Frolic of His Own

by William Gaddis

  —Did you bring my mail? and the papers?

  —I was going to but I thought they’d just upset you. Of course you’ve got them all anyway.

  —I didn’t say newspapers did I? Of course I’m upset. Did you see that item Harry?

  —Item? How could he help it, it’s the whole front page! She came rounding the end of the bed gathering them up, flourishing the bold headline, —someone should simply shoot it, will you just look at this?

  OUT, DAMNED SPOT

  —You think somebody won’t? He’d taken the only chair, snapping the attaché case open on his lap, —police, firemen, torchlights, hot dogs, cotton candy, see them on the news last night Oscar? Stars and Bars and the good old boys with six packs in both hands, the hound in the pickup with the shotgun rack behind the seat, they’re probably burning the old man in effigy down there right now, he . . .

  —What else can you expect, being a Federal judge in that outlandish place Oscar move your leg.

  —I can’t, wait, those newspapers, what are you doing . . .

  —Throwing them out, you’ve read them all haven’t you? If you want to keep right on being upset, Harry’s brought you a copy of Father’s Opinion that’s made all the trouble, that’s the . . .

  —That’s not why I’m upset! There’s something in one of the papers, can you just leave them there? Something about that big Civil War movie, somebody suing that man Kiester who made it, did you see that Harry? the one that made that Africa movie with those special effects that had people passing out in the aisles?

  —Those lawsuits are a dime a dozen, Oscar. Nuisance suits, people who hope to get paid off just to go away, look I’ve got to get downtown, the . . .

  —No but if he stole my idea, the same story all of it, it’s even the same battle it’s not a, just a nuisance it really happened, it was my own grandfather wasn’t it?

  —Oscar you can’t just, you can’t own the Civil War. You can’t copyright history, you can’t copyright an idea now here, here’s your father’s Opinion. It’s great bedside reading, you can see if they could get their hands on this Szyrk character down there they wouldn’t bother with burning an effigy.

  —No but Harry?

  He was up, closing the attaché case with a snap, —frankly I think he’ll be overturned on appeal, a poisonous atmosphere like that down there the newspapers are already going after him just for being past ninety years old . . .

  —Harry!

  —Racist, leftist, they’ll dig up anything they can to kill his chances for the circuit court and a reversal won’t help.

  —Will you just sit down for a minute? Oscar’s asking you something.

  —Well what Christina, what. I just told him copyright law isn’t my field and . . .

  —Maybe that’s not what he’s trying to ask you.

  —Well what is he trying to ask me!

  —He’s expecting the insurance man about the accident and he told me he wanted your advice.

  —Look I just said I’m in corporate law, I’m not one of these ambulance chasers I don’t even know what happened, now let me . . .

  —I told you what happened. He’s been talking about getting the ignition on that car fixed for years, the way he’s talked about getting new teeth but he . . .

  —Oscar what the hell happened.

  —Well this car, it’s not new, I mean it wasn’t new when I bought it and about a month ago the ignition switch broke and the garage didn’t have one, they had to order a new one but it hasn’t come in yet so they showed me how to start it by touching a wire from the coil to the battery and usually I stand beside it but this time . . .

  —He was standing right in front of it Harry. When it started suddenly it slipped into Drive and I mean why were you standing in front of it Oscar, how could the . . .

  —Because there was a puddle beside it and I didn’t want my . . .

  —Look nobody’s asking him that, Christina. The insurance covers the owner of the car so he just sues the owner.

  —But he owns it Harry, it’s his car he owns it.

  —The owner’s insurance would probably go after the driver.

  —But there wasn’t any driver that’s the point! The car ran over him and nobody was driving it.

  —Let them worry about that, go after the car’s maker for product liability, it couldn’t have been in Drive or it wouldn’t have started, probably the only proof they’d need, just the incident itself. Res ipsa loquitur Oscar, like the chandelier falling on your head. What kind of car is it.

