William Gaddis - Carpenter's Gothic

— To what, make him look like a, just because he's about four feet tall you had to put these shaggy feathers sticking out off the back of his bald head make him look like some squat little God damn duck?

— Paul I was only, I mean that's how I remembered where I wrote down that phone number because he looked like the, because he reminded me of that picture of a…

— What, of what, a duck? God damn good picture of him Liz I gave it to them myself, gave it to the newspapers myself look at it, turned it into a cartoon look at it. Give him some dignity whole God damn point of getting it in the paper this is serious Liz! Thirty forty million of them out there with a dollar in their pocket this is serious, can't you get that? Try to get him in the paper give him a little dignity? People drowning out there good honest believing people and you turn it into a cartoon?

She drew the sheet closer. He'd turned away, sitting hunched on the foot of the bed there, shoulders fallen, absorbed in the pantomime of a brand-wise woman ministering to a groggy victim of lower back pain through its smug conclusion before he was up again, crumpling Reverend Ude's sullied profile into a wad, — God damn it Liz. Try to get something going here I don't even know who's trying to call me, one call I get one call and you write it down in a bird book, can't find it can't find the mail at least you're bringing the mail in, you got over that didn't you? Told yourself you could open the mailbox and you finally did it, can't you do that with the rest of this? Tell yourself we're not up here running a cartoon show? He flung the paper wad at the shadow of the wastebasket, — I went to file this before I looked at it I can't even find the God damn file. Liz?

— Oh…?

— Last time I had it… he was down untying a shoe, — last thing I put in it was that McCandless clipping when was that, Sunday's paper? Can't find a God damn wait, I'll get it, might be… he reached the phone, — Who…? Never heard of her no, wrong number… He straightened up thrusting off his shoes, caught a hand on the dresser's corner tripping out of his trousers, finally bared feet planted wide fighting a shirt button, a hand down to scratch, dangling there silhouetted in tumid portent against the moon ascending in solemn march; her orb seeming to look up as she left the hill tops, from behind which she had come, far and farther below her, and aspired to the zenith, midnight dark, in its fathomless depth and measureless distance: and for those trembling stars that followed her course.

— Paul?

He got the phone again. — What…? Look I just told you, there's no Irene here you've got the wrong God damn number! He came down heavily beside her.

— That might be his wife, it might have been for his…

— Whose wife.

— Mister McCandless, maybe she's Irene Me…

— She's got a long wait.

— Oh I meant to tell you… she came up on an elbow, — this morn…

— Misprision of treason, he could get twenty years.

— Paul?

— Meant to tell you I talked to Grissom this morning, got my appeal set up for Monday… His arm came under her shoulders, — stop making my whole God damn VA check over every month for alimony we can see some daylight.

— Paul do you think I could, maybe I could go away for a few days?

His hand closed on her breast. — Where.

— Just, somewhere I…

— Too much going on here Liz, you know that… his hand laboured her breast, — just get things off the ground we can take a week someplace.

— No I meant, I meant just me.

— But, but what do you mean just you, look all this going on you've got to be here. Just get this Ude deal on the tracks and there's three or four calls that should come tomorrow, you've got to be here for the phone… He drew her back, drew her glance from the scar gone livid from ribs to groin with the flat fall of his legs toward the screen where a warm glow suffused the lower steps of the oak staircase, issuing from the great dining room, whose two leaved door stood open, and showed a genial fire in the grate, glancing on marble hearth and brass fire irons, and revealing draperies and polished furniture in the most pleasant radiance, intruded upon by the tumescent rise in his hand. — Did you call that doctor Liz? that appointment for your insurance claim? His hand came down to smooth her knees apart, his leg came over. — Liz?

— Yes I, I'll call them tomorrow…

— Look you've got to call him, get in there for this examination so I can get my companion suit going… His fingers drew tight, separated, fretted in systematic search and seizure as her knee fell away, — get these disability benefits back I'll have a little cash, Grissom wants a thousand dollars retainer plus disbursements against sixty percent of the settlement to handle it… he eased over her, eased down where his hand intervened, — asking half a million all depends on your airline suit… his hand withdrew to close on her knee — show the, show the shape you've been in since the crash I've, how I've been deprived of, does that hurt?

— No my, my knee not so… she breathed sharply, — how it, bruises… His head dropped there, left her face ashen over his shoulder in the light playing up the glistening strain of his back from the screen where a demoniac laugh, low, suppressed, and deep, came uttered it seemed at the very keyhole of the chamber door. As she gazed, the unnatural sound was reiterated, and she knew it came from behind the panels. As though her first impulse was to rise, and her next to cry out, something gurgled and moaned, and steps retreated up the gallery toward the third story staircase. The door came open under her trembling hand and there was a candle burning just outside, left on the matting in the gallery where the air was quite dim, as if filled with smoke. Something creaked: it was a door ajar and the smoke rushed from it in a cloud. Within the chamber tongues of flame darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire: the very sheets were kindling. In the midst of blaze and vapour Orson Welles lay stretched motionless, in a deep sleep.

— I, I have to breathe she whispered, freed an arm to reach the box of tissues and he was up, bumping furniture, tripping over a shoe, gone down the dark hall, and she listened for some noise, but heard nothing. It seemed a very long time elapsed, and then she heard his unshod feet tread the matting, and he snapped the screen into darkness.

— Oh honestly, please I've asked you not to smoke in the bedroom.

— Just, fine just looking for something to put it out in… He found a saucer, drew heavily there at the window where branches caught on the rising wind outside dashed the streetlight's gleams on the pane before him. He rubbed a thumb there. — Liz…? as though he could see his smudged thumb clear, — did she wash the windows? Woman who came in to clean, did you tell her…

— There wasn't time. Now will you please put that out!

— What did she do all day? He drew again quickly before he crushed it in the saucer, — twenty five dollars what did she…

— It was thirty dollars and she was here for a half day. She cleaned.

— Thought they said twenty five look, when she comes next week tell her to do the windows, start right off with the windows… He came down heavily out of reach, — thirty dollars, start looking for somebody who speaks English can answer the God damn phone, Haitians you don't know what the hell you're in for. We used to get their blood over there, medical corps got it cheap they were so God damn poor they're selling their blood never knew what you were getting. God damn medic I told him you better be good and God damn sure where that bottle of plasma up on that hook came from before you get that God damn needle any closer.