William Gaddis - J R

— Well I, matter of fact…

— I’ve felt badly about it, I’ve tried to call him once or twice to thank him for bringing the class back out. I felt so foolish when I found those tickets in my bag I, you did give them to him didn’t you?

— Matter of fact… he’d finally got one knee wedged over the other looking deliberately slumped, a foot dangling in the aisle, as flags, pennants and used cars, beer by the case, hero sandwiches, Dunkin Donuts fled past the window opposite — I meant to yes I, somehow I thought I had but things got a little confused…

— But you did get the right train didn’t you? You told me you would…

— Thought I had yes, but… he was unlimbering his leg, digging in pockets to come up with an assortment of battered cardboard — keep finding them in my…

— Oh honestly, now I feel simply terrible about it he must have had to pay all those fares himself, I know he couldn’t afford it and whatever’s become of him…

— Just coming to that, yes… he separated a soiled square of white from Win Third Race, half fare, — found it on the floor in the Post Office.

— But, what in the world. Business representa, representive? It must be a, some sort of…

— Lackawanna four phone number must be somewhere in midtown but…

— But is he, have you called? do you know…

— Haven’t needed a business representive no, what…

— But how, how odd I thought he, he was going to spend all his time composing I thought he was working on a, music for some dancers a ballet or something, that that’s why he left teaching…

— You didn’t see his maiden venture on the, his little presentation on Mozart did you.

— No, no someone mentioned it but…

— Strayed a little from the curriculum you might say, rather Whiteback might say, that probably had a little more to do with his leaving teaching the minute they see talent and sensitivity they sabotage it and call it tech…

— Oh honestly you’re not going to start that again that, just taunting him as though he…

— Look no Christ I’m just, don’t you know when I, when someone takes a ridiculous situation and just tries to…

— But that’s all you do… she snapped her skirt tight at the knee straightening against the seat’s discomfort. — Isn’t it? without turning — well? isn’t it?

— All right look I, all I meant was the whole thing’s ridic, out of proportion that appalling diCephalis woman, do you know her?

— I don’t think so but…

— Ann, she’s sort of you in a cheap edition, twentieth printing of the paperback when things begin to smear…

— No I think I did get something from her in my box, about a strike?

— Because they’re after all of us yes, sabotaging your friend Mister Bast because anything creative scares them. They’re after me too because I’m talented and creative, she could tell by my hands almost took my thumb with her, she…

— You do have marvelous hands though.

— What? I… he stared at hers resting half opened on her knee, hitched himself higher in the seat — doubt if that’s the reason they’re after me though.

— Well of course they’re not, why should they be.

— A little scuffle I had with that Major Hyde idiot on the school board, friend of mine had an accident and he was there when they called he, he said something stupid and I lost my temper that’s all.

— But how could, what sort of accident would…

— You don’t want to hear about it.

— I only meant…

— You don’t want to hear it! he slumped again, his hand on the seat’s back just touching her hair — I’m sorry I, it’s just something you don’t have to hear, somebody who goes through some bad periods I guess we all know somebody like him, talk him out of suicide till the day one of you finally dies in bed like talking to yourself most of the time…

— But he, is he all right now?

— In the hospital coming out of it, out of this last one as all right as he ever is he’s one of these, one of those men who wanted to write and had a father who thought writing was for sissies, made a million dollars in timber and Schramm’s spent the last twenty years just waiting for him to die, when he finally did well, there’s Schramm. The only time he was ever really alive was the war, he was a tank commander in the Ardennes and when it was all over he just never could quite, he has some bad periods that’s all and coming up against the insensitive stupidity of somebody like Hyde I just, just let go…

Bent over her bag again, — I think I have a Hyde boy in my class, she said slipping off the glasses, — is he…

— Same military caste yes, he’s your class fire marshal in fact, about the most unpromising human being that size I’ve ever come across keep stumbling over him with that grubby boy he hangs out with over in the Post Office, they’re moving in.

— Oh that’s J R probably, I think they send for things in the mail together. Cosmetic samples if you can imagine… and all the smile that lit her eyes was as suddenly gone again behind the tinted glass. — There’s something a little touching about him, I think.

— About as touching as a bull shark.

— No this other little boy I meant, J R he’s so, he always looks as though he lives in a home without, I don’t know. Without grownups I suppose, like he simply lives in those clothes of his.

— Probably does, have you ever seen him when he wasn’t scratching himself somewhere?

— Oh I know yes, I have felt he doesn’t bathe often but, no there’s something, something else, when you talk to him he doesn’t look at you but it’s not as though, not like he’s hiding something. He looks like he’s trying to fit what you’re saying into some utterly different, some world you don’t know anything about he’s such an eager little boy but, there’s something quite desolate, like a hunger… she turned to him abruptly — you, you must have been awfully small…

— Small? I, what these half fare tickets? just told you they…

— Don’t be silly no, no I meant young, when you went away to that boarding school you must have been awfully young, coloring leaves and…

— I was five.

— Five that’s, that is terribly young isn’t it, were you…

— In the way, that’s all.

— But I’m sure that’s not…

— Not what, kids are in the way that’s how they’re all brought up now, do a good enough job on them it can last for life just look at the, what’s the matter…

— Nothing.

— But I don’t…

— Please! she’d turned away, pressed the tinted glasses closer — I’d just, I remembered you talking about going away to school in the fall and, and bringing in leaves to color…

— I always found brown ones… he sank lower in the corner of the seat, — been in the way since the day I could walk.

A train passed from the opposite direction with an enveloping shock and was gone, the door up ahead banged half open, half closed to the sway of the car past billboards, unfinished apartments Now Renting, another vacant platform, diaper service trucks marshaled against the day to come. — Do you stay in? she asked finally, — in town I mean? for the weekend?

— Will if I can get through Friday.

— But it’s almost over isn’t it.

— Friday? No it’s, I mean this is…

— It’s Friday, we had our Friday morning quiz on…

— Can’t be… he came up straight — can’t be, wait… he was twisting, digging the newspaper from the seat hinge — look.

— But it’s yesterday’s.

— But wait, wait, he was tearing through back pages, — if the, here. Christ. T’d Off and Marry Me God damn it, yes, that was yesterday’s double.