William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

BAGBY

(SOMEWHAT APPREHENSIVELY, LOOKING AT THE MAIL)

As you say sir, and I shall explain to the staff…

THOMAS

(WITH ANNOYANCE)

You need explain nothing to anyone. Do you think I come into this office every morning just to watch that parade of sharpers that lines up there at your desk?

BAGBY

(REPROVINGLY, BUT PREOCCUPIED TRYING TO SEE THE MAIL)

There's problems come up with the mines you know, details… unless you might be referring to the man in here yesterday? Him with the hair down his back? Now there's a man, sir, you wouldn't speak so slighting if you knew what he's up to. He's an inventor, a rare fellow you might say, and I may let you into a confidence. He's built a rapid-fire gun that will end the war in a day. Yes, once it's brought into the line, once it's seen by the right people… them with influence… was there… any more of my mail? that might be… mixed in?

THOMAS

(WITH FEIGNED LACK OF INTEREST, HOLDING UP A LETTER)

Two hundred barrels of mess pork, shipped to Washington?

BAGBY

(TAKING IT WITH A SHOW OF INTERESTED IGNORANCE)

Possibly…

THOMAS

Sabres at four dollars and twelve cents 'for ornamental purposes'? Are they for the mines?

BAGBY

(TAKING THE LETTER)

No sir, a small commission…

THOMAS

Small? And priced to the government at eight dollars? And here, pants at two dollars fifty cents on government contract for five?

BAGBY

(TAKING THE LETTER, DISTRACTED)

Yes, five… dollars a pair, it may mean? At two fifty each? And… was there nothing else, then?

THOMAS

No. Not if we've worms in the mines, that is.

BAGBY

…Worms?

THOMAS

(HOLDING OUT A PAPER)

A shipment of vermifuges, from something called Pfizers in Brooklyn. You signed this order?

BAGBY

I… I didn't know what they was sir. 'Vermifuges.'

THOMAS

Will you tell me the meaning of all this, then? You knew the cost and the mark-up, and that was enough…

BAGBY

(INTERRUPTING DEFERENTIALLY)

There, sir, you mustn't be… outraged… An occasional small commission that passes my way. There, and an't it a man's place to come forward and offer a hand? Yes, with times what they are, and the government fighting to preserve the Union, and equality for people like ourselves? A bit of business on the side now and again, when I find I can help things along, a chance to be of assistance…

(TAKING A PAPER FROM HIS INSIDE COAT POCKET)

To help out a friend… as you called me…

(HANDING THE PAPER TO THOMAS)

To lend a hand against fate, you might say, I might let you into this… Not that you're off on a boat trip. It's a marine insurance policy indeed, but you needn't go anywhere to collect on it. It's a new thing, an accident clause. You don't even need to drown, an accident in the parlour will suffice. Surely you've paid fifteen cents for twenty four hours protection on a train journey from loss of life and limb? This don't end overnight, it goes on, on until you collect. Yes, I have it myself, you know, and it's them plays the game, this company here, making up odds against death and accident, and nobody loses. It's a fine new dodge for all concerned. Why, you may manage things anywhere, and collect what they call the principal for no more than the loss of both hands, feet, eyes, or a winning combination…

THOMAS

(THRUSTING THE PAPER BACK AT HIM EXASPERATED)

A fine new dodge! Is this how you spend all your time here? And that parade past your desk, your Pfizers and Brooks Brothers peddling worm medicine and one-legged trousers…

BAGBY

(BURSTING OUT DEFIANTLY)

And what would you have! No, it's all honest goods. I've broken no law. Do you think it's like the army buying sand for sugar, and being sold rye for coffee? paying for leather no better than brown paper? The governor of the state himself, and I've met him, before the war was a week old he'd contracted for ten thousand suits of clothes and a half million dollars was gone in a month. And a single firm here last November got a state contract for eight hundred and fifty thousand yards of army cloth. A million three hundred thousand dollars to a single firm! And I should hang back? When a beef contract runs from three dollars ninety cents to eight dollars thirty a hundred pounds, on the hoof at that? And you ask me to hesitate?

(COMING IN MORE CLOSELY, IN CONFIDENCE)

I've a friend now, he's a major for the moment, his company got a contract for ten thousand head of cattle at eight cents a pound and he let it out very next day at six and a half. Thirty two thousand dollars overnight, without the risk of a penny! Do you think he ever saw the cattle? He knows as much of cows as I do of these vermifuges, and here was thirty two thousand two hundred and sixty eight dollars and seventeen cents overnight, without risking a penny. Why, before the new war secretary came in there was feed contracts let for mixed oats and corn, and who knew the difference when the ratio was switched about? Must you know oats from corn? or only the difference in price. And who knew what had happened, the mules? blown to pieces with grape shot when they'd fairly finished eating?

(HALF TO HIMSELF)

And how long can it last now, what's left…

THOMAS

(IMPATIENTLY)

Last?

(RISING ABRUPTLY, WALKS TO WINDOW LEFT, MUTTERING)

It can't!

BAGBY

(HALF FOLLOWING)

Now they've called up three hundred thousand volunteers, right here in the state alone? Even if some of them's already saying it's only a war to free the naygers…

THOMAS

(IMPATIENTLY)

It can't last. Don't you read the papers?

BAGBY

Three million naygers…!

THOMAS

Since the battle of Seven Days? McClellan's great campaign of invasion that was to destroy the Southern armies and capture Richmond… what happened? It went to pieces in front of Lee and Jackson. And with Lee in command now? The Southern armies have been sweeping north ever since. They'll be here before summer's out.

BAGBY

(ALMOST WISTFULLY)

Yes, and then… that's all there is… All at once, one fine day, things is only what they might have been again, and there you are. It's all over before you know it, it ends up and leaves you behind.

(INTENTLY)

No. A man must put himself forward. You get my meaning, sir? There's no harm in trying to better myself a bit, now? While it lasts? To better myself while I can, more like you if I may say? A gentleman…?

THOMAS

(LAUGHS DISTASTEFULLY, RETURNING TO THE DESK)

If you like, Bagby.

BAGBY

(AN EDGE CREEPING INTO HIS VOICE, PARADE SOUNDS OFFSTAGE)

And is it so different, then? You may laugh at influence, like them Brooks Brothers have that I told you about. But isn't influence the next thing to power itself? And power no more than the advantage of the man who can make things go forward, staying inside the law? That's justice enough, isn't it? What works? Yes, you may afford to mock at influence, with your resources spread out there wherever the eye can see…

THOMAS

(ABRUPTLY, CURBING ONE HAND IN THE OTHER)

This… blackness, wherever the eye can see…?

Distant parade sounds have now given way entirely to tumult.

Dirt? and strife, do you hear it? Yes, are these my resources? Even without it, without the strike, that clanking machinery tearing the earth, and the darkness, digging deeper, darker, men whose voices are the clang of metal, whose lives are death and whose white faces…

(TURNING TO BAGBY, ABRUPTLY MOCKING)

Do you know what coal is, Bagby? that it's death by the billion in every handful?

BAGBY

Ah, but its uses…

THOMAS

Uses? No, is that like owning a… a thing for itself? A place? Where there's order and life? The order of everything growing, alive… and the sun itself is a part of things, not the blazing stranger that it is here, lighting up ugliness better hidden, the lives of men who bring darkness up with them from under the earth to spill it out… listen…