William Gaddis - Carpenter's Gothic

— You said just to bring you any…

— White one right out there on the chair, never mind I'll get it myself hello? Look, now one more thing. You tell your daddy make sure he's got a flag up there on the platform when he… No now listen here, his picture on the front page all over the country they's going to be yankees seeing it too, it better just be the regular American flag, and you tell him when he's done his speech he just doesn't need to give any press conference, all they'll… Look I know they's all friends there Bobbie Joe but you get somebody infiltrating from the liberal media they'll twist things around to beat all get out, like they did when your daddy said he was a Zionist? that that's the Holy Land where you'll have Jesus' Second Coming but he won't show up till all the Jews there are born again? where they had him saying that the only thing that keeps the Jews Jews is being hated by everybody else? Who do you think runs this liberal media, now look. When he's done his speech he just wants to get down there and circulate with these prominent educators, you hear? Get their names and addresses everybody registered for this conference and get your Bible students down there working on your mailing lists that's the… Well then get some of them off the night shift at the bottling plant, somebody gets his Pee Dee water a week late's not going to kill him now one more thing. Your daddy tell you there's somebody supposed to meet me later there at National Airport? Little gift shop right there at the… no problem I'll have on a red tie, little gift shop right there at the head of the ramp you make sure he's there, hear? Got to hurry now, I… you bet. We'll… You bet Bobbie Joe, you… you bet. Liz? What time is it.

— I told you, I don't…

— Turn on the God damn radio won't even tell you what time it is, do it myself… and he had the phone again, — look. One more thing, waiting to hear from somebody named Slotko he's a partner in a big time Washington law firm most prestigious in the country, triple A gilt edge you don't get near him without the right credentials I've got him working on your old man's VCR stock option, make sure if he calls that you, wait… pressing the phone close, dropping it, — got to hurry.

— What time is it? She'd already reached up for the clock.

— Late I've got to get dressed and look, can you mop this up here? this pile here got to take it with me…

The radio warned her that five million Americans had diabetes and didn't know it and that she might be one of them and she got over to turn it off, to tear another length of paper towel, to look in the refrigerator for yogurt she'd brought in the day before and could not find it, and she'd just made tea when he was down again buttoning a white shirt, jamming it into his trousers. — Any coffee?

— No, I'd just made a cup of tea but…

— Better than nothing, he reached past her for it — look where did I put the, you find my cigarettes?

— I haven't seen them Paul.

— Try to keep track of anything here can't even, what was I talking about.

— Well you wanted me to make…

— Not talking about making coffee Liz, something important before I went upstairs something important.

— You wanted me to make sure to wait for a call from some Washington lawyer named…

— Slotko, see? if you'd just listen? Write it down so you won't forget it… he found the blunt pencil, — not just some Washington lawyer Liz he's the best you can get, top contacts inside the Administration I gave him a few pointers on the estate picking up your old man's stock option before they get VCR in court, twenty percent below market the price keeps slipping where all these God damn leaks are coming from, maybe just plain disinformation from the other side trying to knock the bottom out from under this confrontation building up over there part of their big peace offensive putting the blinders on these woolly minded Victor Sweets calling for disarmament? speech I showed you last week he's right in there doing their work for them?

— Well he, I think all he said was we should keep an open mind about…

— Keep an open mind your brains will fall out look, where is it… and he found the page he'd rescued dry, — Belgian syndicate up here maybe it's them driving the price down to buy in cheap. They've got Grimes in their pocket, here's Grimes he's got Teakell in his pocket why he's going on this fact finding trip, why they had him up on the Senate floor with that front page speech about these strategic mineral reserves over there, protecting vital US interests… smoothing the page flat, smudging the pencil strokes nearer that beleaguered coastline, — why Teakell stepped in and got me a dismissal on these hearings. Scared I'd get up there and testify it was common company practice, pay them off to do business over there or you don't do business at all… and a scrawled loop, infinity open ended? or a fish — Grimes and the whole God damn VCR board calling the shots from the start. Elections coming up this Administration needs a big win any God damn place they can get one, build up grass roots support's why Teakell's people need Ude's mailing list, his missions out there harvesting souls for the Lord… a sudden cluster of ciphers, — Teakell right back here harvesting votes… and a horde of v's appeared launching an arrow, another arrow — Grimes to Teakell, Teakell to Ude, Ude to the point everything goes both ways… more arrows, — everything to everything else… and a hail of arrows darkened the page like the skies that day over Crécy. — Liz?

— Oh? She turned from making pale tea with the leaves still wet in the strainer, staring out to the disconsolate garland high in the limbs of the mulberry tree, down the fence where the wild grape's few blemished leaves still clung to the tangle of curl and tendril and the rest of them gone to earth in scraps so withered brown they'd no more claim left to identity than torn scraps of a grocery bag, on down where the Virginia creeper lingering flushed a deeper red and bittersweet paled yellow toward the sparse heights of the wild cherry caught in the glance of morning sun in hesitating shades of yellows, even pinks as though, as though suddenly arrested in its inconspicuous departure, as though — Paul?

— You follow me? Fit the God damn…

— I want to go down and see Cettie.

— all the pieces together and, see what?

— Cettie. I want to go down to that hospital and see her.

— But you, I told you Liz, just told you they've got her sedated she wouldn't know you were there, lawyers came in to get a deposition from her suing the car company she couldn't even…

— That's not what I'm talking about!

— Plenty of time to see her later when she can…

— Later? She stood there, looking out where she'd been looking. — You'll have to leave me money for Madame So-crate.

He sat back, gazing at the scribbled mess in front of him as though silenced by admiration. — Been thinking about that Liz, washes windows you can't tell the difference she can't even answer the God damn phone, probably illiterate somebody calls her in French she couldn't even write it down if they did, just thinking we can do without her for a while and look. If this writer, this Doris Chin if she calls this afternoon just tell her I'll be gone two or three days, four at the outside tell her…

— I won't be here Paul.

— What do you, be where wait get this will you? He pushed the phone toward her — if it's that Bobbie Joe again tell him I just left, tell him…

— Hello…? Yes well he's, who is it… cupping the phone at her breast. — It's a Sergeant Urich.

— Never heard of, wait it might be the VA give me it, might be about my pension hello…? What…? No, twenty fifth, I was in the twenty fifth infantry what's the… platoon leader look, what's it about who… look, I… No look I, medical, eighty percent look how the hell did they get hold of my record, who… No well look now look I'm, I can't just told you I can't just too God damn busy I'm, got to be out of town be out of, out of the country just too God damn busy no I'm, goodbye no, goodbye… He held the phone tight for a moment, and then hung it up. — Liz?