William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

— You know why Oscar? Because now she's this judge. Because he told me how they made her this judge and he got scared if he crossed her that some time he might have to appear before her in court where she'd wipe up the floor with him for revenge like she ought to do anyway just because he's such a real sleazeball.

— Then why did you let him get your, get you in the back seat of his BMW and every motel bed from Disney World to…

— I told you!

— You did not tell me!

— Because I was mad at you, because…

— Why! You didn't tell me why, you just…

— Because you hurt my feelings, I told you.

— You've told me that a hundred times, how. How did I…

— Because you just did again, you said I was stupid right when I came in, just because you're smarter than I am with all these books that doesn't mean you're better than me does it?

— Listen, just tell me what I did that made you get into bed with that, that real…

— The way you treated me laying there on your back with this big erection sticking up right in front of somebody as if you never saw me before you didn't even…

— No wait, wait. In front of who…

— I don't know who! Because he didn't have any clothes on either like you were just laying there showing off and there were these cans of shoe polish on the bed, there were these three kinds of shoe polish and you…

— No wait stop it, stop! You mean this was some dream you had? some stupid dream that made you so mad when you woke up that you…

— It was real! It was as real as anything, it was just as real as that little man in the black suit you dreamed came to see you in the hospital to take these messages to the other side and…

— No that happened! That really happened, it was as real as we're sitting here now with your…

— That's what I just said! It was just as real as right now with your hand on my, I still get mad when I remember you laying there with it sticking up like I never saw you have one like that before and you looked at me like you never saw me before when I reached over and…

— Of all the, the shoe polish? three kinds of shoe polish? Of all the, dreams like that all of them, they're the junkyard of the mind all of them of all the crazy, and you want me to believe that? that that's why you did it?

— Oscar why are you doing this to me! When you're all I've thought about day after day crying myself to sleep sometimes at night remembering all the nice things I did for you when it was just you and me? Like that time that we, I can't even talk about it, that sweet sad kind of smile you'd always have when I came in the room I thought about it all the way coming over here but you just look at me like you wish I'd go away, I can feel it, you don't even want to look at me but I can feel it, don't you even think I have feelings? And finally letting go his moist hands to look up where his gaze lay fixed — at her? a full bosomed blonde crossing a knobbed knee on the screen, — you'd like to be feeling hers wouldn't you, did you think that's what I meant? This lump I've got, I think it got worse since I saw you, can you feel it? No don't then, you didn't even ask, it's too late please don't try, can't I say anything to make you listen to me?

— No wait, look! he startled upright, — where's the, here! The room shook with the sound of cannon fire, the screen with a tumult of plunging horses, flaring rockets and the Stars and Bars and men, men — look!

— How can you do this! I can't believe you're actually doing this just to drive me away when I came here to…

— Please! as the smoke cleared, and now the room echoed with the clop clop of a horse and carriage seen approaching up a drive adroop with Spanish moss from the pillared veranda of an antebellum mansion by an imposing liveried black, the sun gleaming on the strong lineaments of his brow arching disdainfully as a decrepit horse and buggy bearing an aging woman and a handsome intense young man standing to snap his whip imperiously came close for an exchange of unheard words to be pointed scornfully on their way, glimpsed from behind a curtain by a ravishingly beautiful young woman in negligee in their retreat back down the drive. — Good God! he barely whispered.

— If that's all you can…

— That was the first scene of my, did you see it! And here was the blonde again, seated knob knee to knee with a black man of imposing dimensions and sartorial splendour introduced as 'our guest today' by a name she was sure their wonderful audience out there would want to know if it was his real one? — Yes it's that friend of look it's, listen!

— No I'm going! I'm going right now Oscar, if you think I came over just to sit and watch television I can't believe how much you've changed, maybe I can't still expect you to feel like I do about you but I hoped at least you could be kind, are you listening to me? She'd lurched up only to come down closer as they were being told it was a long story, how he'd taken this name, because his old name was way behind him, far enough behind him that now he could talk about it, because he'd done time under his old name, — can't you see what I'm going through? she came on, — that you're looking at somebody that's practically coming to pieces? You're not even looking at me, can't you even hold my hand if you can't bear to look at me? It was back in Illinois, he'd been sent up for three years for something a dumb kid would do stealing a car and he didn't even realize he'd driven across the state line that made it a Federal crime and a Federal prison and he felt like his life was over before it hardly began but maybe you wouldn't believe it, that 'was the best thing that ever happened to him. — Don't you believe me? and she had his hand again, tight — if I told you it really didn't mean anything? that I was all upset about your accident seeing you in pain and then Bobbie when tragedy struck down there and I hardly knew what I was doing when I let him do it? The best thing that ever happened because they had a program there, kind of play acting therapy for the prisoners to help them understand their anger by venting their hostility in these plays they chose, The Emperor Jones, he'd done The Emperor Jones — when I was really crying out for help Oscar and you weren't there on account of your accident, nobody was, can't you understand? He'd always been pretty vain about his looks, had to admit it now with the studio lights gleaming on the strong lineaments of his brow arching in a deprecating sort of way but they'd never brought him anything but trouble and now suddenly here was a place for them, a place for all his anger and strength and talent if you'd call it that and he'd never have made it without the others, the other prisoners when he heard their applause he knew he had something, one buddy in the program in particular kind of a jailhouse lawyer in there for something that would curl your hair tried to help him out on his appeal, told him if you're black in America you're always playing a part, no way around it just got to find the right part to play where you aren't going to take your bows in a cell block and that did it, — Oscar?

— Just listen will you!

— Can't you just listen to me for a second? please? her voice broke in what might have been a sob, and that was when he swore he knew what he'd be, who he'd be when he got out of there, when he took that name from one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence because this was his own declaration of independence from who he'd been, who they'd told him he was when they took one look at him, who they'd tried to make him, besides he'd had a little brother once they called Button, died from meningitis they'd thought was just a bad cold, didn't have any doctor, couldn't afford one — because I need you to help me Oscar, won't you just listen?