The David Foster Wallace Reader

by David Foster Wallace

  “Terribly, nay, grotesquely nice to see you,” Letterman said.

  “He’s scanning for pretensions,” crackled my ear. “Pockets of naïve self-importance. Something to stick a pin in. Anything.”

  “Yas,” I drawled to David Letterman. I yawned, touching my ear absently.

  Close up, he looked depressingly young. At most thirty-five. He congratulated me on the series’ renewal, the Emmy nomination, and said my network had handled my unexpected pregnancy well on the show’s third year, arranging to have me seen only behind waist-high visual impediments for thirteen straight episodes.

  “That was fun,” I said sarcastically. I laughed drily.

  “Big, big fun,” Letterman said, and the audience laughed.

  “Oh Jesus God let him see you’re being sarcastic and dry,” my husband said.

  Paul Shaffer did a go-figure with his hands in response to something Letterman asked him.

  David Letterman had a tiny label affixed to his cheek (he did have freckles); the label said MAKEUP. This was left over from an earlier joke, during his long monologue, when Letterman had returned from a commercial air-break with absolutely everything about him labeled. The sputtering fountain between us and the footlights was overhung with a crudely lettered arrow: DANCING WATERS.

  “So then Edilyn any truth to the rumors linking that crazy thing over at your husband’s network and the sort of secondary rumors.…” He looked from his index card to Paul Shaffer. “Gee you know Paul it says ‘secondary rumors’ here; is it OK to go ahead and call them secondary rumors? What does that mean, anyway, Paul: ‘secondary rumors’?”

  “We in the band believe it could mean any of… really any of hundreds of things, Dave,” Shaffer said, smiling. I smiled. People laughed.

  The voice of Ron came over the air in my ear: “Say no.” I imagined a wall of angles of me, the wound in Ron’s head and the transmitting thing at the wound, my husband seated with his legs crossed and his arm out along the back of wherever he was.

  “… secondary or not, about you and Tito’s fine, fine program perhaps, ah, leaving commercial television altogether at the end of next season and maybe moving over to that other, unnamed, uncommercial network?”

  I cleared my throat. “Absolutely every rumor about my husband is true.” The audience laughed.

  Letterman said, “Ha ha.” The audience laughed even harder.

  “As for me,” I smoothed my skirt in that way prim women do, “I know next to nothing, David, about the production or business sides of the show. I am a woman who acts.”

  “And, you know, wouldn’t that look terrific emblazoned on the T-shirts of women everywhere?” Letterman asked, fingering his tiepin’s label.

  “And was it ever a crazy thing over at his network, Dave, from what I heard,” said Reese, the NBC Sports coordinator, on my other side, in another of these chairs that seemed somehow disemboweled. Around Reese’s distinguished eyes were two little raccoon-rings of soot, from his hobby’s explosion. He looked to Letterman. “A power struggle in public TV?”

  “Kind of like a… a bloody coup taking place in the League of Women Voters, wouldn’t you say, Edilyn?”

  I laughed.

  “Riot squads and water-cannon moving in on a faculty tea.”

  Letterman and Reese and Shaffer and I were falling about the place. The audience was laughing.

  “Polysyllables must just be flying,” I said.

  “Really… really grammatically correct back-stabbing going on all over.…”

  We all tried to pull ourselves together as my husband gave me some direction.

  “The point is I’m afraid I just don’t know,” I said, as Letterman and Shaffer were still laughing and exchanging looks. “In fact,” I said, “I’m not even all that aware or talented or multifaceted an actress.”

  David Letterman was inviting the audience, whom he again called ladies and gentlemen (which I liked) to imagine I AM A WOMAN WHO ACTS emblazoned on a shirt.

  “That’s why I’m doing those commercials you’re seeing all the time now,” I said lightly, yawning.

  “Well, and now hey, I wanted to ask you about that, Edilyn,” Letterman said. “The problem, ah, is that”—he rubbed his chin—“I’ll need to ask you what they’re commercials for without anyone of course mentioning the fine… fine and may I say delicious?”

  “Please do.”

