William Gaddis: A Folic Of His Own

— It's the money, Christina. The rest of it's…

— It's not The Marriage of Figaro I'll tell you that. She's got a new lawyer for her mess of a divorce who wants to handle Oscar's accident, shock, injury, loss of income, disfigurement, a million, five, God knows what nonsense, you said he's called you?

— Called me? sweeping up the avenue through the burst of a cab's horn so close she started, freed into traffic lifting both hands from the wheel for a gesture — called me! I told you, look Christina. I told you to speak to him, he gets me at the office and I can't get him off the phone. I don't want to hurt his feelings but you know the pressure we're under down there. A client calls and knows it's costing him seventy five dollars just to pick up the phone but Oscar, it never occurs to him that…

— Well it doesn't Harry, that's just the point, it just doesn't occur to him. Flat on his back, I mean what's more natural than to reach for the telephone and he's been simply frantic since this movie opened, he's just getting used to the idea that he has a brother in law he thinks he can turn to and when he can't reach you, when they tell him you're in court…

— Because I've finally told Doris that whenever he calls I'm in court, that I'm in conference, that I'm out of the office, I'm not trying to make a Federal case out of this Christina but you've got to do something. I thought he resented me intruding on the family by marrying you, try to show him some family concern, fine. That's what I'm doing today, now, Sunday, but even that woman we met at the hospital? the one with the blood bath, you actually gave her my number too?

— Trish?

— Well who else. Maybe you should just tell your friends I'm a public relations man, that I'm in ladies' underwear, an ad account executive, something completely useless that…

— Trish would love you in ladies' underwear Harry.

— Look I'm serious! She got on the phone with her whole life history, the time they took her to Payne Whitney when she cut her wrists? Patched her up, gave her some pills, when they sent her a bill for eleven thousand dollars she tried it again, now she wants to sue this hospital for something she calls foetal endangerment?

— Because that's what she was doing there. I mean she came in for that amniosomething, centesis, that test they give pregnant women our age to make sure the baby won't be born with one leg or eight thumbs and she'd have it aborted, she's already got a sweet little boy about ten named T J and when that blood got spilled on her obviously that's the first thing she thought of. She just wants to be sure before she marries Bunker.

— I see.

— I don't think you do, Harry. I mean if she married him first and then got these tests and had to have the abortion, she'd be stuck with Bunker on her hands for no earthly purpose until God knows when, he'd be awfully expensive to unload and of course he doesn't know a thing about the boy.

— If she's thinking of making him a stepfather, I don't…

— Of making who, Bunker? You see you don't listen, I mean this boy she's been seeing, where do you think the pregnancy came from. Of course she hasn't mentioned it to him, he's trying to be a writer and obviously hasn't got a penny you can't seriously picture her married to him, she's twice his age and I mean Bunker's twice hers but he's so pickled he'll last out the century and if Bunker got in there and anything happened to her T J would never see a penny.

— The rate she's going looks like old Bunker's onto a sure thing.

— Well you can't laugh at them Harry, making fun of people's troubles I mean that's the way it sounds sometimes, if you could just stop and try to see their good side?

— Married the wrong man, Christina. We don't get to see much of the good side, greed, stupidity, double dealing, a system like ours you expect it to bring out the best in people? One lawyer to every four or five hundred and most of them can't afford one anyway, the ones who can like your friend here are even worse, make a mess of things and expect to be rescued, they…

— You didn't need to be rude to her.

— I was not rude to her! When I finally got a word in…

— That all you could talk about was money.

— Exactly. Look. I told her I don't do matrimonials. I told her I don't do negligence. I told her I could set up a conference for her and there'd be a charge, if the firm took her case there'd be a retainer, it happens every time. The minute you mention money they think you're being rude when that's all they've got on their minds in the first place, look at Oscar. Perfectly happy if the insurance company would just pay his hospital bills till Lily drags in this ambulance chaser whetting his appetite for damages? Why I went into corporate law in the first place where it's greed plain and simple. It's money from start to finish, it's I want what you've got, nobody out there with these grievances they expect you to share, have you got a dollar? Another dollar, for the toll.

— I don't, wait… she dug deeper, — here. It's just what I…

— Look at Oscar with this damn movie, you've got to explain to him Christina, these phone calls and the rest of the…

— I don't see why you can't explain it to him yourself, I mean it's just what I said earlier isn't it? about being taken seriously? Simply explain to him that you look out! My God Harry, you shouldn't drive when you're upset, that little green car anybody who drives a car like that don't you know he's going to try to prove something?

— Cuts me off because he wants me to take him seriously, exactly. Look, I can't explain things to Oscar because I can't get a word in. Because you want this great show of brotherly concern I'm supposed to get as upset as he is over this monstrous injustice, the minute I mention money we'll end up just like your friend with her foetal endangerment. He probably doesn't have a case. If he does the chances are it can't be won. They get these nuisance suits all the time, people with grandiose ideas about suing Hollywood for millions even if he's got one, even if Oscar's really got a case with this play of his he's got to know it will cost him money. He's got to know you can always lose a lawsuit and your money with it, that's the point, has he got it? the money? Because you don't start something like this on what they pay a college history teacher.

— Well I know that, no. He just does that, the teaching I mean, it just goes in to the bank every month I don't think he makes any connection between it and these students he detests no, there's a trust his mother set up for him before she died because Father married money that first time, just the way his father had, so what does Oscar show up with? Somebody whose idea of share the wealth is getting her purse stolen, but I mean all that was before Father married again, married my mother I mean so I've never known what it amounts to and Oscar's always been awfully careful about what's his and what's mine. Why is that funny.

— Careful.

— Well why is that…

— First time I met him, first time I came out to the country to see you? That downstairs hall bathroom, I hadn't closed the door tight and I hear Oscar's footsteps come creaking down the hall, suddenly as he passes his hand slips in and switches the light off and leaves me there sitting in the dark.

— I don't think that's odd at all, he's just not used to having strangers in the house, I mean with half the place shut off to save heat there's nothing odd about being upset by sheer waste is there? It's the way we were brought up, you get letters from him with the address pasted over some political fund raiser or cripple benefit or God knows what because he can't bear to see the postage wasted, you don't waste you don't want and putting up with my mother my God, you couldn't blame him. I mean if you're brought up like that you're going to go one way or the other when the times conies, throw your money out the window or separate the clean bills from the dirty ones, right side up, the twenties and tens inside and then the fives, the ones think about it, I mean you couldn't blame him. That egg he wouldn't eat at breakfast when he was what, seven? and she puts it in front of him again at lunch? Roast chicken for dinner and he's still sitting there gritting his teeth against that egg it went on for two days, he just wouldn't give in till that second night he finally went to pieces, threw the whole thing on the floor and shouted which came first! the chicken or the egg! and he was sent to bed, he went up the stairs singing it and he stayed there, he even managed to run a fever. God knows what went on between Father and my mother, he never said a word but I'd see him looking at Oscar sometimes, watching him with that cunning little smile he gets when you don't know whether he's pleased or that you'd better watch out.