William Gaddis - Carpenter's Gothic

— Because I'm not a good faithful illiterate Christian mother because I'm not Sally Joe! She'd turned her back to the window, her hands tight behind her on the edge of the sink. — Is that the tie you're wearing?

— Is, what the hell does it look like! Can't do this one little God damn thing, can't back me up can't support me stand there making fun of Sally Joe now you're making fun of my clothes?

— It's just your tie, Paul.

— What the hell's wrong with my tie!

She picked up her cup of pale tea. — Someone you're supposed to meet at the airport? the little gift shop at the head of the ramp? and you'll have on a red necktie?

— Just, God damn it… he came down heavily in the chair pulling away the knot at his throat, — always one step ahead of me… and he sat there slumped, staring at the arrows and crosses, the gang of ciphers, horde of v's, arrows and smudges. — Try to get the whole God damn thing together here there's always somebody in there waiting to cut you down, depend on them to come through you look around and they're not there. That movie I started and the big star playing Marco Polo OD'd on drugs? this whole big media conference center idea I had for Longview it was mine Liz, whole God damn idea was mine what happens. Your pal Jack Orsini all lined up with the investment, Ude still hung up on his broadcast licensing so Orsini pulls back and Adolph sells Longview right out from under us and the whole God damn, why I'm just asking for a little patience Liz all I'm asking, back me up a little that's all.

She emptied her cup into the sink and stood there running water into it. Outside, the movement of the cat on the leaves was almost imperceptible and below, the yellows and pinks of wild cherry were already gone with the lost glance of the sun; still she looked.

— Try to, try to get all the God damn pieces together, he came on to her back, — wring a dollar out of Ude down there he's already got one hell of a mess building up with the IRS, county health board ready to close him down says his new indoor plumbing's dumping raw sewage into the Pee Dee and they're going over that school bus wreck with a fine tooth comb, next thing somebody comes out of the woodwork with a court order to dig up that old bum he baptized says it's her brother, now they want to get Pearly Gates up there. Whole God damn hall full of white schoolteachers they want to get Gates up there in his, get Gates up there…

He was sitting with his shoulders fallen, staring at his hands, when she turned with — I think it's getting late Paul, if you…

— Look did Chick call? He looked up, — he ever call back?

— Well he, no, no not since he called to say he'd just got out, that's all he said. I mean I didn't know who he was or…

— He was my RTO. Chick was my RTO… He'd gone back to staring at his hands, one over the other there on the table as though to hold it still — whole God damn, call you up like that out of nowhere we want a real showing from the Lightning Division, come down to that God damn wailing wall see all your old buddies even get you a wheelchair, ride down Constitution Avenue in a God damn wheelchair… and his hand broke away to seize one of the sodden pamphlets opened to display a figure suspended by the wooden limitations of the artist's intentions headlong against black over a firescape of torment — get Gates up there, comes back both legs smashed no parade he'll have his own God damn parade. You get Bobbie Joe, you get Ude up there Reverend Ude under his powerful anointing by the Holy Spirit already insulted the Jews now he's ready to take on the Catholics, he's got Gates fired up with how Satan's mad as hell over all these souls they're harvesting for the Lord do any God damn thing he can to get their crusade going against the forces of the Antichrist Ude says God's promised to give him an army, valiant soldiers of the cross marching on to war, they get this hall full of white schoolteachers? wheel in this big spade in combat gear? You'll see them climbing right up the God damn walls where's the, got to get going I thought you'd set the clock… His chair banged the wall and he came up sweeping the booklets together, — take these with me thought I'd turned on the radio, find out what the hell time it is where you going.

— I was just going up to get your red necktie.

— I've got it Liz! Right there in my God damn bag now don't, try to show a little God damn patience… He stood shaking his shoulders into his jacket, tearing away the dark knot at his throat and jamming it into a pocket, wadding up the papers piecemeal in a turn for the living room where he opened his bag and jammed them in — and look… He got a foot up on the edge of the coffee table pulling the lace tight with a sharp tug for emphasis, and it snapped — God damn it! and he was down on the edge of the chair with the shoe off, hands trembling in his effort to rethread it and when he got it back on and knotted he sat there, and then he suddenly reached out to seize the magazine of Natural History. — I have to look at this God damn face every time I sit down? crushing it up in his hand — God damn smartass grin I still see it at night listen, if that, listen Liz if that same, if that Sergeant Urich if he calls again hang up just, hang up. Bands, flags, Drucker and his bag of ears just hang up they, fall in behind because they shut us out, eighty percent disability says they can provide a wheelchair? sit there in the rain see these weeping mothers running their fingers over a name nobody can pronounce? He twisted the magazine hard in both hands thrusting it at her, — just get this God damn thing out of the house?

— Don't you want to take a coat? she came after him.

He had the front door open but he stood there, looking out, looking up, — little bastards look at that, not even Halloween till tonight but they couldn't wait… Toilet paper hung in disconsolate streamers from the telephone lines, arched and drooped in the bared maple branches reaching over the windows of the frame garage beyond the fence palings where shaving cream spelled fuck. — Look keep the doors locked, did this last night Christ knows what you're in for tonight… and the weight of his hand fell away from her shoulder, — Liz? just try and be patient? and he pulled the door hard enough for the snap of the lock to startle her less with threats locked out than herself locked in, to leave her steadying a hand on the newel before she turned back for the kitchen where the radio, muttering to itself all this time, took this opportune silence to tell her that three men whose boat had capsized in Long Island Sound had been saved in a thrilling rescue operation by the Coast Guard and she snapped it off, her eyes drawn in a kind of perplexity there emptying the cup of tea he'd left cold on the table and putting it aside unrinsed in the first of what became, as the morning fell away, a progress through the house of chores abandoned, dry wisps of lingerie in the bathroom basin and damp towels and socks as far as the floor in the hall, the vacuum cleaner dragged out and left and even paper towels and the spray bottle to the head of the stairs where she caught the bannister, turned back for the bathroom and quietly threw up.

She woke abruptly to a black rage of crows in the heights of those limbs rising over the road below and lay still, the rise and fall of her breath a bare echo of the light and shadow stirred through the bedroom by winds flurrying the limbs out there till she turned sharply for the phone and dialed slowly for the time, up handling herself with the same fragile care to search the mirror, search the world outside from the commotion in the trees on down the road to the straggle of boys faces streaked with blacking and this one, that one in an oversize hat, sharing kicks and punches up the hill where in one anxious glimpse the mailman turned the corner and was gone.