  —It’s a Japanese car a red one, whatever got into him to buy a red one.

  —When you buy a used car Christina you can’t always choose the colour, I saw the ad in the paper and when I . . .

  —Look Oscar I’ve got to get downtown, hope the next time I see you you’re out playing baseball . . . with a clap on the supine shoulder and —I hope there’s nothing under that bandage, you could have a nice lawsuit right there. Christina? I’ll be late. Oh and Oscar? He was through the door, —don’t sign anything.

  —Why does he want to see me playing baseball? I’ve never, ow! What are you doing!

  —Just cranking your bed up a little, laid out like that it’s like talking to a corpse.

  —Well stop it stop! It’s fine it’s, listen I’ve got five cracked ribs and this shoulder throbs like a, it’s like a hot poker and my leg, I can’t even . . .

  —I know all that yes, you told me on the phone. Don’t they give you anything for pain in this place? And these pillows . . .

  —Please they’re fine!

  —I mean they don’t seem to care what happens to you, lying around here in this slovenly mess. I’ve brought your robe and pajamas, at least you won’t have to greet people wearing this shroud looking thing.

  —Why do you say that.

  —Say what.

  —This shroud. And being laid out like a corpse.

  —Well, you look like you’re ready for the potato sack race, is that any better? And I mean does anyone? come to see you?

  —That’s what I’m telling you. Last night, a man in a black suit I thought he was a, that it was one of those pastoral visits but it wasn’t, it was frightening, he ow!

  —Well don’t wriggle then, can’t you just lie still? She’d snapped the sheet straight, tucked in the corner. —Who was it.

  —Because this medication they give me, I think it’s Demerol, it’s as if there are holes in my memory and things that are happening to me are happening to somebody else, because all you really are is your memory and . . .

  —Well who was it, a black suit Harry wears a black suit, black raincoat black shoes there’s nothing frightening about Harry.

  —I didn’t say that Christina, that was just why I thought it was a pastoral call but he kept talking about taking messages to the other side and I, gradually all I could think of was that mysterious stranger calling on Mozart offering him money to compose a requiem when he asked me if I was a terminal case and offered me money to . . .

  —Well my God of course it’s these drugs they’re giving you, just a hallucination nobody came offering you money to compose a requiem, now . . .

  —He was here! He was here ask the nurse, call the nurse and . . .

  —And he offered you money.

  —To carry messages to the other side, yes.

  —Well really.

  —Yes well really! He puts ads in the papers, he reads the death notices and finds people who’ve lost a loved one and they pay fifty dollars to have a message delivered by somebody on his way to the other side when he gets there and we split it. I’d get twenty five for each message I took over and, I mean you would, once I’d departed, and then he asked me if I spoke Spanish and where the charity ward was where maybe he could find some Puerto Ricans, don’t you see?

  —I see nonsense, a lot of morbid nonsense.

  —That mysterious stranger offering Mozart money to compose a requiem and he thought it was his own? for his own death? whi
le he was trying desperately to finish The Magic Flute? Did you bring those papers? those notes I asked you for?

  —Oscar you’re not going to die, you’re just banged up and how you expect to get anything done here flat on your back in the first place, it’s as bad as that pain in your left arm when you were trying to finish that monograph on Rousseau and you were so worried about tenure? Because if you’d had a fatal heart attack it wouldn’t have mattered whether you had tenure or not would it? She’d pulled forth the robe with its worn quilted facings and something beige all arms and legs from Hong Kong, reaching deep in the shopping bag for —these notes, it’s all I could find the way you’ve piled things up in the library, those stacks of old newspapers why you can’t simply clip something out instead of marking it with a red pencil and saving the whole paper, it’s like everything else. The whole place looks disgraceful, not that anyone’s coming to look at it. You hadn’t even called that real estate woman.

  —We have to talk about it Christina, the housing market is down and this whole inflationary . . .

