William Gaddis - J R

— Sure… she squared them in the typewriter, — so everything went okay?

— Wouldn’t have if I hadn’t stopped off there, it looks like I have to replace Kenny.

— Really? gee that’s, that’s too bad Mister Angel… she typed a word, — maybe he’s, maybe he just had an off day this time I mean that big Cleveland order he got that time, he can…

— No way you’d have known it Terry I spent three nights on the phone clearing that one up too… he put the paper cup down emptied. — I don’t like to fire somebody any better than the next man but I can’t do his job and mine too, some things about Kenny I picked up you’d as well just not hear but, something wrong?

— No, no… the drawer rolled closed at her knee and she brought up a tissue, — I just must have caught cold…

— I heard you had rain here… he picked up the empty cup and put it down sitting back slowly, looking, dug for a key and pulled open the drawer reaching to the back of it for the soiled envelope opened down at his waist’s level, looking up from one to the next of the pictures as though to catch, in that moment of moistening his lips and swallowing, an evanescent matching tilt of nose or fall of hair, a turn of wrist or cheapringed crook of finger or grasp of hand regardless what it grasped or crooked or turned about coming up straight as her typing stopped and she stood suddenly crossing to a filing cabinet, sinking back in his chair as she stooped for a folder in a bottom drawer there turning up the next picture and the next, and next, as though to seize the moment of that simulated leather expanse to match in one of them its crevassed counterpart in white.

— Excuse me Mist…

— Oh…? he came up straight keeping his lap composed, in toward his desk where she stood over him, — what…

— No just, I’m sorry I just, in, just in this letter these specifications you put in if they should match their last order in the file here where we say sixteen…

— Yes well yes, yes that’s, don’t have to ask me that that’s the, says it right here doesn’t it to specifications contained in your order of June the…

— No no yes sir I just wanted to check I didn’t…

— Yes well that’s the, that’s all right Terry I guess I’m just tired from all this running around haven’t even had lunch myself yet I’m, you couldn’t stay a little late could you?

— Well if you, I didn’t know it’s so late already Mister Angel my friend Myrna in the order room, you know? She waits for me to ride in on the subway together so we don’t have to ride it alone and my sister’s having this…

— Yes well that’s all right Terry you’re, you can leave that till tomorrow you got a cold too and…

— No that’s okay but I mean you should get something to eat Mister Angel if you didn’t even eat yet, you…

— Might as well I guess yes… he snapped the desk’s drawer closed, turned the key — not much choice around here though where…

— There’s this place Joe’s where we go over by Thirty-third it’s not

bad.

— Near that Army post?

— Right acrost it’s not so bad, this special they have of…

— Terry?

— Yes what sir… she came up straight at the typewriter.

— Leo did he bring in this cost estimate?

— No sir I didn’t even hardly see him all the time you were…

— What’s that you wanted to tell me about him there… he was up pulling on his coat, — just when I was leaving, you…

— No that’s nothing Mister Angel you better get something to eat while you, I’ll just put this on your desk if you’re coming back…

He stood there with his hat. — Yes well, yes just finish that up and go ahead home then.

— Thanks Mister Angel you, it’s nice you’re back…

— Yes thanks Terry it’s, I’m glad to be back you, you take care of that cold now… and he stood there a moment longer with his hat before he put it on and turned down the length of porous green. — Leo…?

— Didn’t know you’re back I got that Italian for you, he’ll be here next Thursday he’s…

— Thursday hell he can be here tomorrow morning or he don’t need to come at all you tell him that and wait, you got that plan I drew?

— I got it right here… the frayed buttonhole came open, with it a folded yellow sheet and a picture that flew up between them, to reach the floor face up.

— What’s, looks like you been holding out the best one on me Leo…

— Must have, must have fell out…

— Sure as hell did fall out didn’t it.

— Must have fell out in my pocket out of that envelope…

— Yes well just, here just better keep them all together… he faced it inside his shirt pocket — now… he flattened the yellow page against that green with the heel of his hand, — just give me your pencil there now look, I forgot to mark this in we’re going to need vents all down here if we change it around like this see what I mean? Now you get that Eyetalian in here tomorrow on it or he don’t need to come at all.

— I’ll try to do that for you Mister Angel but wait, these here pictures what…

— Don’t do it for me Leo you just do it and these pictures, you just let me take care of it… and he pulled the door hard behind him against the day that seemed to dim as he entered it, gray dimmed overhead to vindicate small shams of housefronts’ glassed porches boxing retirement in undervests no longer anywhere for sale behind aluminum doors bearing aluminum initials, yards parceled behind chain link not even his waist high toward an American flag flown high and bleak some blocks ahead down one curb, up the next, shoulders down hands fallen to the depths of pockets, when a rubber ball hit him on the leg. He stooped and caught it, and looked up, around, into a drive squeezed along the fence to a man poised there in a gray patterned suit and wearing a shirt and a tie, and he threw the ball and stopped dead. — Wait is, Jack…?

The man turned as the ball bounced past him toward a child who rounded the corner of the house and stopped it, half running toward her with the sudden and grotesque effort of the limp that dragged one foot behind him. — Jack? Gibbs? is that you Jack…? But with one twisted turn the figure was gone behind the house. He stood there until a curtain stirred at the window, and then he turned and went on toward the flag, and the glass front just across where he went in and sat at the counter eating a western sandwich, looking from one face to the next of the sprawled soldiers, glancing repeatedly back at one more erect under a major’s clusters until he finished and left, the flag behind him, up one curb and down the next. The child was in the driveway with the ball, and he hurried toward her. — Wait, little girl? Wait a minute, I just want to ask you something… she backed down the fence a step or two. — That man you were just playing ball with, is he here?

— He just went, she said half pointing up the block.

— He, see I thought I knew him, he…

— That’s my father.

— Oh. When will he be back.

— Every week today, he comes to see me every week just about.

— You mean, where does he live then.

— Someplace else, he just comes here to see me and you know what?

— He’d ah, he hurt his leg did he?

— He always had that, he got it in the war and you know what?

— He always had it?

— He got that fighting the Germans in his tank, his tank broke and when he got out they shot him like that and he almost froze, it was in winter and you know what?

— Rose! came a woman’s voice from the house, or behind it.

— Wait, what’s you name?

— Rose.

— Rose you get in here…!

— What, Rose what…