Frolic of His Own

by William Gaddis

  —If you’d go see a doctor . . .

  —How can I go see a doctor if I can’t pay him, I haven’t even got that insurance they gave me at the phone company that’s why I didn’t ask you. I thought you were mad at me.

  —About what, why should I be angry.

  —When I went to that movie with Kevin, why shouldn’t I. You never take me anyplace.

  —How can I take you anyplace! I can’t even, you didn’t even really see the movie anyhow did you except for the parts about, where did you sit.

  —Where did I sit?

  —In the back? in the dark? where he could . . .

  —Where he could what, what do you mean after this favour he’s doing for you with this accident case where you haven’t even paid him anything?

  —It was his idea wasn’t it? that he gets paid if we win? that he might take almost half? And what about your divorce? how are you paying him for that unless he, unless you’re paying him with some different kind of coin . . .

  —I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

  —You know exactly what I’m talking about I, have you? been to bed with him?

  —What?

  —I said have you slept with him.

  —No!

  —All right then, if that’s . . .

  —No stop it! Get your hand away, you hurt my feelings you don’t even think I have any, everything I say you insult my intelligence right to my face while you’re trying to put your hand in my . . .

  —All right then. If you, oh Ilse? Wait, listen do you want some of that Alfredo sauce with the . . .

  —I’m not hungry! I have to go anyway, I don’t know why I even came over here to see you. I thought I could talk to you but you don’t even listen, do you think I came over here to beg? The way you’re looking at me right now that’s all you ever . . .

  —Listen. Sit down. Do you need . . .

  —I can’t sit down. I told you I have to go didn’t I? to get my hair done, do you think I can go to Bobbie’s funeral down there like this where everybody’s looking at me? They won’t even do the alterations on that dress till I pay them a hundred seventy nine dollars and they can still get it done by tonight if I can even go in the first place because the airplane fare is over four hundred dollars and . . .

  —Listen. Right over there, my checkbook’s right there where you left it the last time, there’s a pen . . .

  —That’s round trip. You want me to come back don’t you? Here. And two dollars for that stuff you spray underneath so the dress doesn’t cling to my, with this minister they’ve got down there that’s why I need the skirt lengthened or they’ll think I’m some kind of a . . .

  —Wait. Wait, before you go there’s just one thing, there’s a letter I have to find it may be in one of those boxes over there behind the . . .

  —I can’t! I can’t Oscar I have to hurry before the stores close and this hairdresser . . . folding the check, leaving a streak of lipstick on —your little scar, I’m glad it’s all better you’d hardly notice it . . . and after the clatter of heels, the slam of the glass doors, the parting roar of the car left a stillness broken finally, hesitantly, by a toot, toot, echoing into the hall, and then abruptly more insistent, as though fusing despair with a note of defiance, of hazard, even merriment, envisaging the rakish tilt of that careening tricycle rounding the blind corner, toot! toot! toot!

  • • •

  —You can see the shape the lawns are in, and the painting, of course the whole place needs painting, all the trim I mean, it’s too late to do anything about the shingles the dampness comes up from the ground and simply rots them but you can’t really be surprised, standing out here for almost a hundred years in the weather that comes in from the ocean, the way the veranda sags you came in that way, didn’t you? You wonder what holds it up. I’ve asked Ilse to bring in some tea, the therapist has him out there in the sunroom, they shouldn’t be much longer. Would you like some toast or anything?

  —Just take some coffee if it’s not that much trouble.

  —And the driveway of course, you saw that. He usually takes care of these things but the shape he’s in now, I thought I’d better come out and get the work started before the weather turns and the, yes here she is. Ilse? Will you bring Mister Basie some coffee? And an ashtray, it seemed like a good opportunity while Harry’s away. I will thank God when this case of his is over with.

  —Episcopals been around for maybe five hundred years, probably good for five hundred more.

