William Gaddis - The Recognitions

There were even books in the room where he'd found the drawers full of bottles. He kept two volumes, Tissandier's Histoire des bal-lons, not that he was interested in balloons, or could have read them if he were, but they were bound in green, and matched the motif of the new wallpaper. As for the others, two volumes of Lew Wallace, and Jules Verne's Tour of the Moon, Round the World in Eighty Days, and Five Weeks in a Balloon, those he gave to the American Legion, with whom he was co-operating in the great nation-wide Spiritual Crusade which they were sponsoring.

In the community, "Dick" also sang (he had a very agreeable "white tenor"), and conducted the Boy Scout troop.

There were, among the local mothers of fourteen-year-old boys, a few who felt they understood "Dick" very well, and cherished him accordingly; there were on the other hand a few elders who did not understand him at all, even to one sturdy old man who complained at the new minister's pronunciation. — Don't like the way he says Gawd. . said that gray eminence, with the petulance of a man defending someone in his immediate family, and he never entered the church on his own feet again.

The ladies of the Use-Me Society found "Dick" a very agreeable listener; and he soon had some idea of how matters had gone before him, how the church (where he took one look and said, — Gee, we'd better dig right in. .) came to demand such extensive refurbishing, and so forth. — And don't you know. . said one of the ladies (who already referred to him as "Our 'Dick' "), speaking of the late sexton, — I once heard him say, It's only we that have no care for dying who never manage it… And from other things she, and her companions, said from time to time, their relief at having been delivered from the prospect of burial by those hands was evident, as though he might have laid them in askew, to hamper that mighty leap when the Trumpet sounded. "Dick" heard of the demented girl who had lived up there, since taken to a state institution where she should have gone in the first place (for her own good) but for the Reverend's charity (which often extended too far), that she had rewritten the Bible and was in the act of printing it herself when "everything came to a head." Even the reliable details of her rumored cure of the sexton's paralysis were brought from these rotting-rooms and aired quite solemnly: the old man had got both legs into one leg of his pajamas one night on going to bed, cried out, — A stroke!… or — Paraplegia!… or some such, and she had come down the hall to the rescue. Though where they had gained this intelligence, or that she never left the house because she feared falling through the cracks in the sidewalk, they did not disclose.

As for the Reverend himself, it was generally admitted that his efforts and accomplishment, especially in those two final days of his dominion, had been prodigious, and, for one man, incredible; as it was generally agreed that he had, in his lifetime, suffered severe trials, and in sharing the magnanimous aggregate of their own troubled pasts, they were able to concur in granting him the right to a prolonged, confined, rest, in a private institution, where what remained of his own funds after the cost of repairs to certain community property, and his neighbor's bull, had been deducted, would suffice to maintain him until he was delivered (or summoned: there were two distinct opinions on this) by the Lord; and where "Dick," being of an earnest, responsible nature, decided to visit him.

And he did manage to emerge with the consolation that the familiar figure whom their community of kindness had enthralled showed no signs of breaking out to return and violate them with signs of appreciation, and appeared, if not grateful, distantly resigned to what, in the compound agreement of their own, they were pleased to call the Lord's will.

Happymount had been built originally as a natural history museum, by a philanthropist who felt that such things should be located in the country. When, eventually, it became evident that people were unwilling to make this excursion simply to see stuffed animals and stuffed Indians, it was suggested that they might come out to see human specimens, especially if they were relatives. The lighting inside was very bad. Beyond an iron palisade which separated it from the cares of the world, Happymount rose on a sea of green lawns tended by lonely lunatics: what could be more restful and rewarding than following the lawnmower up and down the green swathes day after day, and by the time one reached the laundry it was time to start at the front gate again. The grassless winter proved a problem.

— Then you are the son? The doctor stared brightly through gold-rimmed glasses. He had proved, when he stood behind his desk a moment before, to be a good head shorter than "Dick," who was himself barely average height. -The what? I?…

— Miss Inch, the doctor called, and a nurse appeared in the door. — The son. . the son. . — It's a beautiful day, doctor. -Ward G. .

— Wait a minute. . wait a minute. .

It is true, the grassless winter proved a problem for everyone. Once outside in the sunshine, the nurse said, — You must not mind Mister Farisy. We have put him to sharing quarters with Mister Farisy.

Mr. Farisy's dossier at Happymount was a slim one: it detailed little of his successful years as an eminent anatomist, did not, in fact, even mention the process he said he had perfected for curing hams while still on the pig. It commenced in volume only at the point where (according to his own testimony) he had been appointed by the Congregation of the Sacred Rites, at the Vatican, to investigate early methods of crucifixion: were nails driven through the hands? or the wrists? As a scientist, Mr. Farisy had always relied on empirical methods, and found no reason to abandon them now: twenty arms were delivered to his laboratory. He nailed each right hand, and each left wrist, to the wall, and attached mobile weights driven by a system of bellows which he'd removed from a player piano, to simulate the rising and falling motions of the breathing human being. Then he set the thing in motion: weights rose and fell; wood creaked; flesh tore; bones split; and something snapped in Mr. Farisy's head. Next day he called for two dozen arms, then a gross, and silence followed: he said he had been brought to Happy-mount soon after he'd been discovered swinging hand-over-hand in the trapeze of intricate and grand proportions he'd fashioned in his laboratory. (But then, he also said he was descended from Attila the Hun.)

— Humm… ho… did Barabbas go free? Listen, I had a dream last night, a most ghastly nightmare. Do you want to hear it?

— No.

— I was on a mountaintop beside a little shed. I don't know how I could tell I was on a mountaintop, because I couldn't see the mountain. I couldn't even see other mountains. It was just because I knew I was on a mountaintop, so there! Ahhp. . don't interrupt or I won't tell you any more. Maybe it was the light. The quality of light is different on a mountaintop, you'll see, thin, rarefied, the quintessence of purification.

— Be quiet. Go to sleep.

— The shed was an old board building. Weatherbeaten. Well, why shouldn't it be weatherbeaten, on a mountaintop like that, so there. The sun. .

— Hmmnph. .

— Yes the sun was behind me, covering me with its quintessential light, so there. I had him under the arms, with his back up against the shed but he was much bigger than I was, so much bigger I could hardly lift him. I decided the only way to do it was to nail one hand to one board and the other to a board higher up, then take the first nail out and put it in two boards higher, and then the same with the other hand, left hand, right hand, left hand right hand left hand. .