Frolic of His Own

by William Gaddis

  —What in God’s name made you think that.

  —But you, back when he called? about how he was exhausted and taking that Nembutal? How he had to be in court and I thought you said well it can’t go on forever, that he’ll come out here for a rest when it’s done?

  —Well why on earth did you think that was Harry.

  —Just if you weren’t on the warpath with him anymore and . . .

  —I’ll tell you when I’m not on the warpath! I haven’t heard a thing since the day he drove out of here after that disgraceful performance, I wouldn’t think of calling his office with that ninny of a secretary he’s got she’ll say anything he tells her to, leaving calls on our answering machine I don’t even know if he ever gets home. God knows he’s exhausted but he’d never take Nembutal, he’d pour a drink instead no, that was for a dog.

  —I didn’t know you had one. You want me to carry that?

  —A dog? My God no, here, you can carry both these bags out to the car. That was an old girlfriend I went to school with, she bought a snaggletoothed little Lhasa apso and has to hide the Nembutal in the pâté she gives it because it’s simply driving her crazy. She forgets it’s there and keeps stepping on it when she doesn’t look where she’s going and she hadn’t slept for days since her daughter’s breakdown, people calling her night and day to be of help and she thought she could get some rest out here but she may have forgotten it the minute she hung up, she’s been in court constantly over her mother’s will and that kind of thing can go on forever. You’re sure you don’t want me to drive?

  —No, it’s tricky sometimes just once it gets started. They said it needs a new alternator.

  —Well I’m sure Oscar can help you with that.

  —All he said was how much would it cost.

  —He’s always been quite careful with money, he hasn’t changed since he was ten, digging under the furniture cushions for change that had slipped out of Father’s pockets. We thought he’d be a lawyer when he grew up, that he was constantly reading those law books in the library but sometimes Father would use a dollar bill for a bookmark, or even a five, and that’s what Oscar was looking for.

  —From what I saw of lawyers that’s all any of them’s looking for, that and a little tail if you pardon the expression when you never suspect it, as they finally drew off the highway down a road, down a byroad and through the gate past STRANGERS REQUESTED NOT TO ENTER—you never know what somebody will do.

  —My God Lily, as the car slid down the ruts of the driveway, —people will do anything.

  —Look! as they turned in toward the veranda —there he is, this Mister Boatwright, I told you, see him in there? where he’s barely walking all bent over? Didn’t I tell you? he’s . . .

  —My God! Stop the car! it’s . . .

  —It’s this old plumber, it’s this Mister Boatwright I told you before when I saw him in there walking across the . . .

  —It’s, it’s not Mister anybody it’s, look at him! It’s Oscar! Well what are you stopping for! hurry! and she was out of the car, through the rain running up the wet steps of the veranda to tug at the doors —Oscar! What’s going on!

  —Damn.

  —Here take my arm before you, look out!

  —Let me go I said!

  —Can you, simply tell me? she’d sunk to the edge of the nearest chair —what, in God’s name, is going on?

  —What does it look like’s going on!

  —Well it’s, look at it! Where are you going? Will you, my God Lily don’t squeal like that! Made my blood run cold just, just put down the groceries and help me pick up this mess will you? Oscar? will you tell me what these papers are doing all over the floor? and where you think you’re going with your be careful! Is it empty? on her feet again, —is this what you . . .

  —Give me that!

  —It’s empty! it’s, my God Oscar. My God. Leave you alone for ten minutes you open a bottle of your Pinot Grigio up running around the room like a, will you sit down! You’re making me dizzy, is this what you’ve been doing? let us wait on you hand and foot and the minute we’re out of sight you’re up staggering around the room like a, will you tell me what this is all about?

  —I called him.

  —Who.

  —Well who do you think?

  —Oscar I’m not going to play games with you as though you were ten jumping out from behind the door, just answer me. You called who.

  —Father.

  —And that’s why you’re running around waving a bottle flinging books and papers all over the floor? Is this what you’ve, I asked you to sit down! I can’t talk to you while you’re, Lily why are you just sitting there. Can’t you make yourself useful?

