Carpenter's Gothic

by William Gaddis

  — Don't ever do that again.

  — I, God damn it I, I don't… and the hand that had caught his wrist eased away to his elbow where they'd broken back from that line chalked on the floor — think I'm crazy don't you, probably read that in the paper too, look. Look, you said you just wanted to come in and look around what's the, whole story's in my statement to the police isn't it? you people don't talk to the police? Time I got here that morning the whole God damn place was a media circus out there, Edie, that's her friend Edie showed up here early front door standing wide open, I always told her to keep the God damn doors locked, lying right here on the floor drawers dumped out napkins, placemats, spoons all over the place God damn woman out front there pushing a microphone in my face. Can you describe your feelings when you arrived home to discover your wife's body on the, God damn lucky it wasn't hers look. Tell me why the FBI's suddenly so God damn interested? you think I, look I can prove I was on that noon shuttle from Washington, airport limousine they call it that it's a God damn bus by the time I got here the whole place was a, get the phone here… He went down in the chair, — who? Look I can't… Look Sheila what in the hell are you talking about! It's God damn well not going to be a Buddhist service for him no, and don't… Look I'm telling you Sheila, send one of your God damn skinhead rimpijays out there in his little red mantra ringing bells chanting umm umm and I'll serve you up a good monk barbecue, that's the… God damn it Sheila listen nobody gives one good God damn about his karma getting him off the wheel whether his next incarnation is a look, look there's a God damn fly just landed on the table here you think that's him? just went up to the ceiling doesn't know where the hell he's going you think that's him? Crazy as he was coming in here pissing on the floor he God damn near killed me once, you know that? Down under the car out there jacked up on a stick of wood he gave it a kick the whole God damn thing came down I could have been, could have, I, I… the phone shook in his hand, holding it further from him, holding it away, hanging it up and staring at his hand until it came up wiping the perspiration down his face. — What? Suddenly he was up, — said you wanted to come in and look around what the hell do you think you're going to find in there, never been in there it's been locked up since we moved in, you looking for clues? What they pay you for isn't it? look for clues? Clues to what… he stepped aside, — don't ask me that's all, what the hell's in there don't ask me… coming on behind him for the front door where the man stopped, looking the room over, looking him over.

  — You'd better shave.

  — Always told her keep the God damn doors locked, I could have hired somebody to do it for me is that what you think? Read the God damn papers how much money she had is that what you think? And he stood there filling the doorway until the undistinguished grey car turned down the hill, knocking over a broom leaning there against the staircase and picking it up, standing there looking up the stairs and finally dropping the broom back to the floor and climbing them, down the hall where scarves, sweaters, papers, the chest's drawers themselves still lay flung out on the bed, on the floor as he'd found them, and the manila folder where he'd found it spread open on the bed to pages in a hand he knew spelling little more than bread, onions, milk, chicken? here drawn out in whole paragraphs and crossings out, marginal exclamations, meticulous inserts, her tongue tracing the delicate vein engorged up the stiffening rise to the head squeezed livid in her hand, drawing the beading off in a fine thread before she brought him in, surging to meet him for as long as it lasted, standing there numbed and then replacing it carefully in the folder, and then he stooped to pick up his shoes and hurried from the room, down the hall where his same numbed look met him now in the mirror over the basin, the white wisps he'd found there dangling from his hand as though he didn't know what to do with them before he turned on the water full and held his head under the tap, finally coming out shaved, scarred and shirtless where a movement no more than the flutter of a wing caught his eye through the glass at the foot of the stairs, someone on tiptoe, peering in, and he came down them.

  — A what? She was barely his waist high, standing there in the doorway all timidity and he bent down, — Look little girl I don't know where he went, see that old man over there with the broom? He's the one who watches out for black doggies with red fingernails, only God damn thing he's got to do you go over and ask him… and he watched her hesitant step down into the road, calling after her — and that goes for his cat too… before he closed the door muttering — God damn cold in here… twisting the thermostat coming through to his suitcase opened on the dining room table where he pulled out a shirt, where he'd stood reeling the night before, or the night before that or it might even have been dusk, clinging for balance to a chair there when he'd shouted out her name, standing here heaving as though that cry of outrage still hung in the air, pulling on the shirt, down on his knees on the kitchen floor now with a wet rag scrubbing again at that chalk line's amorphous enclosure but for what might have been an arm flung out toward the sink, when the phone rang.

