Frolic of His Own

by William Gaddis

  The Blood in the Red White and Blue

  unfurled before them, going up in flames for the stark parade of names sprung from briefs, dockets, decrees, each more hateful than the last till finally the smoke cleared, the music died and now the room echoed with the clop clop of a horse and carriage seen approaching up a drive adroop with Spanish moss from the pillared veranda of an antebellum mansion by an imposing liveried black —there he is! that’s that, that Button that friend of Basie’s, his brow arching disdainfully as a decrepit horse and buggy bearing an aging woman and a handsome intense young man standing to snap his whip imperiously came close for an exchange of unheard words to be pointed scornfully on their way, glimpsed from behind a curtain by a ravishingly beautiful young woman in negligee —there she is! he hissed after their retreat back down the drive, pulling up before a small farm house badly in need of repair as a musical mélange of sombre chords appropriated from the alcoholic ramblings of Stephen Foster seeped in to set the tone for a long montage of hammering, wood splitting and split rail fencing, the decrepit horse yielding the buggy’s traces for the plough under a blistering sun rows of tobacco leaves, stands of com, rivulets of sweat connoting manlydom on white skin and servitude on the black knelt by lamplight at the old woman’s knee tracing the Beatitudes of Matthew 5 with a black finger on the white page escorted by the pirated strains of a gospel hymn yet to be written and, nearer to hand from the sofa gasps of recognition and wheezes of impatience rising on the wings of the gamebird smashed by the burst of a shotgun to scurry frantically through the brown grasses fleeing for the crevice of a stone wall from what was happening, the clatter of hooves, the crash of underbrush, Hunting Musique! With Horns and with Hounds I waken the Day And hye to my Woodland walks away, tempestuously bosomed, flaming hair’d, where Mars destroys and I repair, Take me, take me, while you may, Venus comes not ev’ry Day, three million dollars worth of stardom buskin’d in finest calf, twilled thighs spread wide astride the pawing stallion looming over him he rais’d a mortal to the skies; She drew an angel down undoing the front of his overalls, Flush’d with a purple grace he shows his honest face mingling the sweating badges of his low estate with perspiration born of highborn sport beading her open breasts. Now gives the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes provoking here a giggle, there a gasp of outrage at —this clumsy, vulgar, did you see it! That scene I wrote in all its classic simplicity turned into trash dragged through the mud in the most vulgar clumsy, the whole thing right from the start, my whole prologue they used the dialogue for their scenario right from the start, did you see it Harry?

  —What? clearing his throat, recovering his gaze from the salt swells of the carelessly buttoned feast nearby no more attainable than those his eyes had strayed from on the screen at the sound of that giggle, —oh. Satire Oscar, they’re just satirizing the whole genre don’t you think? the plaintive tones of the oboe given way to a vocal frenzy heralding a long forgotten movie star gnashing gleaming dentures at her small audience confiding how she kept them in place.

  —We forgot the popcorn.

  —Is there any more ice cream?

  —That’s always their escape Harry, make a real mess they pretend they did it on purpose and call it satire.

  —More wine? A very Merry, Dancing, Drinking, Laughing, Quaffing, and unthinking Time not long in coming with the wedding at Cross Creek where soon enough The Sprightly Green In Woodland Walks, no more is seen; Arms and Honour Set the Martial Mind on Fire, And kindle Manly Rage. Plenty, Peace, and Pleasure fly; Sound the Trumpet, Beat the Drum, Sound a Reveille, Sound, Sound, —too loud, will you turn it down a little? as the secular masque of the old order took its farewell in the orotund tones of a Union commander and Lover of Poetry high on a bluff above the Potomac shaking an officer’s hand with ‘I congratulate you, sir, on the prospect of a battle,’ uncostumed artifice of breast and sinew given place to brawn and those sweet beads of perspiration to rank sweat, the curried stallion in the Woodland Walks to a drayhorse mired on the bank below and that lone shotgun’s burst to the crash of small arms fire from the higher ground in the woods beyond through gunsmoke lain like a pall over his green regiments, and echoing Sir Walter Scott with a bugle blast worth a thousand men the Lover of Poetry went down with a Rebel bullet through his heart, his prospect of a battle gone withershins in a tumultuous rout down the steep bluff for four small boats to carry them back across the wide river white as a hailstorm with bullets fired from the abandoned heights and of those thousand men nine hundred lost, shot, drowned, or left for prisoners on the dark Virginia shore.

