— I mean that's what those people in the newspapers do isn't it, when they say God told them to do it? She'd brought the face of the hide up flat on her knee, pushing a finger out through a hole where an eye had been — because isn't it strange. I mean when you think that those grasshoppers probably all just know the same thing but I mean with all these people, with all these millions and millions of people everyplace that no one knows what anyone else knows?
— Whatever your grasshoppers know that's one thing, you won't hear it from the females, they're practically silent, it's the males that…
— I'm not talking about grasshoppers! I'm, I mean that's just exactly what I'm not talking about I'm talking about you, about what you know that nobody else knows because that's what writing's about isn't it? I'm not a writer Mrs Booth I mean lots of people can write about all that, about grasshoppers and evolution and fossils I mean the things that only you know that's what I mean.
— Maybe those are the things that you want to get away from. Maybe those are the things that will eat you alive, sitting out there on that star with your powerful telescope watching your father with his Jack Russell terriers, I'll tell you what I'd see if I was there with you. I'd see myself lying under that truck just to get out of the broiling sun, the truck broke down and my boy pulled out, he just slipped away in the night. I told you they all thought I was crazy when they brought me in, when I said there was gold there, well I was. Two or three days out there roasting alive, drinking rusty water from the truck's radiator and I was delirious but I'd sworn to myself if I ever got through it that I'd remember what really happened. That all that kept me from losing my mind was knowing I was losing my mind but that it was there, the gold was there. And when they found it twenty years later it didn't matter anymore, proving I was the one who'd told them, none of it mattered anymore. All that mattered was that I'd come through because I'd sworn to remember what really happened, that I'd never look back and let it become something romantic simply because I was young and a fool but I'd done it. I'd done it and I'd come out alive, and that's the way it's been ever since and maybe that's the hardest thing, harder than being sucked up in the clouds and meeting the Lord on judgment day or coming back with the Great Imam because this fiction's all your own, because you've spent your entire life at it who you are, and who you were when everything was possible, when you said that everything was still the way it was going to be no matter how badly we twist it around first chance we get and then make up a past to account for it, sitting out on the Dog Star didn't you tell me? with your powerful telescope that that's what you'd see? being seduced at somebody's funeral those eight or nine light years away and that you'd be watching what really happened? The phone rang in the kitchen. — And did it?
— It always rings! She started up, wringing the stripes tight — no, whenever we, it always rings…
— Then why do you answer it?
— Because it might have been Paul! She paused there the moment it took for her face to colour, turned for the doorway and through it. — Yes, hello? clearing her throat, — Oh. He said you might call yes, he's not here, he won't be home till tomorrow or maybe Thurs… Yes about the estate, something about a stock option before this big lawsuit? He said he just wants a simple yes or… no I know yes, but… Yes but when you say going off half cocked, I mean I know he gets a little impatient sometimes but he's really just trying to help, he's… All right yes then I'll tell him to call Adolph, not to call you again but call Adolph…
She hung up standing staring down at the phone and then she raised it again, rustling aside papers for one with a number she dialed, and waited, and finally — hello? Yes I'm calling for… am I what? I, no, no I'm not a prayer partner no, I… I'm not calling the Lord's hotline no, all I… to what? No please, I mean I'm just trying to reach my husb… Yes thank you but that's not what I, I'm trying to reach my husb… no not on the Lord's hotline no, I thought… thank you, and she hung it up again standing there staring down at the pile of mail and suddenly reached for it, digging under it for that scrap of newspaper where eyes stared out through holes in the paper bag crushing it up in her hand as she came through the living room to tug the front door open on the still day out there broken only by the stabbing outcry of a crow commanding a height somewhere beyond the refuse of the night, an unhesitant reach for the mailbox and she came in spilling it to the table, Doctor Yount, B & G Storage, Mrs B Fickert (in pencil), Christian Recovery, F X Lopots Attorney at…
— Those trash bags, did you find some?
