William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

Toast, but no butter, tea but no milk in it both gone for the white sauce the night before, Oscar? but no response in her rush for the phone, for the hospital later than she'd thought when she came down only to be left stranded in a white corridor's passing parade of motley looking no worse off than what you'd dodge in the street till a familiar beige coat hurried toward her — just to get my ass out of here before they charge us for another day, they wake me up at five o'clock this morning I still didn't eat anything but some ow! as they swerved for a corner and again finally pitching up the cratered driveway — no I'm okay, they're just a little sore that's all, their heels clattering up the steps, down the bare hall echoing the emptiness pervading the house like a sudden chill, — Oscar? Where are you.

— Oscar? God only knows, there's some canned soup I brought in yesterday just sit down. Oscar? I mean he can't have gone out he's probably in the kitchen, French onion or tomato. Lily?

— He's in there, Christina.

— He's in where, ask him if he wants…

— In the library. He's just sitting in there. He looked right straight at me like he never saw me before he didn't even move, it's spooky.

— Don't be ridiculous, I mean he can't have been drinking this early can he? Oscar? as they reached the doorway together, — what is it. You look like you've been sitting there like that all night, what's the matter.

Will you answer me? beside him now shaking his shoulder, reaching down to catch the papers spilling from his lap when her wrist was seized so hard she almost came down on him — my God! breaking away as he leaned down slowly to pick them up letter by letter — what is going on! He was standing up heavily now, the papers crushed up in one hand reaching the other to turn off the reading lamp.

— It's a farce, Christina. It's just a farce.

— Well of course it is! What is! following him out — what is a farce.

He'd got all the way up the hall and as far as the windows, standing there looking out over the pond before he said quietly — I've been lied to all my life.

— But what… she broke off, sitting down slowly, both of them sitting down silently watching him framed there against the sky shattered with an exaggerated gesture turning upon them as though the footlights had just come up.

— When we came back from France like beggars looking for a new exile and you sent me up there to see him? his voice quavering with indignation — coming in here in your fine French clothes demanding your rights he said to me when I asked him for the money he owed my father when I'd spent the morning trimming frayed cuffs pinning up the hem on my father's threadbare coat to look fit to call, five hundred dollars! in a gasp of outrage subsiding to a murmur muttering — to lay up treasures in heaven Thomas while you seek here below, on a sharp intake of breath — Only justice! As a farce yes, play it as farce because that's what it is isn't it!

— Oscar what's happened, I don't under…

— I just told you didn't I? that I've been lied to all my life? No, no I cast myself a hundred years too early didn't I, with those tragic heroics of John Dryden's, sound the trumpet! beat the drum! when it was farce all the time, Sir John would have grasped that if only he'd read it, if only I'd got it to Sir John Nipples he would have played it as farce when his School for Scandal fell through, with Sir Lucius O'Trigger, yes. Sir Lucius O'Trigger playing Thomas based on a true story no, here's the true story! thrusting the letters at them crushed in his hand where one of them fell as it trembled there, and another — these letters, these damned letters those old ladies were sitting on in that historical society down there till Father got hold of them here's the true story, the whole sad, miserable pitiful true story. Laying up treasures in heaven where moth and rust corrupt and thieves break through and steal she was lying all the time! It's all here in these letters whining, begging, broken promises and more promises no wonder they hid them away because she'd married the wrong brother, she'd married the drunk. Grandfather's father the charming, weak, careless dandy it calls him in one of them, one of the letters here gambling away everything and dying of drink as a diplomatic flunkey in the embassy job his brother'd got for him as a last resort God, the words I put in their mouths! When my father died in an embassy post where they gave him nothing, no promotions and let him rot there till it was over and we came back to beg from his brother what was really ours? How's that for farce! That loathsome hypocritical old woman lying through her teeth, poisoning Grandfather against his uncle who'd worked and fought his way up as a mine owner your uncle never gave things away she says, not a smile not a penny and his own brother lying dead and buried in a foreign land? The one line I got right there, where Thomas says to her it's as though you cherish injustice, the one line I got right for all the wrong reasons because it's all here in one of these letters, Grandfather storming in demanding his rights from an uncle who didn't owe him a thing but maybe he admired his brashness, maybe he saw his own driving obstinate will in this angry young man and decided to give him a chance, that broken down farm and three hundred dollars just barely a chance to see what he could make of it knowing he'd been lied to by that loathsome old woman protecting her useless husband and herself for ever marrying him that's the true story! And Father knew it. Father knew it all the time didn't he, that his father'd been lied to and that's where it all came from, the battlefield hero and the distinguished career on the High Court bench up there beside Justice Holmes because he'd been lied to like I have, like I have.

— Oscar…

— Like I've been lied to all my life.

— Oscar can't you see? can't you see that Father was only protecting his own father? because he knew how you idolized your grandfather and how much your grandfather loved you that's what he tried to protect isn't it? for your own good my God, I mean the way Father came through for you didn't he? with that appeal writing the whole thing up and sending somebody up here to win your appeal for you, coming through for you standing behind you having faith in you like you realized that day saying you'd lost yours in him? Can't you see all that?

— No, he whispered, and he leaned down to pick up the letters that had fallen abruptly wrenching them all between his hands straightening up to cross the room slowly and throw them all together into the empty hearth. — No I never told you, that day we took him to the airport, when we took the law clerk to the airport sitting in the car and he found Grandfather's watch in a pocket he'd forgotten to give me and I said something like that to him, that Father's coming through with his love for me showing it that way without asking anything in return and he chuckled. He just chuckled as though it was all, as though it was all just a farce no, no he said, the Judge never gave a damn for things like that, all that sentimentality or the movie you wrote he knew they were just using it to keep him off the circuit court he never blamed you, he may have thought you were a fool but he never thought you were venal and he didn't draw up that appeal for love of anybody, not you or anybody no. It was love of the law. When he got his hands on that decision he was mad as hell. He acted like the closest person in his life had been raped, like he'd come on the body of the law lying there torn up and violated by a crowd of barbarians, what was the matter with you? What in hell was wrong with your lawyers not following it up, letting a wide open trap that was laid for you slip by them for this new judge to fall into, he had me on the phone and then he grabbed it himself trying to run down this lawyer that handled your case there, he's no longer with the firm they told him same thing they told me, we have no record of his whereabouts and hung up. Want it done right you do it yourself that was him all right, your father, had me up for two nights digging out every citation that applied and a hundred more to be sure patching up that appeals brief with them like bandages wherever there was a scratch on this body he held dearer than his own life or yours or anyone else's, this love he had for the law and the language however he'd diddle them both sometimes because when you come down to it the law's only the language after all and, and I can still smell the whisky on him and the smoke and hear his rasping voice shut up in the car there together, and what better loves could a man have than those to get him through the night.