William Gaddis - Carpenter's Gothic

— It's funny, you know? I mean I used to know this kid in school named McCandless. He was sort of a neat kid.

— Why is that funny.

— What? No, I mean I just never met anybody else named that, like I still owe him this two hundred dollars. I mean he was the only decent kid in the whole fucking school, he…

— Wait be careful of that, it's…

— I mean what is it.

— It's a camera shutter. It's rather delicate.

— Oh. Like if it wasn't for him I would have been kicked out. I mean I was finally kicked out anyway but not for that… and holding up that yellow orange rock now — what's this, gold?

— It's not gold no, it's something called gummite.

— Gummite? I mean what are you, like some kind of geologist?

— Yes. Yes you could put it that way, now…

— Because I mean I always felt lousy about that two hundred dollars, you know? Can I bum a cigarette?

— Well I, here… He came forward abruptly to sweep the battered State Express tin from the litter and sank back further into the chair, waving off the smoke as though searching through it those features limned in intimacy only minutes before, kissed in fact, looming over him here in this unseemly parody, that chill fragility of chin and cheekbone all untempered, unrestrained, ruminant with bread and even the hands, now the bread was gone, large, red knuckled, the very finger ends nubbed by bitten nails up shaking out a match, drawing away the cigarette, quickened by that same dread of unemployment but latent with casual breakage where one of them, cupping a dented case in general issue drab, snapped its cover open, closed, opened. — I didn't get your name.

— Me? It's Vorakers, Billy Vorakers. What's this, a compass?

— And you're her brother? Mrs Booth's?

— She's my sister.

— Yes. Yes she's very nice, isn't she… He leaned forward to stamp out what was left of his cigarette, — a very nice person.

— Nice? Man like she's the only straight number in the whole fucking family, I mean she's the only thing that holds things together in the whole…

— That two hundred dollars, what was it for.

— What, that? Man like it was for nothing. I mean we were only in second form, you know? And I mean I got busted for grass when I'm off the school grounds so there's this old locker room guy Biff we used to throw the towels to? So he gets this town lawyer he knows where before the school finds out about it if I can put up this two hundred dollars bail and then just not show up and that's it, I mean I surrender the bail and that's it. I mean he was sort of a neat old guy but like where am I supposed to get this two hundred dollars. I mean if I'd called my old man he would have told them great, put him in solitary, give him the thumbscrews so Jack calls his father and it's there the next day and I mean he wasn't rich, like these other snotty kids whose old man pulls up in a Mercedes like mine where he scribbles a check to the alumni association and then he shows up at the hockey game. I mean I never thought he'd show up at all and I'm sitting in the penalty box when I hear this fucking whisper right behind me kill them, kill them, he's right behind me with his fur collar turned up where everybody's yelling and all I hear is this whisper, kill them…

— But he's dead, isn't he.

— Man, is he dead.

— Tell me something, Billy… He'd settled back digging in the litter for the glazed tobacco envelope, — was your… — What? Hey Bibbs, did you find it?

— I didn't find it, no. She was standing there in the doorway, quelling the tremor in an empty hand seizing it on the knurl of the sideboard, piano, whatever it was — it's not there, I'll have to ask Paul if he…

— Ask Paul! I mean that's why it's not there, he's checking it out for the same…

— Please! rescuing calm to her voice, getting breath, looking from one to the other of them through these conspiring planes of blue on grey, — I don't think Mis…

— I mean the shape the old man was in when Adolph drew it up now he says he doesn't have a copy, that's just Adolph covering his ass in case the old man screwed up, I mean like I was just telling Mis…

— I heard you she said, her voice tight as her hand on the dark turn of wood there — and I don't think Mister, Mister McCandless has a lot to do here I wish you'd just come out and let him…

— No but wait Bibbs wait, I mean where's Paul now, because I was just in California right? So somebody turns on television and all of a sudden it's all these spaced out creeps of Paul's. I mean this Billye Fickert is up there in this black dress like she's in mourning only it's cut right down to her crotch holding up this picture of her little boy that's resting in the Lord's bosom, and I mean this huge black guy in his uniform whipping around in this wheelchair singing and then this creep, this redneck creep Paul was trying to fix up with Longview? this Reverend Ude? I mean he's up there comforting this Mrs Fickert in the bowels of Jesus everlasting life man it looks like he's reaching in there for a handful of raw lung I mean you've got to hear him, like he's shouting about these agents of Satan that have penetrated into high places trying to prevent his glorious mission where he's going even unto darkest Africa to wash them in the blood of Jesus I mean you've got to hear that voice, like he's shouting about Marxism is this instrument of Satan the father of lies and then it drops real low and slows down like he's sliding a hand right into your short hair, pray for little…

— Billy please it's, no one cares! Now…

— No no no, no in fact Mrs Booth I'm fascinated.

— But what… she broke off, suddenly deserted there against the doorframe, — Paul's not even…

— No come on Bibbs, I mean it's Paul that's running that whole freak show isn't it? like he's supposed to be this big media consultant and all that bullshit? I mean Ude's up there telling everybody to turn on their car headlights and wear a purple ribbon to show they're in this big crusade against these forces of evil infiltrating the government and the regular churches and the Jews to try to put him out of business that's got to be Paul, I mean those headlights and those ribbons that's got to be fucking Paul with his phony military school dress sabre and his box of stones and all his freaked out cheap southern bullshit pray for little Wayne, pray for America I mean that's got to be…

— Well it's not he, honestly! Paul's not even, he doesn't know any more about the Bible and Satan than you do about, about Buddhism and, and… she got breath as though to stem the colour rising in her face — why it should be fascinating to, why Mister McCandless should be fascinated by what you have to say about Paul it's not, it's just not very…

— No no I didn't mean, I'm sorry Mrs Booth… waving off the smoke, — I meant Reverend Ude. Reverend Elton Ude? There can't be two of them.

— What, I mean like you know him?

— Like the plague, yes. The Lord brought us together once in Smackover.

— Man you've got to be kidding. In what?

— In Smackover no, no you don't kid about Smackover.

People get up in the morning and go to bed at night in Smackover till the day they die and go someplace else, someplace that must look just like Smackover at two in the morning believe me, that's as serious as things can get, Reverend Ude in there washing them all in the blood of where are those little books, those damned little books… He collared the nearest trash bag tearing it open, pulling out pages, scraps, fragments of landscapes, coastlines, a palm size scrip of cheap newsprint stapled together in black and blue — here, here's one, Genesis to Revelation the whole thing boiled down to ten pitiful little pages of illiteracy and hideous cartoons, here's the creation. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth it looks like he's shooting craps, talk about playing dice with the universe. They're little comic books teaching this comic strip version of the creation, Ude was handing the damned things out all over town, here… He was back digging in the trash bag, — another one here on evolution that's even funnier he gave me a whole fistful of them, came up to me on the courthouse steps and took my arm he wanted me to get right down there on my knees with him and repent, why the Lord sent him to Smackover he told me where is that damned thing…