Don DeLillo - Americana (Contemporary American fiction)

Americana

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

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First published in the USA by Houghton Mifflin Company 1971
Published in Penguin Books 1990
Published in Penguin Classics 2006
4

Copyright Don DeLillo, 1971
All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

In preparing this edition for publication, the author has made some cuts in the original text;
there is no new material.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

EISBN: 9780141905884

To Barbara Bennett

Then we came to the end of another dull and lurid year. Lights were strung across the front of every shop. Men selling chestnuts wheeled their smoky carts. In the evenings the crowds were immense and traffic built to a tidal roar. The santas of Fifth Avenue rang their little bells with an odd sad delicacy, as if sprinkling salt on some brutally spoiled piece of meat. Music came from all the stores in jingles, chants and hosannas, and from the Salvation Army bands came the martial trumpet lament of ancient Christian legions. It was a strange sound to hear in that time and place, the smack of cymbals and high-collared drums, a suggestion that children were being scolded for a bottomless sin, and it seemed to annoy people. But the girls were lovely and undismayed, shopping in every mad store, striding through those magnetic twilights like drum majorettes, tall and pink, bright packages cradled to their tender breasts. The blind mans German shepherd slept through it all.

Finally we got to Quincys place. His wife opened the door. I introduced her to my date, B.G. Haines, and then began counting the people in the room. As I counted I was distantly aware that Quincys wife and I were talking about India. Counting the house was a habit of mine. The question of how many people were present in a particular place seemed important to me, perhaps because the recurring news of airline disasters and military engagements always stressed the number of dead and missing; such exactness is a tickle of electricity to the numbed brain. The next most important thing to find out was the degree of hostility. This was relatively simple. All you had to do was look at the people who were looking at you as you entered. One long glance was usually enough to give you a fair reading. There were thirty-one people in the living room. Roughly three out of four were hostile.

Quincys wife and my date smiled at each others peace earrings. Then I took B.G. into the living room. We waited for somebody to approach us and start a conversation. It was a party and we didnt want to talk to each other. The whole point was to separate for the evening and find exciting people to talk to and then at the very end to meet again and tell each other how terrible it had been and how glad we were to be together again. This is the essence of Western civilization. But it didnt matter really because an hour later we were all bored. It was one of those parties which are so boring that boredom itself soon becomes the main topic of conversation. One moves from group to group and hears the same sentence a dozen times. Its like an Antonioni movie. But the faces were not quite as interesting.

I decided to go into the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. Six framed graffiti were hanging on the bathroom wall. The words were set in large bold type, about 60-point, on glossy paper; they were set in a scripted typeface to look real. Three of the graffiti were blasphemous and three were obscene. The frames looked expensive. I noticed some dandruff on my shoulders. I was about to brush it off when a girl named Pru Morrison came in. She was from somewhere in Bucks County, just beginning to get caught up in the whirl of urban monotony. She stood facing me, her body flat against the closed door. She was all of eighteen and I was both too old and too young to be interested in her. Nevertheless I didnt want her to know about the dandruff.

Thought Id wash my hands.

Whos that nignog?

Pru, I understand Peck and Peck has a special on riding crops this week. Why dont you run on over?

I didnt know you went out with nignogs, David.

I began to wash my hands. Pru sat on the edge of the tub and turned on the faucet just enough to cause a trickle. I wondered whether this was supposed to have a sexual connotation. Sometimes it was hard to tell about these things.

I got a letter from my brother, she said. Hes manning an M-79 grenade launcher. Hes in one of the roughest battle zones. He says every square inch of land is fiercely contested. You should read his letters, David. Theyre really tremendous.

The war was on television every night but we all went to the movies. Soon most of the movies began to look alike and we went into dim rooms and turned on or off, or watched others turn on or off, or burned joss sticks and listened to tapes of near silence. I brought my 16mm camera along. It was a witty toy and everyone was delighted.

He says you cant tell the friendlies from the hostiles.

Who? I said.

I hate your filthy rotten guts, Pru said.

Quincy tells me youve got a new boyfriend, Pru. Texas A. and M. Some kind of junior cadet. Quincy tells me you met him through a computer dating system.

That lying bastard.

Your own cousin, Pru.

Youve got dandruff, she said. I can see it on your jacket. Dandruff!

Quincy was in rare form, telling a series of jokes about Polish janitors, Negro ministers, Jews in concentration camps and Italian women with hairy legs. He battered his audience with shock and insult, challenging people to object. Of course we were choking with laughter, trying to outdo each other in showing how enlightened we were. It was meant to be a liberating ethnic experience. If you were offended by such jokes in general, or sensitive to particular ones which slurred your own race or ancestry, you were not ready to be accepted into the mainstream. B.G. Haines, who was a professional model and one of the most beautiful women I have ever known, seemed to be enjoying Quincys routine. She was one of four black people in the roomand the only American among themand she apparently felt it was her diplomatic duty to laugh louder than anyone at Quincys most vicious color jokes. She almost crumpled to the floor laughing and I was sure I detected a convulsive broken sob at the crest of every laugh. She needed more practice, I suppose. All evening, in fact, she had been smiling at everyone who approached and responding with grave nods to all the social insights directed her way by the scholars in the room. It was confusing. Finally I reminded her that we were supposed to be polite to her, not the reverse. Then I added a brief lecture on the responsibility she had toward her people. She speared a passing hors doeuvre and became elegant again.