  —God!

  —Oscar? you okay?

  —That was stunning! he gasped, lurching upright to fill his emptied glass —exactly yes, exactly what it was like! as though he’d been there himself that late October day in eighteen sixty one, a boy cheering when the Lover of Poetry turned on the Twentieth Massachusetts with ‘Boys, you want to fight, don’t you?’ —as though they really were there, they must have been they must have filmed it right there at the real Ball’s Bluff that was clever, telling it from the Union side that was clever, that great flatboat turning over and the drowning soldiers being shot to pieces right at the end, did you see that right at the end? that wounded man left behind on the beach? filling his glass again, —that was Holmes, that could have been the young Oliver Wendell Holmes wasn’t it, he was a lieutenant in the Twentieth Massachusetts wounded at Ball’s Bluff just like that wasn’t he? gasping, pausing for breath, —left behind on the beach just like that wasn’t he? raising his glass to the screen where just then a car came careening round a bend with the reckless abandon of a drunk at the wheel and an exhortation to buy one.

  —You got quite carried away Oscar didn’t you, I thought you . . .

  —Well the battle, the battle they, that was clever, the Confederates you hardly ever got a look at them, just a flag or two and their shapes through the trees and the smoke except for this, this ridiculous Major on horseback with a swill from his flask and the, and our hero the one playing my character Thomas when he gets hit, this ridiculous actor playing Grandfather he’s twice the . . .

  —Well my God Oscar he’s not playing your character Thomas, he’s never heard of your grandfather he’s . . .

  —Well he’s twice too old! And he can’t act he’s as wooden as a, he can’t even act he’s a stick, stands there reading his lines there’s nothing in his face at all it’s just a face and he, now! Look, look at him with his scar this is where it’s supposed to begin, this is where my play opens coming home with his battle scar it’s the first line in the prologue isn’t it? his own hand rising to brush at his stubbled cheek —where a cab driver bit him? and that voice, it’s as lifeless as he is just listen to it.

  —If you keep talking this way how can we listen to the . . .

  —You don’t have to! he seized up the bottle, —will you look at him? pouring the last of it —he’s supposed to be seething with excitement and indignation, this letter his mother just gave him he’s supposed to be exulting over the death of this uncle who’d humiliated him and cheated his father and now it’s all his, it’s revenge for the humiliation heaped on him since the day he was born and he’s acting the part like a, like Father used to say? And he stabbed him in the back with a wet sock! No wonder Father hated it, seeing Grandfather played by this sullen morose, God, if Father could have seen it. If he could have seen what I saw there.

  —Well it’s not going to get any better is it, I mean you’ve read those reviews, do we have to suffer through it? We can just turn it off, there’s no reason to get in a state over . . .

  —I am not in a state! and he sank back muttering imprecations, finishing his glass and gasping with the effort of fighting off the creatures of his own invention travestied before his eyes narrowing at the unctuous duplicity in the Major’s embrace of his hero’s scarred wooden counterpart urging him north to claim what was now rightfully his and rescue the decaying plantation from the burden of gambling debts reve
aled in a vicious encounter belowstairs with his own lamed and sniveling son about to be shipped off as a substitute for the transgressor to unnamed battlefields beyond this one above where even now in canopied splendour none but the brave deserved the fair tempestuously breasted, flaming haired, her glistening thighs spread wide astride what now, flushed with a purple grace, was rightfully hers.

  —Oscar where are you going? In answer he brandished the emptied wine bottle at a woman on the screen astride a mechanical marvel who had lost 118 pounds in just three weeks, —Lily? He’ll never make it, will you bring in another? and to the startled look she drew —just go ahead, I mean my God at this point he probably deserves it.