  —Talk about it, my God we’ve been talking about it for a hundred years since you used to jump out at me behind the door to the butler’s pantry it’s got nothing to do with the housing market, it’s not a house, it’s a place. Someone spending two million dollars isn’t just looking for a . . .

  —Two million four, we said two million four but . . .

  —All right two million four! Do you expect two million four from somebody who’s looking for a handyman’s dreamhouse? Are you just going to lie here till somebody shows up and that veranda caves in on their heads then you’ll have a lawsuit, since you seem to be getting so fond of them. Here’s the mail. Where shall I put it.

  —Anywhere just, where I can reach it, do you see my glasses?

  —They’re right here where I put them, with your precious newspapers. I thought we’d paid this plumber.

  —I thought I’d wait till the end of the month when the . . .

  —And these tree people? They should pay us, those broken limbs when you come up the drive, have you talked to them?

  —Well I, not exactly, no.

  —Not exactly? I mean either you’ve talked to them or you haven’t.

  —Well I called but the line was busy, it’s all been, since you left trying to do everything there myself and get my own work done, it’s been . . .

  —How long does it take to write a check, you know you’re going to pay sooner or later but you just can’t part with it till you have to? I mean no one’s asked you to do everything yourself Oscar really, since the day I got married you’ve behaved as though Harry had simply come in and stolen a good housekeeper from you. We are all kind of related now after all and you could make a little more of an effort with him, couldn’t you? He’s awfully busy in court today but he took the time to get this copy of Father’s Opinion and come all the way up here to see you, like one of the family I mean wasn’t that quite thoughtful?

  —But he just doesn’t look like anybody in the family, even on your mother’s side, and I don’t think Father . . .

  —He met Father once, last year when he had to be in Washington, it wasn’t awfully successful but that was hardly Harry’s fault, was it? if you remember the shape Father was in? And I went out and got you a housekeeper after all, didn’t I? Two of them, after you said the first one burned your socks, and what’s happened to this new one? I didn’t see a trace of her.

  —If you’d like to see a trace of her look at that Sung vase in the sunroom. She put cold water in it for some blossom branches Lily brought over and of course it seeped through the terra cotta and completely destroyed the glaze. A thousand years go into that exquisite iridescent glaze and one coarse stupid woman can destroy it overnight.

  —I’ll look around for another one, now . . .

  —Another one? Do you think you can just walk down the street and pick up a real Sung dynast . . .

  —A housekeeper Oscar, another housekeeper, and what Lily’s doing bringing over blossom branches in the first place, aren’t things in enough of a mess there without blossom branches? You complain about disorder and then open the door for chaos herself, I mean she certainly doesn’t look like anyone in the family if that’s what you have in mind, driving in there this morning in a new BMW as if she owned the place. She’ll probably show up here any minute. I told her what happened.

  —A new BMW?

  —You’re lying here smashed to a pulp by that second hand wreck while she’s driving around in a . . .

  —No but whose BMW?

  —Well I certainly didn’t ask her, I mean I certainly don’t want to know, do you? Think about it Oscar, because I should think you might after all, a breezy blouse half unbuttoned, blonde hair flying and enough lipstick to paint a barn I’m putting the mail right here. I’ll bring checks, I’m sure you don’t have any. Who is John Knize.

  —Who is who?

  —There’s a letter here from someone named John Knize. Shall I open it?

  —Oh, no that’s probably just someone who . . .

  —Dear Professor Crease, he’s got one of those awful typewriters that writes in script. Perhaps my earlier letter did not reach you. I am researching material for a book on the Holmes Court, of which I understand your grandfather, Justice Thomas Crease, was a colourful member, well known for his conflicts with his associate Justice Holmes though it was said they were warm friends through their shared youthful experience in the Civil War, both having suffered wounds, I understand, at Ball’s Bluff and Antietam. Since your grandfather lived to age ninety six it occurred to me that you might well have known him as a small child and, you’re not planning to see this person are you?

  —I just thought it might help to . . .

