by Don DeLillo
It occurred to me that I did not have to knock. The door would be open. I gripped the knob, eased the door open, slipped into the room. Stealth. It was easy. Everything would be easy. I stood inside the room, sensing things, noting the room tone, the dense air. Information rushed toward me, rushed slowly, incrementally. The figure was male, of course, and sat sprawled in the short-legged chair. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and Budweiser shorts. Plastic sandals dangled from his feet. The dumpy chair, the rumpled bed, the industrial carpet, the shabby dresser, the sad green walls and ceiling cracks. The TV floating in the air, in a metal brace, pointing down at him.
He spoke first, without taking his eyes from the flickering screen.
“Are you heartsick or soulsick?”
I stood against the door.
“You’re Mink,” I said.
In time he looked at me, looked at the large friendly figure with the slumped shoulders and forgettable face.
“What kind of name is Willie Mink?” I said.
“It’s a first name and a last name. Same as anybody.”
Did he speak with an accent? His face was odd, concave, forehead and chin jutting. He was watching TV without the sound.
“Some of these sure-footed bighorns have been equipped with radio transmitters,” he said.
I could feel the pressure and density of things. So much was happening. I sensed molecules active in my brain, moving along neural pathways.
“You’re here for some Dylar, of course.”
“Of course. What else?”
“What else? Rid the fear.”
“Rid the fear. Clear the grid.”
“Clear the grid. That’s why they come to me.”
This was my plan. Enter unannounced, gain his confidence, wait for an unguarded moment, take out the Zumwalt, shoot him three times in the viscera for maximum slowness of agony, put the gun in his hand to suggest a lonely man’s suicide, write semi-coherent things on the mirror, leave Stover’s car in Treadwell’s garage.
“By coming in here, you agree to a certain behavior,” Mink said.
“What behavior?”
“Room behavior. The point of rooms is that they’re inside. No one should go into a room unless he understands this. People behave one way in rooms, another way in streets, parks and airports. To enter a room is to agree to a certain kind of behavior. It follows that this would be the kind of behavior that takes place in rooms. This is the standard, as opposed to parking lots and beaches. It is the point of rooms. No one should enter a room not knowing the point. There is an unwritten agreement between the person who enters a room and the person whose room had been entered, as opposed to open-air the-aters, outdoor pools. The purpose of a room derives from the special nature of a room. A room is inside. This is what people in rooms have to agree on, as differentiated from lawns, meadows, fields, orchards.”
I agreed completely. It made perfect sense. What was I here for if not to define, fix in my sights, take aim at? I heard a noise, faint, monotonous, white.
“To begin your project sweater,” he said, “first ask yourself what type sleeve will meet your needs.”
His nose was flat, his skin the color of a Planter’s peanut. What is the geography of a spoon-shaped face? Was he Melanesian, Polynesian, Indonesian, Nepalese, Surinamese, Dutch-Chinese? Was he a composite? How many people came here for Dylar? Where was Surinam? How was my plan progressing?
I studied the palm-studded print of his loose shirt, the Budweiser pattern repeated on the surface of his Bermuda shorts. The shorts were too big. The eyes were half closed. The hair was long and spiky. He was sprawled in the attitude of a stranded air traveler, someone long since defeated by the stale waiting, the airport babble. I began to feel sorry for Babette. This had been her last hope for refuge and serenity, this weary pulse of a man, a common pusher now, spiky-haired, going mad in a dead motel.
Auditory scraps, tatters, whirling specks. A heightened reality. A denseness that was also a transparency. Surfaces gleamed. Water struck the roof in spherical masses, globules, splashing drams. Close to a violence, close to a death.
“The pet under stress may need a prescription diet,” he said.
Of course he hadn’t always been like this. He’d been a project manager, dynamic, hard-driving. Even now I could see in his face and eyes the faltering remains of an enterprising shrewdness and intelligence. He reached into his pocket, took a handful of white tablets, tossed them in the direction of his mouth. Some entered, some flew past. The saucer-shaped pills. The end of fear.
