William Gaddis - Carpenter's Gothic

From the terrace, where she came out minutes later, the sun still held the yellowing heights of the maple tree on the lower lawn's descent to a lattice fence threatening collapse under a summer exuberance of wild grape already gone a sodden yellow, brown spotted, green veined full as hands in its leaves' lower reaches toward the fruitless torment of a wild cherry tree, limbs like the scabrous barked trunk itself wrenched, twisted, dead where one of them sported wens the size of a man's head, cysts the size of a fist, a graceless Laocoön of a tree whose leaves where it showed them were shot through with bursts neither yellow nor not, whose branches were already careers for bittersweet just paling yellow, for the Virginia creeper in a vermilion haste to be gone. She looked up for the cry of a jay, for the sheer of its blue arc down the length of the fence and then back to lark bunting, red crossbill, northern shrike, lesser yellowlegs fluttering by on the pages of the bird book opened on her lap while here, in the branches of the mulberry tree above her, nothing moved but a squirrel's mindless leap for the roof of the house and she sat back, her stained face raised bared for the sun gone now even from the top of the maple, gone this abruptly behind the mountain with not even a cloud in what sky these trees allowed to trace its loss leaving only a chill that trembled the length of her, sent her back in where she'd come from.

Stark through past the newel a figure stood outside the front door where a knock still seemed to echo, something sharper, more insistent, brisk as the close-cropped head cocked at her approach.

— Yes…? she opened the door on brown speckled tweed, — what…

— McCandless? He stood drawn up there in ochre trousers to barely her height.

— Oh, oh come in yes I'm so glad you came back, we…

— Is he here?

— Who. I mean I thought you…

— McCandless, I just told you. Is this the house?

— Well yes this is his house but…

— Who are you, his latest?

— His, his latest what, I don't…

— First time I ever knew him to have a redhead. Is he here?

— I don't know where he is no and I'm not, I don't know who you are but I'm not his first redhead his, his latest anything, we're just renting his…

— Just relax now, I don't want the details. When was he here last.

— He was here this morning but…

— Where did he go.

— I don't know! I don't know where he went I didn't see him I don't even know him! And now wait no you're not coming in. . she strained the door against the point of his boot.

— Just hold on now, hold on… the round eyes darted past her, down the front of the blouse she'd pulled on, back to hers, — no difference to me what he's dipping his dingus in these days, I just stopped by to talk to him. You just give him a message when you see him, will you? Tell him Lester stopped by for a talk?

— But I don't see him and who, Lester who…

— You just tell him Lester… the toe of the boot withdrew, — he'll know… and she got the door closed, watched the brisk strut of spindly ochre legs across the black crown of the road, still standing there when a black car pulled away from the hedge above in a swirl of leaves and flattened the dustpan on the turn down the hill. Back in the kitchen, the radio alerted her that thirty five million Americans were functionally illiterate and another twenty five million couldn't read at all and she snapped it off, filled a jar to water the plants and spilled it in a lunge for the phone, for a pencil, for anything handy to write on, — yes just a minute… she opened the bird book and got down the number under red breasted merganser. She was back up in the bedroom buttoning a fresh blouse when the downstairs toilet flushed. — Paul…?

— Who is it.

— Paul is that you? '

— Now look Mister Mullins, I can't help you… he'd already seized the phone. — He's not here, he doesn't live here, I don't know where he is and I don't want to know, if you… Well why the hell didn't she just stay in India! There's not a God damn thing we can… yes I'm sorry too, goodbye!

— Paul you didn't have to be so rude to him, the poor man's just…

— Liz I'm sick and tired of the poor man! There's not a God damn thing we can do for the poor man and his crazy daughter the sooner he gets that through his head the better. He says she was supposed to go to some ashram two weeks ago he hasn't heard from her since, out there in the woods with your God damn brother seeking enlightenment all she's doing is getting laid, if they want to drag around wearing mantras and ringing bells what the hell are we supposed to do about it? Go right on cleaning up after your God damn…

— Yes but, well I mean if you could just try to be… she'd come round behind him to switch on the light, — to sound a little bit reassuring…

— What the hell is there to reassure him about! They're up in the woods shooting dope banging on their guitars like that night we had to sit through them playing down in that empty storefront they hung up some yellow rags and called it a temple? Sounded like a fire in a pet store what the hell's reassuring about that… He was up with an empty glass in his hand, — minute I walk in the door it's the same God damn thing, cleaning up after your brother the minute I pick up the phone…

— Paul! what, that grease on your face and your shirt's, what happened…

— Cleaning up after your God damn brother I just told you! The car right in the middle of the West Side Highway the God damn car stalled I could have been killed out there trying to start it, I told you he couldn't fix a rollerskate didn't I? Bunch of spades in a tow truck finally showed up and hauled it in took me for every God damn cent I had on me, in there for an hour trying to call you what the hell was going on? Busy busy busy what the hell was going on?

— I'm not… she sat down, eyes lowered to his hand straining the bottle over the rim of the glass, — I don't know, I…

— An hour Liz, I tried to call you for an hour. What the hell was going on!

— Well it, Edie called.

— For an hour? Edie called for an hour?

— Well she, I mean it couldn't have been a whole hour she just wanted to…

— Liz it was an hour, one solid God damn hour I couldn't reach you nobody could, that whole list I gave you? these calls I've been waiting for? State Department calling about this spade with his prisons and chicken factories did they call? and these pigs? Drug company bringing in these nutritionists for a look at these pigs did they call?

— No they, I mean nobody called about…

— How do you know they didn't. Look. You're on the phone for an hour with Edie, somebody calls they get a busy how do you know they called Liz I'm trying to get something going here, line up these clients tell them to check with my home office and you're talking to Edie? Just some support Liz, just backing me up till I get things off the ground that's all I ask isn't it? Sit around the house here you haven't got a God damn thing to do all day you can't just do that? Take this Reverend Ude, still scraping the red clay off his shoes he's got to have somebody that can step in there and get the job done, nationwide television a media center his Africa radio Voice of Salvation got all the God damn pieces he needs some good clear hard headed thinking in there to put them together, got him in today's paper's what he's supposed to call me about, if he thought he's hooking up with somebody's operating out of a back kitchen office files under a bag of onions think he'd ever call back?

— But he did Paul, I mean that's what I…

— What you what. He called and you're on the phone to Edie? Biggest break I've got going, he calls and he can't get through because you're talking to Edie what did she want.