Coincidence?

There is so much going on in the passage where Ferrie comes and talks to Lee about how the time for action in shooting Kennedy has come (382-385). "It was all about him. Everything that happened was him." From an early age, we are taught not to view ourself as the center of the universe, and that it isn't all about us. However, in these last several chapters, it really does seem like it is all about Lee.

Lee points out several coincidental events that point at what he is about to do. He sees the men with the rifles in the hotel lobby, he turns on the tv late at night and watches a movie that he sees as mirroring what he his about to do. I'm sure there are several other coincidental occurrences that are escaping me at the moment, but perhaps the biggest coincidence, the one that sticks out the most, is that Kennedy happens to be coming to Dallas texas and will be driving down the street by the building where Lee works. This is the final straw because the plotters have essentially been waiting for this to happen, but it also is not in their control to plan the route that Kennedy would take. There is an expression "let the chips fall where they may." In this final coincidence, it is as if the chips are falling and landing perfectly.

Ferrie's beliefs might say that this is not coincidence but rather what is predestined to happen. That Lee was meant to shoot Kennedy. Regardless of how the reader views the idea of predestination, DeLillo almost sets it up so that Lee "coincidentally" fits the mold that both the plotters and he himself have created perfectly. Also, in working with all of these greater coincidences in history (for example all of the convenient deaths after Kennedy was shot), DeLillo pushes the reader to believe that there had to have been more to the story than simply a lone gunman.