  —Well Harry’s not God knows, neither am I at this rate I hardly see him at all. Something always comes up like this conference where you just met him, the first time in ages I’d thought we might have a few days to ourselves.

  —Should have come along Mrs Lutz, plenty of wives down there, golf courses and all the amenities you could have had a nice . . .

  —The state things are in here? No, no we did it once but that was Japan, it was when we’d first met and of course that’s why I went, because it was Japan, Sapporo, up in the north. Harry had these endless meetings and I simply wandered around their museum, I learned more about the Ainu than I know what to do with.

  —About you knew, what?

  —No, the Ainu, the earliest inhabitants, they were a Neolithic people, short, dark, thick and hairy, heavy beards and hair all over their bodies I suppose for the terrible cold. It’s on Hokkaido, one of those brand new utterly primitive cities, there were little pictographs posted over the toilet showing how to use it, little stick figures sitting and standing they’d thrown up these hotels overnight for a winter Olympics, God knows what they expected in the way of contestants. Women tattooed around the mouth and bear baiting, apparently that was the big event, slaughtering a bear.

  —That’s some Olympics.

  —My God no, no I mean the Ainu, a ritual sacrifice of bears I suppose they believed they were some kind of totem ancestors with all that hair, more than any other human race if you call that a race of course, even their language something utterly outlandish they’re known as the hairy Ainu. We still joke about it, we, I mean Harry has to shave twice a day when we’re going out I’m awfully glad you met him. He’s talked to you about all this hasn’t he.

  —Tell you the truth I don’t recall he ever talked about your hairy Ainu there but . . .

  —No of, of course not no . . . clearing her throat sharply —I meant the, this lawsuit Mister Basie you see frankly what I’m concerned about is the money. I mean if I’m not who will be, the state Oscar’s in with these medications he’s on it’s all bursting out in some sort of folie de grandeur, I’m sure you had a taste of it when you were out here last week and I’m really quite surprised to see you back. Harry thought you both agreed it’s all little more than a nuisance.

  —Before that story in the paper, see that gives us kind of a handle on this Kiester if Oscar’s dug up that rejection letter, that rejection letter for his play maybe’s something to go on, he tell you about that?

  —Tell me, my God he called in the middle of the night I’d just come in from taking Harry to the airport I thought he was having a seizure, I mean he’s never been someone who drinks but I think he’s been getting overfond of this Pinot Grigio he’s discovered here waving the newspaper at me yesterday morning the minute I walked in the door shouting read it! Read it! Of course the first thing I asked him was whether he’d called you. I assumed you’d convince him it was all hopeless nonsense but I had to read it just to calm him down.

  Hollywood, September 30. In response to allegations made by a second year film student regarding the notorious sledge hammer scene in the recent African film sensation Uruburu, the office of producer director Constantine Kiester brushed off inquiries with a brief statement conceding the possibility that the sequence might have depicted an actual occurrence but stating that they had been approached by an itinerant documentary maker, who was not named, offering the sequence at three hundred dollars a foot. The offer, according to the statement, came
as the rough cut of the film was being assembled, and under production schedule pressures no effort was made regarding its source or veracity. ‘It brought out the spirit of the picture and there was a perfect slot for it so we bought it and cut it in,’ the statement said. The eight minute scene largely accounted for Uruburu’s billing as ‘not for the squeamish’ and its overnight success as a box office favourite, heralding Mr Kiester’s meteoric rise in the film industry. Before coming to Hollywood, he had earned a reputation in the east for quality television productions of American theatre classics ranging from Elmer Rice to Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams under his own name, Jonathan Livingston, adding the surname Siegal when he turned to motion pictures and adopting a unique new identity as Constantine Kiester when he came to the West Coast, where he is known as the ‘king of special effects’ on the strength of the sensational Uruburu and his current Civil War extravaganza, The Blood in the Red White and Blue, which has already garnered $59 million in its first week at the box office and a further $74 million in cassette and foreign distribution rights. He lives in Bel Air in the rental property of a former radio evangelist which he ‘picked up for a song’ following the sordid and far reaching scandal which . . .