  —But I thought . . .

  —That’s the one thing you didn’t do. Mister Boatwright, my God, reeling around waving a bottle like a two year old learning to walk when nobody’s watching, is that what this ridiculous performance is all about Oscar? What did he say.

  —Well you do, you do have to learn to walk again, first time you stand up it’s like a bed of nails, like walking on broken glass.

  —That’s not what I asked you! If you’d simply listen to me . . .

  —That’s all I’ve been doing isn’t it! listening to you? Expect me to call him up and plead with him for, to sit here and tell Father the whole thing’s my fault? that madness runs in the family did I ever say that? John Brown’s body lies amouldering in the grave where his mother and grandmother both died mad? where one of his brothers, his sister and her daughter and some aunts and uncles were all of them in and out of asylums, if you want madness running in a family, his first wife and one of his sons died insane and his soul goes marching on while I’m sitting up here being yanked back and forth in this tug of war between a Jew and a black man over Grandfather’s dead body and where is he? Father, my father too busy with this ramshackle piece of junk sculpture down there to listen to my, what am I supposed to do! Go down on my knees and beg for mercy as if I’d, as if I’m to blame for this talk about impeachment? and I’m supposed to have that on my conscience? Because that’s what they’re fighting over, isn’t it? Like the parties changing places fighting over that rusty piece of junk, tugging both ways does it matter which one’s at which end if I’m in the middle? Does it?

  —Will you sit down! before you fall down, if you, where are you going!

  —Right where I was going when you walked in the door there, into the kitchen to get another bottle of the, on the counter there Lily and bring the corkscrew will you?

  —Sit down! Sit down both of you! My God, Lily didn’t I just ask you to start cleaning up this mess? get a broom and sweep up these papers before we . . .

  —These papers! sweep them up and I’ll, it’s my play where it spilled when I was trying to find the place in the last act where the, pick them up will you? help me pick them up Lily? It’s all right there, he never read it did he, he wouldn’t bother to read it but he went to the movie didn’t he, listen. That’s what we’ll do we’ll go to the movie. Call them up, get my shoes we’ll . . .

  —Oscar stop it, it’s not even playing out here sit down I said!

  —We’ll go into town then, see it in town is there gas in the car?

  —We’re not going anywhere! Lily will you, here, get his other arm here will you? help him over to the . . .

  —By the phone, over here, by the phone I’ll show him, handle this appeal myself I’ll show him.

  —That’s it. Just rest his head back, that’s it.

  —Feel awful.

  —You want me to stay and help make supper?

  —Just go along Lily, take those grocery bags out to the kitchen and go along. I’ll just fix him some milk toast and get him to bed. Or, or Lily? and she raised her face from the flats of her hands where she’d covered her eyes rising suddenly overcast, dulled as her voice, —if you must go I mean, I mean must you? Because of course there’s Oscar’s old room up there now that Ilse’s out from underfoot though he may
go crashing up there himself, on second thought we’d better leave all the lights on tonight, God knows what he’ll do next, you haven’t left your keys in the car have you? if we hope to get a moment’s sleep tonight, there. Do you hear it? a door banging somewhere? waiting for him to call that he’s having a seizure? or the house is on fire? every sense tensed for the arousal of another blurring which one touched off the rest, the stab of the morning’s light? the shrill cry? or the smell of smoke.

  —Good morning he said, from the chair he sat in, —some coffee? oblivious to the night’s dishevelment tumbled in from both directions —or, or tea? dispelling the cloud bluish in the sunlight at his elbow shattering its mantle of tranquility with the wave of a hand.

  —You’re, you’re smoking!

  —Sit down Christina, please, both of you, we can . . .

  —Frightened us half to death, I smelled the smoke and, Oscar what in God’s name are you doing! You haven’t smoked for twenty years, where did you get that!

  —Found them in the pocket of this jacket, now let’s . . .

  —I said where did you, are you all right? Sitting here in a suit and necktie what do you, you’ve been out and brought in the paper?

  —I want a cup of coffee and I want to know what happened to . . .