— What? Oh. Look they didn't even wait! That man who called this morning, that awful Mister Stumpp… paper tore, — he said if I didn't make a deal that I'd hear from Mister Lopots and they'd already mailed it.
— Mister Lopots.
— Well it's not funny! Failure to pay the amount due will result in litigation against you and an increased amount of monies you will have to pay, including interest, court costs, attorney's fees and disburse…
— They're just trying to frighten you, here… he took the letter from her and sat down, — give me the phone.
— Well they are frightening me. Unless payment is made immediately I will have no other choice but to… He'd already dialed. — Wait what are you…
— Mister Lopots? I'm calling on behalf of a Mrs Booth in the matter of Doctor Schak versus Booth, I have your… I have it right here there's no account number on it, it's just one of your cheap mimeographed threats to… Never mind that now Mister Lopots, just listen. If you want to go ahead with this, Mrs Booth will be glad to respond to any summons and complaint served on her in compliance with the law. She's prepared for the inconvenience of meeting your client in downtown court and any disbursements and costs if he wins his claim, which looks damned unlikely…
— No wait, please!
— I'm assuming your client's aware of how much court time of his this will involve Mister Lopots, and if you're thinking of a last minute adjournment when Mrs Booth shows up your client can expect to be served with a subpoena guaranteeing his appearance with all his records in this case, things like this so called detailed personal and medical history and this comprehensive consultation he sent to the wrong man if he sent it at all, is that all clear? If you want to confer with your client again and he decides to accept the payment she's already sent him, you should let her know promptly so she won't stop the check. Thank you Mister Lopots, goodbye.
— But do you think they…
— Forget about it… He came bent over a stove burner lighting the cigarette. — You see? They try to sound menacing but there's no malice there, just stupidity… he crumpled the letter, — just part of the trash… and dropped it in.
— You're going to stay? she said suddenly, — I mean until, if you want lunch there's nothing for lunch, I just have a glass of milk sometimes but, but supper, we could be in front of the fire like last night? I can call the store they can deliver something if we, I mean if you'll stay? Could they send up some decent veal then, he asked her, four or five veal scallops? and did she have any mushrooms? fresh ones, and heavy cream… — No but, I can order it but I mean I've only had that in restaurants I'm not sure I, I can do chicken though, if you… He'd do it he told her, and shallots, green onions if she didn't have shallots, and Madeira? was there any Madeira? — I don't think so but… A little white vermouth then, that would have to do he said turned for the door and stopped, that abruptly, with her up against him, her arm on his shoulders pulling him close, — can you? do all that?
— Of course… He let his hand close on her shoulder, — you learn to look after yourself.
— But didn't she…
— Geologists have the highest divorce rate going… close enough now to kiss the rise of her cheekbone, — even higher than doctors… and his hand lingered at her breast, letting her go. — Now, those trash bags?
Veal, she wrote on the back of B & G Storage, mushrooms, shallots, cream, Marsala was it? And she was over pulling open the drawer, digging under the placema
ts, a five, three singles, a twenty, before she was back dialing the phone, repeating her order — yes I know, but this time I'll pay cash… when there, straight before her, the front door shuddered open and she dropped it.
— Bibb?
— No! you, what…
— Hey… he came on, — you look really terrific.
— Wait! She settled the phone back, in to trim his embrace backed off against the love seat there — you, what is it what are you doing here?
— Man I just got back, I mean I just dropped in to see how you…
— You always just drop in! You, you just…
— Bibb like what's the matter, I mean…
— You know what's the matter! I've been getting, sit down. Just sit down.
He slumped in the wing chair. — Have you got a beer? — No I don't have a beer. Billy honestly, how could you do a thing like that, Mister Mullins has been on the phone screaming at me he wants to call the police and have you arrested, he said he's the one who pays Sheila's rent there and if you don't give him every penny you stole from these people he'll send you to jail, is it true? Is that where this new suit came from and running off to California?