  — Adolph? this you? Been trying to reach you where the hell have you been… All right, look. God damn State Department shipped him back with Teakell they want three thousand some dollars carfare before they'll release the body, get on them and tell them if it's not there for this funeral in Michigan Friday Grimes will have their ass. Now this trust instrument, you found your copy yet? What… Look I've got one, I've got a copy right here in front of me and I've got a copy of the will only God damn question is when his half goes into her estate with this delivery delayed, you… He went first didn't he? What do you… Look God damn it Adolph get one thing straight, you're working for me now I don't give one God damn what you think, you can't handle it I'll talk to Slotko, that's… what the hell do you mean her mother's claim, down there with Uncle William in that thousand a day nursing home your God damn doctor syndicate Orsini Kissinger and the rest of them set up at Longview the old lady's a vegetable, what do you… No what else then, read it to me… He snapped his hand ridding it of the fly that had lighted on a knuckle, veered off over the sink and come down to his knee where he slapped at it — wait, what? What do you mean a dollar… The fly paused on the corner of the table, came up in a fast turn and down in a zigzag march across 10 K 'DEMO' BOMB OFF AFRICA COAST War News, Pics Page 2 —what the hell do you mean went in legal fees, insurance company settled for four million she and everybody else on that plane get a dollar and the rest went in legal fees? His free hand crept across PREZ: TIME TO DRAW LINE AGAINST EVIL EMPIRE and he slapped it down — look, Grimes is on the board of the God damn insurance company isn't he? get in there and tell him to fight the… partner in what, what legal firm… Well God damn it! You call that ethical? Those sons of… what about mine then, my suit for… on what grounds, threw it out on what grounds God damn it she signed a deposition didn't she? said she couldn't fulfill the… All right get on it then and look. One more thing, what the hell was this in the paper about the house in Bedford being burned down by the fire department up there as a training exercise, any God damn reason the estate can't get in there and sue them for… Well just do it! Look, car coming for me any minute for a flight out to Michigan this afternoon, when you hang up call this guy in the State Department and chew out his ass, I'll call you when it's over… and he hung up, — Liz? you hear that? God damn court threw out my companion suit for, for, Liz! and his hands came up against his face savaging its features as though to do away with them, coming down to leave him shuddering, staring at the fly's course over SURVIVAL CAMP SHOOTOUT NETS VET and seizing it, tearing open its pages, dialing the phone — Hello? Look, this ad you've got in the paper, picture of these two marquetry chests thirty eight thousand the pair? Where did… no I don't want to buy them I want to know where the hell you got them. Whose… what do you mean an estate auction whose estate, what… look what else was in it, was there… Because I want to know if there were stones, boxes of stones that were… I said stones yes what's so God damn funny about… Well why in
the hell can't you give me that infor… See what's so God damn funny about it when you hear from my lawyer! and he banged it down, pulling a deep breath and then taking the newspaper, rolling it stealthily, raising it over the fly's new íoray across PREACHER SHOT IN BRIBE CASE and bringing it down hard, up slamming it at the refrigerator, the counter top, the table, finally standing there wiping his hand down his face and slumping back in the chair, sweeping up the pile of envelopes, spurious salutations, bills, staring at the top one Professional services rendered… $4000. and he had the phone again.

  — Hey, peckerhead? Told you I'd get you some good names didn't I? He squared the bill round in front of him, — Kissinger, he's… straight on, he's going to be out of the country, paper says he's going over to ream out the Pope tear him out a new… get you that in a minute here's another one, Orsini, Jack Orsini… he went on, buttoning his wilted shirt, names, numbers, up jamming it into his trousers — God damn nightmare, I'll tell you one thing Chick one, just one thing, what really happened in that BOQ God damn glad she never knew about that she, she wouldn't have… didn't know about that either no, letter from some refugee camp in Thailand finally got to me here but nobody did. Nobody knew till those God damn pictures in the paper, some dogood agency spotted me on television just got to me here and laid it on, would I put up their passage money guarantee their entry into the US her and the boy, it was a boy, try and make you pay with the rest of your God damn life for every mistake those mothers handed you over there? God damn VA sees that picture in the paper cuts off my disability? you see yesterday's papers? Same shit all over again, same mothers pissing up everything this time it's blacks instead of gooks, waste their hootches burn out their crops whore up their girls blow your gut I'll talk to you pecker-head, get your shit together I'll talk to you… and he'd barely hung it up when it rang.

  — Hello…? Hey Bobbie Joe, what's the… hey now slow down Bobbie Joe, just slow down, now why would I want to go doing a thing like that look. Now this old senator he denied it now didn't he? before he went down? You saw that in the paper now didn't you Bobbie Joe? and maybe I just kep it for my own use? Now why would I want to go and get your daddy shot over a thing like that, why he's… Well now I wouldn't go making accusations like that in public if I was you Bobbie Joe, say maybe the Roman Catholics was behind it because he was in there harvesting their flock that could get you in a lawsuit where you'd… no I know all about your juries down there but that's not the… No now listen here Bobbie Joe, you just listen here. Your daddy's all right now isn't he? took one in the shoulder I've put men right back in combat with worse than that. Now this black boy they brought in that he says he did it? made up that story somebody gave him a hundred dollars that said they were a friend of your daddy's and your old daddy he wanted to be this old martyr for the blood of the church and all? Now here's what your daddy's going to do Bobbie Joe and you tell him, hear? This little old boy he's going to get twenty years consider where it happened and what your daddy's going to do, he's going to forgive him, just like he did when Earl Fickert came after him with that ax? But he's not going to plead mercy for him either, he's going to go right ahead with these charges just to show the liberal press he don't make exceptions for a man's skin. He don't press charges that sounds like he thinks all the blacks will go do a thing like that where a white man would go to jail shooting another white man and he just wants this boy to be treated fair like anybody else, go do his twenty years and your daddy will pray for him? Now one more thing here, you know Billye called me up here? Billye Fickert? thought I'd gone down living in Haiti because some check she wrote me came back cashed in some bank down there in Haiti and my name signed on the back of it looked real funny? Now you just tell her that's true, I've gone to living down there in Haiti and I won't get to see her for a while because… well I'll just do that Bobbie Joe, see how many of them down there's been harvested I'll just do that you tell your daddy now I've got to hang up, car just pulled up outside I've got to go, somebody at the door…

  Someone standing out there looking down the black stream of the road, looking down where no flashes of colour, of those reds and bright yellows were left to break the still light on the river below and he got to the dining room to pull his jacket off the back of a chair, to snap the suitcase closed and get through the front door with — you didn't need to get out, Edie… pulling it closed behind him for the snap of the lock, taking her arm by the mailbox there in the sudden chill, holding open the door of the dark limousine until she was in and settling in beside her as it moved almost silently down the road scattering boys on both sides into the banks of dead leaves, his arm resting across the back of the seat behind her turned looking away from him out the tinted window when he said — got plenty of time… and then, — you know? settled closer, — I've always been crazy about the back of your neck