  • • •

  —All right Oscar, now I’ve read it. What’s the point, have you called that lawyer? the one you saw last week who . . .

  —Basie, Mister Basie of course I’ve called him!

  —Well you needn’t be so snappish, he convinced you it was all hopeless nonsense didn’t he? I told you Harry met him at that outing down at the Greenbrier didn’t I? and they agreed you don’t have a case with the remotest chance of winning? Harry thinks he’s brilliant.

  —Brilliant! I had to do all the work myself Christina, lead him along step by step pointing things out trying to get a straight answer from him, trying to get him to take the whole thing seriously while he rambled on about his acting career in some thimble theatre sitting there blowing smoke rings as though we were having a chat about baseball with the evidence right there in front of us that they’d taken this whole based on a true story idea from these sleazy attacks on Father down there in the Szyrk case they reversed it, did you know that? that Father’s decision in the Szyrk case was overturned? Telling me how he would have handled it he sounded about as professional as a delivery boy, got a lot on their plates I won’t repeat the rest of his language but you can imagine what a legal brief he’d write would sound like he thinks Harry’s my cousin. He calls me Oscar.

  —Well that’s your name isn’t it? If you want to throw your money away on . . .

  —Yes and that’s another thing, trying to pin him down on their fees and how much it can cost these same vague evasive . . .

  —Well my God Oscar if you feel this way, why on earth did you call him?

  —Who else can I call! Harry wouldn’t help me would he? Telling Basie that I don’t have a case that was before this piece in the paper here about Kiester that his real name’s Livingston, that’s who signed that rejection letter before he changed it to Jonathan Livingston Siegal covering his tracks and then to Constantine Kiester, Basie told me to call him when I found it and he said then we can get someplace. I said once if anybody had a name like that they’d change it didn’t I?

  —And you’ve found it? this letter? That’s what all these boxes are doing stacked in the hall?

  —Well not exactly but . . .

  —What do you mean not exactly. Have you found it or not.

  —This letter? One letter, one piece of paper do you expect me to find one piece of paper overnight in all this material that I’ve had to save for the, that I’ve saved? I told Ilse to bring down all those boxes from my closet and the upstairs storeroom I can’t go up there to go through them myself can I?

  And so she turned now to her guest over the tea and coffee cups that had clattered to rest on the low table between them with —this letter no, I don’t think Oscar’s found it yet but, oh and Ilse? some sugar? and will you bring some cream if there is any, I asked you to bring Mister Basie an ashtray didn’t I, honestly. Training them is almost as tiresome as doing it one’s self.

  —My mother now, she would have gone with you on that.

  —Oh? I didn’t, what I meant was the, was those boxes you can see them piled up all down the hall it’s what Oscar’s pleased to call his archives, every piece of paper he’s ever had his hands on, letters, old Playbills, scraps of newspaper, invitations, papers written by his illiterate students, recipes he’s never tried, he read that letter a thousand times storming around the house here. We had an old dog then and he read it to the dog. The first act is entirely superfluous, anything useful it contains can easily be incorporated in the second act. As for the last act, how did they put it, something like the last act resolves problems which have never been raised except for any reason for the play to have been written in the first place. The author makes it clear throughout that he does not trust the director, he does not trust the actors and he does not trust any audience he would be fortunate to have.

  —Pretty rough all right, maybe a little taste of revenge in this lawsuit he’s after.

  —A little! I tried to tell him he was lucky, if he’d had his wish and seen it produced that could have been the review in the Times I mean that’s what makes it all so painful, this rather desperate need of his to be taken seriously but I suppose that’s why people go around writing things in the first place isn’t it, and of course this miserable teaching business hasn’t helped matters. These useless students probably all know exactly how little he gets paid which is the way everything’s measured and it’s not as though he needs the money after all, that’s really the fine irony because since money’s never been the problem going into teaching was his way of trying to be taken seriously in the first place.

