William Gaddis - J R

— Yes but you see Mister Crawley I don’t think my aunts really need tax losses and write-offs they…

— Cleared up that long-term capital gains situation on their phone stock yes, eleven thousand seven seventy-three now they can think about profits, got them into Natomas here at ninety-seven and it’s up just push NOM on that Quotron there let’s have a look… yes up three-eighths, you see? Of course I think we’re both aware your aunts aren’t the most sophisticated investors on the street can’t expect them to have a completely balanced portfolio overnight can we so let’s get back to what brought you here, just push over that checkbook? Now when do we hear it.

— Yes well of course just finding a copyist and going over it with him to prepare the orchestration will probably take…

— I think Shirley found some free time for me tomorrow afternoon you think two hours will do it?

— … what?

— Yes two hours or shall we make it two and a half, don’t want to rush things Bast I want to hear every note from your first violin right down to your accordion here.

— Yes but, but Mister Crawley it, how can…

— Don’t worry Bast didn’t think you had your whole symphony orchestra standing around out in the hall eh? No just tape or records or something, however you people do it.

— No but played by a full orchestra how…

— Yes what’s this Bast dig a little further down into your score here nothing but a lot of pencil scribbling.

— No but yes that’s the rough score the whole thing has to be orchestrated and then the parts for all the instruments…

— Don’t quite follow all this you don’t mean this is all we’ve got? This?

— Yes but yes that’s the score that’s the music yes it…

— But you just finished talking about ninety-six instruments yes, said something about your accordionist and first violin and now you…

— No but but holy shit Mister Crawley I mean what…

— What’s that?

— No I mean you don’t understand I…

— I don’t understand sir? No it appears we didn’t understand each other Mister Bast, when I commissioned you to compose the music for our film here of course I meant music, and to me Mister Bast music is something I hear. Isn’t that what music is to you sir?

— Yes of course yes yes but…

— Of course yes I think most people would agree that music is something we hear, and in this case I understood our purpose to be to call upon its powers to help evoke the majesty of another kingdom, to summon the breath of life to these fellows as they sweep before our audience on the screen… his own arm swept from the teak expanse to summon their vacant stares down from every direction — and I believe…

— But…

— I believe at that time I told you our primary audience would be a congressional subcommittee Mister Bast, worthy but mortal men cast in a simpler mold perhaps, who can scarcely be expected to share your talents, your ability to glance at these hentracks and hear those soaring tones that evoke the vastness of the plains, the purple…

— Yes but I, maybe if I could go through it for you on the piano I could, we could go to that hotel suite and you could…

— The piano?

— Yes or maybe I could take a tape recorder up there and play the whole…

— Don’t think you could do that fellow justice sitting at a piano… he hailed hartebeest across the blotter’s green, — and even if I were content with such a makeshift expedient I could hardly trifle with the limitations of our audience Mister Bast, to say nothing of my partner in this little venture, and as far as my partner goes I must tell you frankly I had the devil’s own time convincing him we wanted music at all. I’ve heard him sing Don’t Fence Me In often enough driving around his holdings there with a can of beer in his hand but I believe that’s the extent of his acquaintance with music, and since in effect I commissioned you against his judgment, you may see the spot I’d be in showing him this stack of hentracks.

— Yes but if I…

— Or sitting him down to two hours of plunking on a piano, now let me talk to you like a Dutch uncle for a moment Mister Bast because I must be frank to tell you I feel you’ve been spreading yourself a bit too thin. A look at this, this score as you call it while I listen in vain for the sound of music leaves me little choice but to believe that your recent rise in the world of business and finance has turned your head from your real vocation, and that what you originally regarded as quite a decent fee for this commission has paled before the rewards you now find within your reach. I don’t like the word slacker Mister Bast but I must say your intention here appears to have been simply to bring this work to a hasty conclusion and get on with these expanding business ventures you’ve been sitting here discussing all this time.

— No but no but…

— And if I may even go a bit further to say it appears that the more others make an effort to help you, the less effort you seem to make to help yourself. That may sound harsh but perhaps I failed to make myself clear when we were discussing Trilby earlier, Mister Bast. Not all of us have been given your unique gifts, and when I feel you are using them to satisfy what has struck me on more than one occasion as an almost unhealthy preoccupation with money, I am bound to tell you so sir. When you turn these gifts to accomplishing ends any of us are capable of we are all the losers for it Mister Bast, be content to leave these details of leasebacks and writeoffs to us who toil in the vineyards and look to you to lift our eyes up to the stars while standing in the damn trouserleg sliding down again there can you just get it back up for me?

— Yes but I’m no you see I do need the money in fact I still owe my, I still have some things to straighten out with my associate and now I’m getting bills for a rapid reading course and tuition at a business col…

— Yes of course all those are deductible, and…

— But deductible from what! I…

— And of course you realize I can’t pay you anything on this little project of ours as it stands, can I. My partner wouldn’t hear of it but even if I wished to myself, I feel that such a gesture at this stage could destroy the very incentive I hope to see rekindled. You see I still have confidence in you sir, or should I say in the artist who dwells within you, the artist who disdains such mundane details as selecting a fresh shirt in the morning, who steps forth into the workaday world the rest of us inhabit indifferent to the glances he draws because his shoes fail to match, why? Because his mind has been elsewhere, his inner ear tuned to the sonorous tones of horn and kettledrum, tones it is his sacred duty to let us hear with him. I have the confidence he will and you must too sir, and to show you the measure of mine Mister Bast I’m going to double the ante.

— Yes yes but…

— Don’t protest Mister Bast I’ve made up my mind to prove them wrong, those doubters who tell us of the unreliability, the indolence, the ingratitude of the artist but you must help me, four hundred dollars and I think that’s a rather handsome offer sir what do you say.

— Yes but you see I…

— Let’s get on with it then, just push those nitro pills over as you leave that little bottle there yes, and you’ll want this whatever it is, stuff it right in your case here… and the lid came down on Alsaka the biggest state, — broken clasp yes you’d better carry it up under your arm there, just remember all these fellows looking to you Bast, he came on, arm rising from pushing the case across the teak to sweep the vacant stares down upon them again — to find a home somewhere in our own vast wilds, in our own… and he came abruptly upright with the splash of entering — yes Everglades perhaps, ranging its million and a half acres searching its skies for wood stork and heron, sharing its waters with mullet and snook… he sloshed unsteadily, gripping the desk’s edge like a small boat’s gunnels, — looking to you to make this subcommittee hear, to make them see, above all to make them feel the telephone there just hand it over to me will you? And one word of advice, clear your head and get down to one thing. Hello…? Yes, simplify Mister Bast. Simplify. Damn it hello…?