The Angel Esmeralda - Don Delillo [51]
We walked on past and continued for eight or nine paces, then turned and watched.
“That was good,” Todd said. “That was totally worthwhile. Now we’re ready to take the next step.”
“There is no next step. We got our close look,” I said. “We know who he is.”
“We don’t know anything.”
“We wanted to see him one more time.”
“Lasted only seconds.”
“What do you want to do, take a picture?”
“My cell phone needs recharging,” he said seriously. “The coat is an anorak, by the way, definitely, up close.”
“The coat is a parka.”
The man was two and a half blocks from the left turn that would put him on the street where he lived.
“I think we need to take the next step.”
“You said that.”
“I think we need to talk to him.”
I looked at Todd. He wore a fixed smile, grafted on.
“That’s crazy.”
“It’s completely reasonable,” he said.
“We do that, we kill the idea, we kill everything we’ve done. We can’t talk to him.”
“We’ll ask a few questions, that’s all. Quiet, low key. Find out a few things.”
“It’s never been a matter of literal answers.”
“I counted eighty-seven boxcars. You counted eighty-seven boxcars. Remember.”
“This is different and we both know it.”
“I can’t believe you’re not curious. All we’re doing is searching out the parallel life,” he said. “It doesn’t affect what we’ve been saying all this time.”
“It affects everything. It’s a violation. It’s crazy.”
I looked down the street toward the man in question. He was still moving slowly, a little erratically, hands folded behind his back now, where they belonged.
“If you’re sensitive about approaching him, I’ll do it,” he said.
“No, you won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s old and frail. Because he won’t understand what you want.”
“What do I want? A few words of conversation. If he shies away, I’m out of there in an instant.”
“Because he doesn’t even speak English.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know anything.”
He started to move away and I clutched his arm and turned him toward me.
“Because you’ll scare him,” I said. “Just the sight of you. Freak of nature.”
He looked straight into me. It took time, this look. Then he pulled his arm away and I shoved him into the street. He turned and started walking and I caught up with him and spun him around and struck him in the chest with the heel of my hand. It was a sample blow, an introduction. A car came toward us and veered away, faces in windows. We began to grapple. He was too awkward to be contained, all angles, a mess of elbows and knees, and deceptively strong. I had trouble getting a firm grip and lost a glove. I wanted to hit him in the liver but didn’t know where it was. He began flailing in slow motion. I moved in and punched him on the side of the head with my bare hand. It hurt us both and he made a sound and went into a fetal crouch. I snatched his cap and tossed it. I wanted to wrestle him down and pound his head into the asphalt but he was too firmly set, still making the sound, a determined hum, science fiction. He unfolded then, flushed and wild-eyed, and started swinging blind. I stepped back and half circled, waiting for an opening, but he fell before I could hit him, scrambling up at once and starting to run.
The hooded man was about to move out of sight, turning into his street. I watched Todd run, long slack bouncy strides. He would have to go faster if he expected to reach the man before he disappeared into the gray frame house, the designated house.
I saw my lost glove lying in the middle of the street. Then Todd running, bareheaded, trying to skirt areas of frozen snow. The scene empty everywhere around him. I couldn’t make sense of it. I felt completely detached. His breath visible, streams of trailing vapor. I wondered what it was that