William Gaddis - J R

— Wait Whiteback just wait a minute, I just want to say one thing Vern…

— That would be a blessed relief, Major.

— I’m getting sick and tired of hearing everything I try to do here twisted around to sound like I’m just doing it for my company as though there’s something wrong with company loyalty I just want to make one thing clear Vern, I’m proud of my company loyalty I just want to make that perfectly clear, I’m proud of it. Look around all you see’s a bunch of unwashed kids that don’t know what loyalty is because they’ve never had anything to be loyal to they never will, sewing the flag on the seat of their pants the way everything sacred’s breaking down the only place left for loyalty if you’ve got any’s the company that’s paying your way, when my company says jump I jump! and when I come in here and lay their name on the line by lining up this equipment to set up your new home ec center at no cost to the district it sounds to me like you’re just taking Whiteback’s little space problems here and twisting them into an attack on the whole situation equipmentwise like this Citizens Union bunch and the rest of these blacks and radicals who try to head me off at the pass every time I see a chance to score for these youngsters and you take Dan here, all this expensive teaching equipment he…

— Yes well of course that’s what the Citizens Union has been ahm, the taxpayers’ reaction to putting equipment like that out in the cold when we’ve already spent ahm, expended substantial sums on it seemed to be ahm, it seemed to be too late to keep the whole thing from keeping ahm from coming down on Dan’s head that is to say. Of course the newspaper speculation that he’s been getting rebates on the equipment was hardly yes one look at you Dan and anyone would know if there was any truth in it you wouldn’t go around looking like ahm, of course Dan agrees the only practical thing to do is to submit his resignation yes in fact I understand he thinks he may have found an attractive opening in industry and of…

— What do you mean leaving us Dan’s leaving us? Dan? You’re leaving us?

— Yes well Vern felt ahm, Dan that is to say Dan feels it might help clear the air before we submit this austerity budget I had a copy right ahm yes that’s what you’re looking at there Vern?

— Yes that’s what I’m looking at there, books the first thing to go of course?

— Yes well I think books are always ahm, as Vern says the first thing to go in an austerity budget but of course…

— But of course thirty-two thousand for blacktopping the parking lot is still in.

— Yes well Mister ahm, I think Parentucelli’s appeal to the parents about scraped knees in the old gravel lot was…

— And of course he’s already gone ahead and blacktopped it anyhow, the way he blacktopped two acres of lawn over at my place.

— Yes well since his equipment was nearby when he finished up Burgoyne ahm, yes Summer Street it’s called now isn’t it and of course his generous…

— I’ll talk about that one in court. Still got him in here replacing your front door lintel for another three thousand, you expect your Citizens Union to swallow that?

— Yes well in fact they were the ones who ahm, they seem to have finally discovered that those Greek letters make no sense at all and since there’s already been some agitation to ahm, to replace Mister Gibbs of course when they found out it was his idea to make it look like a quotation from Herkahm, yes from the classics that is to say simply by adding curlicues to the letters in that motto his friend Schepperman gave us which sounded ahm, sounded all right at the time of course until we found out it was communist and the whole…

— Listen Whiteback I want him out of here, while you’re on it I want that, that son of a bitch out of here if you think he’s not behind every crazy dangerous subversive Vern do you know him? This, this drunken smartmouth drunk…

— Drinks scotch doesn’t he? Matter of fact I met him recently in that snug harbor around the corner from the Post Office and he pressed a book on me called The Rise of the Meritocracy, great ideas in it Major I’d pass it along if I thought you could read. Pay these kids salaries instead of giving them grades and they might learn what America’s all about.

— Listen Vern this is…

— Yes well Mister Gibbs’ approach has already ahm, his proscribed openings that is to say have drawn some attention to say nothing of his appearance the last time I saw him about a car loan but of course he was in no financial condition to ahm, no condition to drive that is to say whether he would be as cooperative as Dan here in terms of his ahm, of resigning…

— If you think this school board’s going to him on our knees Whiteback you…

— Yes well no of course but the possibility that firing ahm, firing anyone might reactivate this strike cloud we’ve been under since that young Mister ahm, Mister his name’s on a check right here somewhere apparently our computer issued him one for fifteen thousand dollars which of course was, must have been some more of Leroy’s handiwork that is to say they were going to question him about it before he got away but…

— Leroy? they just let him skip out?

— No well of course they were getting ready to pick him up when it was in last night’s paper I think an elderly lady who complained to police she was here from out of town looking for an office building at number one Marine Memorial Plaza…

— Nothing like that around here, just our World War Two memorial up by the firehouse being let run to rack and ruin by these freeloading pacifist…

— Yes well it must be a mistake of course the paper said she had a letterhead driving a big ahm, a LaSalle yes you don’t see those anymore trying to park it in front of the Post Office when a man answering Leroy’s description offered to help her, she got out and stood on the curb to direct him and he simply got in and ahm, and simply drove away which makes it sound like that story of ahm, that book salesman’s story who’s suing us that Leroy beckoned him right out in front of that asphalt truck might be ahm, might actually be here’s this check yes, Bast yes E Bast for the evidently the correct amount a dollar fifty-two but of course since he hasn’t returned the other one the insurance company investigators are after him now like everybody else in fact we’ve tried to reach him ourselves since no one else seems to know anything about this little Ring opera but…

— Wait if you mean the one that got up here on the school television with his filthy remarks in front of those Foundation people and lost us that whole support grant Whiteback he’s as bad as this Gibbs, that friend of this Gibbs that cut off his…

— Yes well right now the whole project seems ahm, of course we’d planned it for our Spring Arts Festival but even this pupil who was playing the part of ahm, with all the bicycle reflectors that is to say up in the nurse’s office now may still be absent unless some adoption agency comes through and of course the…

— My boy’s in that Whiteback plays Call to the Colors, really looking forward to it.

— Yes well of course whether the Spring Arts ahm, whether the new Cultural Center will be finished of course Parentucelli must be ready to blacktop where his men cleared all those woods and trees when they discovered Glancy’s ahm, Glancy that is to say but the architects have been waiting for approval on their building plans since that newspaper smear even though the money already approved in the highway bill appropriation plan for the large stabile to stand out in front is ahm, already approved yes…

— Thought I’d heard they just found a little readymade cultural center running full blast up there when they cleared away those trees Whiteback, books, music, artistic pictures on the walls, might hold your little festival there it sounds like the Major’s boy here could really lead the…