I woke in the grip of a death sweat. Defenseless against my own racking fears. A pause at the center of my being. Ilacked the will and physical strength to get out of bed and move through the dark house, clutching walls and stairrails. To feel my way, reinhabit my body, re-enter the world. Sweat trickled1 down my ribs2. The digital reading on theclock-radio was 3:51. Always odd numbers at times like this. What does it mean? Is death odd-numbered? Are therelife-enhancing numbers, other numbers charged with menace? Babette murmured in her sleep and I moved close,breathing her heat.
Finally I slept, to be awakened3 by the smell of burning toast. That would be Steffie. She burns toast often, at any hour,intentionally. She loves the smell, she is addicted4; it's her treasured scent5. It satisfies her in ways wood smoke cannot,or snuffed candles, or the odor of explosive powder drifting down the street from firecrackers set off on the Fourth.
She has evolved orders of preference. Burnt rye, burnt white, so on.
I put on my robe and went downstairs. I was always putting on a bathrobe and going somewhere to talk seriously toa child. Babette was with her in the kitchen. It startled me. I thought she was still in bed.
"Want some toast?" Steffie said.
"I'll be fifty-one next week.""That's not old, is it?""I've felt the same for twenty-five years.""Bad. How old is my mother?""She's still young. She was only twenty when we were married the first time.""Is she younger than Baba?""About the same. Just so you don't think I'm one of those men who keeps finding younger women."I wasn't sure whether my replies were meant for Steffie or Babette. This happens in the kitchen, where the levels ofdata are numerous and deep, as Murray might say.
"Is she still in the CIA?" Steffie said.
"We're not supposed to talk about that. She's just a contract agent anyway.""What's that?""That's what people do today for a second income.""What exactly does she do?" Babette said.
"She gets a phone call from Brazil. That activates6 her.""Then what?""She carries money in a suitcase the length and breadth of Latin America.""That's all? I could do that.""Sometimes they send her books to review.""Have I met her?" Babette said.
"No.""Do I know her name?""Dana Breedlove."Steffie's lips formed the words as I spoke7 them.
"You're not planning to eat that, are you?" I said to her.
"I always eat my toast."The phone rang and I picked it up. A woman's voice delivered a high-performance hello. It said it wascomputer-generated, part of a marketing8 survey aimed at determining current levels of consumer desire. It said itwould ask a series of questions, pausing after each to give me a chance to reply.
I gave the phone to Steffie. When it became clear that she was occupied with the synthesized voice, I spoke toBabette in low tones.
"She liked to plot.""Who?""Dana. She liked to get me involved in things.""What kind of things?""Factions9. Playing certain friends against other friends. Household plots, faculty10 plots.""Sounds like ordinary stuff.""She spoke English to me, Spanish or Portuguese11 to the telephone."Steffie twisted around, used her free hand to pull her sweater away from her body, enabling her to read the label.
"Virgin acrylic," she said into the phone.
Babette checked the label on her sweater. A soft rain began to fall.
"How does it feel being nearly fifty-one?" she said.
"No different from fifty.""Except one is even, one is odd," she pointed12 out.
That night, in Murray's off-white room, after a spectacular meal of Cornish hen in the shape of a frog, prepared on atwo-burner hot plate, we moved from our metal folding chairs to the bunk13 bed for coffee.
"When I was a sportswriter," Murray said, "I traveled constantly, lived in planes and hotels and stadium smoke,never got to feel at home in my own apartment. Now I have a place.""You've done wonders," Babette said, her gaze sweeping14 desperately15 across the room.
"It's small, it's dark, it's plain," he said in a self-satisfied way. "A container for thought."I gestured toward the old four-story building on several acres across the street. "Do you get any noise from the insaneasylum?""You mean beatings and shrieks17? It's interesting that people still call it the insane asylum16. It must be the strikingarchitecture, the high steep roof, the tall chimneys, the columns, the little flourishes here and there that are eitherquaint or sinister—I can't make up my mind. It doesn't look like a rest home or psychiatric facility. It looks like aninsane asylum."His trousers were going shiny at the knees.