  —Well whatever you thought, just remember people don’t come out of nowhere to help you, people help themselves, I mean you don’t picture sitting down with this utter stranger telling him how Grandfather dandled you on his knee when you were five and rattled on about the Civil War? These papers you had me drag in here because you’re afraid somebody’s stealing it from you and Harry’s right isn’t he, the rest of it’s nothing but opera. I’m the Queen of the Night and here’s your mysterious messenger haunting the wards for a terminal case, wheedling a requiem for the old Count to pretend he composed himself, trying to frighten me when we were children saying you’d come back and haunt the place the way I felt out there this morning, the mist just lifting from the pond and suddenly the swans, a whole fleet of them coming by as still, as still, and across the pond those reds and russets . . .

  —Where the sedge is withered from the . . .

  —Well exactly! the letter she’d been crumpling gone to the floor as she stood.—Alone and palely loitering, I mean if Keats could see you now. How long do they plan to keep you here.

  —They don’t know yet. Could you hand me my glasses? It depends on when I can walk again if I can, if I can Christina, they don’t even know that yet.

  —Well I hope they don’t plan to turn you loose till you can, do they expect you to ride around that house in a wheelchair without breaking your neck? She reached down to where he’d just put on his glasses with some difficulty, and took them off. —Can you see through these things at all? dipping a tissue in the water glass —let alone read through them, doesn’t it ever occur to you to do this yourself? and she set the sparkling lenses back astride his nose —though this bandage hardly helps. Will there be a scar?

  —Probably, they said . . .

  —Poor Oscar. She stooped to kiss his forehead. —It may give your face a little character, like Heidelberg. I’ll start digging up another housekeeper.

  —Yes but, Christina? If Harry doesn’t mind I mean, or if he’s away or anything? I just thought maybe you could come back out there and spend a little time with me? Just until, and wait, this creamed ham they gave us last night . . .

  —We’d still need a housekeeper, oh and I meant to tell you, Trish sends love, Trish Hemsl
ey? She’s quite fond of you you know, it’s a shame you never pursued it Oscar, she could be such a help. You don’t mind if I take these? folding together the crinkled paper slippers she’d just found on the night table, —I mean it’s not as though you’re going anywhere? sweeping back the curtain, past the lively concert of traffic backed up for seven miles at the eastbound entrance to the George Washington bridge for an overturned tractor trailer, seizing the arm of a nurse passing the door with —the far bed in there, Mister Crease? He’s rather anxious about the supper menu, and whatever this medication you’re giving him I wish you’d check with the doctor, he’s seeing little men in black suits coming in asking him to carry messages to the other side and he’s not even packed . . . on up the corridor and —oh my God . . . too late to turn elsewhere, —hello Lily.

  —Oh! Is he okay?

  —If he were okay would he be here? Six twelve B, do try not to tire him.

  —Oh yes I, but Christina?

  —What is it.

  —Just, I just wish you liked me.

  —So do I Lily.

  612 B: past the horn concerto on tiptoe with an apologetic gasp, bursting past the curtain with —oh Oscar! Are you okay? and a lipstick smear on the bandage. —Does it hurt?

  —Yes.

  —Where, the bandage on your face?

  —Everywhere.

  —Oh Oscar. Can I get you anything? I was going to bring you flowers but then I saw I only had four dollars.

  —Look in my wallet. In that drawer in the night table, Lily?

  —Yes, yes can I get you anything?

  —Where did you get a new BMW.

  —Where did you hear that. Is fifty all right?

  —Christina says you drove up to the house in a new BMW.

  —It’s just this person I borrowed it from Oscar. To come over and see you, I only wish she didn’t dislike me so much. She just always makes me feel like a, she’s so superior and smart and her clothes, she’s just always so attractive for somebody her age and . . .

  Her hand fluttered by and he caught it. —It’s just that you’re a little young, I think she worries about you, this divorce and your problem with your family, and the . . .