William Gaddis - J R

— medicine capsules only cost Nobili a nickel each to make which their dates are like expiring we’d have to dump anyway for this lousy nickel deduction see but like they sell for a quarter so every one we donate we get this whole quarter charity deduction for a nick…

— Sit down hey these batteries are real weak you have to listen real…

— this here fifty percent tax bracket, see so every nickel capsule we give out we make this here ten cents net profowwwrr ja ach ja ich bin verlor…

— Hey what’s, it’s doing it again!

— Wait listen…!

— nein du bist erkoren…

— This singing you did this one too! Right in the I mean holy shit right in the middle of I’m talking about ouch! What’s let go my shoulder what’s ouch!

— Just listen! shut up for a minute sit still and listen!

— nein du hassest mich…!

— No but holy shit Bast! this here tape was…

— I don’t care what it was! I didn’t know I had it I forgot I’d even sit still! Now listen. Once, just once you’re going to listen to something that…

— No but ho…

— And stop saying holy shit! it’s all you, you want to hear holy you’re going to hear it wind the tape back, just once you’re going to keep quiet and listen to a piece of music by one of…

— No but look hey I’m cold I mean how can we sit out here in the dark and lis…

— I’m cold too! I’m cold dizzy sick at my stomach if I can sit here and listen to you talk about how much this goodwill is worth and this here friend at what makes you think we’ve got any friends anywhere! How much goodwill do you think we…

— No wait hey I mean holy shit I don’t mean where everybody’s crazy about us and all, see goodwill that means the excess of the purchase price over the value of these net tangible assets where they really screwed us on that Endo deal see so ouch!

— That’s not what it means! That’s what I’m trying to, listen all I want you to do take your mind off these nickel deductions these net tangible assets for a minute and listen to a piece of great music, it’s a cantata by Bach cantata number twenty-one by Johann Sebastian Bach damn it J R can’t you understand what I’m trying to, to show you there’s such a thing as as, as intangible assets? what I was trying to tell you that night the sky do you remember it? walking back from that rehearsal that whole sense of, of sheer wonder in the Rhinegold you remember it?

— Well I, sure I mean we’re still having it Mrs di…

— How it can lift you right out of yourself make you feel things that, do you know what I’m talking about at all?

— Well sure I, I mean like where there’s this storm so Mrs diCephalis gets the art class to cut out these here big clouds which they pull them over you on this closeline and like somebody’s rolling these marbles around in this piepan you get this here real feeling…

— It doesn’t have to be like that’s what I mean! Music’s a, it’s not just sound effects there are things only music can say, things that can’t be written down or hung on a clothesline things that…

— Okay! could you, I mean could you let go my shoulder this thing’s wound back what am I sup…

— Listen to it then! look hold it up you’ll hear two voices a soprano and a bass, it’s sort of a dialogue between the soul and Jes…

— Okay okay! I mean how can I hear anything if you keep…

— All right listen to iti and his hand dropped from the torn shoulder, his other rose to join it covering his face against a sweep of lights from the road.

— Okay I heard them, I mean it’s like starting to rain can we…

— All of it! he came forward and coughed, caught one shaking hand back in the other to draw his knees close where his head came down from the wind hollowing the empty shell around them, raising dead leaves in a rush and falling away, driving them back.

— Hey? Okay I heard it I mean that’s the end of the…

— Is that all?

— Sure I mean that’s the end of the…

— That’s all you can say? okay I heard it?

— Well I, sure I mean what…

— Look tell me what you heard then, just tell me what you heard.

— Well I, I mean you know…

— Why can’t you just tell me what you heard!

— Well just, because.

— Because what! what’s…

— Because you’ll get mad I mean you’re already mad! I mean I, everything I say you get mad somebody gets mad I mean how come everybody’s always getting mad at me! What am I sup, hey wait I thought you’re going to sit here a minute I mean just because I…

— It doesn’t matter!

— No but wait up hey! I mean all this stuff, I…

— Leave it there what good is it!

— No but if they subpoen it I mean I have to get it back in my locker at school for this here whole…

— Can’t you damn it! can’t you see it’s trash it’s just trash it’s always been trash all of it! The net assets the nickel deductions the man of vision all of it, can’t you see that now?

— No but, hey? hey Bast? Wait up I can’t hardly see where I’m, hey…? he came on kicking through leaves for a remnant of sidewalk, — I mean what did you say this, this here man of vision I mean what’s so trash about that!

— Because you know it is all of it! You know it’s been right from the start your surprise coup taking over Eagle you were more surprised than anybody, you didn’t even know what X–L made when you had to buy it you asked me what’s a lithograph you never thought of flooding the country with those damn matchbooks till you read someplace you’d already done it like you read the reason you tried to grab that insurance company was its cash reserves, all you wanted it for was you hated to see all those employees paying premiums someplace else you just wanted to pay them with one hand and take it back with the other you know what really happened! That timber you didn’t go after it at all you got stuck with some mining claims and land you didn’t even know where it was in a penny stock swindle like your shrewd downstate interests in that hopeless Union Falls paper right at the start, you knew it wasn’t shrewd downstate interests any more than this man of vision this, these intimate glimpses of you by that cow Virginia you know they’re not real!

— No okay but hey listen…

— It’s not okay! that, dabbles at the ivories my father’s a prominent conductor on the look how could anybody be a prominent conductor on the Long Island Rail…

— No but that’s what you told me once hey and besides…

— Besides what! I never told you such a grotesque thing in…

— No but besides you never let me finish about that hey wait up holy, my whole sneaker got wet hey wait up!

— For what wait up for what! finish about what! Your suave young exec’s teetateet with look you know it’s not real any of it!

— No but wait I know it’s not real hey! I mean it’s just this neat idea I had where this here naked girl picture I read you it on the train where they got this gossip calumnist to like fix you up with her hey Bast? I mean just this once see where this whole Teletravel thing see once it gets like operational I mean she’s this here whole heiress of these two hundred thousand shares of Diamond Cable hey Bast? where she gets these rights to them once you marry her to vote them when we make this here tender offer hey? then you get this divorce just like everybody hey Bast? Look out…! Headlights swept down the highway’s unkempt shoulder where it parted on the ruts of a dirt road — that shit boy! he splashed all over my, hey wait up I can’t even see where you, did you hear me? Just this once hey? Then we go after Western Union we get this whole complex of this cable travel going they think they can screw me out of everything boy I hardly even got started, I mean we get these here banks going we get this energy complex going with this here big gas deposit and this mineral one where you just fixed up this here neat deal with these Indians we get this here whole education market by the ow! Ow ow ow…! The wind held his hair on end hunched down on one knee there, lights loomed a shadow back over him, dropped it as they passed — oww…