William Gaddis - J R

— Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler, William…

— Wait that can’t still be the…

— Yes well no, no I think he’s finished and ahm, he must be calling roll yes you can turn that sound off but leave it on to see what’s happened to our scheduling, is that it right there Dan? Of course some of the equipment they question is ahm, the burglar alarm at two thousand six hundred dollars for example but of course at the rate typewriters and adding machines are disappearing it probably comes out to about the same ahm, they’ve even put the telephone booth down there I suppose one of their ahm, their spy saw the new one down near the boys’ lockers but of course the telephone company itself is ahm, yes what’s this coming on now?

— Arithmetic, all the little pluses and minus.

— No it’s, I think it’s electricity, it must be Coach…

— Vogel’s new ahm, yes but of course if they started the tape at homeroom bell without knowing Mister Gibbs was ahm, yes well then the youngsters will have missed most of the lesson Dan so your testing might not be ahm…

— He said he put an outline on your desk, maybe I can find the place where it…

— Yes well in those papers you picked up it might ahm, that yellow sheet there might…

— Micro Farad yes that’s, farad’s an electrical unit, his resistance at a minimum and his field fully excited, laid Millie Amp on the ground potential, raised her frequency and lowered her capacitance, pulled out his high voltage probe and inserted it into her socket connecting them in parallel, and short circuited her shunt…

— Yes well that’s ahm, he said circuitry didn’t he and that sounds ahm, excuse me… hello?

— bar magnet had lost all its field strength, Millie Amp tried self induction and damaged her solenoid…

— No Leroy, he’s been trying to find out what happened to a shipment from the government in connection with the cafeteria lunch program subsidy, the… picnic forks yes, they seem to have ahm… well tell him to call me back, yes…

— fully discharged, was unable to excite his generator, so they reversed polarity and blew each other’s fuses…

— Yes well I think you’ll just have to take a look at the whole tape yourself Dan, all that electrical language is a little bit ahm, here just let me initial it and send it back to him we don’t want to take any more of the Senator’s time and we can clear up your ahm, look into your equipment requests later in terms of ahm, of budgetary terms that is to…

— No but it wasn’t that equipment that I, I meant the equipment we already have that was stored in north seven, I came in that way this morning and…

— I think I can straighten Dan out on this Whiteback, with the equipment coming in for this home ec center in east seven you were going to set your little retreads up in business over in north seven, am I right? And then all Dan’s equipment here would be…

— Yes well no we ahm, when the home ec equipment came into north seven we had Dan’s moved over to east seven where we were going to set up the retard ahm…

— Set them up in business in east seven, that’s what I just…

— Yes well we’ve ahm, put them out of business that is to say, in terms of the ongoing situation spacewise the skill builders and the ahm, the reading accelerators ran over two thousand dollars I think didn’t they Dan, in budgetary terms of course damage to equipment like that if we put it in the ahm, out in the cold that is to say the taxpayers would probably ahm…

— You say this new home ec equipment’s in north seven? I’d like to take a look at it Whiteback, matter of fact I thought I might take a couple of pieces, a couple of the appliances maybe, take them off your hands at cost, might help you out a little on your space problem.

— Yes well at cost of course I ahm, I thought they were gift from your subsiderary, a subsiderary of your ahm…

— Matter of fact that’s what I meant yes, after the way they cleaned us out in that robbery…

— If you’re going to look at it now I’ll go with you, we can make sure the…

— You go ahead Dan, one of us going around bandaged up with an arm in a sling is one thing but the two of us these kids would think was a comedy team. Anyhow I want to talk to the Senator here for a minute about your proposition thirteen, Senator? Your bill to get the schools out of the entertainment business, make closed-circuit systems…

— That bill, we tabled that bill.

— What do you, what do you mean you tabled it, you…

— When the Foundation announced it’s dropping support for the school televisions we tabled it, too much…

— The Foun, what? What do you, what the hell do you, what’s he talking about Whiteback?

— Yes well the ahm, of course I forgot you’d been in the ahm, out of circulation that is to say Major but the Foundation has apparently decided to put its support into educational broadcasting ahm, community stations as opposed to school, educational television as opposed to instructional television that is to…

— But what do they think they, they stick you with a million dollar setup like this and then pull out? Put us in the entertainment business where every brokendown jobless retired radical welfare freeloading Tom Dick and, and, and that writer they sent out here, you remember him? Messy looking kind of a, I gave him a whole armload of research material he never returned, what kind of a write-up do you think he gave the whole thing after that lesson by that, that Bast, that, that’s what did it, that, owww…!

— Yes be careful Major that desk corner is ahm, no I’ll pick up the papers Dan why don’t you just go ahead and check on your ahm, excuse me… hello? Oh, oh yes Mister Parentu… yes he’s right ahm… A flash of nails and the blue stone intervened. — Right, right yes well of course he just said you’re right but he just ahm, unfortunately Mister Pecci just left, he… yes well of course I can give him your message about the story in the… yes, yes go ahead, yes… the phone dangled.

— And that Gibbs that, that what do they expect when you’ve got somebody like that up there representing the school to every jobless old retired welfare watch your, your pants there Dan, looks like they’re going to…

— Listen, at the door there somebody? listening…?

— to go shit in their hats…

On the screen was Smokey Bear.

— Here, what are you doing there!

— What, me…? The door opened far enough to admit a torn sneaker toe.

— You, yes, there’s no one else there is there? What are you doing at the door there.

— Nothing. I got sent.

— For what was it now, typewriters again?

— No it was, I was using this here adding machine up in the…

— Using it? You didn’t happen to ahm, take it home with you?

— What? What like, steal it?

— Three typewriters and one adding machine disappeared over the weekend, do you know anything about it?

— Me? No I mean holy, I mean if I stole one why would I get caught using this here one up in the…

— What makes you think you have a right to play with expensive school equipment like typewriters and adding machines? Do you know how much one of them…

— No but I was real careful Mister Whiteback but see I had all these here big numbers to add up which I had to be sure it came out right see so I…

— This is the last time, do you understand? This is the last time I want to see you sent to my office for something like this, do you understand?

— Me too but I, yes sir but I just wondered, see this list of all these numbers I was adding up in this here adding machine I wondered if I could just get it back because like I thought maybe then Mister Glancy could…