  —Now you bring it up though, seems he takes this money about as serious . . .

  —No it’s not as though he hasn’t always been terribly careful about money, I mean I suppose he got rather peevish with you over fees and things like that didn’t he. He’s so used to being terribly meticulous, I mean he carries it loose in his trouser pocket the clean large bills folded face in down through the smaller bills all of them right side up with the soiled dollar bills on the outside, he means to spend the crumpled bills first, insofar as he means to spend any of them of course, it’s all quite surreptitious but I’ve seen him in agonies folding a crisp new five over a soiled ten you can see what I mean. I mean I think he feels your approach to all this is a bit, a little bit casual as though you don’t really take any of it terribly seriously. You see what I mean.

  —See what you mean Mrs Lutz but cases like these, they can go anywhere. Try to tell him the clock’s running every minute, running right now while we sit here talking but he’s just not the easiest man to get things straight with, pin things down now is he.

  —Oscar? My God no he can be a perfect pill but I’ve got to ask you, I mean honestly Mister Basie does this whole thing make any sense to you at all? I mean you’ve had experience in the theatre or so he tells me and these grandiose notions he’s got of this play of his, you must have read it?

  —Only had the one copy no, no but he took me through some of it, said he wanted to give me the feel of it but . . .

  —Well I pried it away from him first thing this morning and went out and had ten copies made, God knows why he needs ten copies.

  —But see what I think of it, maybe I think it’s a little old fashioned these characters getting up there and making speeches at each other you might say, awful lot of talk but if I think it’s a good play, if I even think it’s maybe a great play or this Livingston Kiester thinks it’s a real bad play that’s all just what you call irrelevant, see what we’re talking about here is infringement. You take the movie. I went out and saw this movie he says they stole it for whether it’s a good movie, whether it’s a great movie or just trashing up history with all this blood and gore and some naked woman see we’re not t
alking naked women here. We’re talking naked theft. Fish in these waters here a little today and see if we come up with enough to file this complaint he’s hell bent on, see if they’ll settle. If they don’t offer to settle like for damn sure they won’t, they respond with their answer and motion for dismissal of all charges like for damn sure they will, they don’t get a dismissal and we figure our chances, drop the whole thing or get in deeper.

  —Yes well of course it’s that getting in deeper that’s all rather frightening, your alarm clock running my God, what can be keeping them.

  —Thought I just heard a car pulling out, maybe . . .

  —Because someone’s got to stop and think about the money before everything goes overboard, I mean I didn’t mean it to sound like Oscar has all the money in the world just now talking about his teaching, I think he’s got some wild vision of a lavish settlement in this accident case you’d think he’d already won it, crowing about this petition they’ve just granted getting him out from under some No Fault protection whatever that means, I’m sure you’ve noticed that scar he’s so proud of?

  —Means his insurance will claim immunity under the No Fault statute and try to get it dismissed, he files a claim for what you call tort recovery probably take him a year or two just to get on the docket and by the time he walks into court with a scar like that he’ll need the best negligence lawyer around.

  —Well of course he’s got one, a lawyer I mean not the scar but considering how he got him God knows Mister Basie, I’ve simply got to count on you to discourage him when you think things are going too far, I don’t mean this absurd ambulance case obviously that’s gone too far already but this . . .

  —Just let’s make sure we have one thing real clear Mrs Lutz, see we’re not out looking for business, not ambulance chasers. Sam put me on this like kind of a favour to look into it, if I go and get us into some drawn out tangled up case just because the client’s got money where I know we’ll probably never win it I’m out on the street tomorrow. Maybe we’ve got something here, maybe worth a try, have to admit it all kind of intrigues me. And now Oscar here, see I’ve come to like Oscar.