William Gaddis - Carpenter's Gothic

Through the festoons drifting gently from the wires and branches a crow dropped like shot, and another, stabbing at a squirrel crushed on the road there, vaunting black wings and taking to them as a car bore down, as a boy rushed the road right down to the mailbox in the whirl of yellowed rust spotted leaves, shouts and laughter behind the fence palings, pieces of pumpkin flung through the air and the crows came back all fierce alarm, stabbing and tearing, bridling at movement anywhere till finally, when she came out to the mailbox, stillness enveloped her reaching it at arm's length and pulling it open. It looked empty; but then there came sounds of hoarded laughter behind the fence palings and she was standing there holding the page, staring at the picture of a blonde bared to the margin, a full tumid penis squeezed stiff in her hand and pink as the tip of her tongue drawing the beading at its engorged head off in a fine thread. For that moment the blonde's eyes, turned to her in forthright complicity, held her in their steady stare; then her tremble was lost in a turn to be plainly seen crumpling it, going back in and dropping it crumpled on the kitchen table.

It was still there when she came back down the stairs, differently dressed now, eyeliner streaked on her lids and the colour unevenly matched on her paled cheeks, there was still a quaver in her hand when she reached for the phone, in her voice when she said — Who, hello…? She swallowed and cleared her throat, her free hand moving to smooth the picture out flat on the table before her — I'm sorry, who… oh… The voice burst at her from the phone and she held it away, staring down close at the picture as though something, some detail, might have changed in her absence, as though what was promised there in minutes, or moments, might have come in a sudden burst on the wet lips as the voice broke from the phone in a pitch of invective, in a harried staccato, broke off in a wail and she held it close enough to say — I'm sorry Mister Mullins, I don't know what to… and she held it away again bursting with spleen, her own fingertip smoothing the still fingers hoarding the roothairs of the inflexible surge before her with polished nails, tracing the delicate vein engorged up the curve of its glistening rise to the crown cleft fierce with colour where that glint of beading led off in its fine thread to the still tongue, mouth opened without appetite and the mascaraed eyes unwavering on hers without a gleam of hope or even expectation, — I don't know I can't tell you! I haven't seen Billy I don't know where he is! I'm sorry… she crushed the picture up in her hand, — I can't now no, no there's someone at the door… Someone hunched down, peering in — Wait! She had it crushed in a step for the trash taking Natural History's crumpled Masai with it, — wait… she caught breath coming through, seizing the knob tight, and then — oh… getting it open, — Mister McCandless I'm sorry, I, come in…

But he paused where she'd faltered, caught the newel with her hand. — Something wrong? I didn't mean to alarm you.

— No I'm, please, please go right in and, and whatever you…

— No, no here, sit down. He had her arm, had her hand in fact firm in one of his — I didn't mean to alarm you.

— It wasn't that… but she let him lead her to the edge of the frayed love seat, her hand in a sharp tremor as his escaped it. — It's the, just the mess out there, Halloween out there…

— Like the whole damned world isn't it… he was pulling off the battered raincoat, — kids with nothing to do.

— No there's, there's a meanness…

— No no no, no it's plain stupidity Mrs Booth. There's much more stupidity than there is malice in the world… Something in a paper bag protruding from the raincoat pocket banged the coffee table as he passed and he caught it up more carefully, and then from the kitchen, — Mrs Booth? I didn't know you had children?

She turned sharply. — What? He was sorting keys from a pocket when she came in, standing there over the blobs and crosses, lightning strokes, hails of arrows — oh, oh that that's just, nothing… She sat down, at her elbow the eyes stared from the paper bag holes on the ragged shred of newsprint — do, do you? She edged it under the damp heap of bills, — have children I mean? He didn't have children, no, he told her, over thrusting a key in the padlock, shaking it loose. — Oh and wait, wait I'm glad I remembered. Have you got another key? to the house here? He nodded, why, had she lost hers? both of them? — No they were stolen, I mean my purse was stolen with both of them in it I know it sounds silly but…

— It doesn't sound silly. Where.

— Was it stolen? At Saks, in the ladies' room at Saks, I'd been… When, he wanted to know. — Last week, about a week ago I'd been… And what else was in it, credit cards? a driver's license? anything with this address? — I don't know, I'm not sure I mean there wasn't much money and my card at Saks wasn't, it had expired anyway and there was nothing you'd, anything like a license. I've never had a license. I mean I don't even know how to drive.

He was having difficulty getting a key free of the ring, twisting it awkwardly, finally getting it off with a wince, — here… handing it to her, — incidentally, that man who showed up here looking for me? Has he been back?

— Oh he, no. No that rude one no, I mean not that I know of and I've hardly not been here, Paul wants the house kept locked so I've been here whenever he's away not that I wouldn't anyhow, she came on as though a pause would lose him through the door he'd slid open, — be here I mean. Paul's gone now he'll be gone for two or three days and you'll probably leave before I come back, I mean I have to leave in a few minutes I have an appointment this afternoon but it's not like, it's not really going somewhere… He'd gathered up the wadded raincoat, turning for the door, hadn't he overheard her on the phone mention Montego Bay? — Oh did you? And she was up pursuing this parting pleasantry of his round the end of the table with — when you were here last yes I, maybe I did but we've had to postpone it. We have friends there who, people who Paul's awfully fond of but he's been so busy, he travels so much now but it's all just business, places like down south and Texas and Washington I mean no place you'd ever really want to go to… She'd come as far as the door where he stood just inside, examining the room as though for some detail in its disarray that might have changed since he'd left it. — They all just expect everything to get done then it's always Paul that has to do it, he's the one that has all the ideas he depends on people then he looks around and they're just not there that's why they depend on him so much, he…

— Yes while I think of it he said, his back to her standing there making a cigarette, — would it be convenient to give me a check for the rent?

— Yes I, that's what I was just going to say… she recovered the cautious step she'd taken into the room where the books lay cascaded from her last retreat there, — I mean that's why Paul forgets things here sometimes, when he left this morning he forgot to give me the rent check to deposit I mean if we mailed it to you, if we mailed you the rent then I'd know I mean I do the mail but if we still don't even know where you live?

— I wish you would then, he said, found a pencil somewhere and tore the corner from a discarded calendar, just temporary, he was staying at a friend's place while he got things cleared up.

— Oh… she read the scrap he'd handed her, her voice fallen, — it's not a real address is it, I mean it's just a box number it's not where you're staying with somebody who, you mean probably staying with somebody you've met since you, since she left I mean, I didn't mean…