  A light glissando greeted her return with the threat of comic relief set up against the bleak prospect of a Northern mining shaft as she perched on the sofa’s arm inexpertly manipulating the corkscrew. —Here, give it to me! his impatience less with her and the bottle which he had by the neck without a glance than for the figure now filling the screen in cunning parody of the manager of the mines, Bagby’s obsequious brogue gone for the flagrant guile of old Calabria wheedling, remonstrating, cajoling and patronizing the new master by turns, now for his misguided notions of fairness in dealing with the striking miners, now for the uses of influence in getting ahead, breaking off for a highly theatrical interlude of mugging and arson and here came the playful glissando again as new comic possibilities emerged in the parade of petty thieves, rumpots, fugitives from wives and creditors and a brace of Chippewa Indians being cursorily questioned, pummeled, browbeaten, paid and fleeced as recruits for the Union army by the mine manager in his time away from raising stores of vermifuges, decorative sabres, trusses and mule feed cut with sand in the patriotic cause.

  —Oscar be careful, that’s going to spill.

  —What? he looked up startled, righted the bottle against a cushion beside him and sank back muttering —listen! his impatience burst at her abrupt intrusion on the unwilling suspension of disbelief that seemed gradually to have come over him, the polished scorn of his defenses eroded by the desecration prospering before his eyes, enveloping his senses pillaged into submission to this version of his own creations, until at last the plot’s device calling for the draft notice for the Union forces enmeshed his reluctant hero’s ignoble counterpart in the fatal decision to send up a hapless boy from the mines as a substitute provoked no more than what might have been a wheeze of acquiescence or even in fact, one of satisfaction with this glancing shot at his own dwindling contribution even now, with another pull at his glass, dissolving altogether before his eyes in the mists of a country morning where a curtain stirred by a gentle breeze over a bared shoulder might have signaled the return of testimonial relief after a satisfactory bout with an overnight laxative but for the ominous rise of a cello and the burst of gossamered breasts suddenly and splendidly real as she flung a cape round her shoulders and cried out.

  —Harry? are you awake?

  —Here it comes Oscar, what you’ve been waiting for a tale of two . . .

  —Lily where are you going.

  —I already saw this part.

  —See if there’s any more juice while you’re up, will you? And in a tumult of broken crockery and unsheathed blades, shouts of laughter and screams of despair, trampled gossamer, torn clothing high and low, plunging buttocks and tangles of limbs, howls of torment and triumph and a single gunshot, it all came true. —My God! she whispered, as the still life of wizened hands clutching a Bible, a bloodsoaked major’s cockade crowning a sightless eyeball and the faintly heaving breasts of despoiled nudity faded away before the sparkling overtures of a sometime movie star pursuing the active life with a tennis racket no longer hampered by incontinence, and they woke to the clatter of glassware on a kitchen tray.

  —Oscar? you want some of this juice? He sat licking his lips, stirred to filling his wineglass from the bottle tucked beside him.

  —I really think we’ve had enough, don’t you?

  —No! he gasped getting breath, raising his glass unsteadily —there’s still Antietam, the battle at Antietam.

  —I think I’m going up, I’m exhausted. Harry?

  —Really earned her three million there didn’t she.

  A recreation vehicle careening through mud, a man with lower back pain, that decrepit couple on a bed warping and heaving at the touch of a button, and the sharp notes of a bugle cutting through the suddenly surging rumble of cannon fire in the half dark brought him bolt upright like a trooper, —now! splashing the drink on his knee —look! That’s Hooker, on horseback that’s Joe Hooker on the ridge up here with his I Corps looking south toward the, can you see it? that little white spot, the Dunker church you can’t really see it yet it’s only five thirty in the morning almost a mile away where those flashes of fire from Jackson’s artillery are coming from now Stuart’s joining in, Jeb Stuart’s horse artillery on a hill down by the Hagerstown road shelling us up here on the ridge and down there, that big farmhouse right here that’s Miller’s farmhouse where the what are you doing!

