William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

And so she turned now to her guest over the tea and coffee cups that had clattered to rest on the low table between them with — this letter no, I don't think Oscar's found it yet but, oh and Ilse? some sugar? and will you bring some cream if there is any, I asked you to bring Mister Basic an ashtray didn't I, honestly. Training them is almost as tiresome as doing it one's self.

— My mother now, she would have gone with you on that.

— Oh? I didn't, what I meant was the, was those boxes you can see them piled up all down the hall it's what Oscar's pleased to call his archives, every piece of paper he's ever had his hands on, letters, old Playbills, scraps of newspaper, invitations, papers written by his illiterate students, recipes he's never tried, he read that letter a thousand times storming around the house here. We had an old dog then and he read it to the dog. The first act is entirely superfluous, anything useful it contains can easily be incorporated in the second act. As for the last act, how did they put it, something like the last act resolves problems which have never been raised except for any reason for the play to have been written in the first place. The author makes it clear throughout that he does not trust the director, he does not trust the actors and he does not trust any audience he would be fortunate to have.

— Pretty rough all right, maybe a little taste of revenge in this lawsuit he's after.

— A little! I tried to tell him he was lucky, if he'd had his wish and seen it produced that could have been the review in the Times I mean that's what makes it all so painful, this rather desperate need of his to be taken seriously but I suppose that's why people go around writing things in the first place isn't it, and of course this miserable teaching business hasn't helped matters. These useless students probably all know exactly how little he gets paid which is the way everything's measured and it's not as though he needs the money after all, that's really the fine irony because since money's never been the problem going into teaching was his way of trying to be taken seriously in the first place.

— Now you bring it up though, seems he takes this money about as serious…

— No it's not as though he hasn't always been terribly careful about money, I mean I suppose he got rather peevish with you over fees and things like that didn't he. He's so used to being terribly meticulous, I mean he carries it loose in his trouser pocket the clean large bills folded face in down through the smaller bills all of them right side up with the soiled dollar bills on the outside, he means to spend the crumpled bills first, insofar as he means to spend any of them of course, it's all quite surreptitious but I've seen him in agonies folding a crisp new five over a soiled ten you can see what I mean. I mean I think he feels your approach to all this is a bit, a little bit casual as though you don't really take any of it terribly seriously. You see what I mean.

— See what you mean Mrs Lutz but cases like these, they can go anywhere. Try to tell him the clock's running every minute, running right now while we sit here talking but he's just not the easiest man to get things straight with, pin things down now is he.

— Oscar? My God no he can be a perfect pill but I've got to ask you, I mean honestly Mister Basic does this whole thing make any sense to you at all? I mean you've had experience in the theatre or so he tells me and these grandiose notions he's got of this play of his, you must have read it? — Only had the one copy no, no but he took me through some of it, said he wanted to give me the feel of it but…

— Well I pried it away from him first thing this morning and went out and had ten copies made, God knows why he needs ten copies.

— But see what I think of it, maybe I think it's a little old fashioned these characters getting up there and making speeches at each other you might say, awful lot of talk but if I think it's a good play, if I even think it's maybe a great play or this Livingston Kiester thinks it's a real bad play that's all just what you call irrelevant, see what we're talking about here is infringement. You take the movie. I went out and saw this movie he says they stole it for whether it's a good movie, whether it's a great movie or just trashing up history with all this blood and gore and some naked woman see we're not talking naked women here. We're talking naked theft. Fish in these waters here a little today and see if we come up with enough to file this complaint he's hell bent on, see if they'll settle. If they don't offer to settle like for damn sure they won't, they respond with their answer and motion for dismissal of all charges like for damn sure they will, they don't get a dismissal and we figure our chances, drop the whole thing or get in deeper.

— Yes well of course it's that getting in deeper that's all rather frightening, your alarm clock running my God, what can be keeping them. — Thought I just heard a car pulling out, maybe… — Because someone's got to stop and think about the money before everything goes overboard, I mean I didn't mean it to sound like Oscar has all the money in the world just now talking about his teaching, I think he's got some wild vision of a lavish settlement in this accident case you'd think he'd already won it, crowing about this petition they've just granted getting him out from under some No Fault protection whatever that means, I'm sure you've noticed that scar he's so proud of?

— Means his insurance will claim immunity under the No Fault statute and try to get it dismissed, he files a claim for what you call tort recovery probably take him a year or two just to get on the docket and by the time he walks into court with a scar like that he'll need the best negligence lawyer around.

— Well of course he's got one, a lawyer I mean not the scar but considering how he got him God knows Mister Basic, I've simply got to count on you to discourage him when you think things are going too far, I don't mean this absurd ambulance case obviously that's gone too far already but this…

— Just let's make sure we have one thing real clear Mrs Lutz, see we're not out looking for business, not ambulance chasers. Sam put me on this like kind of a favour to look into it, if I go and get us into some drawn out tangled up case just because the client's got money where I know we'll probably never win it I'm out on the street tomorrow. Maybe we've got something here, maybe worth a try, have to admit it all kind of intrigues me. And now Oscar here, see I've come to like Oscar.

— You actually, you like Oscar?

— Always have to like a man that's at the end of his rope, came over the table to her in a cloud of smoke and then, piercing her through it, toot! toot!

— My God why did I ever dig that thing up, you expect him to come wheeling around that blind corner from the hall on that awful tricycle he was still riding when his legs were so long that he could hardly, Oscar? I'm in here with, look out!

— Well. You finally got here.

— And he's been sitting here with the clock running since wait, will you just park over here by the windows before you knock these cups over?

— But my students, aren't they here yet?

— What on earth would your students be doing here.

— Because, Christina. Because we're going to go over these points for the complaint, Mister Basic's seen the movie now and while we go through the rest of the play he can note down the things they've stolen and…

— And these dense students of yours will sit here and applaud?

— They can have the chance to get a real sense of the complicated issues that were at stake in the Civil War I should have thought of it before, having them read the parts aloud and feeling they're taking part in the whole atmosphere of the…