— Oh man. He's so dumb, I mean get him off my case Bibb. I give him the money and that makes him an accessory, right? So we both do ninety days at Riker's Island? I mean he's so fucking dumb he can't even…
— He doesn't want the money, he doesn't want to keep it he wants it to give back to these people you stole it from because they're all after him, they're after him and Sheila because it's her apartment, how much was it.
— I mean Sheila didn't know anything about it, like she took off for that ashram in Jersey with that skinny Tibetan two weeks ago so what's the big…
— And that's when you put an ad in the paper two bedrooms, large living room, terrace, furnished three hundred dollars a month? and then you were up there showing it and getting everybody aside to give you a cash deposit and come back next week? That's what he told me, is that…
— Oh Bibb, Bibb. I mean what's the difference, nobody got hurt did they? they didn't take anything did they? She's still got her fucking apartment and a few turkeys out on the street are out a hundred bucks man like what did they expect, I mean if they're dumb enough to think they could get a pad like that for three hundred a month they couldn't wait to hand over these cash deposits, like this one woman goes in the fucking bedroom and…
— I don't want to hear about it! And, and please stop saying fucking I just don't, why do you do things like this?
— Man like what am I supposed to do! I mean I go in and see Adolph, you know he sold Longview? and like do we see one fucking nickel? I mean it should have gone to us in the first place, it should have gone to mother if they…
— Mother hated Longview, she was terrified of it, after she saw that thing come out of the marsh and drag old Juno under she never went back, she was terrified.
— Like does that mean Adolph should hand it over to these doctors for seven hundred and fucking thirty thousand dollars? It should have brought like over three million so he does this big deal with this doctor syndicate and puts it right in the trust. He should have split it between us but it's in the trust where we can't touch a fucking nickel. It's his obligation as trustee to conserve the assets of the trust so the trust can meet its obligations he tells me, he has to guard the trust against unwarranted incursions, you know what that is Bibb? That's Paul, that's fucking Paul going around trying to borrow against it that's what he's been…
— All right! That still doesn't mean you have to do something like this with Sheila's apartment when Adolph won't advance you more money where does it go! Dope? Is it drugs is that what…
— Oh Bibb come on, I mean it just goes, I mean who's telling you I try to get money from Adolph for drugs, Adolph? Did you talk to Adolph? Because I wasn't up there trying to squeeze money out of him, I went up to see if he could get me a job, ask him. If you don't believe me ask him. I mean I just want to clear out Bibbs, I mean as far away from all this crap as I can get, Adolph knows the company operations inside out, he could get me sent anywhere. I mean the old man ran the whole show, don't I have a right to some lousy job?
— Well Mister Grimes runs it now and I don't think he'd…
— Man like there's nothing old man Grimes would like better than to see me shipped off to some burnt out hole in Africa, hand him a chuckle every time he thought of me laid out with dengue fever, he'd even throw in a little jungle rot for good…
— Africa?
— That's where they are, isn't it? And I mean that's where the action is, VCR's got a finger in Africa anyplace you look I mean that's what all this crap is about, the stock dropping and the old man's estate and these leaks, did you talk to Adolph?
— No, Paul says…
— Paul says! Man it's always fucking Paul, I mean he's the one Bibbs, he's where these leaks are coming from, he was going back and forth over there like a yo-yo carrying the bag for the old man wasn't he? I mean they kicked his ass out of the company that doesn't mean his asshole buddies in Pretoria pulled out on him does it? And I mean this old crud senator they've got on the string getting him this dismissal in these hearings Adolph told me, he's got them scared shitless even if they've got every concession over there nailed down, he's the one who carried the bag he's the one on the inside he's the, Bibbs? She was staring off at nothing, listening elsewhere, saidn't a word looking up — Is he here?
— Who.
— Paul, I mean who else. I thought I heard him.
— Oh. No, no that's just the…
— Because what I came for is that trust instrument, you've got a copy of it haven't you? I have to see it.