  “Delicious product by name.” He smiled. “Since that would be a commercial itself right there.”

  I nodded, smiled. My earplug was silent. I looked around the stage innocently, pretending to stretch, whistling a very famous jingle’s first twelve-note bar.

  Letterman and the audience laughed. Paul Shaffer laughed. My husband’s electric voice crackled approvingly. I could also hear Ron laughing in the background; his laugh did sound deadpan.

  “I think that probably gives us a good clear picture, yes,” Letterman grinned. He threw his index card at a pretend window behind us. There was an obviously false sound of breaking glass.

  The man seemed utterly friendly.

  My husband transmitted something I couldn’t make out because Letterman had put his hands behind his head with its helmet of hair and was saying “So then I guess why, is the thing, Edilyn. I mean we know about the dollars, the big, big dollars over there in, ah, prime time. They scribble vague hints, allusions, really, is all, they’re such big dollars, about prime-time salaries in the washrooms here at NBC. They’re amounts that get discussed only in low tones. Here you are,” he said, “you’ve had, what, three quality television series? Countless guest-appearances on other programs…?”

  “A hundred and eight,” I said.

  He looked aggrieved at the camera a moment as the audience laughed. “… Virtually countless guest-credits,” he said. “You’ve got a critically acclaimed police drama that’s been on now, what, three years? four years? You’ve got this…” he looked at an index card “… talented daughter who’s done several fine films and who’s currently in a series, you’ve got a husband who’s a mover and a shaker, basically a legend in comedy development.…”

  “Remember ‘Laugh-In’?” said the NBC Sports coordinator. “ ‘Flip Wilson’? ‘The Smothers’? Remember ‘Saturday Night Live’ back when it was good, for a few years there?” He was shaking his head in admiration.

  Letterman released his own head. “So series, daughter’s series, Emmy nomination, husband’s virtually countless movings and shakings and former series, one of the best marriages in the industry if not the Northern, ah, Hemisphere…” He counted these assets off on his hands. His hands were utterly average. “You’re loaded, sweetie,” he said. “If I may.” He smiled and played with his coffee mug. I smiled back.

  “So then Edilyn a nation is wondering what’s the deal with going off and doing these… wiener commercials,” he asked in a kind of near-whine that he immediately exaggerated into a whine.

  Rudy’s small voice came: “See how he exaggerated the whine the minute he saw how—?”

  “Because I’m not a great actress, David,” I said.

  Letterman looked stricken. For a moment in the angled white lights I looked at him and he looked stricken for me. I was positive I was dealing with a basically sincere man.

  “Those things you listed,” I said, “are assets, is all they are.” I looked at him. “They’re my assets, David, they’re not me. I’m an actress in commercial television. Why not act in television commercials?”

  “Be honest,” Rudy hissed, his voice slight and metallic as a low-quality phone. Letterman was pretending to sip coffee from an empty mug.

  “Let’s be honest,” I said. The audience was quiet. “I just had a very traumatic birthday, and I’ve been shedding illusions right and left. You’re now looking at a woman with no illusions, David.”

  Letterman seemed to perk up at this. He cleared his throat. My earplug hissed a direction never to use the word “illusions.”

  “That’s sort of a funny co
incidental thing,” Letterman was saying speculatively. “I’m an illusion with no women; say do you… detect a sort of parallel, there, Paul?”

  I laughed with the audience as Paul Shaffer did a go-figure from the bandstand.

  “Doom,” my husband transmitted from the office of a man whose subordinates fished without hooks and sat in exploding circles. I patted at the hair over my ear.

  I said, “I’m forty, David. I turned forty just last week. I’m at the point now where I think I have to know what I am.” I looked at him. “I have four kids. Do you know of many working commercial-television actresses with four kids?”

  “There are actresses who have four kids,” Letterman said. “Didn’t we have a lovely and talented young lady with four kids on, recently, Paul?”

  “Name ten actresses with four kids,” Shaffer challenged.

  Letterman did a pretend double-take at him. “Ten?”

  “Meredith Baxter Birney?” Reese said.

