William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— Does she know it?

— Who, Edna? She…

— Edna who?

— Edna Mims, she's a blonde from uptown. He used to bring her down here to shock her, and then take her home and ball her. .

— Edna? said Otto, unable to swallow. — With him?

Everyone silenced for a moment at a scream of brakes outside, anticipating the satisfaction of a resounding crash. They were disappointed. Instead, as their conglomerate conversation rose again, Ed Feasley rode in upon its swell. Behind him a blonde adjusting a garter followed with choppy steps like a dory pulled in the wake of a yawl on a rough sea. — Get a drink, was all Ed Feasley could say, as he sat down at Otto's table.

Mr. Peddle was there. He stood with difficulty, his hand on the hip of a tall light-haired girl, her delicately modeled face and New England accent manifest of good breeding. — His mother is the sweetest little Boston woman, she said, — awfully interested in dogs, awfully anti-vivisection. They were looking at Anselm, who looked about to drop to his knees. Behind her, Don Bildow said, — He is an excellent poet, when he tries. He's been taking care of my daughter when we're out, my wife and I. I haven't looked at another woman since we were married. Then with his hand on the man's-shirted shoulder of the light-haired girl, — Do you find me attractive?

The beard at Otto's table said, — Is that Hemingway? Ed Feasley looked over at the Big Unshaven Man, who had just said, — No queer in history ever produced great art. Feasley looked vague, but said, — There's something familiar about him.

— That's the damnedest thing I ever heard, Otto said, looking at Max, partially recovered. He motioned for another drink. When he had finished it he said, — I've got to make a phone call. I may have to go to Peru and northern Bolivia.

— Tonight? said Feasley. — You going to fly down? I'd like to go with you, but. . say, if you can wait until tomorrow afternoon

. I've got to go to a wedding tomorrow, but…

— No, I mean I've just got to call my father now, Otto said casually as though he had known that man all his life.

— Say hello to the old bastard for me, Ed Feasley called after him.

Otto called, made a rendezvous for a week later with the anxious voice at the other end of the line. They would meet in the lobby of a midtown hotel, at eight (—If you'll wear that green scarf I sent you for Christmas two years ago, Otto, I have one just like it. We'll know each other that way. And I wear glasses. . said the voice, murmuring, after the telephone at the other end of the line was hung up, — Should I have said rimless glasses?). Otto had agreed quickly, he didn't know where his green muffler was but to push the thing further would have been too much, bad enough to need recourse to such a device to know your own father.

There were seven people at the table when he returned to it. The painters could be identified by dirty fingernails; the writers by conversation in labored monosyllables and aggressive vulgarities which disguised their minds. — Yeh, I'm doing a psychoanalysis of it, said one of them, tapping Mother Goose on the table.

— I tell you, there's a queer conspiracy to dominate everything. Just look around, the boy with the red hunting cap said. — Queers dominate writing, they dominate the theater, they dominate art. Just try to find a gallery where you can show your pictures if you're not a queer, he added, raising a cigarette between paint-encrusted fingers. — What do you think women look so damned foolish for today? It's because queers design their clothes, queers dictate women's fashions, queers do their hair, queers do all the photography in the fashion magazines. They're purposely making women look more and more idiotic until nobody will want to go to bed with one. It's a conspiracy.

Near their table, the tall dark girl who had been talking with Anselm said to someone she knew, — Do you know that girl? I want to meet her.

With his hand on Esme's shoulder, Otto leaned down to say, — Let's get out of here. Ed Feaslëy looked up to say, — You want to go to a party? A big ball a bunch of queers are giving up in Harlem.

— Drag? someone asked.

— What's drag?

— Where they all dress like women.

— This ball is drag, someone else said. — High drag.

There was a loud yelp. Anselm, on all fours, had met the dachshund, and had one of its ears in his mouth. The tall dark girl looked up at the doorway to see a timid Italian boy with no chin start to enter, and get pushed aside. — God, she said, — there's my stupid cousin. I'm going next door. — I've got a doctor for her, a young man was saying. — He'll do it for two hundred and fifty, but I can't get hold of her. Every time I call all I get on the phone is Rose, her crazy sister Rose.

Otto and Ed Feaslëy, with Esme between them, moved toward the door. The Big Unshaven Man turned away when Feaslëy passed. — Of course I know him. A damn fine painter, Mr. Memling, he was saying, as he took a quart flask out of his pocket. — Would you mind filling this up with martinis? Yes, what you read about me is true, I like to have some with me. Sure, I'll look at your novel any time, he finished, as the boy handed a ten-dollar bill across the bar.

— I sure as Chrahst know him from somewhere, Feaslëy said.

— That's because he's Ernest Hemingway, said a voice nearby.

— Paris? said the light-haired girl. — I wouldn't reach up my ahss for the whole city.

Mr. Feddle was being pushed out the door ahead of them. There they met Hannah. — Is Stanley in there? she asked. — Haven't seen him. — He had to go to the hospital to see his mother, said Hannah. — She just won't die. Then Hannah melted into the stew, where the juke-box was playing Return to Sorrento.

— Where's Adeline? Otto asked.

— I don't know. The hell with her, Feaslëy said.

They found Adeline asleep in the car. Fortunately it was a new model, with a low chassis and a low center of gravity, which saved it from overturning at the corners. They had some difficulty getting in to the party, when Ed Feasley offered to fight anyone who kept them out. They were saved when a crapulous Cleopatra appeared, waving a rubber asp at Esme and Adeline, thought it knew them, squealing in rapturous welcome that their costumes were divine.

It was quite a party. There must have been four hundred.

They arrived as a beautiful thing in a strapless white evening gown finished a song called I'm a Little Piece of Leather, followed on the stage by a strip-tease in two parts. The first performer was all too obviously a woman, gone to fat. This tumbled about in the spotlights, wallowed a great unmuscled expanse of rump and bounced a mammoth front at the audience, jeering with laughter, railed off the stage in grisly flounces of flesh. Then towering loveliness appeared, bowed to thunderous applause, and moving with perfect timing slipped off one after another garment to reveal exquisite limbs (hairless but a trifle muscular) with long gathering motions of blond hair to the waist, serpentine caresses rising over the spangled brassiere. Ed Feasley, who had muttered with virile disgust at the first, watched this exhibition with wondering pleasure, until, in finale, the brassiere was waved aloft leaving a chest uninhabited, leaving Feasley sitting forward in astonished indignation, leaving, the stage through a curtain of wild applause.

— Are you really a girl? a young Bronzino in velvet asked Esme, punching in disbelief at her small bosom. She laughed, and Otto turned to brandish his sling; like Infessura, perhaps, writing of the papal court of Sixtus IV, "puerorum amator et sodomita fuit," he ordered a drink.