William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

— You can't be serious Madame, or possibly I misunderstand? You must be referring to another of Mister Crease's holdings and not this magnificent property before our eyes? I have a client in my practice, three of them in fact, who are looking around the area and wouldn't blink at five million, a high prestige neighborhood like this there's another million right there. You saw the sign at the gate out there strangers requested not to enter? All these exclusive old enclaves are gone, this is not the kind of subdivision you're used to dealing with Madame, the place has been in the Crease family for generations and it's plainly not a distress sale, Mister Crease obviously doesn't need the money but I don't think he can consider any…

— Mister Crease excuse me, let me say that my…

— He really can't consider anything less than five mil…

— My client, Mister Crease, is prep…

— Five million six.

— Mister Crease, my client is prepared to write a check on the spot. There won't be a day wasted on banks, mortgages and all those silly time consuming details, his attorneys will take care of the title insurance and the usual formalities and I think we can have a closing almost overnight, I think I mentioned that he's a very busy man he has a dinner meeting with some top industry executives out on the coast tonight and…

— Let's not waste any more of Mister Crease's valuable time standing out here in the cold, Madame. He won't consider a laughable sum like your two million seven for a minute. You couldn't build a place like this today for less than ten, just look at the gentle curve of these slate roofs it's all handwork, every single slate, you don't find workmanship like that anymore it's practically a landmark, two million seven? It's worse than laughable Madame, it's an insult, go down and tell your client Mister Crease takes it as a gross insult. If he wants to make a serious offer we can give you another minute to get his best price, I'm a busy man myself so will you please hurry? and he drew closer watching her unwieldy efforts to do just that down the cascading steps, his foot wedged more firmly in the door with — I'll tell you Mister Crease, a real stroke of luck I was here for this, these real estate people almost make you ashamed of the human race, a regular cesspool of human greed it's all the biggest swindle ever invented right down there with your insurance racket nothing but dog eat dog, I've got to leave any minute now a big commission right down the line but don't listen to anything less than five million firm, if he wants it he'll take it, just get a look at her she's just told him she thinks she can talk you down to four million a real steal at the price they're cannibals all of them, don't see how she can face herself in the mirror, what do you say.

— Please go away.

— Oh Mister Crease, Mister Crease? she renewed her assault up the steps without pausing for breath — I have wonderful news for you. I've been able to talk him up to your original asking price of three million two, half right now on the spot and the rest at closing he's waiting right there with his checkbook in his hand and…

— Where'd you get this three million two asking price.

— We discussed it on an earlier occasion as the fair market value Mister Prestig, I'm afraid you're not very well acquainted with the real estate market in this area and the slump we've been in is…

— You're talking about condos and housing developments Madame, there's no slump in properties like this one look at the view, you won't get that anymore with these wetland setbacks, the privacy alone is worth a couple of million because money can't buy it, I'm a busy man I've got to get going but I'll be glad to handle your closing if they come up with a reasonable figure Mister Crease here, take my card, you'll see I've got a new number? sidling round to recover his foot and slip a hundred dollar bill into the breast pocket folds — glad we worked out this other arrangement just leave the rest of it to me, keep in touch.

— Well! Now we can talk, if you allow me to say so Mister Crease I hate to see a gentleman like yourself bullied that way. Lawyers just seem to try to complicate things and some of them can really scrape the bottom of the barrel when they…

— Will you go away?

— Yes it won't take us a minute without him interfering now will it. I wouldn't argue for a moment about the value of the site and the location in this prestige area since that's really all my client is interested in, with all your Mister Prestig's talk about slate roofs and landmarks but the place is old and in bad repair isn't it, this very porch where we're standing is ready to fall on our heads but that's unimportant because he plans to tear the whole thing down anyway and start fresh with this famous postmodern architect who's doing the place on the corner right down to the carpets and picture frames it will be quite a showplace, he has his checkbook in his hand Mister Crease and offers like this may never come again, certainly not from these imaginary clients who won't blink at five million but will try to jew you down the minute you…

— Get out of here.

— But, what? She stepped aside as he strode past her for the edge of the veranda where he stood undoing his trousers — I don't…

— Didn't you hear me? He paused there with his hand digging deep in his underclothes. — If you don't get out of here right now I'll throw you down these steps do you hear me? and if I see your painted pig face on this property again I'll, I'll have you for lunch.

— I, my God! she got hold of the railing as he turned away without a glance after her headlong clamber down the steps and the roar of her car swerving aside for one bearing down on the driveway ahead.

— Who in God's name was that.

— Some crazy woman. Did we forget milk? as they came to a halt and silenced, staring at him standing at the end of the veranda directing a steaming arc down on the withered grass below.

— Oscar! not even raising his eyes to them with the slamming doors of the car — stop it! My God he hasn't done this since he was eight years old, Oscar? as they reached the steps together — I said stop it! He used to try to write his name on the snow that way, come inside right now it's cold out here! Will you tell me what in God's name's going on? she came up after him, — who was that woman! but he ambled on back through the doors doing up his trousers to leave her standing there in the grip of the cold for the grocery bags handed to her up the steps, down the hall and through to the silent kitchen: butter, oyster mushrooms, broccoli, feta cheese, pesto, elbows braced on the table there and her face sunk in her hands, pickled ginger? Ponentine olive spread?

— What's all this stuff, sun dried tomatoes? unsalted pignolias?

— God only knows Lily, I mean I just took whatever I saw, I thought we could get him interested in meals again I must have been thinking of that day Mister Basic came out here with those carrots in the Spanish style, I hardly know what I'm doing. That performance just now out there on the veranda he must be into the wine again, where is he now.

— He's in there with his fishes.

— Well God help us. I mean at least they don't make any noise.

Neither the red scream of sunset blazing on the icebound pond nor the thunderous purple of its risings on a landscape blown immense through leafless trees off toward the ocean where in flocks the wild goose Wawa, where Kahgahgee king of ravens with his band of black marauders, or where the Kayoshk, the seagulls, rose with clamour from their nests among the marshes and the Mama, the woodpecker seated high among the branches of the melancholy pine tree past the margins of the pond neither rose Ugudwash, the sunfish, nor the yellow perch the Sahwa like a sunbeam in the water banished here, with wind and wave, day and night and time itself from the domain of the discus by the daylight halide lamp, silent pump and power filter, temperature and pH balance and the system of aeration, fed on silverside and flake food, vitamins and krill and beef heart in a patent spinach mixture to restore their pep and lustre spitting black worms from the feeder when a crew of new arrivals (live delivery guaranteed, air freight collect at thirty dollars) brought a Chinese algae eater, khuli loach and male beta, two black mollies and four neons and a pair of black skirt tetra cruising through the new laid fronds of the Madagascar lace plant.