End Zone by Don DeLillo Read Free Book Online

great massescollide. The angle at which projectiles are aimed. The angle at which blunt instruments strike a particular surface. Consider our respective positions.”
    “Go ahead, I’m listening.”
    “Consider the placements. Foot to hip. Knee to ear. Angles within angles. Interrelationships. The angle of incidence. The angle of reflection. Of course I’m just beginning to formulate this concept.”
    “Where do you do your thinking, Gary?”
    “I’ve been spending time in the desert lately. You can evolve theories out there. The sun’s heat purifies the thinking apparatus. Which reminds me. Why are you so white, Anatole? I’ve been reluctant to ask.”
    “I stay out of the sun whenever possible because I don’t like to peel. I hate the whole process. Let’s just say that my awareness of reptilian antecedents is unnaturally vivid.”
    “I like to peel,” I said. “I like to reach behind me and strip the skin off my back. Or have it stripped off for me. A girl I knew in Coral Gables used to do it. Slowly peel the skin right off my back. She was Jewish.”
    “Did she make sounds while she did it?”
    “Noises,” I said. “She made noises.”
    Bloomberg shifted on the bed.
    “I’m hungry,” he said. “They had chicken for dinner. Fried chicken, mixed vegetables and corn bread. They had peach pie for dessert.”
    “Anatole, I think you should forget your diet. You’d be a better football player at two seventy-five. But a greater man at three hundred plus.”
    “It’s possible but not probable. I base my notion of probability on a given number in a given pattern expressing the likelihood of the occurrence of a sequentially orderedset of events, such as the ratio of the number of coordinate elements that would produce the set of events to the total number of elements considered possible.”
    “I look forward to these talks of ours, chaplain.”
    At Logos there existed both Army and Air Force ROTC. I belonged to neither. But I had received permission to audit AFROTC courses. Geopolitics — one hour a week. History of air power — one hour a week. Aspects of modern war — one hour a week.

11
    B OBBY L UKE WAS SITTING on the front steps of Staley Hall, the living quarters for the football team. It was another hot and empty afternoon; everybody else was indoors; the campus seemed deserted. I sat a few feet away from Bobby, spreading my arms along the top step. He looked my way with a slight grin, his eyes nearly shut I stretched my legs and gazed out at the distant parade grounds. Nothing moved out there and the heat rolled in. The night before, we had opened against a school called Dorothy Hamilton Hodge. Taft Robinson gained 104 yards rushing in the first half and we left the field leading 24-0. Creed didn’t use his reserves until there were only five minutes left in the game. By that time we had eight touchdowns; apparently he wanted to make news. Since Dorothy Hamilton Hodge was considered a typical opponent (with one exception), it was obvious that we’d have a winning season. We were better than any of us had imagined and it just seemed a question of how many points we’d score, how fewwe’d give up, and how many records would fall to Taft Robinson. The exception was West Centrex Biotechnical, an independent like us and a minor power in the area for years. The previous season they had swept through their schedule without the slightest hint of defeat, yielding an occasional touchdown only as a concession to the law of averages. The game with Centrex, which would be our seventh, was already shaping up as the whole season for us. If we could beat them, Creed’s face would be back in the papers, we’d get small-college ranking, and the pro scouts would come drifting down for a look at the big old country boys. Bobby glanced up now. A side door of the science building had opened. A girl stepped out, stood for a moment with her arms folded, then went back in.
    “Snatch,” Bobby said.
    The sky