White Noise - Don Delillo [120]
“Are you saying the printout shows the first ambiguous signs of a barely perceptible condition deriving from minimal acceptable spillage exposure?”
Why was I speaking in this stilted fashion?
“The magnetic scanner is pretty clear,” he said.
What had happened to our tacit agreement to advance smartly through the program without time-consuming and controversial delving?
“What happens when someone has traces of this material in his or her blood?”
“They get a nebulous mass,” he said.
“But I thought no one knew for sure what Nyodene D. did to humans. Rats, yes.”
“You just told me you’d never heard of it. How do you know what it does or doesn’t do?”
He had me there. I felt I’d been tricked, carried along, taken for a fool.
“Knowledge changes every day,” he said. “We have some conflicting data that says exposure to this substance can definitely lead to a mass.”
His confidence was soaring.
“Good. Let’s get on to the next topic. I’m in something of a hurry.”
“This is where I hand over the sealed envelope.”
“Is exercise next? The answer is none. Hate it, refuse to do it.”
“Good. I am handing over the envelope.”
“What is a nebulous mass, just out of idle curiosity?”
“A possible growth in the body.”
“And it’s called nebulous because you can’t get a clear picture of it.”
“We get very clear pictures. The imaging block takes the clearest pictures humanly possible. It’s called a nebulous mass because it has no definite shape, form or limits.”
“What can it do in terms of worst-case scenario contingencies?”
“Cause a person to die.”
“Speak English, for God’s sake. I despite this modern jargon.”
He took insults well. The angrier I got, the better he liked it. He radiated energy and health.
“Now is where I tell you to pay in the outer office.”
“What about potassium? I came here in the first place because my potassium was way above normal limits.”
“We don’t do potassium.”
“Good.”
“Good. The last thing I’m supposed to tell you is take the envelope to your doctor. Your doctor knows the symbols.”
“So that’s it then. Good.”
“Good,” he said.
I found myself shaking his hand warmly. Minutes later I was out on the street. A boy walked splay-footed across a public lawn, nudging a soccer ball before him. A second kid sat on the grass, taking off his socks by grabbing the heels and yanking. How literary, I thought peevishly. Streets thick with the details of impulsive life as the hero ponders the latest phase in his dying. It was a partially cloudy day with winds diminishing toward sunset.
That night I walked the streets of Blacksmith. The glow of blue-eyed TVs. The voices on the touch-tone phones. Far away the grandparents huddle in a chair, eagerly sharing the receiver as carrier waves modulate into audible signals. It is the voice of their grandson, the growing boy whose face appears in the snapshots set around the phone. Joy rushes to their eyes but it is misted over, infused with a sad and complex knowing. What is the youngster saying to them? His wretched complexion makes him unhappy? He wants to leave school and work full-time at Foodland, bagging groceries? He tells them he likes to bag groceries. It is the one thing in life he finds satisfying. Put the gallon jugs in first, square off the six-packs, double-bag the heavy merch. He does it well, he has the knack, he sees the items arranged in the bag before he touches a thing. It’s like Zen, grampa. I snap out two bags, fit one inside the other. Don’t bruise the fruit, watch the eggs, put the ice cream in a freezer bag. A thousand people pass me every day but no one ever sees me. I like it, gramma, it’s totally unthreatening, it’s how I want to spend my life. And so they listen sadly, loving him all the more, their faces pressed against the sleek Trimline, the white Princess in the bedroom, the plain brown Rotary in granddad’s paneled basement hideaway. The old gentleman runs a hand through his thatch of white hair, the woman holds her folded specs against her face. Clouds race across the westering moon, the seasons change in somber montage, going deeper into winter