  “Meredith Baxter Birney,” Letterman nodded. “And Loretta Swit has four kids, doesn’t she, Paul?”

  “Marion Ross?”

  “I think Meredith Baxter Birney actually has five kids, in fact, Dave,” said Paul Shaffer, leaning over his little organ’s microphone. His large bald spot had a label on it that said BALD SPOT.

  “I guess the point, gentlemen”—I interrupted them, smiling—“is that I’ve got kids who’re already bigger stars than I. I’ve appeared in two feature films, total, in my whole career. Now that I’m forty, I’m realizing that with two films, but three pretty long series, my mark on this planet is probably not going to be made in features. David, I’m a television actress.”

  “You’re a woman who acts in television,” Letterman corrected, smiling.

  “And now a woman in television commercials, too.” I shrugged as if I just couldn’t see what the big deal was.

  Paul Shaffer, still leaning over his organ, played a small but very sweet happy-birthday tune for me.

  Letterman had put another card between his teeth. “So what I think we’re hearing you saying, then, is that you didn’t think the wiener-commercial thing would hurt your career, is the explanation.”

  “Oh no, God, no, not at all,” I laughed. “I didn’t mean that at all. I mean this is my career, right? Isn’t that what we were just talking about?”

  Letterman rubbed his chin. He looked at the Sports coordinator. “So then fears such as… say maybe something like compromising your integrity, some, ah, art factor: not a factor in this decision, is what you’re saying.”

  Ron was asking Rudy to let him have the remote transmitter a moment.

  “But there were art factors,” I said. “Ever try to emote with meat, David?” I looked around. “Any of you? To dispense mustard like you mean it?”

  Letterman looked uncomfortable. The audience made odd occasional sounds: they couldn’t tell whether to laugh. Ron was beginning to transmit to me in a very calm tone.

  “To still look famished on the fifteenth frank?” I said as Letterman smiled and sipped at his mug. I shrugged. “Art all over the place in those commercials, David.”

  I barely heard Ron’s little voice warning me to be aware of the danger of appearing at all defensive. For Letterman appeared suddenly diffident, reluctant about something. He looked stage-left, then at his index card, then at me. “It’s just Edilyn I guess a cynic, such as maybe Paul over there”—Shaffer laughed—“might be tempted to ask you… I mean,” he said, “with all those assets we just listed together, with you being quote unquote, ah, loaded… and now this is just something someone like Paul gets curious about, certainly not our business,” he felt uncomfortably at his collar; “this question then with all due respect of how any amount of money, even vast amounts, could get a talented, if not great then certainly we’d both agree acclaimed, and above all loaded actress… to emote with meat.”

  Either Ron or Rudy whispered Oh my God.

  “To be famished for that umpteenth frank she’s putting all that… mustard on,” Letterman said, his head tilted, looking me in what I distinctly remember as the right eye. “And this is something we’ll certainly understand if you don’t want to go into, I mean… am I right Paul?”

  He did look uncomfortable. As if he’d been put up to this last-minute. I was looking at him as if he were completely mad. Now that he’d gotten his silly question out I felt as if he and I had been having almost separate conversations since my appearance’s start. I genuinely yawned.

  “Just be honest,” Ron was saying.

  “Go ahead and tell him about the back taxes,” Rudy whispered.

  “Look,” I said, smiling, “I think one of us hasn’t been making themselves clear, here. So may I just be honest?”

  Letterman was looking stage-left as if appealing to someone. I was sure he felt he’d gone too far, and his discomfort had quieted the audience like a death.

  I smiled until my silence got his attention. I leaned toward him conspiratorially. After an uncertain pause he leaned over his desk toward me. I looked slowly from side to side. In a stage whisper I said “I did the wiener commercials for nothing.”

  I worked my eyebrows up and down.

  Letterman’s jaw dropped.

  “For nothing,” I said, “but art, fun, a few cases of hot dogs, and the feeling of a craft well plied.”

  “Oh, now, come now, really,” Letterman said, leaning back and grabbing his head. He pretended to appeal to the studio audience: “Ladies and gentlemen…”

  “A feeling I’m sure we all know well here.” I smiled with my eyes closed. “In fact, I called them. I volunteered. Almost begged. You should have seen it. You should have been there. Not a pretty sight.”

