William Gaddis - J R

— I’ve looked into it yes, I think some of the correspondence is right there on the bottom, apparently your lack of ah, enthusiasm is widely shared. From a look at their consolidated statements recently it’s not hard to see why no one’s interested in acquiring it of course, a chronic money loser though considering the nature of their product it’s hardly surprising. I would have thought demand would have evaporated some time ago.

— Well sure, the pill hit them real hard, they just never expected something like that.

— The, pardon?

— The pill all these girls are taking, you read about even twelve-year-old girls on these pills, I read where one of them’s own mother had her own doctor prescribe them.

— Oh I, I see, yes I’m aware this entire pill situation has assumed quite alarming proportions among the ah, the young, though I’m afraid I fail to see precisely how its deleterious effects could extend to something as…

— See that’s a good example there at Nathan Wise of old-fashioned management, one quality product that pretty much took over the top of the market so they just stayed with it.

— Yes, I understood they…

— Never used rubber or anything coarse like that you know, just these strong real thin sheep membranes.

— Yes I recall Miss ah, the decedent’s sisters mentioning…

— The, you mean those two old ladies out there talked to you about this? He drew his hand over his mouth and his cup closer on the desk. — Well. I’d never have thought it.

— Our conversation was, I think I’ve mentioned that it was not the most logical, they seemed to have the impression I was trying to pry into family matters but…

— I have to hand it to you Coen, I sure never would have…

— As I recall this matter though they appeared to take a good deal of pride in it, the quality aspect you speak of, I remember them mentioning the sheep membranes yes and a senator I believe, from a sheep producing state in the west…?

— Yes Billikin or Millikin or something, some old goat that got quite friendly there for a while, but it sure does beat… and he brought his paper cup up, and put it down empty. — But this isn’t selling any apples, now look… He pulled over a pad and found a blunt pencil, — one way or the other you see twenty of the old man’s shares going for these estate taxes, now where the hell are they going?

— Well, in the very nature of making a public off…

— I mean that would be one hell of a big foot for those Jubilee Musical people to get in our door here.

— Unless they did it through a third party though I think it would be possible to get an injunction to prevent it, in view of the longstanding litigation between them and your ah, the decedent over these punched forms and the entire concept as it might be held to apply to…

— Holes is what it is, a lawsuit over a lot of God damn holes.

— Precisely but of course in the event of an eventual decision supporting the position of the decedent, the ramifications could very well extend far beyond the immediate…

— All right but that’s eventual, I want to get back here to right now, I want…

— Yes once we’ve resolved the financing I think we can…

— And that’s not what’s on my mind right now either, it’s not just the money it’s who the hell’s going to end up running the show here.

— Well as I say, I think any immediate threat by the Jubilee Musical Instrument Company can be effectively dealt with by…

— All right then what about the rest of it, now look. He recovered the pad, where a large ellipse had begun to take shape. — Here’s my twenty-three shares here. Here’s this twenty of Stella’s aunts and this seven of her Uncle James, then over here…

— Five, yes I find five listed in the name Gibbs, someone named Gibbs, I’d intended to ask you if you…

— Wait we’ll get to him, now look, down here is this twenty-five there in the estate after taxes, now…

— Speaking frankly Mister Angel I think you can put your mind at rest there, from my dealings to date with this rather ah, this artistic branch of the family, I doubt if there will be much difficulty in establishing your wife as sole heir and with those twenty-five shares and your own twenty-three there should be no…

— Well just wait though, just suppose it did come to her and Edward splitting up this twenty-five shares, I’d like to…

— That would seem, excuse me for interrupting but that seems extremely remote. This nephew, this nephew Edward has never sent me the signed waiver I requested, I’ve never received the particulars on his birth, I’ve never heard anything from him in fact or even a call from an attorney representing his interests and I can only assume he doesn’t find it worth bothering with, though this rather lofty indifference to money on his part does seem rather ah, exceptional. Of course I did understand from his aunts that his consuming interest is music and artists in these matters are rather notoriously impractical, if I recall the case of…

— Yes well I don’t know about all that Coen… he sat tapping the empty cup for a moment, and then stood pushing the chair back and the jacket off to the floor. — You see you got to remember he was pretty upset by all this, I just met him that once out there that night and I’ve tried to call him since but I never can get him at home, his one aunt there even told me one time he was off on a business trip but… he paused, pouring, and turned, — there’s just something about him you like, something you kind of like and trust about him that you want to help out. Now right now he’s maybe a little mixed up but I think I could talk some sense to him and maybe…

— That may all be quite true Mister Angel but I don’t quite see the precise relevance to…

— Well put it this way then. I don’t exactly want to go into details here but put it this way. If instead of Stella holding twenty-five shares against my twenty-three it turned out that her and Edward split that twenty-five I’d, well I guess you see what I mean… and he raised the cup again before he came down behind the desk.

— Oh. I see.

— Yes you see it’s not hardly the question of the money here it’s, it might even sound to you like I’m just trying to step in and grab all I can but…

— No you make your position quite clear Mister Angel but, excuse me, there is a point regarding this nephew you may have overlooked. Now even assuming that half the residue of the estate should fall to him and that he is as ah, as appealing a young man as you find him, it is still not established whether or not he is a minor and should that prove the case of course, his aunts or his father, or rather his Uncle James it would be if his claim on the decedent’s estate proved valid, one of them at any rate would in all likelihood be named his guardian in this matter with the right to exercise the rights of his twelve and a half shares added to their aggregate of twenty-seven. Now…

— Well but I wouldn’t mean to…

— No but please let me finish because I shouldn’t want you to misunderstand me. While his aunts did express a rather impatient interest in seeing some return on their investment in the form of dividends I don’t for a moment wish to accuse them of being particularly venal, in fact it seems quite a normal attitude for anyone apparently living in somewhat straitened circumstances. But even on my brief visit with them I did feel that their grasp on reality seemed somewhat ah, tenuous at times, they do appear to have occupied that Long Island residence for some time yet what they refer to as the local paper is a weekly they have mailed to them from the Indiana town the whole family apparently left a good generation ago. The attorney they referred me to there has never answered any of my correspondence and I almost feel his very existence may be open to question, and very frankly the figure of James Bast himself seems so ephemeral that when they tell me he is abroad somewhere accepting an award there is the sense that they may be referring to the Paris Exposition of nineteen eleven. The only point I wish to make is that if these ah, if they exercised anything approaching control in an enterprise I was trying to conduct in a rational, businesslike manner, I believe I would be rather uneasy.