William Gaddis - J R

— Take it.

— Only find twenties here, and ones…

— Well take one of the…

— Good, good lord is this, this what you were talking about?

She glanced down. — Yes.

— Right into the eye of the hurricane, almost see out the other end can’t you.

— Jack please, you don’t have to start…

— Ought to borrow it to show to our principal, he’s a great one for proscribed openings. Got both of them here in fact haven’t you, takes me back to my boyhood in Burmesquik…

— Jack that’s enough, will you just put it…

— Well what do you want me to say, that she has nice eyes? that I’d like an introduction? I mean is it somebody I’m supposed to know or is she just…

— No but I thought, it just looks like his secretary, I’ve only seen her once but…

— Norman’s passing these out, you mean?

— No please stop being, it was in his shirt pocket. I was getting laundry together and…

— And what, you mean you think the lucky man here is…

— Jack please stop it, if you can’t simply…

— Doesn’t really look like Norman’s ah, knee though, does it, of course you’d know better than…

— I said please! The car swerved as she reached to thrust it into her bag.

— All right but I don’t follow your story, he said rearranging knees, — you found it in his pocket and he hit you? I mean why didn’t you hit him.

A horn sounded and she looked up to the mirror and slowed to the right, and a horn sounded. — Well you know him, she said quietly, — can’t you imagine?

— Not because I know him though Stella, he turned to open the vent window and drop out his cigarette, — but I know you.

— Jack if you’re going to start…

— Because I know what you said to him when you found it. You just moved in and finished the job didn’t you, couldn’t have done it better if you’d sat down with the girl there and planned it.

— Jack I don’t want to hear…

— I know damned well you don’t, last twist of the knife and he’s out of business for good, why the hell did you ever marry him Stella.

Her gloved hand came up to press the glasses closer and they veered out, passing cars. — Have you got a cigarette?

He came up with one and lit it for her with a match, shook the pack and crumpled it. — Why.

— When you and I were, when you started behaving just the way you are now and I started seeing him he sat down one night and told me he’d added up what he’d spent so far taking me out. It came to ninety-four dollars and a half, and he wanted to know if I was serious before he went on. Does that answer you?

— Poor bastard… he slumped further beside the glass, — you know, I believe that part Stella… and his knees came up again.

— Jack can’t you settle down, it’s like driving with a ten-year-old.

— Just these damned little expensive foreign cars, must mean the piano roll business is still pretty good though.

— I think business is but the rest of it’s quite confused apparently, taxes and the shares in Father’s estate. And didn’t he give you some when you left?

— Shares? Gave me five, mustering out pay, and I just… he broke off, glancing up at her and trying to wedge an arm behind the head rest, — for whatever they’re worth, what the hell are they worth?

— I don’t know, I don’t think even Norman knows really.

— He must have a nice wad of them put away himself.

— Twenty-three I think, but my aunts and uncle have something like twenty-seven.

— But with what you come into from your father…

— Probably not more than twenty-five Norman says, when the estate taxes are paid.

— Well, twenty-five and what did you say he had? twenty-three? Makes forty-eight, I don’t see what you’re…

— Assuming we keep them together, she said without looking up from the road, where the banks had narrowed and the screen of trees thinned before the rise of buildings. — And you still have your, five you said?

— Had them in a shirt drawer, he said, and then he half turned to look at her for a moment before he sank back beside the glass again as the screen of trees lost to concrete before a fall of birds from the bridge overhead, thinned to anchor fence penning a battered fleet of empty cabs, finally he turned to her bag between them on the seat and opened it, bent over it, a hand in it.

— Please don’t start that again.

— Start what. I was looking for a cigarette… he came up with a package and a bill he twisted to get into a pocket before he lit the cigarette and opened the bag to put the package back in. — Start this again, you mean?

She glanced down. — Yes, will you put it…

— Off with that weary coronet and show, the hairy diadem which on you doth grow. Now off with… The car slowed sharply and he threw up his arm. — Just a little poetry, John Donne the prominent churchman little tribute to his…

— Jack this is enough, if you…

— Will you let me out here then?

— Don’t be ridiculous but stop…

— But what’s the matter? I quote a prominent churchman on hairy diadems when you bring out a snapshot of one, nicest name for it I could think of offhand and you almost throw me through the… a horn sounded, — look out!

— Well what are you doing this for!

— Because I don’t believe this is the reason Norman hit you.

— What do you mean now.

— I mean you’ve been saying twenty-three I think and didn’t Father give you some shares and you know God damned well it was five, you know twenty-five plus five is thirty which is more than twenty-three and more than twenty-seven…

— Jack you…

— But Norman’s twenty-three plus five would be twenty-eight which is more than your aunts’ twenty-seven and more than your twenty-five well you didn’t have to bother Stella, I haven’t got the God damned five shares.

— But you said…

— I said it was in a shirt drawer and I took it out of the shirt drawer and right now I don’t know who the hell has it, can you just pull over up here and let me out?

— Jack please, please stop being ridiculous you…

— No I mean it, Stella for you lying is just a practical way of handling things, remember how cheerfully you used to lie to your father when we, when there wasn’t even any real reason to? You just need somebody to lie to.

A horn sounded behind as the car slowed sharply and bumped over a low curb onto grass. — I don’t know where you think you’re going.

— I’ll get over the fence there and find a subway try to make the last race, that’s why you married Norman isn’t it, find somebody that God damned decent he deserves to be lied to Stella I’ll bet you haven’t been really laid since the day I met you again on that train platform…

Horns sounded as the door slammed and the wheels dropped to the pavement where she turned without a look back, pressing the dark glasses close against her face, over rises and down, through the tunnel and up the dim arcade along the river, dim as the rooms she moved among lighting lamps under opaque shades, dropping the bag on An Informal Evening at the Juilliard Theater, the glasses beside it, down the hall thrusting away one shoe, the other, a hand behind her coursing down the zipper as the other sought among robes for the robe fallen open from her where she bent over the basin to bring her eye close to the mirror when the doorbell rang and she caught it closed, caught up the dark glasses passing the table and had them on when she reached up to put the chain in place before she opened the chain’s hand’s breadth, — Oh!… and she closed it to slip the chain off again, and draw it wide. — But you should be in Palma…