William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

Sounds of tumult erupt closer.

(REMOTELY, LOOKING our)

Yes, 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,' do you know that one, Bagby? 'Where moth and rust corrupt, and thieves break through and steal…'

BAGBY

There, it's using things that keeps rust off of them, and the moth and the thief have no chance…

THOMAS

(ALMOST RECOVERING HIS PATRONIZING IMPATIENCE)

Uses! Your uses be damned! For what then, more uses?

BAGBY

(QUIETLY SHREWD)

And what would you do with your place that you speak of, to own 'for itself? A farm, to grow fat like a vegetable?

THOMAS

(FEELINGLY)

No, in all that a man can… take hold and grow, and be something real to other men, to do something, something real in public life… (BREAKING OFF, AS THOUGH HE'S GONE TOO FAR BEFORE BAGBY, ADDS SOMEWHAT LOFTILY AS HE RETURNS TO DESK)

Never mind, no, you wouldn't understand me…

BAGBY

(FOLLOWING HIM, OBLIGINGLY)

But I would indeed sir, for it's politics, an't it? And an't that just uses, and a means to an end then? Your farm? And does it stay the same, the end then, whatever the uses, them that gets it and them that it's used for?

(COMING ROUND FRONT OF DESK, MORE CANNILY OBLIGING)

You may find your free white savages here all strife and darkness if you like, and your black slavery part of life and order, things growing, you say? Like the… plantation you speak of? No, it all has its uses, that's all, and what's better using than politics? for this plantation, as you say? This place… with the shares, that you're after? With the curious name… 'Quaintness,' is it…?

THOMAS

(SITTING SLOWLY BACK, STARING AT HIM)

What… what do you know of it? What business of yours…!

BAGBY

Ah, not mine, not mine at all sir. I know nothing more than I heard, just in passing, from a banking acquaintance…

THOMAS

(CRUMPLING PAPERS ON DESK IN DISMAYED EXASPERATION)

By… heaven! Your bankers here… call themselves bankers, do they?

Talking over my business in public?

BAGBY

(HASTILY REASSURING)

In privacy you may be assured sir, and only with them that they trust… If you'd spoke to me first, now, we might have bought these shares up cheap. Then there'd be nobody about, pressing you for the profits as they're ready to do to you now… Them that owns them, now they know what you're after, there's no telling the price, with your resources spread about here wherever the eye can see… The streets an't safe for you wandering out alone, and… you value yourself very high, I know. It's not to be a safe night out, not for anyone but most not for you. There, that insurance I spoke of earlier…? You're a very good bet to collect!

THOMAS

(RISING TO HIM BEHIND THE DESK, TENSELY)

I've fought that, do you hear? I've fought it, and I've won!

BAGBY

(BACKING OFF A STEP, AS THOMAS STARTS ROUND DESK TO HIM)

Yes, you didn't find that scar in a parlour, I suppose? No… a bit nearer the battlefield I should imagine.

(AS THOMAS DRAWS CLOSE TO HIM)

I… I've seen a bit of that too, you know.

THOMAS

(STOPS, LOOKING AT HIM)

You? the battlefield?

BAGBY

Why yes, at Bull Run you know, I…

Offstage sounds of violence increase, with breaking of glass as THOMAS slowly takes BAGBY's arms and speaks with the impulsive appeal of having found here a comrade in arms, an opponent only in battle's appearances since both fought the same thing, death.

THOMAS

You…? At Manassas?

BAGBY

(UNCERTAIN, DRAWING BACK)

Why yes, yes but I…

THOMAS

(ALMOST HUNGRILY)

You… my opposite in every way…

BAGBY

(CONCERNED, STEPPING FROM REACH, HASTENING TO EXPLAIN)

No, no, I was just there in the gallery, a spectator as you might say. Yes, this senator I spoke of? with a lady friend, all as a lark. But there, we'd no sooner got our picnic laid out on a spot that gave us a view than a soldier on horseback rides through it, smashing bottles every which way. Here, a bit of flying glass… I'm marked from it still, do you see?

(OFFERS HIS WRIST TO THOMAS, WHOSE LOOK TURNS TO ONE OF THOROUGH CONTEMPT AS HE TURNS ON HIS HEEL ROUND BEHIND THE DESK)

The whole army of the Potomac rode over that picnic cloth, every man jack. I lost a boot myself before we was safe back in Washington…

(AT A LOSS, UNABLE TO UNDERSTAND THOMAS' REACTION)

The lady was very put out…

They stare at one another as offstage sounds die into silence.

THOMAS

(WITH A STERN EFFORT, SEATED BEHIND THE DESK)

Listen to that! What's the meaning of it? I tell you, I will have order here! Obedience, yes, to authority, things as they should be, and that brought to an end.

BAGBY

(HELPLESSLY)

What, sir?

THOMAS

(VEHEMENTLY)

All that… outrage, that… chaos, do you hear?

BAGBY

(RETIRING UPSTAGE RIGHT, ALMOST PLAINTIVELY)

If we can't crack a skull here and there…

THOMAS

And Bagby!

(BAGBY STOPS)

This scar? For your information, this scar that you wondered about? It was an accident, it happened… a fall from a horse…

As BAGBY stands upstage right, racing THOMAS with a look of shrewd understanding taking place of bafflement in his face, sound of crashing glass offstage and a quick fade-out.

Toot! toot toot!

— Thank God.

— No sit down Christina, wait. That's only the first scene, I'm just calling Ilse for…

— Mister Crease? Where's the…

— Down that hall, past those boxes it's the second door on the right. Now. Was any of that familiar? Who's seen the movie.

— It was gross.

— I'm sure it was, Frank, that's not what I mean. Did any…

— I'm not Frank, I'm Jed. This is Frank.

— All right then, Jed. Or Frank, any of you, did anyone recognize, oh Ilse? Will you bring me a glass of that Pinot Grig…

— Ilse? I think he'd prefer a nice cup of tea.

And yes, there were certainly movie scenes in the offices looking out over the mines, the noise, the smoke, but this character Bagby, they remembered a minor character in the movie, kind of a straight man, a foil, short, fat, foul mouthed, — a kind of a Punchinello, Oscar, real opera buffa, Bagby in one or two crude dimensions maybe, a stock character, a comic device. But where had he come from? They just took Bagby and made him an Italian to cover their tracks, like changing Livingston to Siegal? — Look at it that way Oscar, they just claim parody, the worse this cartoon character of theirs is, the more they hold Bagby with all his posturings around up for ridicule the stronger their parody defense.

— All right but listen, what comes next. Listen to what comes next it's a specific scene, there are five or six characters they couldn't take it, they couldn't just take it and call it a parody…

That evening, or one soon thereafter. A scrim curtain scene of a street corner, dark toward stage left. Some tattered evidence of a parade earlier that day, such as patriotic bunting, litters street, and torn recruiting posters deck the walls. The main illumination shed on the characters in this short scene comes from offstage right in flashes with the illusion of a fire with increasing steadiness and brilliance.

As the scene opens all is still but for a sound from abovestage left, of a child crying, not loud or desperate but mounting from a whimper. THOMAS appears walking slowly from downstage right, head bowed, unaware of the figure awaiting him near stage center, a SOLDIER dressed in the worn blue uniform of the Union army and displaying a decided limp, played by the same person who plays WILLIAM in Act I but made up a good twenty years older so there may be no confusion that it is WILLIAM. He is barefoot, his shoes knotted by their laces over his slumped shoulder.