William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

— No it's not what I mean. Turn on the light, it's right behind you. I mean this complaint you brought over from Kevin about my accident, let me read it over.

— Here. And that he said he probably couldn't help me out either? She squeezed the chair closer to the discomfort he'd strung out on the bed there, — Bobbie I mean.

— Yes, just let me read the, to file this claim declining inclusion under No Fault protection in asserting his full common law rights to seek tort recovery for damages for personal injuries including pain and suffering, and the…

— Because he just bought this Porsche, I even went over to the phone company but they said they're not hiring anybody even on the long lines, you could always get work on the long lines before all this technology screwed it up for everybody. I can't even pay my rent, did I tell you what the bank did?

— plaintiffs loss of earning capacity attributable to the scar.

— Where these checks I wrote bounced so they won't let me write any more because this other person may be cashing them who's going around being me?

— Listen just let me find what he's asking for damages here, where's the, consisting of a facial scar extending…

— Where I can't even pay to go see this doctor for this pain I told you about once right up here?

— facial scar extending below the right eye approx…

— No up here, give me your hand. Feel it? this lump?

— Yes. Now just let me, a facial scar extending below the…

— Not there no! You know what that is, wait… and another button of her blouse came undone, — there. Can you feel it?

— No. Yes. Listen, this facial scar under the right eye about two inches in length, where did he get that.

— Who, this scar? Her own hand came up tracing the line of it, — I think it's cute.

— God. Listen. I mean where did he, where did Kevin get this description.

— I don't know, just some movie he saw how do I know. Wait… a buttonhole burst, the blouse came away, — there. Now you can…

— That's what I'm asking you, how do you know. What movie.

— Just some movie he said he saw, how do I…

— I called you last night, I called you two or three times is that where you were? at the movies?

— I thought you'd be mad Oscar, I just thought…

— Well I am, no. No I just want to know, was it this big Civil War movie that just opened everyplace?

— It was real long, yes.

— No but was it the Civil War was it, what was the name of it.

— It was just a movie Oscar I don't know, who cares what the…

— Well I do, that's what I'm telling you I do! Was it The Blood in the Red White and Blue?

— There was blood in it. That's all I remember, there was blood…

— No now listen, listen…

— See I knew you'd be mad, he just said do you want to go to the movies so we went to this Chinese restaurant after with this crispy duck like these rubber bands and he's talking about your accident and this scar where this man in this movie has this scar that wasn't my fault was it?

— I didn't say your fault. I'm talking about the movie.

— I just told you. He said do you want to go to the movies and…

— And then you went to a Chinese restaurant, fine. Now the movie.

— Like you said, there was all this blood. Right here, can you feel something?

— In the battle scenes, but what about…

— I just closed my eyes. Where you see this soldier get almost cut right in half and, and his, where this soldier waving a sword rides right over him I just closed my eyes.

— Listen, just start at the beginning.

— This first time they meet? where he's out hunting and she rides up on this horse? So she's acting very superior and says what is he doing on their land, only then she gets off the horse because it's real hot and then you know what? Her hand had come burrowing under the quilt he'd pulled up — where he's wearing these kind of overalls?

— I can guess. Listen…

— Where her hand down there is unbuttoning these buttons? The mound under the quilt stirred — and you can practically see what her hand is doing in there. Like, remember in the hospital? where you didn't want to do anything because the nurse might come in? The mound gently receded, gently rose, — Oscar? Who's that picture.

— The, who?

— Up there by those books, in this black bathrobe.

— It's not a bathrobe he's a judge, it's my grandfather when he, what are you doing…

— I just don't like the way he's watching what we're doing here… and she had, in fact, drawn up her blouse clambering off the end of the bed to reach up and turn the picture's face to the wall — because it's none of his business is it? her blouse falling open again — look. Do they look lopsided?

— Do, what?

— I said don't they look lopsided? like this one's higher than…

— Listen! I've got to clear things up about this movie. We're going to read the play right from the start and you tell me if you saw the same thing in the movie, here. You read the part of the Mother.

— Me?

— Just read it! I'm Thomas, I'm standing silhouetted against the window, left, my back on the room and a letter clutched in my hands behind me and I say, Dead! Now go ahead.

— But I thought we…

— Just read it! Where it says His Mother. Is that the place?

THOMAS

(IN A HOARSE WHISPER)

Dead!

HIS MOTHER

Is that the place? On your cheek? Where you were wounded?

THOMAS

(INSTINCTIVELY RAISING HIS HAND TO HIS CHEEK)

It's healed.

HIS MOTHER

Like a kiss…

THOMAS

(TURNING SLOWLY TO FACE HER)

Is it so bad, then?

HIS MOTHER

No, not bad Thomas no, only… you look surprised. Is it true then, what we heard? That you were a hero?

THOMAS

Where?

HIS MOTHER

On the… battlefield?

THOMAS

I mean where did you hear it.

HIS MOTHER

Ambers heard, up at Quantness. What happened?

THOMAS

(DISMISSING IT IMPATIENTLY)

What happened? A shot, or a flying splinter. How's one to tell at a moment like that…? I didn't know myself when it happened.

Seating himself in the window, THOMAS raises a boot to the sill and smooths letter out against it, intently as though trying to read.

HIS MOTHER

(ANXIOUSLY)

Didn't know yourself, Thomas?

(SHE PAUSES, AS HE PAYS HER NO ATTENTION)

You don't look well, Thomas. I couldn't see when you came in, coming before it was light, but I knew your step. You look like you've scarcely eaten or slept the whole year you've been gone, since it started… You're thinner and tired, too, now I can see. You might have lost an eye.

THOMAS

Tired…?

HIS MOTHER

Or been blinded for life.

THOMAS

(EXCITEDLY PLANTING BOOTS, BRANDISHING LETTER)

I told you I hadn't slept! How could I, with this?

HIS MOTHER

Your uncle never gave things away before. Not a smile, not a penny, and his own brother lying dead and buried in a foreign land…

THOMAS

(WITH ELATION)

And he never died before either! Dying intestate, Lord! I admire that, I must confess it. I don't know why, but I admire that 'intestate.' For him, of all men, to die without leaving a will! And after the way he talked to me then, when we came back from France like beggars looking for a new exile, and you sent me up there to see him? 'Coming in here in your fine French clothes demanding your rights,' he said to me, when I asked him for the money that he owed to my father, when I'd spent the morning trimming frayed cuffs and pinning the hem on my father's coat to try to look fit to call. Five hundred dollars! What was that to him, 'the prominent coal magnate' this letter calls him, and here…