“Where are you from originally, if I can call you Willie?”
He lapsed into thought, trying to recall. I wanted to put him at ease, get him to talk about himself, about Dylar. Part and parcel of my plan. My plan was this. Swivel my head to look into rooms, put him at his ease, wait for an unguarded moment, blast him in the gut three times for maximum efficiency of pain, take his Dylar, get off at the river road, shut the garage door, walk home in the rain and the fog.
“I wasn’t always as you see me now.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“I was doing important work. I envied myself. I was literally embarked. Death without fear is an everyday thing. You can live with it. I learned English watching American TV. I had American sex the first time in Port-O-San, Texas. Everything they said was true. I wish I could remember.”
“You’re saying there is no death as we know it without the element of fear. People would adjust to it, accept its inevitability.”
“Dylar failed, reluctantly. But it will definitely come. Maybe now, maybe never. The heat from your hand will actually make the gold-leafing stick to the wax paper.”
“There will eventually be an effective medication, you’re saying. A remedy for fear.”
“Followed by a greater death. More effective, productwise. This is what the scientists don’t understand, scrubbing their smocks with Woolite. Not that I have anything personal against death from our vantage point high atop Metropolitan County Stadium.”
“Are you saying death adapts? It eludes our attempts to reason with it?”
This was similar to something Murray had once said. Murray had also said, “Imagine the visceral jolt, watching your opponent bleed in the dust. He dies, you live.”
Close to a death, close to the slam of metal projectiles on flesh, the visceral jolt. I watched Mink ingest more pills, throwing them at his face, sucking them like sweets, his eyes on the flickering screen. Waves, rays, coherent beams. I saw things new.
“Just between you and I,” he said, “I eat this stuff like candy.”
“I was just thinking that.”
“How much do you want to buy?”
“How much do I need?”
“I see you as a heavyset white man about fifty. Does this describe your anguish? I see you as a person in a gray jacket and light brown pants. Tell me how correct I am. To convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, this is what you do.”
There was a silence. Things began to glow. The dumpy chair, the shabby dresser, the rumpled bed. The bed was equipped with casters. I thought, This is the grayish figure of my torment, the man who took my wife. Did she wheel him around the room as he sat on the bed popping pills? Did each lie prone along one side of the bed, reaching an arm down to paddle? Did they make the bed spin with their love-making, a froth of pillows and sheets above the small wheels on swivels? Look at him now, glowing in the dark, showing a senile grin.
“I barely forget the times I had in this room,” he said, “before I became misplaced. There was a woman in a ski mask, which her name escapes me at the moment. American sex, let me tell you, this is how I learned my English.”
The air was rich with extrasensory material. Nearer to death, nearer to second sight. A smashing intensity. I advanced two steps toward the middle of the room. My plan was elegant. Advance gradually, gain his confidence, take out the Zumwalt, fire three bullets at his midsection for maximum visceral agony, clear the weapon of prints,
write suicidal cult messages on the mirrors and walls, take his supply of Dylar, slip back to the car, drive to the expressway entrance, head east toward Blacksmith, leave Stover’s car in Treadwell’s garage, walk home in the rain and the fog.
He gobbled more pills, flung others down the front of his Budweiser shorts. I advanced one step. There were cracked Dylar tablets all over the fire-retardant carpet. Trod upon, stomped. He tossed some tablets at the screen. The set had a walnut veneer with silvery hardware. The picture rolled badly.
“Now I am picking up my metallic gold tube,” he said. “Using my palette knife and my odorless turp, I will thicken the paint on my palette.”
I recalled Babette’s remarks about the side effects of the medication. I said, as a test, “Falling plane.”
He looked at me, gripping the arms of the chair, the first signs of panic building in his eyes.
“Plunging aircraft,” I said, pronouncing the words crisply, authoritatively.
