Joseph McElroy - Lookout Cartridge

Incremona’s up tight. I only know what Jan said — that Krish was watching DiGorro’s friend. Did you tell him to do that? DiGorro’s friend was in New York.

My people had someone on him but it fell through.

Jan told Paul she was afraid of Cartwright because he expected something of her.

Sure, but Krish thought Cartwright was in London, and I said do what you have to. Then Cartwright was in London two days ago. And Krish gave me a rough schedule and with him a time-line’s a guarantee. OK, so he was detained tonight. He’s a perfectionist. Whatever he does, he does right.

I’ve never set eyes on Cartwright.

But you must know Cartwright: they were going to film your place? Something about a vicar down the road Len said preaches sermons on Marilyn Monroe?

It fell through, said Gene (it had to be Gene of the Marvelous Country House, the other brother of the absent host Paul — just as it had to be Krish they were waiting for who’d said he wanted my presence but not my company on the Stornoway plane back to Glasgow and who if he had risen from the neolithic muck to press onward rather than downward might at this very moment be watching me from behind, and not like some wet-wool-matted black-faced sheep).

I had to speak but couldn’t. I looked behind me wondering if I was between again. I hoped that if the soft spots I’d crept over had been bodies I’d done them as much good as the Druid that politician.

As if they felt my field had impinged, the brothers had dropped their voices; but I could hear them, they were protesting that of course they accepted each other, Gene had nothing against the chemical business and he had always hoped Jack was an enlightened employer; Jack for his part had nothing against expatriate life or marrying money (he felt they went together) and by the way it wasn’t just chemicals, it was natural gas in Michigan (had he told Gene?) and liquid fertilizers and pollution research, and government contracts — and Gene said he had nothing against fertilizers per se and I heard a clink and saw the dark dumb undersea green of a bottle, and Jack said just as well Gene had stayed out of the business, and when Gene said, All the better for you, Jack said he hoped Gene knew he had nothing against the film business, and by the way what was with the portfolio, kind of an odd thing to bring up here.

So Gene was in films. But whose?

Jack said Incremona didn’t seem the best type of employee, he’d heard he went around armed, he was certainly a transient. Gene said, Ask him, and Jack said, Maybe I will.

Gene said on the whole Len had confined himself to making arrangements like passports and taxi working papers — and Jack said quickly, I’d like to put Paul in a capsule and shoot him up to the moon. Gene said you’ve probably got just the capsule, and Jack said, I probably have, and Gene said, Take out some insurance on him and send him up in your little red Comanche, and Jack said, Help pay my alimony — must be nice to have a rich wife, Geney.

Mind you, said Gene, Len’s been filmed at the gallery with me and Jan and Reid and Sherman, the boy from St. Louis. Sherman’s the only one he trusts.

Well, said Jack, Incremona didn’t ever take rainy-day pistol practice with your kids around, did he? Gene asked what that meant, and Jack seemed not to answer but said he doubted Jan’s original idea was commercial enough, and Gene said they’d been through all that today and where was the Indian, and Jack said, No sweat, he’ll be here — said it so soft I heard only because he’d said it before. Gene said, Noncommercial films are making money. Jack said, Aut must have been doing it for his crazy wife but anyway how had Gene and Nell and Jan gotten involved with characters like Incremona and Nash and this Negro genius Chad, and Gene seemed not to reply; then a glass banged the table and Gene said they’d been all over that this afternoon and Jack was hopelessly out of the picture, for instance had he ever in his life heard of Harry Pincus and what Harry Pincus had done to force into English politics the issue of Vietnam and the American exiles, and what did Jack mean about Chad? And Jack said, I know, I know — and Gene kept at him, had he ever heard of Harry Pincus? And Jack said he’d decided to act when he’d heard that Phil’s man from New York had got some great night shots of Paul running out of a grove in Wales, yet at that point Jack had had it. Gene said Jack had acted already, and Jack said would Gene please drop that, if he’d really had the film destroyed would he be trying to get hold of the Bonfire now? And Gene asked who had told Jack that Aut’s man had shot a bonfire, and Jack said almost inaudibly, Claire.

Upon which, Gene made some heavy noise on the table and, his voice moving around in its registers, he said, The Bonfire was shot by DiGorro.

It’s in there? I thought Jack said.

Well no film could have caught both all this and my thoughts under the wind and the new rain wondering if last night’s jeans had dried in my pack.

Clearly, Incremona was Len, the bald fractious presence of Corsica and the Marvelous Country House. Clearly Phil Aut had been shooting parallel footage to which ours might have been added as cut-in or complementary expansion; but Claire must have given Jack the idea that the Bonfire had been shot by Outer Film, not Dagger and me. It was moderately clear also that Gene was not acknowledging our Marvelous Country House footage, for though he’d been away that day, he must surely know we’d been there filming his kids and his dining-room pewter and his patio telly and his wife whose name I guessed was Nell. And it was possible, if not clear, that Jack knew about the Marvelous Country House: and if so, then he knew Gene was pulling a fast one.

It seemed to me they knew different things, and this might be why or how they were going round in circles.

But as I moved back from the hut keeping low and tried to get a sight through the west window to see more of the table than Gene’s arm (but for a second purpose too), most interesting was Jack’s answer now to Gene’s saying why had Jack gotten Krish to come way up here: Jack said that there was a man who had a place and a boat on the other side of the island who had information Jack could get only directly and Jack had thought this man could give Krish a lift down here while Krish was pumping him.

Gene said, Do I know him? and I silently asked if he had a red mini.

Jack passed my window several times. He was talking Geney boy talk, big brother saying Gene had come up here for the same reason he had except Gene might feel even more responsible for little brother Paul because these people Paul was involved with had been some of them Gene’s friends; my God there’s Incremona armed, and Sherman armed, and now I hear Cartwright’s armed.

I came up here, said Jack, to stop Paul, and I think you did too.

Gene said, Of course, Jack, of course, and Jack said he didn’t like Gene’s tone, and Gene said, How would you stop Paul?

He came into my frame, and suddenly with the words What is this? he picked off the table a black portfolio on which even at my distance of twenty-five yards I spotted blue at the corners which would be flowers Jenny had stuck on when I’d brought it to her from the States.

Gene went after Jack. There was a crash out of sight, probably Gene falling, he looked the type.

My second purpose came due, and projecting my voice away from the hut I called dimly Hello! and again, Hello! and moved back toward the ridge out of the light. By the time I was around to the east side of the hut and the door had opened, and I had tramped in, a god from the bog, showing mad merry eyes above my sparkling beard and muddy jeans and saying Good-O a couple of times to limber up my English accent (which Geoff Millan has told me is a good imitation of a Portobello Road antique dealer) the portfolio with my diary indubitably inside had found its way back to neutral object-hood on Paul’s rough-hewn table in the center of the room, and whatever I knew that they did not, they were right in not imagining I was primarily after the portfolio, for since Glasgow I had cared less about the film and some meager muddle of my past that it held, for what I wanted was information that would take me into the future.