  “What a kid,” Paul Shaffer tossed in, pretending to wipe at an eye under his glasses. Letterman threw his index card at him, and the Sound man in his red sweater hit another pane of glass with his hammer. I heard Ron telling Rudy this was inspired. Letterman seemed now suddenly to be having the time of his life. He smiled; he said ha ha; his eyes came utterly alive; he looked like a very large toy. Everyone seemed to be having a ball. I touched my ear and heard my husband thanking Ron.

  We talked and laughed for one or two minutes more about art and self-acceptance being inestimably more important than assets. The interview ended in a sort of explosion of good will. David Letterman made confetti out of a few of his body’s labels. I was frankly sorry it was over. Letterman smiled warmly at me as we went to commercial.

  It was then that I felt sure in my heart all the angst and conference, Rudy’s own fear, had been without point. Because, when we cut to that commercial message, David Letterman was still the same way. The director, in his cardigan, sawed at his throat with a finger, a cleverly photographed bumper filled all 6-A’s monitors, the band got funky under Shaffer’s direction, and the cameras’ lights went dark. Letterman’s shoulders sagged; he leaned tiredly across his obviously cheap desk and mopped at his forehead with a ratty-looking tissue from his yachting jacket’s pocket. He smiled from the depths of himself and said it was really grotesquely nice having me on, that the audience was certainly getting the very most for its entertainment dollar tonight, that he hoped for her sake my daughter Lynnette had even one half the stage presence I had, and that if he’d known what a thoroughly engaging guest I’d be, he himself would have moved molehills to have me on long before this.

  “He really said that,” I told my husband later in the NBC car. “He said ‘grotesquely nice,’ ‘entertainment dollar,’ and that I was an engaging guest. And no one was listening.”

  Ron had gotten a driver and gone ahead to pick up Charmian and would meet us at the River Café, where the four of us try to go whenever Rudy and I are able to get into town. I looked at our own driver, up ahead, through the panel; his hat was off, his hair close-clipped, his whole head as still as a photo.

  My husband in the back seat with me held my hand in his hands. His necktie and handkerchief were square and flush. I cou
ld almost smell his relief. He was terribly relieved when I saw him after the taping. Letterman had explained to the audience that I needed to be on my way, and I’d been escorted off as he introduced the self-proclaimed king of kitchen-gadget home sales, who wore an Elks pin.

  “Of course he really said that,” my husband said. “It’s just the sort of thing he’d say.”

  “Exactly,” I maintained, looking at what his hands held.

  We were driven south.

  “But that doesn’t mean he’s really that way,” he said, looking at me very directly. Then he too looked at our hands. Our three rings were next to each other. I felt a love for him, and moved closer on the soft leather seat, my face hot and sore. My empty ear did feel a bit violated.

  “Any more than you’re really the way you were when we were handling him better than I’ve ever seen him handled,” he said. He looked at me admiringly. “You’re a talented and multifaceted actress,” he said. “You took direction. You kept your head and did us both credit and survived an appearance on an anti-show.” He smiled. “You did good work.”

  I moved away from my husband just enough to look at his very clean face. “I wasn’t acting, with David Letterman,” I told him. And I was sincere. “It was more you and Ron that I had to… handle.” Rudy’s smile remained. “I would’ve taken Ron’s earplug out altogether, agreement or not, if Charmian hadn’t had me wear my hair down. It would have hurt the man’s feelings. And I knew the minute I sat across that silly desk from him I wasn’t going to need any direction. He wasn’t savage.” I said. “He was fun, Rudy. I had fun.”

  He lit a long Gauloise, smiling. “Did it just for fun?” he asked wryly. He pretended almost to nudge my ribs. A high-rent district that I had remembered as a low-rent district went by on both sides of us.

  And I’ll say that I felt something dark in my heart when my husband almost nudged me there. I felt that it was a sorry business indeed when my own spouse couldn’t tell I was being serious. And I told him so.

  “I was just the way I am,” I maintained.