William Gaddis - J R

— Excuse me Mister Bast if I might borrow that washcloth yes now, yes in looking into the complications implicit in Mister Angel’s present condition and possibly also that of his wife as affecting your aunts’ position with regard to settlement of the estate and attempting to verify their original holding in the family company, I learned that they appear to have had the bulk of their securities in a discretionary account where they have already suffered substantial losses through unsound investment decisions on their part, and since what stock remained was being held by this broker in a street name, in all likelihood it was included in the collateral he put up for very substantial loans he now appears unable to…

— Listen to this here’s a couple of wetbacks one of them got a new Cadillac for five dollars, the other one’s got an eighty foot yacht for ten how do you like that.

— To, I assume you’ve, Mister Bast? I assume you’ve had no word from the, from your father?

— I can help you out on that one Cohen.

— Pardon?

— Is that it? Cohen? with an h? You a lawyer Cohen?

— Why why yes, yes that’s…

— Try this one on tell me if I can sue the city, walking down the street here a chippy came up she said she’d fix me up right there in the doorway for five dollars all I had was a ten, you know what she said? She said she’d go upstairs and get her sister to change it for me I’m not that dumb, I said I’d go up with her, hallway up there black as your hat and wham! That’s what I’m doing here, ruptured spleen three broken ribs a torn…

— Frankly I doubt if you would have any success in attempting to sue the city Mis…

— Duncan Isadore Duncan, maybe you heard of my…

— The name sounds familiar yes but I’m afraid I…

— Just want to get fixed up and get back to Zanesville.

— I see yes I, I can hardly blame you and now, Mister Bast? Yes what was I, Mrs Angel yes, as I assumed the results of the paraffin test proved negative as of course so did the prints when they dusted the weapon an old octagonal barrel twenty-two, a sort of relic of Mister Angel’s boyhood I believe. Of course I had had no doubt that the wound was self inflicted, I don’t know whether you were aware of the growing despondency that had overtaken him lately but for a man of his fiercely independent nature seeing the comp…

— A man in the paper shot himself performed a perfect lobotomy, you read about that one Cohen? Held the gun up to his temple and fired put it down and walked away, the bullet went right through his head performed a perfect lo…

— That’s very interesting Mister Duncan yes but I, I wonder if you would excuse us we have some rather important…

— Just put the gun down and walked away he didn’t even know what he’d done, left him a little simple minded but I guess but that’s better than being…

— No go on with what you’re doing Mister Bast I’ll simply try to keep my voice down, for a man of his background and temperament of course seeing the family company he’d worked so hard to build forced to go public in order to satisfy these estate taxes he took it all quite personally, especially these recent developments you may be unaware of? You, you do hear me Mister Bast? Yes, at any rate in what now proves to have been a futile attempt to forestall the halt in production and layoff that followed the, following the accident, I had undertaken negotiations for the sale of a roughly twenty percent interest in the company in order to satisfy these tax claims as a way of sidestepping going public in the full sense which Mister Angel found so disturbing. Unfortunately as these negotiations progressed he became even more alarmed at what he saw as the threat of a takeover through the direct sale of this minority interest to the large diversified corporation which had already in effect…

— Can’t quite hear you over there Cohen.

— No well I, don’t let us disturb you please we…

— Sound like the same son of a bitches that got me out of the wallpaper business.

— I see yes, what was I, in effect yes since they had in effect already gained what might be called a toehold with a five percent interest which had come into their hands as security for a loan to a person named Skinner setting him up in a publishing enterprise which he lost when he failed to meet his option…

— This the same Skinner that took out the girl to supper Cohen?

— Please I haven’t the slightest…

— Took her out to dinner at quarter of ten it was up her something like that, purple lipstick on her teeth is that the one?

— I have no idea I, the man I mentioned I understand received a modest settlement on his management contract and has embarked on a new enterprise in fact, Mister Bast, since the personnel layoffs which occurred would naturally arouse your concern, you may be pleased to learn that some chance remark I made during the negotiations regarding the availability of two rather personable young ladies from Mister Angel’s office appears to have led him to employ them in this new enterprise where their natural talents are apparently being given full…

— Quarter of nine it was in her the supper, something like that Cohen I can’t remember…

— I see yes that, that may be just as well now as I, this five percent Mister Bast yes apparently it came into this Skinner person’s hands through the former wife of a former employee who turned it over to her in a divorce settlement all of which may be somewhat beside the point, while its value at the time of transfer in the region of a hundred twenty thousand dollars clearly reflects the company’s remarkable growth in the comparatively brief interim since he received the original stock when it was probably worth a mere seven or eight thousand, any long-term tax obligation perhaps twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars he may have incurred on the increment has nothing to do with the company itself of course. In fact the issue is not even the stock’s current value which under present circumstances is probably severely open to question, but rather that of controlling interests in the light of recent, pardon? Mister Bast? No I, I thought you spoke, you can hear me? Since I am still unclear on whether you intend to exert any claim yourself? Because you see if the law…

— Why break the law to get all we can if we can get it all legally.

— Please not so loudly no, no I have no inten…

— Got you there hasn’t he Cohen.

— Mister Duncan please, we…

— Change the law after he breaks it and where does that leave him, listen to this. National Commission will propose legal private use of marijuana, how do you like that. There is increasing evidence that we are approaching a situation similar to that at the time the Volstead Act was repealed wrote Doctor James Carey, a professor of criminology at the University of Cal…

— Please Mister Duncan please, this has nothing to do with…

— That’s all right Cohen you didn’t let me finish, the recommendation does not amount to full decriminalization because persons who use marijuana could still go to jail for such actions as growing it, giving it to friends, transporting it or smoking it in public how do you like that. Studies have shown…

— Mister Duncan please! What I am attempting to discuss with Mister Bast has nothing whatever to do with mari…

— Just depends whose ox is gored is that it Cohen? The conservative majority has insisted that criminal penalties be retained for the simple sale of the drug, that is sales between friends and others not in the business of trafficking drugs keep the world safe for Seagram Distillers National Tobacco Company and those son of a bitches that got me out of the wallpaper business is that it Cohen? How do you like this, in Houston a young civil rights activist is serving a thirty-year sentence for giving marijuana cigarettes to an undercov…