Chapter 30 Section 28

Wilder sat on a high stool in front of the stove and watched the water boil in a small enamel pot.He seemed fascinated by the phenomenon.I wondered if he had figured out that there was some strange connection between things he had always thought were unrelated.There are these revelatory moments every day in the kitchen, maybe for me and for him. Steffi walked in, saying: "I'm the only one I know who likes Wednesdays." Wilder's single-mindedness seemed to intrigue her.She walked over and stood beside him, trying to figure out what drew his attention to the churning water.She leaned over the kettle, trying to get an egg out of it.

A jingle promoting a product called the "Ray-Bon Traveler" began to pop into my head. "How is the evacuation going?" "A lot of people didn't show up at all. We waited there, humming and sighing." "They'll show up when there's a real evacuation," I said. "By then it will be too late." The lights are bright and cool, making things around them seem to twinkle.It was time for school this morning, and Steffi was dressed to go out, but she remained in front of the stove, looking from Wilder to the kettle and back to Wilder, trying to cut off his curiosity about the "Wonder" look.

"Babe said you got a letter." "My mother wants me to go at Easter." "Okay. Do you want to go? Of course you do. You like your mother. She's in Mexico City now, isn't she?" "Who will send me?" "I'll drop you off at the airport and your mother picks you up at the other end. It's easy. Bee does it all the time. You like Bee." This trip was to fly to a foreign country at almost supersonic speed at an altitude of 30,000 feet in a container made of titanium steel alloy with a bulge in the middle. Such a big event made her silent for a moment.We watch the water boil.

"I've signed up to play the victim again, and it's just before Easter, so I figured I'd just have to stay here." "Another evacuation operation? What is the situation this time?" "A strange smell." "You mean, some kind of chemical that drifted over from the factory on the other side?" "I guess so." "What are you going to do as a victim of a scent?" "It's up to them to tell us." "I'm sure they don't care if you don't go once. I'll write a note," I said. My first and fourth marriages were to Dana Breedlove, Steffi's mother.The first marriage wasn't too bad, so later when it became convenient for both of us, it encouraged us to try again.When we did try, things were quickly over with the melancholy lingering lingering of two intervening marriages, to Janet Seyferry and Tweedy Browner.But it wasn't over until Stephanie Rose was conceived—it was a night of starry sky.Dana goes there to bribe an official.

She rarely talked to me about her intelligence work.What I do know is that she reads novels for the CIA, mostly big, serious novels with a code structure.The work made her tired and irritable, and she could hardly enjoy food, sex, or conversation anymore.She was speaking Spanish to someone on the phone; she was a very active mother, and she had an eerie, storm-lamp-like glow about her.Tomes of novels kept arriving in the mail. It's strange how I keep getting involved in the lives of people involved with intelligence.Dana is a part-time conspirator.Tweedy was born into a prominent old family with a long tradition of spies and counter-espionages: now she was married to a high-ranking bush agent.Janet was a foreign currency analyst before she left for the hippie village, doing research for a clandestine group of senior theorists affiliated with a controversial think tank.All she told me was that they never met in the same place twice.

Part of my admiration for Babette has to be sheer ease.She wasn't one for secrets, at least not until her fear of death drove her into the madness and sexual deceit of secret research.I think of Mr. Gray and his volatile crew.This image is hazy and incomplete.The person is actually as gray as his last name, giving off a visual buzz. The boiling water began to boil.Steffi helped the boy get off the high stool.I bumped into Babette on my way to the front door.We exchanged that simple yet terribly heartfelt question that we have been asking each other two or three times a day since the night that "Daile" was revealed: "How are you feeling?" Asking that question and hearing it asked , to make us both feel better.I went upstairs to find my sunglasses.

On TV is a national cancer test. I watched Murray sniff his cutlery in the dining room of the Centennial Hall.There was a peculiar pallor in the faces of the New York exiles, Lasher and Grappa in particular.They have the embarrassing, intense desire to be trapped in a small space with a sad look on their faces.Murray said Elliott Rusher had a gloomy "black film" face.His facial features are extremely sharp, and his hair is sprinkled with an oily perfume of some kind of extract.I have a strange notion that these men were nostalgic for black-and-white films, their pursuits dominated by the values ​​of achromatic, personal extremes of postwar "urban grey."