He kicked off his sandals, folded himself over into the recommended crash position, head well forward, hands clasped behind his knees. He performed the maneuver automatically, with a double-jointed collapsible dexterity, throwing himself into it, like a child or a mime. Interesting. The drug not only caused the user to confuse words with the things they referred to; it made him act in a somewhat stylized way. I watched him slumped there, trembling. This was my plan. Look peripherally into rooms, enter unannounced, reduce him to trembling, gut-shoot him maximally three times, get off at the river road, shut the garage door.
I took another step toward the middle of the room. As the TV picture jumped, wobbled, caught itself in snarls, Mink appeared to grow more vivid. The precise nature of events. Things in their actual state. Eventually he worked himself out of the deep fold, rising nicely, sharply outlined against the busy air. White noise everywhere.
“Containing iron, niacin and riboflavin. I learned my English in airplanes. It’s the international language of aviation. Why are you here, white man?”
“To buy.”
“You are very white, you know that?”
“It’s because I’m dying.”
“This stuff fix you up.”
“I’ll still die.”
“But it won’t matter, which comes to the same thing. Some of these playful dolphins have been equipped with radio transmitters. Their far-flung wanderings may tell us things.”
I continued to advance in consciousness. Things glowed, a secret life rising out of them. Water struck the roof in elongated orbs, splashing drams. I knew for the first time what rain really was. I knew what wet was. I understood the neurochemistry of my brain, the meaning of dreams (the waste material of premonitions). Great stuff everywhere, racing through the room, racing slowly. A richness, a density. I believed everything. I was a Buddhist, a Jain, a Duck River Baptist. My only sadness was Babette, having to kiss a scooped-out face.
“She wore the ski mask so as not to kiss my face, which she said was un-American. I told her a room is inside. Do not enter a room not agreeing to this. This is the point, as opposed to emerging coastlines, continental plates. Or you can eat natural grains, vegetables, eggs, no fish, no fruit. Or fruit, vegetables, animal proteins, no grains, no milk. Or lots of soybean milk for B-12 and lots of vegetables to regulate insulin release but no meat, no fish, no fruit. Or white meat but no red meat. Or B-12 but no eggs. Or eggs but no grains. There are endless workable combinations.”
I was ready to kill him now. But I didn’t want to compromise the plan. The plan was elaborate. Drive past the scene several times, approach the motel on foot, swivel my head to look peripherally into rooms, locate Mr. Gray under his real name, enter unannounced, gain his confidence, advance gradually, reduce him to trembling, wait for an unguarded moment, take out the .25-caliber Zumwalt automatic, fire three bullets into his viscera for maximum slowness, depth and intensity of pain, wipe the weapon clear of prints, place the weapon in the victim’s hand to suggest the trite and predictable suicide of a motel recluse, smear crude words on the walls in the victim’s own blood as evidence of his final cult-related frenzy, take his supply of Dylar, slip back to the car, take the expressway to Blacksmith, leave Stover’s car in Treadwell’s garage, shut the garage door, walk home in the rain and the fog.
I advanced into the area of flickering light, out of the shadows, seeking to loom. I put my hand in my pocket, gripped the firearm. Mink watched the screen. I said to him gently, “Hail of bullets.” Keeping my hand in my pocket.
He hit the floor, began crawling toward the bathroom, looking back over his shoulder, childlike, miming, using principles of heightened design but showing real terror, brilliant cringing fear. I followed him into the toilet, passing the full-length mirror where he’d undoubtedly posed with Babette, his shaggy member dangling like a ruminant’s.
“Fusillade,” I whispered.
He tried to wriggle behind the bowl, both arms over his head, his legs tight together. I loomed in the doorway, conscious of looming, seeing myself from Mink’s viewpoint, magnified, threatening. It was time to tell him who I was. This was part of my plan. My plan was this. Tell him who I am, let him know the reason for his slow and agonizing death. I revealed my name, explained my relationship with the woman in the ski mask.
