City

Prologue "So, Mr. Klauser, should Mami Jane die?" "Screw them all." "Is that a yes or a no?" "What do you think?" In October of 1987, CRB--the company that for twenty-two years had published the adventures of the mythical Ballon Mac--decided to take a poll of its readers to determine whether Mami Jane ought to die. Ballon Mac was a blind superhero who worked as a dentist by day and at night battled Evil, using the special powers of his saliva. Mami Jane was his mother. The readers were, in general, very fond of her: she collected Indian scalps and at night she performed as a bassist in a blues band whose other members were black. She was white. The idea of killing her off had come from the sales manager of CRB--a placid man who had a single passion: toy trains. He maintained that at this point Ballon Mac was on a dead-end track and needed new inspiration. The death of his mother--hit by a train as she fled a paranoid switchman--would transform him into a lethal mixture of rage and grief, that is, the exact image of his average reader. The idea was idiotic. But then so was the average reader of Ballon Mac. So, in October of 1987, CRB cleared out a room on the second floor and set up eight young women there to answer the telephones and tabulate readers' opinions. The question was: Should Mami Jane die? Of the eight young women, four were employees of CRB, two had been sent by the unemployment office, and one was the granddaughter of the company president. The last, a woman of about thirty, from Pomona, was there because she'd won an internship by getting the correct answer on a radio quiz ("What is the thing that Ballon Mac hates most in the world?" "Scraping off tartar"). She had a small tape recorder that she always carried with her. Every so often she turned it on and said something into it. Her name was Shatzy Shell. At 10:45 on the twelfth day of the voting--when the death of Mami Jane was winning by 64 percent to 30 (the remaining 6 percent maintained that they should all go to hell, and had called to say so)--Shatzy Shell heard the phone ring for the twenty-first time that day, wrote on the form she had in front of her the number 21, and picked up the receiver. The following conversation ensued: "CRB, good morning." "Good morning, is Diesel there yet?" "Who?" "OK, he's not there yet..." "This is CRB, sir." "Yes, I know." "You must have the wrong number." "No, no, it's all right. Now listen to me..." "Sir..." "Yes?" "This is CRB. It's the poll 'Should Mami Jane die?'" "Thanks, I know that." "Then would you please give me your name?" "It doesn't matter what my name is..." "You have to give it to me, it's the procedure." "OK, OK, Gould...my name is Gould." "Mr. Gould." "Yes, Mr. Gould, now if I can..." "Should Mami Jane die?" "What?" "You're supposed to tell me what you think...should Mami Jane die or not?" "Oh, Jesus..." "Do you actually know? Who Mami Jane is?" "Of course I know, but..." "You see, all you have to do is tell me if you think that..." "Please, listen to me for a moment?" "Of course." "Then do me a favor and take a look around." "Me?" "Yes." "Here?" "Yes, there, in the room, please do me this one favor." "OK, I'm looking." "Good. Do you by any chance see a guy with a shaved head who's holding the hand of a big guy, and I mean bBaricco, Alessandro is the author of 'City' with ISBN 9780375411427 and ISBN 0375411429.