White Noise - Don Delillo [126]
“Are you saying a dier can become a killer?”
“I’m only a visiting lecturer. I theorize, I take walks, I admire the trees and houses. I have my students, my rented room, my TV set. I pick out a word here, an image there. I admire the lawns, the porches. What a wonderful thing a porch is. How did I live a life without a porch to sit on, up till now? I speculate, I reflect, I take constant notes. I am here to think, to see. Let me warn you, Jack. I won’t let up.”
We passed my street and walked up the hill to the campus.
“Who’s your doctor?”
“Chakravarty,” I said.
“Is he good?”
“How would I know?”
“My shoulder separates. An old sexual injury.”
“I’m afraid to see him. I put the printout of my death in the bottom drawer of a dresser.”
“I know how you feel. But the tough part is yet to come. You’ve said good-bye to everyone but yourself. How does a person say good-bye to himself? It’s a juicy existential dilemma.”
“It certainly is.”
We walked past the administration building.
“I hate to be the one who says it, Jack, but there’s something that has to be said.”
“What?”
“Better you than me.”
I nodded gravely. “Why does this have to be said?”
“Because friends have to be brutally honest with each other. I’d feel terrible if I didn’t tell you what I was thinking, especially at a time like this.”
“I appreciate it, Murray. I really do.”
“Besides, it’s part of the universal experience of dying. Whether you think about it consciously or not, you’re aware at some level that people are walking around saying to themselves, ‘Better him than me.’ It’s only natural. You can’t blame them or wish them ill.”
“Everyone but my wife. She wants to die first.”
“Don’t be so sure,” he said.
We shook hands in front of the library. I thanked him for his honesty.
“That’s what it all comes down to in the end,” he said. “A person spends his life saying good-bye to other people. How does he say good-bye to himself?”
I threw away picture-frame wire, metal bookends, cork coasters, plastic key tags, dusty bottles of Mercurochrome and Vaseline, crusted paintbrushes, caked shoe brushes, clotted correction fluid. I threw away candle stubs, laminated placemats, frayed pot holders. I went after the padded clothes hangers, the magnetic memo clipboards. I was in a vengeful and near savage state. I bore a personal grudge against these things. Somehow they’d put me in this fix. They’d dragged me down, made escape impossible. The two girls followed me around, observing a respectful silence. I threw away my battered khaki canteen, my ridiculous hip boots. I threw away diplomas, certificates, awards and citations. When the girls stopped me, I was working the bathrooms, discarding used bars of soap, damp towels, shampoo bottles with streaked labels and missing caps.
PLEASE NOTE. In several days, your new automated banking card will arrive in the mail. If it is a red card with a silver stripe, your secret code will be the same as it is now. If it is a green card with a gray stripe, you must appear at your branch, with your card, to devise a new secret code. Codes based on birthdays are popular. WARNING. Do not write down your code. Do not carry your code on your person. REMEMBER. You cannot access your account unless your code is entered properly. Know your code. Reveal your code to no one. Only your code allows you to enter the system.
38
MY HEAD WAS BETWEEN HER BREASTS, where it seemed to be spending a lot of time lately. She stroked my shoulder.
“Murray says the problem is that we don’t repress our fear.”
“Repress it?”
“Some people have the gift, some don’t.”
“The gift? I thought repression was outdated. They’ve been telling us for years not to repress our fears and desires. Repression causes tension, anxiety, unhappiness, a hundred diseases and conditions. I thought the last thing we were supposed to do was repress something. They’ve been telling us to talk about our fears, get in touch with our feelings.”
“Getting in touch with death is not what they had in mind. Death