"I'm sorry you didn't bring the kids. I want to get to know small kids. This is the society of kids. I tell my studentsthey're already too old to Figure importantly in the making of society. Minute by minute they're beginning to divergefrom each other. 'Even as we sit here,' I tell them, 'you are spinning out from the core, becoming less recognizable asa group, less targetable by advertisers and mass-producers of culture. Kids are a true universal. But you're wellbeyond that, already beginning to drift, to feel estranged18 from the products you consume. Who are they designed for?
What is your place in the marketing scheme? Once you're out of school, it is only a matter of time before youexperience the vast loneliness and dissatisfaction of consumers who have lost their group identity.' Then I tap mypencil on the table to indicate time passing ominously19."Because we were seated on the bed, Murray had to lean well forward, looking past the coffee cup poised20 in my hand,in order to address Babette.
"How many children do you have, all told?"She appeared to pause.
"There's Wilder, of course. There's Denise."Murray sipped21 his coffee, trying to look at her, sideways, with the cup at his lower lip.
'There's Eugene, who's living with his daddy this year in Western Australia. Eugene is eight. His daddy does researchin the outback. His daddy is also Wilder's daddy.""The boy is growing up without television," I said, "which may make him worth talking to, Murray, as a sort of wildchild, a savage22 plucked from the bush, intelligent and literate23 but deprived of the deeper codes and messages thatmark his species as unique.""TV is a problem only if you've forgotten how to look and listen," Murray said. "My students and I discuss this all thetime. They're beginning to feel they ought to turn against the medium, exactly as an earlier generation turned againsttheir parents and their country. I tell them they have to learn to look as children again. Root out content. Find thecodes and messages, to use your phrase, Jack24.""What do they say to that?""Television is just another name for junk mail. But I tell them I can't accept that. I tell them I've been sitting in thisroom for more than two months, watching TV into the early hours, listening carefully, taking notes. A great andhumbling experience, let me tell you. Close to mystical.""What's your conclusion?"He crossed his legs primly25 and sat with the cup in his lap, smiling straight ahead.
"Waves and radiation," he said. "I've come to understand that the medium is a primal26 force in the American home.
Sealed-off, timeless, self-contained, self-referring. It's like a myth being born right there in our living room, likesomething we know in a dreamlike and preconscious way. I'm very enthused, Jack."He looked at me, still smiling in a half sneaky way.
"You have to learn how to look. You have to open yourself to the data. TV offers incredible amounts of psychic27 data.
It opens ancient memories of world birth, it welcomes us into the grid28, the network of little buzzing dots that make upthe picture pattern. There is light, there is sound. I ask my students, 'What more do you want?' Look at the wealth ofdata concealed29 in the grid, in the bright packaging, the jingles30, the slice-of-life commercials, the products hurtlingout of darkness, the coded messages and endless repetitions, like chants, like mantras. 'Coke is it, Coke is it, Coke isit.' The medium practically overflows31 with sacred formulas if we can remember how to respond innocently and getpast our irritation32, weariness and disgust.""But your students don't agree.""Worse than junk mail. Television is the death throes of human consciousness, according to them. They're ashamedof their television past. They want to talk about movies."He got up and refilled our cups.
"How do you know so much?" Babette said.
"I'm from New York.""The more you talk, the sneakier you look, as if you're trying to put something over on us.""The best talk is seductive.""Have you ever been married?" she said.
"Once, briefly33. I was covering the Jets, the Mets and the Nets.
How odd a figure I must seem to you now, a solitary34 crank who maroons35 himself with a TV set and dozens of stacksof dust-jacketed comic books. Don't think I wouldn't appreciate a dramatic visit between two and three in themorning," he told her, "from an intelligent woman in spike36 heels and a slit37 skirt, with high-impact accessories."It was drizzling38 as we walked home, my arm around her waist. The streets were empty. Along Elm all the stores weredark, the two banks were dimly lit, the neon spectacles in the window of the optical shop cast a gimmicky39 light on thesidewalk.
