William Gaddis - J R

— Just these artists and these musicians and…

— But who.

— Well you take this Reuben we were talking about, he…

— If you could simply see something more there than, what was it you said, a little sissified…

— I didn’t mean anything Stella I just, I said there was people that might think he was kind of effeminate, he seemed like a nice enough little fellow that time you introduced me. But I just mean you add up these concerts and benefits and like this hundred dollar a plate dinner you’ve got tonight for this art museum, you add it all up and…

— I thought you added it all up and took it off taxes and were just delighted.

— Well all right Stella, all right. It’s just…

— What.

— I guess nothing.

She turned on the radio and hardly searching found something of Delius that lasted all the way until, about to be identified, it silenced as they entered the tunnel.

— What time is your dinner? he said as they emerged. — You want me to drop you off somewhere?

— Home.

— You have time to go home first? I could…

— Just home.

Lights approaching, passing, splashing wet surfaces in reflections suborned the reality of streets and distance. — Can’t hardly see where you’re going, he said never stopping, scarcely slowing until out of thousands, of hundreds, tens of brownstone steps, brownstone entrances, he drew up at one. — You’re in a hurry you go ahead up, I’ll park the car. You got your key? He reached across to open her door. — Watch where you step. He reached across to close her door. — You want to take your book?

— What?

— This Wagner Man and Artist, it’s been in the car…

— All right, give it to me… and, watching where she stepped, she sought the entrance, head down until she reached it, fumbling for keys and then among them for one to fit the door, shaking them out under the light at the mailboxes, turning and saying suddenly — Oh! The man standing beside her wore the kind of small-billed cap with earmuffs tied over the top that boys wear, and one hand raised more in restraint than threat he put a shopping bag down with the other and straightened up, his clothes already open at the front scarcely demanding her attention there, pressed closer as her key trembled at the lock that moment wet down the side of her skirt and stockings, turned it and the door opened, tracking a wet print across the small lobby without a look back to rise in the empty elevator swallowing a sound in her throat and repeat the ritual of the keys, cross carpeting silently to light a single lamp and drop her bag and her book in a chair, into the bathroom hands fighting the zipper open at the back of her neck, stepping out of her shoes and pausing about to draw that gray dress up over her head, and then forcing it down over her shoulders rending a seam, her slip likewise, turning water on in the basin as she sat to strip off her stockings and drop them in with the slip, leaning naked over to turn on the bath and then holding there to the tub, coming back up, finally, with a towel she held up to her into the bedroom where the light caught her from behind as she reached to get a robe and then, more slowly, sat down. The telephone rang beside the bed. It rang again, and she sat, one hand covering her eyes, until it stopped ringing.

— Stella…? Stella, you left the front door here open. Left your keys right in the door. She got up and went back into the bathroom. — Who was that on the phone?

— Wrong number, she called over the sound of the tumbling water, and closed the door.

She came out holding her robe closed lighting lamps barely brightening the living room under their opaque shades, down a corridor to the kitchen where he’d hung his jacket over a chair and had out a box of eggs. — You’re not ready yet?

— I’m not going anywhere.

— But the, you already got the ticket didn’t you? It ought to be quite a meal for…

— I’m not hungry.

— Oh. He looked back to what he was doing. — I didn’t mean anything against you going to these benefits and something like this dinner tonight Stella… he cracked an egg on the edge of a bowl, and she watched him scrape out the shell. — You sure you don’t want to go?

— I just want some milk, she said reaching to a high shelf for a glass, turning him for that moment to look into the gape of her robe.

— I was going to have some eggs, can I fix you some? It’s no hundred-dollar dinner maybe, but…

— I’m going to bed, she said waiting to pour milk, watching him unwrap a stick of butter and scrape the flecks of it that remained on the paper into a pan.

— You’re not going to sleep right off are you?

— I’m going to take a pill, she said, and he turned to look down the line of her that took shape in the robe as she took her glass and left him staring there a moment longer. Moving more slowly he put his pan off the stove, got out ice and a glass and poured it half filled with bourbon. He sipped it and then suddenly came out through the living room for the hall, tapped on the door. — Stella…?

Her robe lay in a heap on the foot of her bed and he sat on the edge of his, — I just had a good idea Stella, he rattled the ice in his glass at her back. — If I got Edward and your aunts there in for a tour of the place, take them around the plant and give them a real look at the whole operation, I’ll bet they’ve never even…

— Why, she said without turning from the book she sheltered.

— Why? To show them their stake in the General Roll Company is something pretty impressive, more than just a few pieces of paper that say they own, what do they own with James about thirty-five out of that original hundred shares?

— It would… she cleared her throat. — It would be ridiculous.

— What? Well but why, if they really saw what they’ve got there they might not be so ready to see a lot of outsiders coming in and…

— Simply getting them in to a desolate place like Astoria, it wouldn’t impress them they’d be horrified.

— Well but… he stood up rattling the ice in his glass as he raised it. — Wait, you come to think of it now they must have nearer thirty, maybe twenty-seven shares altogether, that Jack Gibbs he took five shares with him when he quit didn’t he?

— Took? And she did half turn, more to pull the blanket back to her shoulder as his weight sank the edge of the bed.

— I don’t mean to sound like he stole it Stella, your father wanted to give it to him for all the help he’d been with those ideas he had I went right along with it, but that was just the thing with him you know? How he’d work out some crackerjack idea right to the point you could do something with it then he’d just leave it there, like it wasn’t worth just getting down and doing it… he brought the glass down shaking nothing but ice in it. — A while after he left there I’d look in book stores when I passed one to see if there was a book with his name on it, he said that’s what he was doing writing a book. If you ever heard him talk about these ideas he had about random patterns and mechanizing you name it but if he ever wrote that book, I sure never saw it… he rattled the ice again staring into the glass. — I used to think he must be the smartest man I ever met, why he’d…

— He probably was. Is that what you came in to tell me?

— Well no Stella I just got off on it talking about those five shares, you figure if these death taxes take maybe up toward half this forty-five percent of the company your father had that leaves maybe twenty-five coming to you, with my twenty-three we’re still on top of things and if anything comes out of this old lawsuit that just came back to life with that jukebox company there’s no telling where it will take us. You see but now if you have to split what comes down from your father with Edward there and he takes up with what your aunts and your Uncle James hold, well that could give them a maybe four percent margin for control so where these five shares that Jack Gibbs had fit in that could turn the whole, Stella…?