Underworld by Don DeLillo
The man’s swiveling his head to catch an eye somewhere.
“They say stop paying rent. I don’t say stop paying rent. I don’t say blow up the gas and electric, the power and light. They say walk the landlords to the river. I don’t say walk the landlords to the river or stand them up against the wall. I say take a dollar bill out of your pocket where it’s folded up tight because you been saving it for this and that. Unfold this dollar bill and turn it over to the backside where they keep their secret messages. They keep their Latin words and their Roman numbers.”
And the man takes a wadded bill out of his pocket and unfolds it like a magic trick and then he waves the money at the group in front of him.
“You see the eye that hangs over this pyramid here. What’s pyramids doing on American money? You see the number they got strung out at the base of this pyramid. This is how they flash their Masonic codes to each other. This is Freemason, the passwords and handshakes. This is Rosicrucian, the beam of light. This is webs and scribbles all over the bill, front and the back, that contains a message. This is not just rigamarole and cooked spaghetti. They predicting the day and the hour. They telling each other when the time is come. You can’t find the answer in the Bible or the Bill of Rights. I’m talking to you. I’m saying history is written on the commonest piece of paper in your pocket.”
And he holds the bill by its edges and extends his elbows, showing the thing for what it is.
“I’ve been studying this dollar bill for fifteen years. Take it to the privy when I do my hygiene. And I worked those numbers and those letters all whichway and I hold the bill to the light and I read it underwater and I’m getting closer every day to breaking the code.”
And he draws the dollar to his chest and folds it five times and puts it in his pocket, smaller than a postage stamp.
“This is why they’re watching me with that eye that floats over the top of the pyramid. They’re watching and they’re following all the time.”
Manx needs a drink. He hurries up Amsterdam past a TV-radio store where a TV is flickering and half a dozen people are watching in the cold. About a block away he see some guys running toward him, grown men, you know, pounding over the sidewalk, over the iron hatchways that lead to storage cellars, rattling the metal as they come, and he sees they’re sort of half laughing, they’re embarrassed, must be a crap game down an alley that the police broke up, and they go past him rattling the hatchways and looking back, running and half laughing and looking back.
He almost wants to turn around and run with them. He sees the humor of it. They’ll meet in some doorway three blocks away laughing and panting and catching their breath, feeling grown-up stupid, and they’ll find a place to do their gambling, the back room of a barbershop or someone’s living room if the wife’s not there.
But the wife is there.
Because I got a wife can’t stand the sight of me even if I’m ten miles away, and will not let me breathe without a comment, and makes more comments in her head, and she is definitely there.
A dog looks out a first-floor window.
Yeah, black men running in the streets. Manx found himself running in the ’43 riot and he probably had that same look on his face, conscious of being caught up in something he shouldn’t be doing but doing it anyway, running past Orkin’s where Ivie bought a sample coat, a coat a dummy used to wear, on sale cheap, and it rankled his mind all right, and all the Orkin’s dummies were on the sidewalk now, torsos tumbled in the gutter, and heads without bodies, and slim necks and pale hair, and dummies armless like famous statues. He recalls this now, the big windows busted and dummies in garters, dummy legs in stockings and garters and kids in tuxedos, men running in the streets and a kid maybe twelve years old in a top hat and looted tux and a cop was leading him to a prowl car, funniest damn thing, top hat and tails and dragging pants—even the cop had a sweetheart smile.
He goes the last four blocks with his head turned away from the wind and the wind is whipping off the Hudson and Manx is walking like a horse with a spooked head.
But how different once you step inside the bar. The warm buzz, the easy breathing, the rumps happy on their stools. The buzz in Tally’s is special tonight, more bodies than the usual midweek slump and more static in the air—and then he remembers. There’s a tone, a telling rustle in the room and he pats the side of his jacket and feels the baseball and understands that they’re talking about the game.
He waves to Phil, who’s behind the bar, Tally’s brother, in his plain shirt and fancy suspenders, and he gestures a question where—and Phil nods toward the far corner and there is Antoine Cooper sitting with a drink in front of him and two tall shovels leaned on the wall behind.
Manx sits across from Antoine, sits sideways in his chair so he doesn’t have to look at the shovels.
“I seen Franzo standing in the dark.”
“I know it. He wants my car. But he can’t have it.”
“What’s that you’re drinking?”
“He’s looking to make some chick he’s better off avoiding. Trust me. I already done her.”
Manx looks around the room, takes in the buzz, hears half a sentence fly up out of shared laughter and he decides not to mention the shovels. He is aghast at the shovels. The shovels should not be here in any manner, way, shape or form. But he decides for now he won’t say a word.
“What was that riot in forty-three? I’m trying to recall how it started. They filled so many holding cells in so many station houses they had to open an armory.”
“Forty-three. I’m in the army, man.”
“They had bleeding men carrying their loot under armed guard. Put them in an armory on Park Avenue.”
“We had our own riot,” Antoine says.
