William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

— You've got to do something about it Harry, my…

— Not a damn thing I can do about it, just told you it's the law. Demand a jury trial within ten days after the pleadings and they've got one, a perfect forum. You get the…

— The fire, I'm talking about the fire. My eyes are burning I can hardly…

— Wood's probably wet. Or green, you get a leading old time states' rights advocate like Bilk up there in front of these hambones talking about the Federal government spending their tax money where it's got no business, he's already stood out there on the Senate floor and said art today is spelled with an f hasn't he? right in the public's face? Product of warped sick minds, sexual deviants, degenerates and foreigners Szyrk's made to order. Where are you going?

— To open some windows, why on earth you had to build a fire.

— Just seemed, Sunday afternoon in the country a fall day like this it seemed like what you do.

— You ought to turn on the football game then, you always like seeing somebody lose. You're simply not a country person Harry, you shouldn't go around building fires, any minute Oscar will be out from his nap and he'll have a fit.

— Nothing unusual about that.

— Well you can't blame him can you? Day after day waiting for this decision he calls Mister Basic and he's told he's out of the office, out of town, we're both nervous wrecks and these lawyers he got God knows where on his accident case now what are you doing.

— This, damn, damper keeps slipping closed trying to, damn. There. All be clear by suppertime.

— I can't wait till suppertime Harry, another day of this, another hour I'll lose my mind, if I have to watch one more nature program. No deer or bears or anything healthy no, no the ones he watches are all animals pretending to be flowers, deadly insects that look like twigs, harmless looking creatures simply seething with poison just lying in wait it's all rather unwholesome, and Ilse. If you could hear the splashing and carrying on in there when he has his bath God knows what they're up to, at least he hasn't mentioned that mess of a blonde I think I hear him coming, Harry for God's sake. A cup of tea and we'll leave. I'm all packed and I cannot endure another discussion deciding whether we'll have salmon with the dill anchovy butter or poached in an aspic glaze, simply tell him your office called and, oh Oscar? We've got to be off.

— But I thought, but Harry just got here Christina I thought he'd come out for a rest look, look he's built a lovely fire and I've told her to make tea I thought, about supper I thought…

— So did I, but they called and want him in there first thing in the morning. We want to miss the Sunday night traffic.

— But when did, I didn't hear the phone ring, I…

— It's ringing right now.

— No, I can reach it but, hello?

— Harry, can you bring down my bags?

— Who? But, oh, later, call later I, goodbye.

— Oh Ilse, you needn't bother with the tea. Well who was it.

— Who was, oh. A wrong number. They got the wrong number.

— Then why did you tell them to call back later.

— I just meant, you said Harry was exhausted that he needed a rest and I wanted to talk to him about the…

— My God Oscar we're all exhausted, we all need a rest Harry? can you hear me? She passed to fight a casement window closed, — there's a small makeup case in the bathroom, will you bring it? And she stood arrested, looking down the lawn where only the day before he'd stared out, even called her to see the only thing that moved out there, a bluebird hopping across the discoloured grass? or was it only a jay, but she'd been too busy to look, picking up streamers of newspaper, scraps of notepaper — if there's one thing I can't stand it's litter, will you ever learn to keep your things in one place? And now, — you've got to get that damper fixed Oscar, before somebody burns down the house. Are we ready? The squeeze of a hand, of a shoulder, — let me know if you hear from Father, perhaps you should call him, Ilse? Will you help us with these bags? And out on the veranda, — I wish you'd look down on the front lawn Ilse, there's a blue plastic bag blowing around out there where someone's been eating potato chips or something, don't things around here look shabby enough? Bracing herself against the bound of the car up the pits in the driveway, — that veranda is one thing, but if there's one thing I cannot stand it's, look out! throwing her arm up.

— Did you see? He skidded back into the rut he'd swerved from avoiding the old car cutting a swathe through bull vine and bittersweet down the driveway behind them.

— No, what. Who.

— Lily.

And see what she'd brought him, — Oscar? banging the outside doors, clattering down the hall — are you okay? It was a chocolate icecream cake and look, he already had a fire going in the fireplace, it was like old times, everything was so cozy, it was like he expected her, when she'd called and he hung up in her face she just came right over, to tell the truth she wasn't too sure what kind of welcome she'd get, coming down beside him, didn't he even have a kiss for her? sitting here all alone like old Mister Grouch with the silent television already aglow where a mouse flattened a cat with a sledgehammer, — you're not watching that are you? Look at me. Aren't you even going to ask how I am? But all he wanted to know was what she'd done to her hair. — I had it cut and shaped, do you like it? Me neither. Is that why you're so standoffish? You're not mad are you? But he seemed suddenly absorbed in the predicament of the cat, who was being stamped into smaller editions with a cookiecutter. — Oscar? Is everything okay?

— Is everything okay! Of all the stupid, you show up here like this out of nowhere just to ask me if everything's okay?

— I only meant, I thought maybe by now you're up walking around again and that, that everything…

— That everything was okay. That I'd forgotten all about the way you walked out of here with that, that, that all these medical bills were paid and I'd won my suit against the movie sitting here with seventy five million dollars in my pocket? Will you just tell me why you came? without making a big scene about it, just a plain honest answer?

— Oscar you can't! seizing both his hands — no, I've thought about you every day, how kind and gentle you are I forgot, I forgot how cold you can be, how you can look at me like you're looking right through me like I'm not even there. Do you know how that cuts right through somebody that cares about you like I do like this big knife cutting right through them? I never said anything about your seventy five million dollars, is that why you think I came? That's why you think I came isn't it, I don't see how you can be so cruel to me, how you can be so suspicious the minute I walk in the door that you won't even look at me because you're afraid I might ask you for money, even just a little because all this time you thought well I won't have to go through that again didn't you. You thought I'll never have to go through that with her again because I told you with Bobbie gone maybe I'll have this reconciliation with Daddy over this old misunderstanding where now I'm all they've got so maybe he'll help me out where there's all this money he put in Bobbie's name in this joint account where the government wouldn't get it when he died in these death taxes only now it's Bobbie that died instead so he has to pay all these death taxes on Bobbie's estate for his own money coming back to him which was really his all along, are you even listening to me?

— Now you listen to me. This miserable ambulance chaser you got to help everybody out, do you know how he helped me out? Sending me a bill for seventy five hundred dollars for filing some court papers someplace in my accident case and he won't hand anything over to the new lawyers I've got looking into it till I pay him, you remember right back at the start? When I asked you about paying him and you told me he said don't worry about it? The same trick that miserable woman lawyer played on us when he took your divorce case away from her after she made some feeble excuse and pulled out? Now he does the same thing.