William Gaddis - J R

— Nobody knows who you are anyway. Noral Stop that racket! what in God’s name are they doing, can’t you stop them? And what’s this, right in with my face creams. More papers.

— Oh that, I’ve been looking for that.

— Well this is a good place for it, nobody would steal it here.

— Who would steal it anywhere? It’s for refinancing our mortgage.

— Refinancing? What’s that, you’re borrowing more?

— We have to, we owe…

— We? That last time they hauled the car in? She looked up to catch him in the mirror but he clung to a shoulder strap. — Or the time before, every time. Is that we?

— No I didn’t mean, what I meant, I meant to ask you, do you remember that last towing charge? how much it was?

— Fifty cents? something… ow!

— It couldn’t have been that little, it…

— So maybe it was four fifty, six fifty, I distinctly remember the fifty cents Nora, stop it! What in God’s name are you doing? Nora! Can’t you stop them? Instead of standing in here arguing about fifty cents? This thing you have about money you have a real thing about it. The way you plunge the house into darkness the minute you walk in going around turning off all the lights, turning down the heat every time you pass it, fifty cents! You get a break you’re scared to keep it, like that tax refund for three hundred dollars, and you send it back.

— Daddy! Dad…!

— No, it was three hundred twenty thirty-six and the refund I filed for was only thirty-seven ten so I couldn’t…

— Quick, a penny! Gimme another penny quick!

— I couldn’t keep it, and I couldn’t just…

— Quick!

— What for, Nora?

— Quick. Donny is this machine which I have to put a penny in him to make him go, to make it go.

— What it would have done to their records if I’d cashed it, what kind of machine?

— A jumping machine. Didn’t you hear it? Quick I have to put in another penny before he rims out.

— Wait! Wait a minute, to put in where? What do you mean another penny, where!

— In his mouth, this penny I found on your dresser it… wait! Wait…! What are you… what are you doing to him? Look out, you’ll break him! You’ll… upside down, he’ll… Mama! Mama!… There, see? I told you!

— Well, don’t… don’t step in it! Get a rag. Donny! Come here, don’t touch your mother’s…

— My God! and all over my sari! Let go, let me go! Nora, take him! Can’t one of you take him? The smell will never come out. Don’t just stand there Nora! Get a rag!

— Daddy, I got your penny back. Here…

— A rag I said, don’t wipe it on your dress! And look at my sandals! she got past them, rounded the corner and shook the bathroom door. — Dad! Are you in there? A rude sound responded promptly from within, and here she came again. — All of you! You’re all against me, all of you…!

The side door banged. Somewhere a clock with a broken chime had a try at striking the hour, and Mister diCephalis hurried to the telephone resetting his watch, to dial and stand looking out the window at something his wife had said was a snowball bush hidden openly against others as shapeless as they were nameless she’d said only needed trimming, ignoring the tug at his trouser leg, — See, Donny? Daddy’s not mad, he just wanted his penny back… for the recorded remonstrance he listened to through to the end before lowering his eyes from that hostile spectacle of growth to dial again, and raise them again to his wife out there scrubbing her sari with water from the garden hose squatted like some Gangetic laundress, numbed stare fixed on the remotely male privilege of the hunt as it prospered, here, past frilled ironwork made of aluminum to appear new and new lengths of post and rail treated to appear old, in the form of Bast near a gallop behind prey in a heedless trot more secure, with each step, in the protective drab of black patterned on gray, frayed, knotted, and unshorn in other details, as the intervals between bayberry keeping mown distance from mimosa alerted by Insurance, Chiropodist, This desirable property For Sale, God Answer’s Prayer, gave way to depths of locust long stunted in internecine struggle now grappling with woodbine, and the sidewalk itself finally disappeared under grass at the designated site by God’s grace of an edifice for worship by the people of Primitive Baptist Church on a sign about to be reclaimed by the undergrowth.

— Stop!

— What?

— I said wait a minute…!

— No you said…

— Where’s that money you, you stole.

— I what? Oh. Oh, hi.

— Where is it!

— In that paper bag, that? That was our class money.

— It was Miss, Mrs what’s her name…

— Joubert, Mrs Joubert. That’s my class, six J.

— Well where is it!

— The money? his shoulders hunched in the shift of books, a black zippered portfolio, a newspaper and mail in assorted sizes from one arm to the other. — I told you, I had to hurry up to class from that rehearsal thing with it, he said stooping for a dropped envelope, pausing down there to add a knot to the lace in his sneaker. — You can ask her.

— You… you’re sure?

— Sure ask anybody. Hey wait, I mean you’re not mad are you hey? Books and papers threatening to right and left, he trotted up beside Bast. — Where you going.

— Home.

— Oh. You live out this way?

— Yes.

— Up the main road?

— Yes but…

— I’ll walk you.

— I’m in a hurry.

— That’s okay. He hurried along bumping Bast’s thigh with his armload. — How far up do you live, past that big corner?

— Right off it.

— Like across from where they’re building this here new shopping center, right?

— They’re not building anything.

— I mean like where they’re going to.

— Going to what. Who.

— You live in that big old place right after that old empty farmhouse if you turn left, right? This here old house with these little pointy windows and this like big barn in back by the woods? with this big high scraggly hedge out front like?

Bast’s steps had slowed as a small clearing opened abruptly on their right where mangled saplings and torn trunks and limbs still bearing leaves engaged a twisted car fender, a split toilet seat, a chair with one leg and a variety of empty tin cans surrounding a sign Clean Fill Wanted with a telephone number. — How did you know that.

— That’s the only place up there, right? And like right across from it where that guy that raises flowers which used to live in the farmhouse, where he has all those flowers that’s where they’re having this here new shopping center, you know?

— No. Who told you that.

— It’s right in the paper here about the zoning change… and in his effort to keep stride and dig into that armload, everything went. — I… oh, thanks. You don’t have to help me, I mean I just wanted to show you…

— Damn it!

— What. The mud? It brushes off when it gets dry. I just…

— Whose is all this? said Bast stooped, picking up Gem School of Real Estate, Amertorg International Trading Corp., Cushion-Eez Shoe Company, National Institute of Criminology, Ace Match Company, — this mail.

— It’s today’s. I just went to the post office.

— This is yours? your mail?

— Sure, you just send away, J R said without looking up from the skidding surfaces of the magazines he was pulling together, Success Secrets, Selling, Success, the abrupt appearance of a bared breast crowding a full page, — it’s mostly free, you know? He gathered in the breast without a glance, and stood.

— What are those magazines? Bast said, staring.

— Just things where you get to send away, you know? Like I thought I had the town paper here but it’s the wrong one, about zoning this improved property and all.