky.

  “I believe that covers everything,” Weede Denney said. “I’m taking a big silver bird to the Coast this afternoon. I should be back Wednesday. Any problems, Mrs. Kling knows how to reach me. Have a nice weekend and a pleasant Christmas.”

  “Officially sanctioned,” somebody said as a footnote to something.

  Weede went into the private toilet adjoining his office. We picked up the paper cups, moved the chairs to their original positions and tidied up in general, reluctant to leave these small tasks to Mrs. Kling, who over the years had managed to become one of the most feared individuals in the company. On the way to my office I stopped by Hallie Lewin’s desk and massaged her neck. She was typing a memo marked confidential. I could see that my name was not on the routing list.

  “How was the meeting, David?”

  “Ended in the usual fistfight. What do you want for Christmas, Hallie?”

  “An abortion,” she said.

  “What’s that you’re typing?”

  “Get away. You’re not supposed to look at that.”

  “Is it about me?” I said, moving my hands down her back.

  “You’re the last person around here who has anything to worry about. Really. I’ve been hearing good things about you, David.”

  I followed Quincy Willet and Jones Perkins down the corridor, snapping my fingers lightly and bouncing on my toes. Quincy needed a haircut.

  “Did you hear?” Jones said. “Merrill hired a Negro. Blaisdell met him yesterday. Said he seems like a nice clean-cut guy.”

  “Let’s go look at him,” Quincy said.

  I went around to my office. Binky followed me in. She wasn’t wearing a brassiere, I noticed. She skipped over to the sofa and bounced on it a few times before settling down. She always let out a bit on Friday. I sat behind the desk.

  “What’s new?” I said.

  “Somebody named Wendy Judd called. She wants you to call back.”

  “What else?”

  “Warren Beasley called. No message.”

  “What else?”

  “Your father wants you to meet him at the Grand Prix at twelve-thirty.”

  “What else?”

  “That’s all,” she said. “How was the meeting?”

  “Ended in the usual fistfight. Phelps Lawrence didn’t show up. I guess they gave him the news already.”

  “Have you heard the latest? It’s really getting wild.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Mars Tyler and Reeves Chubb.”

  “What about them?”

  The ax.

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “I’m not supposed to tell,” she said.

  “Binky baby.”

  “Hallie Lewin told me about Reeves. Penny Holton told me about Mars.”

  “Who’s Penny Holton?”

  “Carter Hemmings’ secretary.”

  “The one with stereophonic tits?”

  “David. Don’t be crappy now.”

  “Her breasts point to opposite ends of the room.”

  “Isn’t it something though?” Binky said.

  “That’s not all,” I said. “Carter Hemmings may be next. It’s just a rumor right now so don’t say anything.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Also I noticed that Chandler Bates had his door closed when I went by his office just a minute ago. I mentioned it casually to Jody and she said it’s been closed all morning.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “He’s either firing somebody or getting fired himself.”

  “It can’t be that Chandler’s getting fired,” she said. “He’s buddy-buddy with Livingston. He’s Livingston’s fair-haired boy. Livingston’s the one who hired him away from the CBC.”

  “I heard Livingston’s being phased out.”

  “That’s too much.”

  “Like an obsolete medium-range bomber,” I said. “Keep it under your hat.”

  “You’d think they’d have some kind of Christmas spirit. What a lousy time for a purge.”

  “Enough chitchat. Get Carter Hemmings in here and tell him to step lively.”

  She went out and I called Sullivan. The phone rang eight times and she didn’t answer. I let it ring some more.

  (“Dear God, I have to get out of here,” I said into the mouthpiece.)

  Finally I hung up. Carter Hemmings came in then. He made his way to the sofa, moving sideways and in a very tentative manner, hunched slightly, feudal and obsequious.

  “Carter, I thought we agreed that you were going to see Weede this morning with some kind of progress report on the laser beam thing.”

  “The way I understood it, Dave, I was supposed to see you first thing in the morning. But when I came by your office, Binky said you weren’t in yet. I came back ten minutes later and she said you had just gone to Weede’s office for the meeting.”

  “Your name came up during the drone-fest, Carter. Weede said he’s going to put your ass in a sling if you’re not careful. What do you hear from B.G. Haines? She told me she had a rotten time that night. I haven’t been hearing good things about you, Carter. Everybody has to pull his weight. You’ll find that Weede can be ruthless when the occasion warrants. Your secretary is a fucking blabbermouth. I have work to do now.”

  He left. I tore up the notes I had taken during the meeting. I took a box of paper clips out of the middle drawer and began fitting one clip inside another, making a chain. In ten minutes or so I fastened about one hundred paper clips. Then I fitted together the two at each end. This gave me a circle, which I spread before me on the desk. I put nine pencils inside the circle, arranging them in three triangles of three pencils each. I put an eraser inside each triangle. Then I took the torn note paper, dropped it into an ashtray, lit a match and set the paper on fire. I placed the ashtray with the burning paper at a point roughly equidistant from t
he nearest corner of each triangle and at the approximate center of the circle. When the fire was about to go out I tore up more paper and tossed it into the ashtray. I kept doing this until Binky came in to get her coat, which she always hung behind my door.

  “Lunchtime already?”

  “What’s that?” she said.

  “Demonology.”

  She came around to my side of the desk for a closer look. I slumped in the chair, leaned over and put my hand on her calf, making slow figure eights with the tips of my fingers.

  “It’s weird, David.”

  “Works quite well, I think. Note the circular ashtray. Circles within circles. Like the pain in my head. The erasers don’t do much for it though. Next time you’re in the supply room see if they have any triangular erasers. This is serious stuff.”

  “What’s it supposed to mean?”

  “It’s a calling forth of the powers of darkness. Is Hallie Lewin pregnant or was she just kidding?”

  My hand was at the soft cove behind the knee which, when the leg is bent, has always seemed to me one of the very best places on a woman’s body; then, as if obliging my bias, she shifted her weight to that leg, the left, so that her knee, answering the shift and in complete control of it, buckled slightly, creating that scooped-out and supremely tender indentation for the rent-free pleasure of my hand. Weede Denney was standing in the doorway.

  “Come on in, Weede,” I said. “Say, how’s your wife these days?”

  Binky edged away from me. I could see the doors opening in the dark room in my mind, three, four, five doors opening, and fresh light planking down across the floor. In the past I had always been able to control the doors but now they seemed to swing open freely, wind-driven, banging the walls. Control was still possible but I did not try to attain it. Light began to fill the room and I thought I might reach eight doors, a new record.

  “Didn’t mean to disturb you,” Weede said, flushing somewhat. “Just wanted to see you for a moment or two; it can wait.”

  “Binky, I don’t know if you’ve ever met Mrs. Denney. She’s an absolutely intrepid woman. Weede, tell Binky about the time Mrs. Denney walked right up to a family of hippos during your camera safari in Kenya. She just had to have that picture and she didn’t care a whit about her personal safety. Weede told us about it at lunch yesterday. I can’t wait to see those slides, Weede. Binky, I think you should see them too. Weede has promised to invite us up for a showing some time soon. Binky’s a photography buff, Weede. Weede has quite a collection of photos, Binky.”