Alphonse Stumpanato sat down, defiant and threatening.He seemed to be watching me—the head of one department weighing the head of another.A Brooklyn draft dodger badge is sewn into the front of his robe. Lasher balled up a paper napkin and threw it at someone two tables away.Then he stared at Grappa. "Who is the most influential person in your life?" he said in a hostile tone. "Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death. It was like a personal breakthrough for me when Richard Widmark pushed an old woman in a wheelchair down the stairs. It resolved A bunch of conflicts. I imitated Richard Widmarksad's sadistic mockery and have used it for ten years. It got me through several difficult emotional crises. In Henry Hathaway's Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death. Remember that creepy laugh? The face like a hyena. The snicker like a ghoul. It clarified the things in my life A lot of things that helped me become a person."

"Did you ever spit in that bottle when you were a kid to keep other kids from drinking your soda?" "It's the kind of thing you don't learn. Some guys even spit in their sandwiches. We go buy food and drink after the coin-tossing contest. And then it's always a rush to spit. And some guys Spit in their cheap soda, spit in panna cotta." "How old were you when you first realized your father was an idiot?" "Twelve and a half," said Grappa, "I was sitting in the Fairmont balcony watching Collision in the Night, in which Barbara Stanvik played Mie Doyle, and Paul Douglas as Jerry D'Amato and the marvelous Robert Ryan as Earl Pfeffer. J. Carol Nash, Keith Andes and an early Marilyn Monroe were cast. 3 Twelve days to complete, black and white film."

"Have you ever had an erection while your dental hygienist was cleaning your teeth because she rubbed against your arm?" "More times than I can count." "When you bite the dead skin off your thumb with your teeth, do you eat it or spit it out?" "Chew for a while, then quickly squirt from the tip of your tongue." "When you're driving on the highway," Lasher said, "do you ever close your eyes?" "I closed my eyes for a full eight seconds on North 95. Eight seconds is my personal best. I've closed my eyes for as long as six seconds on a curvy country road, but I was only doing 30 or so. Thirty-five miles. On multi-lane highways, I typically drive up to seventy before I close my eyes. You do that in a straight line. On a straight line, I used to close my eyes when there was someone else in my car. for five seconds. You do this while they are drowsy."