He put his hands over his crotch, tried to fit himself under the toilet tank, behind the bowl. The intensity of the noise in the room was the same at all frequencies. Sound all around. I took out the Zumwalt. Great and nameless emotions thudded on my chest. I knew who I was in the network of meanings. Water fell to earth in drops, causing surfaces to gleam. I saw things new.
Mink took one hand from his crotch, grabbed more tablets from his pocket, hurled them toward his open mouth. His face appeared at the end of the white room, a white buzz, the inner surface of a sphere. He sat up, tearing open his shirt pocket to find more pills. His fear was beautiful. He said to me, “Did you ever wonder why, out of thirty-two teeth, these four cause so much trouble? I’ll be back with the answer in a minute.”
I fired the gun, the weapon, the pistol, the firearm, the automatic. The sound snowballed in the white room, adding on reflected waves. I watched blood squirt from the victim’s midsection. A delicate arc. I marveled at the rich color, sensed the color-causing action of nonnucleated cells. The flow diminished to a trickle, spread across the tile floor. I saw beyond words. I knew what red was, saw it in terms of dominant wavelength, luminance, purity. Mink’s pain was beautiful, intense.
I fired a second shot just to fire it, relive the experience, hear the sonic waves layering through the room, feel the jolt travel up my arm. The bullet struck him just inside the right hipbone. A claret stain appeared on his shorts and shirt. I paused to notice him. He sat wedged between the toilet bowl and wall, one sandal missing, eyes totally white. I tried to see myself from Mink’s viewpoint. Looming, dominant, gaining life-power, storing up life-credit. But he was too far gone to have a viewpoint.
It was going well. I was pleased to see how well it was going. The trucks rumbled overhead. The shower curtain smelled of mildewed vinyl. A richness, a smashing intensity. I approached the sitting figure, careful not to step in blood, leave revealing prints. I took out my handkerchief, wiped the weapon clean, placed it in Mink’s hand, cautiously removing the handkerchief, painstakingly wrapping his bony fingers, one by one, around the stock, delicately working his index finger through the trigger guard. He was foaming, a little, at the mouth. I stepped back to survey the remains of the shattering moment, the scene of squalid violence and lonely death at the shadowy fringes of society. This was my plan. Step back, regard the squalor, make sure things were correctly placed.
Mink’s eyes dropped out of his skull. They gleamed, briefly. He raised his hand and pulled the trigger, shooting me in the wrist.
The world collapsed inward, all those vivid textures and connections buried in mounds of ordinary stuff. I was disappointed. Hurt, stunned and disappointed. What had happened to the higher plane of ener
gy in which I’d carried out my scheme? The pain was searing. Blood covered my forearm, wrist and hand. I staggered back, moaning, watching blood drip from the tips of my fingers. I was troubled and confused. Colored dots appeared at the edge of my field of vision. Familiar little dancing specks. The extra dimensions, the super perceptions, were reduced to visual clutter, a whirling miscellany, meaningless.
“And this could represent the leading edge of some warmer air,” Mink said.
I looked at him. Alive. His lap a puddle of blood. With the restoration of the normal order of matter and sensation, I felt I was seeing him for the first time as a person. The old human muddles and quirks were set flowing again. Compassion, remorse, mercy. But before I could help Mink, I had to do some basic repair work on myself. Once again I took out my handkerchief, managed with my right hand and my teeth to tie it firmly just above the bullet hole in my left wrist, or between the wound and the heart. Then I sucked at the wound briefly, not knowing quite why, and spat out the resulting blood and pulp. The bullet had made a shallow penetration and deflected away. Using my good hand, I grabbed Mink by his bare foot and dragged him across the blood-dappled tile, the gun still clutched in his fist. There was something redemptive here. Dragging him foot-first across the tile, across the medicated carpet, through the door and into the night. Something large and grand and scenic. Is it better to commit evil and attempt to balance it with an exalted act than to live a resolutely neutral life? I know I felt virtuous, I felt blood-stained and stately, dragging the badly wounded man through the dark and empty street.