Manx goes to the bar and gets a Seagram’s from Phil—he likes his rye in a short glass with a single ice cube.
Phil says, “What’s happening?”
“I hear they played a ball game today.”
“Goddamn it was something.”
Manx carries the drink back to the table with one hand clutching the glass in the usual manner and the palm of the other hand under the glass, supporting it like some polished object in a church.
The ice cube is mainly scenery.
Antoine says, “How the boys doing?”
“The boys. The boys spread far and wide,” Manx says. “Randall’s in the South somewhere, bivouacking, you know, training in the field. And Vernon.”
“I know where Vernon’s at.”
“Vernon’s on the front line is where he’s at. They got a quarter million troops they’re looking at across the line. Them Chinese.”
“What division he’s with?”
“What division.”
“Second Infantry’s in Korea,” Antoine says.
“I don’t know what division.”
“You don’t follow the war?”
“What’s that you’re drinking?”
“I like to follow the war. They plot their strategies.”
“They blow horns and whistles, that’s their strategy, them Chinese. They come charging down in swoops.”
“This here’s brandy, my man. Drinking imported tonight.”
“It’s sitting there a little potent,” Manx says.
“Only in the glass. Goes down the hatch real smooth.”
“They come in swoops. That’s their strategy.”
“You say a prayer now and then. That’s what you do.”
“Sure, Antoine. I kneel by the bedside.”
“You done okay with your kids.”
“Sure, Antoine. They take care of me in my old age.”
“You got some work?”
“They come visit me in the old folks. Slip me a bottle through the gate.”
“You done okay, considering.”
“Rosie’s the one. That’s a great girl. That’s the only one that shows respect.”
“You need some work. Change your temperament around. You’re walking on eggs lat
“They’re laying off. They’re not hiring. They’re laying off.”
“You need to get into long-distance moving.”
“They bring me a cake on my birthday,” Manx says.
“Long-distance, that’s the ticket. I got a cousin in Alabama, which he’s based in Birmingham, gets plenty of work long-hauling furniture and whatnot.”
“I keep that in mind.”
“Yellow yams from Birmingham.”
“I place that on my list of things I need to think about.”
“Greenest greens you ever seen,” Antoine says a little croony.
Manx decides he can’t contain it any longer. But he doesn’t look at Antoine. He looks across the room at one of those wall lamps, the old-fashioned-type lamp bracketed to the wall where the sleeves that hold the bulbs have fake candle wax running down the sides.
And he says, “Shit man you got those shovels in plain sight.”
Antoine has a long slick head and narrow neck, a man of schemes and contrivances, called Snake when he was younger, and he determines it is necessary to turn his upper body to the wall behind him so he can identify the objects in question. Oh yeah, these things, for shoveling off the patio after a white Christmas.
And he turns back to Manx real low in his chair so he’s peering out confidentially over his drink.
“I don’t think there’s an FBI bulletin circulating tristate. What do you think?”
“I think they belong in your car, like we stated.”
“The point is you got to raise your sights. Because these things don’t bring no return.”
“We stated beforehand, Antoine.”
“Not worth arguing. You’re right, I’m wrong. But you got to raise your sights.”
They sit drinking a while and Manx thinks about leaving but he doesn’t move off the chair. He thinks about taking his shovels and leaving but he sits there because once he gets up and takes the shovels off the wall he is committed to walking the full length of the barroom with two large snow shovels in early October, and no place sensible to take them, and the thought of it, and the sight of it, keeps his ass in the chair.
Instead he takes out the baseball and sets it on the table. Then he waits for Antoine to take some time out of his busy day so he can notice.
“My kid brought it home from the game, my youngest, says it’s the home run that won the game.”
“That game they played today?”
“That’s right,” Manx says.
“I seen people on Seventh Avenue hollering up and down. Hands pressed on their horns, hollering out the windows. I said to Willie Mabrey. You know Willie? I said, They must be opening the vaults. The banks opening up their vaults. First come first serve. I said, Let’s go get ours.”
“My youngest. He come home with the ball. This is the ball what’s-his-name hit in the stands. The game winner. Win the pennant.”
Manx feels uneasy, he feels separated from what he’s saying—it comes out of his mouth like a lie, the way a lie hangs in the air independent of right and wrong, making you feel you’re not responsible.
He feels an urge to take the ball off the table and put it back in his pocket.
“This is the ball what’s-his-name? What you saying exactly?”
“I’m saying it could be worth something.”
“And I’m saying raise your sights. Because the circumstantial fact, you can’t prove nothing. And who do you sell it to anyway?”
“I sell it to the ball club. They want it for a trophy. They make a display.”
“Let me look at this thing. This thing’s all smudged up.”
Manx realizes he doesn’t want Antoine to touch the ball. Antoine will look at the ball and say something that’s a bringdown, something that gets Manx riley and griped, and he is already feeling tense enough, with his stomach acting up.
He takes the ball and puts it in his pocket.
Antoine leans back, hands up and palms facing out, showing his old snakehead smile, cool and mean.