Grappa has a round, teary, worried face.There was a good boy turned bad look on his face.I saw him light a cigarette, put out the match, and toss it into Murray's salad. "When you were a kid imagining your own death," Lasher said, "how much fun did you have?" "Forget about being a kid," Grappa said. "I do it all the time now and I get a lot of joy out of it. Anytime I'm upset about something, I picture all my friends, relatives, and colleagues gathered around my coffin. They're very It's a shame they didn't treat me a little better during my lifetime. Self-compassion is something I try so hard to keep, why throw it away just because you're grown up? Self-compassion is something kids are very good at, which definitely shows that it is Natural and vital. Imagining yourself dead is the cheapest, cheapest and most satisfying form of childish self-pity. How sad and remorseful and guilty all these people are standing next to your giant copper coffin They dared not even look at each other, for they knew that the death of this respectable and sympathetic man was the result of a conspiracy in which they all participated. The coffin was piled with flowers and bordered with orange and peach Fur trim. What a wonderful self-pity you can indulge in seeing yourself in a black suit and tie, dark and healthy, serenely - like they talk about the president after vacation - lying there ready to be buried Paradoxical to self-esteem! But there is something more childish and satisfying than self-pity, which explains why I try to see myself die under normal circumstances, a good person surrounded by a crowd crying Mourners. It's my personal way of punishing those who think their life is more important than mine." "We should have an official 'Day of the Dead,' just like the Mexicans," Lasher told Murray. "We have one. It's called." I don't want to hear this.I have my own death problems to ponder, which have nothing to do with those whims.Not that I think Grappa's argument is without merit.His idea of ​​a conspiracy provoked a whole bunch of reactions in me.It is not indifference or greed that we forgive on our deathbed, but this.We forgive them for their ability to put themselves at a distance, quietly conspire against us, and succeed in bringing us down. I watched as Alphonse reappeared as a bear, and he made a shoulder-swaying gesture.I take this as a sign that he is preparing to speak.I want to slip away, run away suddenly, run away. "In New York," he said, looking straight at me, "people ask if you have a good physician. This is where the strength lies: the internal organs. Liver, kidneys, stomach, intestines, pancreas. Internal medicine is Magical brew. You get strength and charisma from a good physician, not at all on the treatment he provides. People ask about tax lawyers, estate planners, drug dealers. But the real key , is an internist. Someone will challenge the question 'Who is your internist?' This question implies that if your internist is not famous, you must die of mushroom shaped pancreatic cancer. You are ready Keep feeling inferior and fucked, not because your guts may be bleeding, but because you don't know who to turn to for advice, how to connect with people, how to succeed in the world. Never mind that so-called military-industrial complex. Real power It is exercised by people like you and me, through these little challenges and intimidation, every day." I gulped down my dessert and slipped away from the table.I'm waiting outside for Murray.When he emerged, I grabbed him by the top of the elbow, and we walked across campus like a pair of elderly European citizens, heads down talking. "How do you hear those?" I said. "Death and disease. Do they talk like that all the time?" "When I cover sports, I'm always on the road with fellow writers. In hotel rooms, on planes, in taxis, in restaurants. There's only one topic: sex and death." "That's two topics." "You're right, Jack." "I would hate to think that they are inextricably linked." "It's like everything is connected on the road. It's either all or nothing." We step over small snowdrifts that are melting. "How did your class discussion on the crash go?" “We look at hundreds of crash movie shots. Car-car, car-truck, truck-bus, motorcycle-car, car-helicopter, truck-truck, etc. My students think these movies Prophetic. They noticed the suicidal wish of technology. Drive to kill themselves, drive violently to kill themselves." "What did you say to them?" "Most of these are second-tier movies, TV shows, country drive-ins. I tell my students not to look for revelation in places like this. I see these crashes as part of a long tradition of American-style optimism. They are Positive event, full of the old 'can do' spirit. Each crash is better than the last, often with tools and skill levels that rise to the challenge. One director said: 'I need This flatbed truck does a two-week mid-air roll that creates an orange-red fireball thirty-six feet in diameter that the cinematographer uses to light the scene.' I tell the students that if they're going to bring the technology to To go in it, you have to take that into account, this propensity for the majestic and the dreaming." "Dreams? How do your students answer?" "Like you said just now: 'Dream?' All blood and broken glass and squeaky-burnt rubber. What about this pure waste? What about the consciousness of a civilization in decay?" "What should I do?" I said. "I tell them that what they see is not decay, but innocence. The movie takes away from the complexities of human passions and shows us something fundamental, something hot and loud and head-on. It's conservative aspirations Fulfillment, the longing for innocence. We want to become unaffected again. We want to turn rich experience, sophistication and its responsibility upside down. My students say: 'Look at these crushed bodies, these severed hands. legs. What kind of innocence is this?'” "What do you say about that?" "I told them that the car crash in the movie can't be seen as an act of violence. It's a celebration, a reaffirmation of traditional values ​​and beliefs. I compared the car crash to Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July. We don't mourn the dead or celebrate miracles. Those are things of the age of secular optimism, self-glory. We will improve, prosper, perfect ourselves. Look at every crash in any American movie Accidents. Those were moments of high spirits like old-fashioned aerobatics, wing-walking. The people who staged these crashes had the ability to capture the lighthearted, carefree fun that crashes in foreign films It’s never been possible to do that.” "Turn a blind eye to violence." "Absolutely. Turn a blind eye to violence, Jack, and there will be a spirit of innocence and joy."

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