William Gaddis - J R

He reached a knee, and scratched. — Think you’ve got fleas here.

— Don’t be silly. You don’t really do you?

— They like empty places, nice thick carpet, he said turned from her the moment it took to catch the curl of a single hair from his lips.

— Jack you, no please, she held his hand away, — you didn’t see one? I can’t imagine how, what could we do?

— Round them up and train them, start a little circus.

— No they don’t really have those. Do they?

— Have what, flea circuses? Never heard of a flea circus?

— Of course I’ve heard of them that’s what I mean, it’s just a story isn’t it. Do you have to scratch so?

He looked down his arm’s length where his scratching stopped, pink glistening dark to purple squeezed up between his fingers — make you feel like Lawrence’s old warrior Auda…

— I think it’s dear… her head come over on his chest, breast crushed against him as though yearning toward the defeated enemy to trace its withered ridges with a nail, course the quiescent color of a vein all for a moment taken by lips and tongue gone undefined with wetness and as abruptly up pressed back against his shoulder before he could move, until she whispered — can you reach the light?

— Thought I might have a cigarette, he said reaching to turn it off.

— You don’t need one, she reached across to hold his shoulder, — Jack? Have you ever seen one? really?

— A cigarette?

— A flea circus, they don’t really dress them up in little clothes and train them to pull carts and things? Why would, who would do that?

— Just somebody who… he cleared his throat in the dark, — maybe just somebody afraid of failing at something worth doing…

— But if they really do it they must think it’s worth doing, she turned on her face away from him, — the only bad failure’s at something you knew wasn’t worth doing in the first place. Isn’t it?

And whatever he whispered was gone, turned to her on his side to move his hand down where it rose to rest that night as it might have on a lectern, along the creviced margin between those white slopes opened to the lesson where congregation thronged a dream.

— Jack?

Up on one elbow he brushed sunlight from his face, brought hers in shadow. — How long have you been awake?

— Do you want coffee? Jack no please, let me get up and…

— Most elegant throat I’ve ever seen…

— Yes and yours are you taking that penicillin? It sounds…

— Not talking about mucosa damn it, Amy…?

— In the living room? where we’ll have more sun…? and there, when she came with the tray — who are you calling? And Jack do you know the seat of those shorts is quite gone?

— Hello? Mister Eigen please, in public relations. Like me to put on my dressing gown?

— What that filthy raincoat? She set cups off on the table, — do you want to keep these clippings?

— Thought you’d thrown them all, hello? Mister Eigen yes, in… What do you mean no longer there wait, wait let me speak to somebody in… What the whole department…? No, no I’ll try to get him at home…

— What happened? She handed him a cup, — is this the friend who had the…

— Friend who apparently just lost his last refuge from reality, sounds like it’s too late for him to be the things he never wanted to be either, he’s…

— Is this the friend who had the accident with the, who hurt his eye?

— Schramm? He reached for a plate. — No. What are these.

— They called them bow ties they’re really rather awful, I thought they were pastries with some sort of filling, Jack what happened to him you were awfully concerned.

— He just, nothing…

— Is he all right?

— All right yes he’s fine…! Pastry crumbs came down on her robe where he leaned back. — Schramm’s dead Amy, he just couldn’t make it he’s dead.

— Oh…! her coffee splashed, she pulled the wet robe away and reached its hem to dry her leg up from the knee, — Jack I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…

— Nothing for you to, nothing to say he just finally couldn’t make it.

— But did he, was it another accident?

— Only God damned thing any of us has done lately that wasn’t an accident… he came back resting on her leg there drawn up behind him, — all getting to the point there’s no time left for accidents…

— Jack please don’t start…

— Well God damn it Amy doing things badly because they’re not worth doing, or trying to believe something’s worth doing long enough to get it done… She’d bent forward over him to put down her cup and he came back against her, robe fallen open where he traced a pastry crumb along a crease of white — it’s just, sometimes it’s just too God damned long to be able to keep believing something’s real… he traced back along the crease above, — Schramm standing in that tenement window he’d watch a truckload of smashed car fenders go by and think the poor bastard driving it was doing something real, and the man I just called here, Eigen…

— But Jack that was Schramm… she brushed a hand at his temple, gone lower, — Mister Schramm, it wasn’t you…

— This man I just called Eigen, he wrote a novel once some people thought was very important… and he paused for his tongue to pursue a crumb along the crease drawn under the settling of her breasts, — finally found everything around him getting so God damned real he couldn’t see straight long enough to write a sentence…

— But Jack they’re not you…

— Whole Türschluss generation, kind of paralysis of will sets in and you’re…

— But they’re not you Jack they’re not you! She’d pulled back from him against the sofa’s arm. — I don’t like to hear you talk this way it’s, it’s ridiculous… and she was reaching over him abruptly to stack cups — I, honestly I don’t want to hear it anymore, will you help me get these things together so we can go out?

— Out?

— Yes to get you a suit and, and simply to get some air, do you want to keep these clippings and…

— Thought you’d thrown them out… and his lips blurred on her breast’s fall against them as she reached over him.

— No, I… her hand came back slowly, empty, — I thought you might want them…

— What for, too God damned late to…

— Jack don’t you see? And her hand, both her hands were up as she sank back against the sofa’s arm holding him where his lips drew up the dark circle, tongue traced its pebbled rim, — Jack if you keep talking that way that I’ll finally believe it…? her leg falling slowly against the sofa’s back with the weight of his hand — and I liked the, about the bat, about the mouse and the angel… his hand’s weight gone in fingertips brushing down, brushing the soft spread as though by chance — and the rest, about physics and antimatter I didn’t understand it but…

— That was stupid… his free hand down, disentangling for his knee to come up close beside her where her hand ran toward him, nails raking toward him, and he reached up to spread the robe away — all backwards, proving symmetry to call this beautiful God Amy, what immortal hand or eye… lips silenced at her knee, run down where all that moved now of his hand were hidden tips of fingers as hers rose and closed tight.

— But it doesn’t matter if I understand, it’s when I hear you talk about something you care about… her hand drew closer, thumb brushed the drop squeezed up and drew it to a thread — that’s what I understand… where his lips moved she suddenly fell wide, hand drawing closer stripping vein and color as his knee rose over her and jarred the telephone, still holding closed as though against a sudden plunge, or sudden loss, when the telephone rang, her arms came free, came up, her shoulders’ struggle against his knee come down and legs drawn tight in a twist away as the telephone box went to the floor and she got the receiver wrong end round. — Hello? knees drawn up tight, she righted it. — Hello…?