“Tell you something. Maybe you sell the thing somewhere. But I don’t think you be buying a sofa from Ludwig Bauman’s,” he says. “Or a pretty di-nette.”
Manx goes to the bar to drink in peace. After a while Phil comes over and they talk a while. The place is quieter now, down to serious drinkers, they talk about the game. Phil is a straight-up guy, barn-sized, looks you in the eye. He talks about the game and Manx listens carefully, hoping for an angle, something to go on. The Dodgers are finished for the year. Dead and buried. The Giants play in the World Series starting tomorrow—starting today, Phil says, checking his watch, because it’s past midnight now.
“Who they playing in the Series?”
“Yankees, who else?”
“All New York in other words.”
“All New York series. And people already lining up for tickets. Heard it on the radio. All night they’ll be lining up. Sleeping bags, you know. I love to go myself.”
“All night?” Manx says.
“People do anything to see this series, the way the Giants got in.”
Manx likes the sound of that. People do anything. He tells Phil to pour one for himself, knowing the man will decline, he always declines, and Manx feels a little snakelike, caught it from Antoine.
He goes back to the table with a little shuffle in his step.
“You leave your brother standing in the cold.”
“I know it,” Antoine says.
“He wants the car one night is all.”
“I’m doing him a favor. Because that lady he’s looking to make is all kinds of two-faced.”
“Let him find out for himself. He’s a young guy looking for some action.”
“See, you’re not a jealous man. Let me explain something. I’m a jealous man. When I say jealous I mean the full meaning of the word. Everybody jealous,” Antoine says. “The word don’t mean shit unless you give it the full meaning. It needs a adjective. Like crazy jealous or can’t-think-straight jealous. So if I say I’m jealous, you have to picture eyeballs filled with blood.”
“You already done with her. What do you care? He’s a good boy, Franzo. Let him learn.”
“Let him find out, you mean. Because he won’t learn nothing.”
But Antoine seems to soften. He eases toward the tabletop, elbows spread, his chin nearly touching the brandy glass.
“Yeah I like that boy a lot. He’s a good boy, Franzo. But I got my car in an awkward position.”
“You wrap it around a pole?”
“You know Willie Mabrey?”
“Don’t think so,” Manx says.
“Willie and I been talking about my car. A way to make some fast cash. I ain’t broke per se. But I can use some hurry in my income.” Sipping his brandy. “And this here’s my first payment in advance. Go down smooth. The cream de la cream.”
“Payment for what?”
“Willie opened a restaurant about six weeks ago. Doing okay. But he’s got a problem with his garbage. The city’s talking about private companies coming in to pick up this trash. But right now the city does it and there’s an ordinance about what time of day or night a restaurant can leave garbage on the street. You can’t leave it there all night.”
“Smells bad.”
“Smells bad, attracts vermin. And if you keep it on the premises, you have a situation where the rats talking to the customers.”
“So you made an arrangement with the man.”
“Me and my car both.”
“Which this reminds me,” Manx says. “You mind give me a lift?”
“Take you anywhere,” Antoine says.
They drain their glasses and get up and sort of shake themselves out, shake off the complacent airs and humors of the tavern and rearouse themselves for whatever’s out there, the edgy wind-spooked street.
Antoine gets into his jacket and rolls his shoulders and zips the jacket to the throat. He cuffs his nuts for good measure, aligning for comfort and symmetry, placin
They wave to Phil on the way out. They walk down to the end of the block, where the car is parked. Manx goes around to the passenger side and puts his hand on the door handle and then he stops and looks.
Antoine says, “Get in, man. Faster you get in, faster we move. Where you want to go?”
Manx is looking. He looks in the window at the rear seat and it is filled with garbage. He’d smelled it when he walked down the street but this is not an unoccurring smell and he took it for the general thing it was, garbage in an alleyway or empty lot. Now he sees it is Antoine’s car that smells, it is Antoine’s car packed with mounds of ripe trash.
“Oh man. Sheesh. I misdescribed this in my mind. Because I thought.”
“Get in, man. Friggin cold tonight.”
There is garbage in paper bags and cardboard boxes. There are two metal garbage cans wedged between the front and rear seats, regulation street-size cans with dented tops sort of erupted up by the pressure. Manx sees garbage stowed on the ledge by the rear window. He sees front-seat garbage in a peach crate smack on the seat, the oozy smell so near you can drink it.
“I thought you were on your way to get the man’s trash and take it somewhere.”
“Took it here. Trash right here. I filled up the trunk while they were still eating their dinner. Then I started on the inside of the car, working backseat to front seat. Move the crate and get in.”
Manx opens the door and sets the peach crate on the mat and sits down, trying to find room for his feet on either side of the crate.
“Where you want to go?” Antoine says.
“Not far. But fast. Up by One Fifty-fifth Street. Where you taking this stuff?”
“Drive it to the Bronx. There’s a tower of garbage under the White-stone Bridge somewhere. I fling the trash out the door and press the gas pedal hard.”