— It's in a box someplace, I'd have to go up and look for it but you know what it…
— It's the exact wording Bibb, I have to see the exact wording. I mean when I was talking to Adolph and I'm thinking like suppose something happened to me before this distribution and like where does that leave Paul, you and Paul. I mean your share by the time it comes through it won't be there and like if something happens to me he steps in and blows everything, could you look for it? now? I mean it's important.
— Just, all right but, but just wait there.
He watched her up the stairs, — I mean where else would I go? and he sat for a minute cracking the knuckles of one hand doubled in the other, staring blank at the odd jacket crumpled on the chair there before some sound, or second thought, or splanchnic stirring brought him to the kitchen to stare into the refrigerator, spread the last of the butter on bread he found there and come, folding it over, to stand in the open doorway chewing it, looking in. — Hi… and then again, — hi. I mean are you the guy that owns the house here?
Torn by a cough, straightening up from the bundled magazines with a hand steadied on a bookshelf, — my name is McCandless, yes. I'm the guy that owns the house here.
— Man it's some mess, I mean let me help you…
— No no no, no just leave it there… He cleared his throat of the cough and sat down, busied digging in the table's litter for the glazed tobacco envelope. — I'm just cleaning up here, there's really nothing you can…
— It's funny, you know? I mean I used to know this kid in school named McCandless. He was sort of a neat kid.
— Why is that funny.
— What? No, I mean I just never met anybody else named that, like I still owe him this two hundred dollars. I mean he was the only decent kid in the whole fucking school, he…
— Wait be careful of that, it's…
— I mean what is it.
— It's a camera shutter. It's rather delicate.
— Oh. Like if it wasn't for him I would have been kicked out. I mean I was finally kicked out anyway but not for that… and holding up that yellow orange rock now — what's this, gold?
— It's not gold no, it's something called gummite.
— Gummite? I mean what are you, like some kind of geologist?
— Yes. Yes you could put it that way, now…
— Because I mean I always felt lousy about that two hundred dollars, you know? Can I bum a cigarette?
— Well I, here… He came forward abruptly to sweep the battered State Express tin from the litter and sank back further into the chair, waving off the smoke as though searching through it those features limned in intimacy only minutes before, kissed in fact, looming over him here in this unseemly parody, that chill fragility of chin and cheekbone all untempered, unrestrained, ruminant with bread and even the hands, now the bread was gone, large, red knuckled, the very finger ends nubbed by bitten nails up shaking out a match, drawing away the cigarette, quickened by that same dread of unemployment but latent with casual breakage where one of them, cupping a dented case in general issue drab, snapped its cover open, closed, opened. — I didn't get your name.
— Me? It's Vorakers, Billy Vorakers. What's this, a compass?
— And you're her brother? Mrs Booth's?
— She's my sister.
— Yes. Yes she's very nice, isn't she… He leaned forward to stamp out what was left of his cigarette, — a very nice person.
— Nice? Man like she's the only straight number in the whole fucking family, I mean she's the only thing that holds things together in the whole…
— That two hundred dollars, what was it for.
— What, that? Man like it was for nothing. I mean we were only in second form, you know? And I mean I got busted for grass when I'm off the school grounds so there's this old locker room guy Biff we used to throw the towels to? So he gets this town lawyer he knows where before the school finds out about it if I can put up this two hundred dollars bail and then just not show up and that's it, I mean I surrender the bail and that's it. I mean he was sort of a neat old guy but like where am I supposed to get this two hundred dollars. I mean if I'd called my old man he would have told them great, put him in solitary, give him the thumbscrews so Jack calls his father and it's there the next day and I mean he wasn't rich, like these other snotty kids whose old man pulls up in a Mercedes like mine where he scribbles a check to the alumni association and then he shows up at the hockey game. I mean I never thought he'd show up at all and I'm sitting in the penalty box when I hear this fucking whisper right behind me kill them, kill them, he's right behind me with his fur collar turned up where everybody's yelling and all I hear is this whisper, kill them…
Carpenter's Gothic Page 18