Dacron, Orion, Lycra Spandex.
"I know I forget things," she said, "but I didn't know it was so obvious.""It isn't.""Did you hear Denise? When was it, last week?""Denise is smart and tough. No one else notices.""I dial a number on the phone and forget who I'm calling. I go to the store and forget what to buy. Someone will tellme something, I'll forget it, they'll tell me again, I'll forget it, they'll tell me again, showing a funny-looking smile.""We all forget," I said.
"I forget names, faces, phone numbers, addresses, appointments, instructions, directions.""It's something that's just been happening, more or less to everyone.""I forget that Steff.e doesn't like to be called Stephanie. Sometimes I call her Denise. I forget where I've parked thecar and then for a long, long moment I forget what the car looks like.""Forgetfulness has gotten into the air and water. It's entered the food chain.""Maybe it's the gum I chew. Is that too farfetched?""Maybe it's something else.""What do you mean?""You're taking something besides chewing gum.""Where did you get that idea?""I got it secondhand from Steffie.""Who did Steffie get it from?""Denise."She paused, conceding the possibility that if Denise is the source of a rumor40 or theory, it could very well be true.
"What does Denise say I'm taking?""I wanted to ask you before I asked her.""To the best of my knowledge, Jack, I'm not taking anything that could account for my memory lapses41. On the otherhand I'm not old, I haven't suffered an injury to the head and there's nothing in my family background except tippeduteruses.""You're saying maybe Denise is right.""We can't rule it out.""You're saying maybe you're taking something that has the side effect of impairing42 memory.""Either I'm taking something and I don't remember or I'm not taking something and I don't remember. My life iseither/or. Either I chew regular gum or I chew sugarless gum. Either I chew gum or I smoke. Either I smoke or I gainweight. Either I gain weight or I run up the stadium steps.""Sounds like a boring life.""I hope it lasts forever," she said.
Soon the streets were covered with leaves. Leaves came tumbling and scraping down the pitched roofs. There wereperiods in every day when a stiff wind blew, baring the trees further, and retired43 men appeared in the backyards, onthe small lawns out front, carrying rakes with curved teeth. Black bags were arrayed at the curbstone in lopsidedrows.
A series of frightened children appeared at our door for their Halloween treats.
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trickled
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| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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activates
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| 使活动，起动，触发( activate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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marketing
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| n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西 | |
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factions
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| 组织中的小派别，派系( faction的名词复数 ) | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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estranged
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| adj.疏远的，分离的 | |
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ominously
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| adv.恶兆地，不吉利地；预示地 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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literate
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| n.学者；adj.精通文学的，受过教育的 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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primly
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| adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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primal
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| adj.原始的；最重要的 | |
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psychic
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| n.对超自然力敏感的人；adj.有超自然力的 | |
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grid
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| n.高压输电线路网；地图坐标方格；格栅 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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jingles
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| 叮当声( jingle的名词复数 )； 节拍十分规则的简单诗歌 | |
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overflows
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| v.溢出，淹没( overflow的第三人称单数 )；充满；挤满了人；扩展出界，过度延伸 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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maroons
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| n.逃亡黑奴（maroon的复数形式）vt.把…放逐到孤岛（maroon的第三人称单数形式） | |
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spike
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| n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效 | |
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slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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drizzling
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| 下蒙蒙细雨，下毛毛雨( drizzle的现在分词 ) | |
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gimmicky
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| adj.诡计的，骗人的 | |
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rumor
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| n.谣言，谣传，传说 | |
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lapses
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| n.失误，过失( lapse的名词复数 )；小毛病；行为失检；偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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impairing
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| v.损害，削弱( impair的现在分词 ) | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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