  —A cup! My God you’ll need a pot of coffee after last night, you must have a really splendid headache, do you remember anything? Getting up at midnight and marching up and down here reciting God knows what with your . . .

  —Why, if ‘tis dancing you would be, There’s brisker pipes than poetry. Say . . .

  —Please, don’t start it again, if you . . .

  —Oh I have been to Ludlow fair And left my necktie God knows where, And carried . . .

  —Please! And will you put that vile thing out, it’s smelling up the whole house, Lily for God’s sake make some coffee, will you?

  —Listen Christina, I want to know what happened to my play, to those pages that were on the floor here when you . . .

  —What do you want it for. And that suit, where in God’s name did you find that suit.

  —I found it in the closet off the library. Now my play, where is it.

  —You mean it’s an old suit of Father’s, isn’t it?

  —I just told you I found these in the pocket didn’t I? when he first started smoking Home Runs? Now . . .

  —My God no wonder. I mean no wonder I woke up with this sickening feeling when I smelled it as if he was still in the house, as if he was sitting down here waiting, just waiting for one of us to, will you put it out! Here, here use this for an ashtray you’re already coughing like he was the last time we, put it out Oscar. Put it out!

  —All right! Now where is it, you threw it out? My play, is that it? you threw out those pages on the floor?

  —Just sit down, I put it somewhere God knows what you want to . . .

  —I want it because it’s mine Christina. I want it because I wrote it. I want it because it’s the one thing I’ve got left out of this whole nightmare the one thing that’s, that maybe I can rescue that’s mine. Maybe that’s why all this happened. Maybe it happened for a reason, to bring it back to life instead of just getting lost gathering dust on a shelf somewhere and when it’s up there on the stage the way I wrote it, everything just the way I wrote it instead of this sleazy ripoff on the screen they . . .

  —And who’s going to put it up there on the stage, your friend Sir Nipples? My God Oscar, you . . .

  —Yes. Sir John, yes you, you don’t need to be insulting Christina. I want to read through it for the most effective passages when I arrange the reading for him, I don’t think I should take up his time going through the whole thing the first time we . . .

  —What on earth are you talking about, a reading! What about this appeal we’ve been tearing our hair over, you’re just going to do what Harry told you to? forget the whole thing? Get your name in lights and leave your million dollar damage claim in the same shambles you’ve got my marriage standing up for you in this mess? Fought the good fight and lost, nothing wrong with that and I haven’t heard from him since he drove out of here have you? Too obstinate just to pick up the phone and call me to say he’s sorry for the way he behaved, to say anything and it’s not even mine, this mess you’ve made of things, I told you to take that settlement didn’t I? He did too didn’t he? So now it’s too late you’re going to take his advice and forget the whole thing, am I supposed to forget it? when he can’t even bother to pick up the phone and . . .

  —Listen Christina. You’re the one who’s too proud to pick up the phone, you’ve been nervous and worried about the stress he’s been under and the days going by like this the worse it gets. No I haven’t heard from him since he drove out of here, I haven’t fought the good fight and lost, I haven’t given up this appeal at all. I’ve tried to reach Harry but they say he’s in court, in a meeting, I’ve called Sam and told them to quit dragging their feet, to get this appeal filed and quit holding back while they haggle over bills and disbursements and the rest of this nonsense, they’ll get paid when they get results. That’s what I was doing up on my feet when you drove in here, the battery in that chair’s gone dead and I got up on my feet to get to the phone and I’m going to stay on my feet, this play is still mine and I’m not going to miss this opportunity.

  —Well let them then! Let them file your appeal and see what happens before you go off on some wild goose chase with, setting up readings, what readings? where? Call it an opportunity when you don’t even . . .

  —Because he’s here Christina. He’s in town, Sir John Nipples, he’s here to direct a revival of Sheridan’s School for Scandal it’s right there in the paper, if that’s not an opportunity?

  —So you plan to have those brilliant students of yours over here sitting on the floor giving a spirited reading while you serve Sir John carrots in the Spanish style it’s insane Oscar, you can’t be serious. It’s all perfectly insane.

