Americana

In the car I could taste her on the back of my hand. I stopped for gas and called Ken Wild at his office. Then I drove into town and found a camera supply store. I bought some Kodak Tri-X reversal film, a wind filter and a light metal tripod with a pan-and-tilt head. An hour later Wild walked into a restaurant about three blocks from the Drake Hotel. He had gained some weight and his forehead had risen about half an inch. We stood at the bar and ordered drinks.

"Making films," he said. "That's great. Tell me about it. I hate my life. I'm at the point where I want to hear about other people's lives. It's like switching from fiction to biography. The begi

"What I'm doing is kind of hard to talk about. It's a sort of first-person thing but without me in it in any physical sense, except fleetingly, not exactly in the Hitchcock ma

"You're really going strong," Wild said. "I haven't the slightest idea what the hell you're talking about but it sounds great, it sounds really heavy, it sounds committed."

"I feel I've got to do it. I'm also doing a documentary on the Navahos for television. That'll be done out in Arizona and around there. Where the reservation is."

"But you're not working for anybody."

"Independent basis," I said. "I don't want anybody making decisions for me. I'm not getting rich, mind you, but I'm holding my own. When all this is over I may do something for Svensk Filmindustri. Just outside Sweden there. I mean Stockholm. Bergman's turf. So you're divorced. I'm sorry to hear that."

"She was a bitch. I was a bastard. Good riddance to both of us. I hate my life. I really hate my life. What about you- married?"

"Actually I'm living with a Vietnamese girl," I said. "Marriage is a lost art. Maybe if we decide to have kids. If not, things are fine just the way they are."

"Their women are beautiful," Wild said.

We finished our drinks and got a table. Wild was obviously well known in here. He joked with the waiter, ordering an angst on pumpernickel. Then he asked for two more drinks.

"But you're making money, aren't you?"

"I'm making money," he said.

"I bet you've got a great apartment with all sorts of stu

"This is bu

We had a bottle of wine with lunch and two brandies at the table afterward. Then we went to the bar and ordered stingers. Wild was in no hurry to get back to the office. It was about three o'clock. I had been driving a good part of the previous night and I felt dazed and weary. We drank quietly for half an hour.

"We're consultants to government and industry," Wild said finally. "Want to know about production flow systems? Materials handling? Centralized processing and distribution? Automation you know isn't necessarily the answer. First you study the operation. Then you analyze the system in terms of costs and functional elements. Maybe automation isn't the answer at all. Maybe it's selective automation you want. One or two small changes can turn the trick. Relocate a conveyor line. Design a special component. Too many people think automation is the answer to everything. This is a fallacy. I work with good men. They do their job and they like what they're doing and they don't ever squawk. Once I dated one of their daughters for a period of several some odd months. She was all jugs. I liked her. But she kept using a word I couldn't stand. She was always using it. I tromped over to the museum. I went tromping through the park. I tromped down Rush Street. Automation is no panacea. We understand that in my father's outfit. Systems pla

About fifteen minutes later he said:

"Talent is everything. If you've got talent, nothing else matters. You can screw up your personal life something terrible. So what. If you've got talent, it's there in reserve. Anybody who has talent they know they have it and that's it. It's what makes you what you are. It tells you you're you. Talent is everything; sanity is nothing. I'm convinced of it. I think I had something once. I showed promise, didn't I, Dave? I mean I had something, didn't I? But I was too sane. I couldn't make the leap out of my own soul into the soul of the universe. That's the leap they all made. From Blake to Rimbaud. I don't write anything but checks. I read science fiction. I go on business trips to South Bend and Rochester. The one in Mi

The sun was going down when I opened my eyes. I was on a boat. I could see the towers of Marina City. I was on a sightseeing boat on the Chicago River, that silly little river which modern engineering has coaxed into flowing backwards. The ribs on my left side ached badly. It was sunset and somehow I had lost several hours. Then we docked and I started walking toward the Drake, trying to remember where the car was parked. I stopped in a drugstore and called Wild at his apartment.

"What happened? I just woke up. I was on a sightseeing boat."

"You son of a bitch," he said.

"We were at the bar. That's all I remember. I woke up ten minutes ago. What happened in between?"

"My goddamn neck."

"My ribs," I said.

"I shouldn't even talk to you."

"We were at the bar. We were drinking stingers."

"You got in an argument with Chin Po."

"Who's that?"

"Chin Po's the guy who was sitting next to you. I was sitting on one side and he was on the other."

"Right," I said. "Then what?"

"We started drinking toasts. You and I and Chin. We drank a number of toasts to Chiang Kai-shek."

"Wonderful. Really great."

"Then you started the argument. You and Chin."

"What were we arguing about?"

"An afterlife," he said. "Whether or not there's an afterlife."

"That's incredible. I don't even have any convictions on the subject. Which side was I taking-pro or con?"

"I don't know. That part is hazy. I just remember you and Chin arguing violently about an afterlife."