William Gaddis - J R

— Your job Whiteback? look… and where they did a roll of cigar ash bounded down worn folds of tweed and burst on the floor. — Your job is to make the District Superintendent look good, and you’re not making me look good with this thimble theater you’re running here. You’re not doing it by calling up a paper to take a story about a fourth grade sitdown strike away from them with one hand while you’re giving them one about a fourth grade drug trip with the other. And get that damn bear off the screen.

— Yes we use it as sort of ahm, can you reach that knob Major?

— useful to make the distinction between a given concept, the number, and the symbol which represents it, the numeral…

— Downright brilliant, know what he’s talking about?

— Yes well of course this is simply enahm, richment that knob on the left yes, the on off that is to…

— define the number in terms of the equivalence class of ordered pairs of the equivalence classes of ordered pairs…

— Anybody know what he’s talking about?

— Yes well I think what Vern means is ahm, Glancy’s been having some financial difficulties that may have affected his approach to ahm, in terms of educational content that is to…

— That’s not what I meant at all and don’t try to describe what flows through these tubes as educational content, equivalence classes of ordered pairs when I said plumbing I meant plumbing, doesn’t matter who pulls the chain.

— Yes well I’m afraid Major Hyde doesn’t ahm, Vern just dropped in to discuss this next budget referendum Major he thought there might be a few soft spots we could ahm, I just had it yes is that it? that pile right under your…

— This? Report to the police any stranger who tries to join you in your play or offers to take you for a ride or walk. Do not play near public toilets…

— Oh no that’s something the police ahm, like those don’t pick up a stranger matches that were handed out in the vd campaign last year and those junior high girls burned down the ahm, it’s right here somewhere under here if you’ll just move your ahm, I was just looking through it for…

— Glue, per quart, three fifty-nine, masking tape each, two forty-seven, chalk per box, three eighty, ladders, each, thirty-six, toilet paper, per case…

— Remind me to call Gottlieb yes that’s his brother-in-law that is to say but what they do with all that toilet paper, is there anything there about picnic forks? Something Leroy just called about the first part of a shipment of wooden picnic forks…

— Here’s something from Leroy, glass, sixty-nine panes…

— Oh yes well the glass that’s in the budget, that was just sixty-nine panes on the weekend but of course with glass running a dollar a square foot and the unbreakable runs three times that…

— Bulletproof?

— No that’s just the, what they call strengthened glass but…

— I’d check out the price differential on the bulletproof while you’re at it Whiteback, sooner or later we’re going to have to face the facts.

— Well yes but of course right now all we have to do is comply with the ahm, the insurance company recommendations and that man Stye of theirs who was in here hasn’t made things any easier since ahm, of course I don’t think Vern…

— Vern wants solutions, all right, this Stye, colored fellow Vern in here for the insurance company, if he was on our team maybe he’d see things a little more our way, I’m talking about that empty slot coming up on the school board. He lives out there past the new Dunkin Donuts location and Whiteback here seems to think he may be over the district line, but nobody’s going out there with a tape measure. Quiet type, tight lipped, doesn’t talk much but his eye’s on the ball every second, Whiteback here knows what I mean. He probably doesn’t make beans with that insurance outfit and wants to get ahead, some of them have a streak of that am I right Whiteback?

— Yes well I didn’t think you ahm…

— Didn’t recall you as such a champion of the race myself Major, even heard somebody say once it made you mad to see a car like yours with a black face behind the wheel, how…

— Just let me finish here Vern, if he has a shot at the school board maybe he can clean up this insurance mess the way we want it cleaned up and after that I can probably find him something in our organization, something in sales he’d consider pretty attractive…

— All sounds a little like Saul on the road to Damascus Major, something blind you on the drive out here today?

— Listen Vern don’t, just don’t push me too far. Before I came out here I had a gut session with one of our company’s top brass and our big must there right now is vertical integration right down the line, black slice of the corporate pie and all the rest we’ve got the Justice Department on our tail and we’re bending over backwards to keep our skirts clean. Bring this man Stye in it won’t hurt us right here in the district integrationwise Whiteback come to think of it he’s probably got some white…

— Yes well of course the, we just lost that family of ahm, Hawaiians were they? Out by Chick’s Auto Body yes sending their little ahm, their youngsters to the parochial school they’re not even Catholic, nonwhite of course yes but they’re not ahm…

— Do you know why? Discipline, that’s what they’ve got to sell and we haven’t let me finish Vern, Catholics I met have a kid there in art class the sister tells them color inside the lines, color outside the lines and whap! ruler right across the knuckles, the kid comes home black and blue every night. Discipline and a decent respect for the flag, you blame these Chinamen for sending their kids there? get them away from the kind of inflammatory material a teacher like this Gibbs is handing out, you talked to Vern about this Whiteback? and the kind of friends he has? somebody that goes around putting out his eye with a pencil?

— Yes well no we ahm, Vern stopped by to discuss the new budget referendum that is to say and we ahm…

— That’s what I’m talking about isn’t it? Expect any yes votes with this Citizens Union bunch sending out questionnaires having parents tell their kids to report any teacher that starts his class without the proscribed openings? This budget will bring the tax rate up over nine dollars and we need every vote we can get Catholic and white while they’re paying to send their own kids to parochial school, you know how much they’ve sunk into this new closed-circuit facility over here at Holy Name? Getting all the mileage out of it they can too, I just sent in some pictures of Sister Agnes cutting up a frog to the parent company may give them a boost in our Annual Report, they’ve got an archbishop coming out to bless it and Father Haight’s putting this brokendown two-star General brother of his right up there on the stand with him why should they vote a tax increase to educate our kids. Mention anything else they’ll vote for it, roads, they all use roads take this how many million dollar referendum of Pecci’s for widening the state roads will go through without a whisper have you seen up there where the highways cross? where that new shopping center’s going to go up? I just drove past it coming off the expressway they’ve got both shoulders cleared all the way up past the Catholic church you think Parentucelli’s sitting waiting for a referendum? He knows he’ll get paid, by the time this referendum goes through he’ll have every state road in sight ten lanes wide but just mention education and they grab for their wallets.

— Yes well of course if ahm, if they keep rejecting the budget that is to say every cutback we submit is ahm, an austerity budg…

— We can’t cut it back, submit a nickel and dime budget once that’s all they’ll ever vote for see it at the corporate level all the time, what you don’t ask for you don’t get and if we keep trimming it to just let me finish Vern, these Catholics want to send their kids to private school let them but they’re not going to shortchange the rest of our youngsters on anything from a box of chalk to the appliances for this new what did you call it Whiteback? The home ec motivational center?