forces at work."
"I'm so obsolete I don't have to chew my food."
"You can't stay here."
"I like it here."
"No, you don't."
"I like riding backwards." Chin spoke in his newscaster voice. "He died as he lived. Backwards.
Details after the game.
He felt good. He felt stronger than he had in days, or weeks maybe, or longer. The light was red.
He saw Jane Melman on the other side of the avenue, his chief of finance, dressed in jogging shorts and a tank top, moving in a wolverine lope. She stopped at the prearranged pickup spot, next to the bronze statue of a man hailing a cab. Then she looked in Eric's direction, squinting, trying to determine whether the limousine was his or someone else's. He knew what she would say to him, first line, word for word, and he looked forward to hearing it. He could hear it already in the nasal airstream of her vernacular. He liked knowing what was coming. It confirmed the presence of some hereditary script available to those who could decode it.
Chin hopped out the door before the car crossed Park Avenue. There was a woman in gray spandex on the median strip holding a dead rat aloft. A performance piece, it seemed. The light went green and horns began to blow. On buildings everywhere in the area the names of financial institutions were engraved on bronze markers, carved in marble, etched in gold leaf on beveled glass.
Melman was running in place. When the car stopped at the corner, she left the shadow of the glass tower behind her and came bumping through the rear door, all elbows and gleaming knees, a web phone pouched on her belly. She was breathless and sweaty from her run and fell into the jump seat with the kind of grim deliverance that marks a deadweight drop to the toilet.
16/91
Don DeLillo
Cosmopolis
"All these limos, my god, that you can't tell one from another."
He narrowed his eyes and nodded.
"We could be kids on prom night," she said, "or some dumb wedding wherever. What's the charm of identical?"
He glanced out the window, speaking softly, so cool to the subject that he had to deliver his remark to the steel and glass out there, the indifferent street.
"That I'm a powerful person who chooses not to demarcate his territory with singular driblets of piss is what? Is something I need to apologize for?"
"I want to go home and tongue-kiss my Maxima."
The car was not moving, There was a noise beating down that made people cover up when they walked past, rumbling gutturals from the granite tower being raised on the south side of the street, named for a huge investment firm.
"You know what today is, incidentally."
"I know"
"It's my day off, damn it."
"I know this."
"I need this extra day desperately."
"I know this."
"You don't know this. You can't know what it's like. I am a single struggling mother."
"We have a situation here."
"I am a mother running in the park when my phone explodes in my navel. I think it's the kids'
nanny, who never calls until the fever reaches a hundred and five. But it's the situation. We have a situation all right. We have a yen carry that could crush us in hours."
"Take some water. Sit on the banquette."
"I like face-to-face. And I don't need to look at all those screens," she said. "I know what's happening."
"The yen will fall."
"That's right."
"Consumer spending's down," he said.
"That's right. Besides which the Bank of Japan left interest rates unchanged."
"This happened today?"
"This happened tonight. In Tokyo. I called a source at the Nikkei."
"While running."
"While flinging my body down Madison Avenue to get here on time."
"The yen can't go any higher."
"That's true. That's right," she said. "Except it just did."
He looked at her, pink and dripping. The car moved faintly forward now and he felt the stir of a melancholy that seemed to cross deep vales of space to reach him here in the midtown grid. He looked out the window, seeing them in odd composite, people on the street, and they waved at taxis and crossed against
"I'm so obsolete I don't have to chew my food."
"You can't stay here."
"I like it here."
"No, you don't."
"I like riding backwards." Chin spoke in his newscaster voice. "He died as he lived. Backwards.
Details after the game.
He felt good. He felt stronger than he had in days, or weeks maybe, or longer. The light was red.
He saw Jane Melman on the other side of the avenue, his chief of finance, dressed in jogging shorts and a tank top, moving in a wolverine lope. She stopped at the prearranged pickup spot, next to the bronze statue of a man hailing a cab. Then she looked in Eric's direction, squinting, trying to determine whether the limousine was his or someone else's. He knew what she would say to him, first line, word for word, and he looked forward to hearing it. He could hear it already in the nasal airstream of her vernacular. He liked knowing what was coming. It confirmed the presence of some hereditary script available to those who could decode it.
Chin hopped out the door before the car crossed Park Avenue. There was a woman in gray spandex on the median strip holding a dead rat aloft. A performance piece, it seemed. The light went green and horns began to blow. On buildings everywhere in the area the names of financial institutions were engraved on bronze markers, carved in marble, etched in gold leaf on beveled glass.
Melman was running in place. When the car stopped at the corner, she left the shadow of the glass tower behind her and came bumping through the rear door, all elbows and gleaming knees, a web phone pouched on her belly. She was breathless and sweaty from her run and fell into the jump seat with the kind of grim deliverance that marks a deadweight drop to the toilet.
16/91
Don DeLillo
Cosmopolis
"All these limos, my god, that you can't tell one from another."
He narrowed his eyes and nodded.
"We could be kids on prom night," she said, "or some dumb wedding wherever. What's the charm of identical?"
He glanced out the window, speaking softly, so cool to the subject that he had to deliver his remark to the steel and glass out there, the indifferent street.
"That I'm a powerful person who chooses not to demarcate his territory with singular driblets of piss is what? Is something I need to apologize for?"
"I want to go home and tongue-kiss my Maxima."
The car was not moving, There was a noise beating down that made people cover up when they walked past, rumbling gutturals from the granite tower being raised on the south side of the street, named for a huge investment firm.
"You know what today is, incidentally."
"I know"
"It's my day off, damn it."
"I know this."
"I need this extra day desperately."
"I know this."
"You don't know this. You can't know what it's like. I am a single struggling mother."
"We have a situation here."
"I am a mother running in the park when my phone explodes in my navel. I think it's the kids'
nanny, who never calls until the fever reaches a hundred and five. But it's the situation. We have a situation all right. We have a yen carry that could crush us in hours."
"Take some water. Sit on the banquette."
"I like face-to-face. And I don't need to look at all those screens," she said. "I know what's happening."
"The yen will fall."
"That's right."
"Consumer spending's down," he said.
"That's right. Besides which the Bank of Japan left interest rates unchanged."
"This happened today?"
"This happened tonight. In Tokyo. I called a source at the Nikkei."
"While running."
"While flinging my body down Madison Avenue to get here on time."
"The yen can't go any higher."
"That's true. That's right," she said. "Except it just did."
He looked at her, pink and dripping. The car moved faintly forward now and he felt the stir of a melancholy that seemed to cross deep vales of space to reach him here in the midtown grid. He looked out the window, seeing them in odd composite, people on the street, and they waved at taxis and crossed against
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