Cannibalistic things

Leo The Victim, la segunda novela de Bellow, mientras espero a que sea mi turno para cortarme el pelo. La peluquería está a unos diez minutos caminando de casa, en una esquina que da a la calle y que tiene unos ventanales que permiten ver a la gente que pasa. A esta hora, acercándose al mediodía, gente corriendo, paseando perros, con decisiones resolutas. En la peluquería hay un refrigerador con coca-colas, revistas y un televisor en el que pasan un partido de futbol interrumpido por anuncios y por alguna razón permanece en mi memoria la frase con la que inicia el de un aparato de comunicación, diseñado para parecer un avance de cine, y que reza "Un hombre en una carrera contra el tiempo". Leo cómo Leventhal, en The Victim, reflexiona sobre la disposición reservada que ha adoptado, mientras espera a su sobrino Philip, a quien ha decidido darle un paseo para distraerlo de la enfermedad de su hermano y la histeria de su madre:

When you didn't want to take trouble with people, you found the means to turn them aside. Well, the world was a busy place -he scanned the buildings, the banks and offices in their Saturday stillness, the pillars ribbed with soot, and the changeable color of the windows in which the more absolute color of the sky was darkened, dilated, and darkened again. You couldn't find a place in your feelings for everything, or give at every touch like a swinging door, the same for everyone, with people going in and out as they pleased. On the other hand, if you shut yourself up, not wanting to be bothered, then you were like a bear in a winter hole, or like a mirror wrapped in a piece of flannel. And like such a mirror you were in less danger of being broken, but you didn't flash, either. But you had to flash. That was the peculiar thing. Everybody wanted to be what he was to the limit. When you looked around, that was what you saw most distinctly. In great achievements as well as in crimes and vices. [...] You couldn't expect people to be right, but only try to do what they must. Therefore hideous things were done, cannibalistic things. Good things as well, of course. But even there, nothing really good was safe.
There was something in people against sleep and dullness, together with the caution that led to sleep and dullness. Both were there, Leventhal thought. We were all the time taking care of ourselves, laying up, storing up, watching out on this side and on that side, and at the same time running, running desperately, running as if in an egg race, with the egg in a spoon. And sometimes we were fed up with the egg, sick of it, and at such a time would rather sign on with the devil and what they called the powers of darkness than run with the spoon, watching the egg, fearing for the egg.

Cuando llegó mi turno aún estaba pensando en por qué Bellow habría elegido el término "cannibalistic". Y entonces me llamó mi hermana al celular para preguntarme si me gustaría ir al cine con ella por la noche. Le pregunté qué quería ver, me dijo, le dije que claro, me dijo a qué hora y dónde y yo le dije que la vería ahí y cuando colgamos me pregunté, en mi cabeza: ¿Juay de Rito?