William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

— If you last as long as a new set of teeth with anything left after those bills you're so eager to pay, that crate of fish your friend Sam probably expects a check in the next mail.

— Fine. Let him have it, it's not my…

— My God Oscar, somebody you were ready to sue for malpractice ten minutes ago now you're ready to pay him God knows how much because he sends you a crate of dead fish? You've forgotten that battle royal right where you're standing? Harry trying to get him off the hook ends up in a car accident and the whole thing almost cost me my marriage, it was either fraud or negligence wasn't it? if it was true then it's just as true now isn't it? and you don't remember a word of it?

— I remember Harry said if I'd won it wouldn't have made any difference, now I've won haven't ï? Besides, I don't… — Care no, you don't care, pay him whatever he… — I don't have to! That's what I'm trying to tell you Christina, they have to, it's out of my hands. Kiester and Erebus and the rest of them, they have to pay him it's right here in the decision, didn't you see it? riffling over coffee stains, tea streaks, wine washed declensions — right here at the end. The plaintiff will be awarded an attorney's fee in this court and in the court below both to be fixed by the district court upon there, billings disbursements depositions prepositions all of it, the more the better, limousines, airplanes, Mister Basic flying around the country buying drinks for the house in the Beverly Wilshire all of it, give them a nice tax writeoff isn't that what you said?

— It's revolting. It's all perfectly revolting. — Well what's, why is it revolting what's…

— While he sits in prison somewhere making brooms for a dollar a day and you think that's all right?

— I didn't say it was right. It's the chance he took isn't it? Lying for his bar exam he knew he might get caught sooner or later didn't he? It's not my…

— He chanced it for you! He could have told you to take their settlement couldn't he? like I wanted you to, so did Harry and you would have too but he had more guts than any of us, sitting right there while we acted like mice, you mean you plan to lose I asked him? Win or lose, and that sweet smile of his, win or lose we'll take them on the appeal.

— And we did, it's only just isn't it? Where it says right here in the decree the district judge and counsel for plaintiff both overlooked the irrelevance of their defense? Sitting right there with the clock running every minute running up his billings and…

— And you think he ever saw one penny of it? Off God only knows where while Sam spends it salmon fishing in Norway I mean who ran up his billings, sitting here hour after hour reading your play to him and getting that gang from your classroom in to mumble the parts? My God what he put up with, because he cared about it Oscar, listening to you, reasoning with you he had more faith in it than all the rest of… — No listen Christina, turning the whole thing upside down you…

— Like your new pal Jerry? Turning the whole thing upside down explaining to you what your own play is really all about? Blacks and Jews and God knows what else, breaking your bones while the man who really fought for you is…

— Well I can't help it! It's just the way the whole system works, there's nothing I can do about it is there? Besides we don't know he's in prison making brooms that's just something Harry said, he takes off right in the middle of things and you act like his keeper, off on the run he could be anywhere. He could be anywhere.

— On the run hunted down while Sam goes fishing and you sail up the Nile after all he did for you, think about it.

— Why! Nothing I can do, why should I think about it.

— Because he was your friend!

— But, no listen Christina don't get so upset, I…

— He was your friend Oscar! She'd found a wad of tissue somewhere, clearing her throat — I mean my God, how many have you got.

— Well I, I can't help what people will do, I…

— People will do anything. She blew her nose sharply, turned away gazing out over the pond, caught herself with a sniff — people will string up long underwear and smell up your house with oh, Lily. Will you tell me whose inspiration this corned beef and cabbage was?

— It was, it's something her sister, Ilse's sister it's something she likes to cook and she wanted to feel useful so…

— If you want to feel useful yourself I think I'd like a drink.

— There's those cases of wine Oscar ordered, do you…

— I said a drink Lily, there's some scotch isn't there? And pour one for yourself, if you still think you're seeing mice in the kitchen you probably need it.

And there was, as she said later, — enough to feed an army, or at least get that crew through the night, I mean of course they'll eat in the kitchen and if you brought her out here to peel potatoes and help with the laundry she's simply got to learn to use the dryer, the place looked like a Bedouin encampment drying their tents out there blown on the rising winds flinging gulls willy nilly against a grey sky heavy with the threat of snow where a ragged skein of wild ducks unraveled high above the blunt bursts of a shotgun somewhere down the pond all of it giving way to dark, and the stillness that finally shrouded the house itself till the day woke flaming the east like a cauldron, woke the thud and clamber of footsteps on bare floors and the stairs, his own muted in slippers pacing the room end to end with those stained pages clutched rolled like a stave freighted with anticipation simmering in his wake liable to any intrusion of triumph or calamity or sheer inconsequence, intimate or abruptly outlandish as the sparkling apparition of a police car standing there in the drive before his eyes.

— Oscar? came her voice from somewhere, near to following him up the hall when she came in but she stopped looking out up the angle of the veranda arrested there by the sight of the uniform, voices borne in on a draft from the doors till they clattered closed, — well? What was that all about.

— A policeman.

— Well obviously. Selling tickets to the policemen's ball?

— No, no they found the car, they found my car Christina. It's been impounded by the insurance company that's who took it away.

— Thank God, I hope we never have to…

— No but that's not the point, the police have a report that it was in an accident where the victim was seriously injured and they're after me because I'm the owner and didn't report it so…

— Well if nobody reported it then who reported it?

— I did, I reported the stolen car but the accident wasn't…

— Oh Lily, thank God bring a pot of tea will you? I don't know how much more of this I can go back to the beginning Oscar. When you were in the hospital raving about your little man in the black suit taking messages for the other side and…

— Don't talk about it no, I might have died I don't want to think about it, what if I'd died before all this happened! brandishing the tattered stave at her — and I'd never have…

— Well obviously if you'd died it wouldn't have happened.

— That's what I mean! My work, it would never be heard of, it would just disappear as though it had never existed, as though I'd never lived.

— Would it matter? I mean you'd be sitting over there on the other side happy as a clam wouldn't you? all this earthly nonsense of cars and lawsuits and the stupidity you despise so much…

— That's not it he said, pacing away and then more slowly, back to her — but it is, isn't it. Because my work, it would exist wouldn't it, its only claim to existence would be in this fraudulent counterfeit this, this vulgar distorted forgery and the thing itself, the original immortal thing itself would never be…