William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

— You mean he's acting on his principles, the Major is? Or he's digging them up afterwards to justify his whole…

— That's the whole idea isn't it? It's all up there in a book by George Fitzhugh from before the Civil War, Cannibals All! it's right up there somewhere, take it and read it, why the Major brings up this whole question of wage slaves in the North we get into all that later, when Thomas takes over these coal mines in the second act and…

— Doesn't sound much like the movie.

— I'm not talking about movies! I'm talking about ideas.

— I thought we're talking about this movie, why you had me to come all the way out here, talking about infringement aren't we? this movie you say they stole from you? You talk about ideas this, ideas that, you can't copyright them. Talk about these natural slaves, you just finished saying it's all right up there in Fitzhugh didn't you? I know it is. I've read it. They can read it, anybody out there can read it, lift whatever they want to. You tell me this play here is a play of ideas, I have to tell you I don't think you've got much of a case.

— Well that's not, wait a minute, you're not leaving? We haven't even got to the main…

— No, just stretch my legs, pace up and down helps me talk while I'm thinking, like the courtroom, makes the juices flow. I see you laid out there what I'm really seeing is this jury, all…

— If you want to pace up and down you'll have to do it in the hall, here you can't even wait, the phone there, can you hand me the phone? I can't quite, yes. Hello? Yes hello, what…

— Down the hall on the left?

— On the right. Hello? Yes well what is it now I'm busy, I'm… No I'm in conference, in a conference with a new… No but can you just tell me quickly what's the matter? I'm… What do you mean it's too terrible, if it's so terrible you can't even talk about it why did you call, can't you just tell me quickly what it's about? What…? Well not this minute no, no I told you I'm in conference with a new lawyer who… It's not about the accident no, it's my… Well it is really important! It's about my… All right then! Maybe it's not as important as what you're calling for but if you won't even tell me what it's about how can I… about Bobbie? What, go where…? All right do all that first then, pick out the dress and go to the shoe store and stop at the hairdresser and then come over if you… yes, goodbye. Mister Basic…?

— Right here.

— Your cigarette there, just worried it could roll off on the floor and set the whole place…

— Sorry. Here, let me hang that up for you. This is a beautiful place you've got here isn't it. Probably go for a million these days.

— Add another million for the pond out there.

— And that sign at the gate.

— Well the privacy yes, that's worth more than ever now isn't it with these miserable little tract houses going up everywhere, not to speak of the people who infest them, it's really the only thing left worth having that money can buy.

— You own all of it?

— Let's not get into that right now. Where were we.

— Point with this movie, you come down to the difference between protection for an idea and the expression of the idea, the artistic…

— You've seen that ad for the movie they're running haven't you? Based on a true story? They're admitting it right there aren't they? that they took this story of my grandfather I wrote my play about?

— Not just admitting it no, see what they're doing is…

— I can't copyright my own grandfather all right, I know it. I can't copyright the Civil War I can't copyright history I know all that, but they…

— What they're doing there Oscar, they're heading you off at the pass.

— What pass, what do you mean.

— Means it's right out there in the public record doesn't it? Based on a true story means it's right out there in the public domain where anybody can pick it up for a play, write a novel, make a movie?

— All right then listen! Did they know that? They'd already made their revolting movie hadn't they? All this didn't come out before they made it, it came out afterward and they put their ad together at the last minute when the picture opened, when they'd seen these awful, these scurrilous stories about my father in the Szyrk case in the mushmouthed press down there digging up anything they can, anything to try to make the whole family sound mad I've got some of it right here. PAST COMES TO LIFE IN SZYRK DECISION, ECCENTRIC JURIST SPARKED HOLMES COURT. They've dug around in their musty old newspaper morgues down there, they keep everything, that's what the South is all about, come up with these yellowed clippings here's one, from nineteen thirty, listen. The soldiers who served as substitutes for Justice Crease in the Union and Confederate armies were both killed in the same battle, and it is said that his feeling of responsibility for their deaths now threatens to become an obsession, firmly convinced after discovering that their regiments faced each other in the bloody day long battle that, among the thousands of troops engaged, the two substitutes died at each other's hands. As an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, it appears that his passionate opinions and outspoken clashes with Justice Holmes, who himself still bears wounds from Ball's Bluff, Antietam and Fredericksburg, arise from umbrage taken by Holmes over what he regards as his colleague's expedient use of substitutes in order to avoid the, that's ridiculous right there, it's plain libel. Holmes knew he'd fought at Ball's Bluff, he knew the whole story, William James said that Holmes would vote for anybody who'd fought in that awful war, no. What it was between them, for Holmes everything was the law and when somebody held forth about justice like my grandfather did Holmes argued that he was refusing to think in terms of the evidence, to think in legal terms that's what it was all about between them right to the end, these clashes and passionate opinions he was as obsessed with justice as Holmes was with the law you can see it in his face up there, that picture up, wait, before you sit down will you turn it around? Up there facing the wall where she, where that woman must have been dusting in here yes, because that's what it's all about, this character in my play who's based on him there's a whole passage here where he's just gone down to see his mother for the last time before he goes north and he'd had an accident, he comes in all torn up and interrupts a conversation Kane is having with William.

THOMAS

Coming over that rise, down, there by the chapel, we flushed a bird square up in front of us and the mare shied and lost her footing. She went down, the cinch broke, and I fell on the stones, crawling, when she reared up over me, crawling across the stones on the battlefield…

(SITTING MORE UPRIGHT, HE DRINKS DOWN WHISKY)

There, I'd gone down to accept what she'd offered, to meet her terms, and then… no! What I want, after what I've seen now…

KANE

(SOLICITOUSLY, AFTER PAUSE)

What is that?

THOMAS

(ALMOST SNARLS)

Only justice!

KANE

(WITH RENEWED EFFORT AT LIGHTNESS)

Well! William and I here have just been looking for the same thing. I hope you have better luck than we did.

THOMAS

(TUNELESSLY BELLIGERENT, STARING AHEAD)

And what did you find, then?

KANE

(AS THOUGH HUMOURING HIM)

I'm afraid we found that it was nothing much at all, didn't we William.

(AS THOMAS MUTTERS WITH CONTEMPT; TO WILLIAM)

Or had we gone further? Were we quite finished, William?

THOMAS

(WITH ANNOYANCE, HOLDING UP HIS GLASS TO KANE)

Finish, then. No, damn it, let me hear. I insist.

KANE

(TO WILLIAM, WITH MOCK RESIGNATION, AS HE FILLS THOMAS' GLASS)