William Gaddis - J R

— Jack…? Where, what are you doing what is all this!

— Egg roll pastrami macaroni salad salmon fruit jello…

— But it’s, you can’t spread it out on the carpet it’s… She sank to the sofa’s edge drawing a robe tight at her knees.

— Kind of déjeuner sur l’herbe slip your things off thought we could…

— Oh and please look it’s something’s already spilled on the…

— Stuffed that’s the what the hell is it something they stuffed, pickles, turkey roll, rice pudding wait this must be the Greek salad have mushrooms in it?

— Why do you do things like this.

— Just thought we’d…

— Jack why do you do things like this!

— What. I just thought we’d…

— Behave this way! the way you’ve been behaving since we, behaving like a buffoon Jack I can’t stand to see someone I, someone like you Jack a man like you you’re too, you almost make me forget what you’re really like when you, when you want to be…

He sat there hunched against the arm of the sofa with egg roll. — All right, he said without looking up, and bit into it, — if you want something to eat just…

— And don’t sit there with your feelings hurt, you don’t…

— I said all right!

She bent down, dropped the hand holding the robe at her throat to reach out. — What’s this one…

— Rice pudding… he glanced up, from it up the length of her arm into shadow where the weight of her breast hung free, cleared his throat and bit egg roll.

— How’s the rice pudding.

— It’s quite good really, Jack what about your throat, have you seen anyone for it?

— Got a prescription for penicillin haven’t filled it.

— Why not.

— I just got it!

— Yes all right, she said more quietly, — but you must, do you want me to call the drugstore down here delivers, I could…

— No I can get it. He came forward between the peaks of his knees for salmon. — Do you want any?

— What is it.

— Smoked salmon.

— No I don’t think so really, I’m afraid everything else here looks rather…

— Stay away from the Greek salad.

— Yes I wish you’d put it and, and that whatever that is, if you’d put them up here on the coffee table they look terribly oily. Jack do you think we might…

— Here… he handed them up to her, getting to his feet. — Don’t happen to have any scotch? God damn it I forgot cigarettes…

— No I’m afraid not, the place is quite…

— Mind if I use the phone?

— No of, of course…

He stood slumped with the back of that suit to her, dialing, finally dropped it and turned wedging his foot into his shoe. — Friend downtown’s wife walked out, he said down working at the shoe, — apartment’s twice as empty with him in it probably can’t hear the phone.

— You can try him later, Jack if you…

— What shall I do with all this stuff? He was down for the fruit jello.

— Just, on the coffee table, Jack if you want to wait and call your friend later you could go in and take a…

— Don’t have to call him from here call him from anyplace… he was down again for a hundred dollar bill stuck to the macaroni salad and up looking, as though looking for a place to wipe it off. — Friend of ours lost in a White Rose bar somewhere and he’s probably out looking for him, probably go out and find them both in one, he said backed toward the foyer.

— Jack don’t be silly it’s raining and your throat’s…

— Raining and my throat do you think it’s the first time I’ve ever been out in the, do you think I’m eleven years old? One of your class six J eleven-year-old…

— You’re behaving like one.

— Well what! what do you, you tell me to call tell me not to call, tell me to find someplace for the night tell me not to go out in the rain I don’t even know where we are, that sofa must have cost two thousand dollars like camping out in Bloomingdale’s window where the hell are we, do you know? Whole place is empty, little room where we came in here with a bed in it do you want me to…

— No no please close it it’s, it’s just a, just a cubby it’s…

— Well then will you tell me what… he pulled the door to it closed, coming back to stand over her there, — what I, what, listen why tears what have I…

— No they’re, they’re nothing to do with you… she pulled the robe loose catching it up to her face.

— No but, Amy please what…

— They’re nothing to do with you I said! and she stood that abruptly, caught the robe’s yellow to the full white spill of her breast without a look back — if you want to stay here stay or go out to your White Rose and look for your, for anybody but take off that perfectly ridiculous suit and take a hot shower before you get pneumonia.

— All right he stood there and said, to no one, — all right… and came down on the sofa, got one shoe off again and found a plastic spoon down there, up looking for something to dig it into reached the macaroni salad and got down several bites before he turned to look back through the empty door and start for it, his uneven gait silent through it and down the empty hallway past a darkened door ajar toward the one lighted ahead which he pushed closed behind him, half closed, he turned to close it hard but paused, closing it slowly with the douche swinging there from the back of it, before he turned back to stand at the toilet, wrench off the other shoe, jacket, trousers shirt all in a heap and sodden with steam from the shower when he came out to find a lavender towel monagrammed EMJ to wrap around him into the lighted hall, one step silenced in the carpet as the next, as his pause at the darkened door, and his touch on it.

— Jack?

He caught the towel tight at his waist — just, a blanket thought I might need a…

— Where are you going.

— Going in to the sofa thought I might need a blanket, shall I get one from…

— Don’t be silly.

— What? Amy…? he shivered, pushed the door further on darkness, — Amy? Can’t see a thing…

— Do you have to? And bedsprings strained abruptly as under her weight come up on one elbow, under his coming down.

— God…

— Not so, Jack not so tight I can’t breathe…

— Amy God I, God… her head fell back to the pillow his buried in her throat, in her hair lips seeking the details of her ear, moving hands stilled and, stilled, moving again as though life had stopped threatened only to seize it where her breast yielded, to flee that and descend to climb the cradled rise of bone and over perfect smoothness cleave down where creviced fingertips engulfed in taste and smell and raising pinks to purple browns clawed at the confine of their single sense, sudden heat puckered tight against their plunge to depths come opened wide as her knee rose heavy over him, her own hand’s rake of nails brushing up from his without hurry, and back, and up to close without surprise where firmness ended, move there in flow all rhythm against the thrust of muscles elsewhere hard with tension and mounted toward her and away as though to force their tension and their strength and very size into her moving hand small as it was and still enveloping all it held, still moving with expectant calm when he went over on his back as though hurled there, hand seizing where hers failed as though to tear himself from his roots and she came up against his chest convulsed with its echo, breast crushed against the hard stiff length of his arm to reach his shoulder whispering — no it’s all right… holding him, his hand behind her burying a tremble in her hair to press her head down the rise and fall of his chest where her lips, brushing, kissed, but where his hand held firm, chest rising further with each breath until its hardnesses of bone gave way beneath her cheek to muscle drawn tight under hairs bristled at her lips unparted brushed suddenly by a warmth softer than the tongue they curbed and she came up torn away face buried in his neck to cling there, whisper — please… half on him as though to swallow up his shudders, — don’t please she whispered, — it happens to everyone… the weight of her leg warm over his gone rigid for his twist away leaving only his back to her where she kissed his shoulder in the darkness and clung as though for warmth until, as of its own weight, it eased away, and she caught breath at the stealth of springs across the gap, the desolate toss of covers on the bed there and then, for warmth, pulled up her own.