  —I did not say out here did I? Did I? I can arrange a reading in town, get some professional actors together and arrange a reading for him in town once I’ve chosen the most effective . . .

  —And how do you plan to pay these professional actors of yours.

  —Pay them? They’ll jump at the chance Christina, the chance to be seen by one of the most prestigious directors in the theatre anywhere today? Of course they’ll do it for nothing, they’re so vain they’d probably even pay for a chance like this, we won’t have to go searching for them we’ll have to fight them off, we . . .

  —I wish you wouldn’t say we, I don’t plan to have anything to oh, put it down here Lily, and those papers we picked up off the floor will you get them? I think I put them on top of the refrigerator, sitting up there in one of Father’s old suits why don’t you invite him up for your professional actors spieling these effective passages, I’m sure he’d have some suggestions.

  —Father has a lot on his plate.

  —You certainly read that line with relish. Is that why you’re doing all this? just to prove to him that you . . .

  —Why should I have to prove anything to him! He’s . . .

  —Well my God, I mean that’s what set you off on this merrygoround in the first place isn’t it? Up here staggering around when we drove in I asked you what was going on and you said you’d just called Father?

  —I didn’t say I talked to him did I? I said I’d called him no, no his clerk said he was too busy to come to the phone, another nice helping on this plate right here in the paper this morning, he’s so busy down there now with some crackpot minister who drowned a boy he was trying to baptize he can’t spare me a minute to come to the phone, where’s the sugar. Put that on his plate with these Senate Judiciary Committee hearings any day now and that junk sculpture case turned upside down while this Neanderthal institutes his impeachment proceedings and he’ll, didn’t you bring the sugar?

  —I hardly ever saw you drink coffee before Oscar, I didn’t know if you wanted . . .
/>   —Well what does it say, in the paper where does it . . .

  —Well read it! Back in the entertainment section where it belongs, headline’s LORD CALLED DROWNED BOY REVEREND UDE TELLS COURT, something like that.

  —Who?

  —Not your Bobby Joe no, this is some old quack up in the Carolinas, suit for wrongful death by the boy’s father runs a junkyard in Mississippi so it’s the same old diversity of citizenship lands it in Federal court and . . .

  —No but it is! You know who that is? That’s Reverend Bobby Joe’s daddy, does it say Elton? Reverend Elton Ude? That’s his old daddy, Reverend Bobby Joe moved down to Florida because Disney World’s down there where the old people go and that’s his daddy, I just know it is Oscar because Reverend Bobby Joe told Daddy once how his daddy was . . .

  —Daddy daddy daddy, will you just give her the paper? The two of you, my God, sitting here in your old daddy’s suit with your, now where do you think you’re going.

  —To get those pages you put on top of the refrig . . .

  —Don’t be ridiculous, Lily can get them and don’t you dare light another of those things, up here parading around the room when some insurance adjuster drives in to check out your crippling disabilities, you think he’s going to think you’re Mister Boatwright our old family plumber in an outfit like that? And there go your damages for your idiotic accident pain and suffering, permanent disfigurement and all the rest of it down the drain along with your million dollar appeal when Sir John gets these professional actors up there prancing around the stage while your friend Kiester and the rest of them sit in the audience clapping their hands off and here you are gaping out at the shining Big-Sea-Water with nothing but a lapfull of bills from . . .

  —Listen. This suit I’m wearing? a tremble in his hand clutching the package of Home Runs there as though armed however vainly, his own clothes were all up in his room and he hadn’t wanted to try the stairs yet so he’d put this on from the library closet simply to dress like a civilized man again —because I am a civilized man! yes, and taking a look around maybe one of the last ones left. Hospital bills? medical bills? pain and suffering, he’d had enough of it, let his new lawyers worry about it, they’d get paid like the other ones when they got results and if anyone wanted a look at his permanent disfigurement he’d wear his scar right out where they could enjoy it, he’d accepted this invitation to speak on the battle of Shiloh hadn’t he? had to get out his notes to prepare for that right now in fact, and if any brokendown insurance adjuster wanted to come peeking in the windows, let him. Just let him!