  —Turning it down Oscar, it’s getting louder and . . .

  —Of course it’s getting louder! The Union artillery’s opening up for Hooker’s attack, he’s sending Rickett’s division on his left through the East Woods and Doubleday’s down the Hagerstown road with Meade in between now you can see them, his skirmish lines coming down the slope toward the cornfield and Miller’s farm it’s light enough now to look! in the cornfield look! Bayonets glittering through the leaves where the Rebels are waiting to, it’s starting! It’s starting! Torn to pieces look at them, the skirmish lines blown to pieces from the cornfield and Miller’s farm so much smoke you can hardly see where the, where’s the, here they are yes here they are! Six gun batteries look at the horses, six horse teams pulling them in at a gallop and the bugle calls they know what they mean, these old war horses they know what they mean look at that, thirty six guns lined up blasting the cornfield with canister now that boom! boom! in the distance, McClellan’s long range guns up back of the Antietam oh it’s glorious, crossfire tearing the cornfield to pieces Rebels going down whole ranks of them blown to bits now we’re coming in, Meade’s down the center of the line and Rickett’s infantry from the East Wood smoke so thick you can hardly look! Did you see him? didn’t you see him? the substitute from the mines there just for a second? he’d be in one of Meade’s Pennsylvania regiments wouldn’t he? God, it’s glorious! he gasped, coming forward breathing heavily, gripping the edge of the sofa as the carnage grew even louder —what? I can’t hear you!

  —Because you’re tipping over the, be careful! she came down beside him catching the falling bottle, —if you’d just stop bouncing up and down you’d . . .

  —Give it to me give it to me! He filled his glass, drank it off and filled it again to the shouts and fire from the cornfield —there! a man’s shoulder blown off —look out! too late, the boy in butternut hit full in the open mouth, mere boys, mere boys in homespun and blue in a screaming frenzy of bayonets and shellfire —unbelievable, it’s unbelievable look at that! Half the regiment wiped out at thirty feet we’re taking the cornfield there’s Meade, there’s Meade in the midst of it there’s Meade look at the flags, battle flags the Sixth Wisconsin, Pennsylvania regiments and three hundred of the Twelfth Massachusetts with two hundred casualties now! We’re almost there, the Dunker church Georgia boys trying to get over the fence pffft! shot like laundry hung on a line listen! The Rebel yell listen to it, Hood’s division counterattack makes your blood run cold they’re coming through! Driving us back they’re driving us back, A P Hill coming in from the East Wood I mean D H, D H Hill’s division right into the, ooph! Battery B, six old brass cannon it’s Battery B charging straight into it look at that! Double rounds of canister hitting them at fifty feet the whole Rebel column’s blown to pieces blood everyplace, blood everyplace that’s Mansfield, wild white beard’s got to be General Mansfield Hooker sending him in with his XII Corps riding down the line wa
ving his hat hear them cheering he’s, yes he’s hit, horse is down and Mansfield’s hit in the stomach God, get him off the field!

  —Ouch!

  —What’s the . . .

  —You hit me Oscar, can’t you sit . . .

  —Didn’t mean to look out! Hooker, his foot smashed he’s riding to the rear, brought in nine thousand men he’s lost twenty five hundred killed and wounded and half Lee’s forces are casualties where’s the, where are we where’s my glass.

  —It’s empty, why don’t you just try to . . .

  —Fill it up then! Signal flags wagging where are we, the creek down there’s the Antietam down below yes we’re up here with McClellan running the whole show there he is, with the telescope there he is, Hooker’s I Corps shattered his whole right wing’s collapsed where’s Sumner, sending in Sumner’s II Corps to turn Lee’s flank watch the mess he makes of it, eighteen thousand men he’s got three divisions, one can’t get started one gets lost and Sedgwick’s division’s hit on three sides, Rebel brigades out of nowhere cutting down half the Thirty Fourth New York, two thirds of the Fifty Ninth wiped out could have ended right there if he’d broken Lee’s flank but only a third of his forces get in there and leave two thousand dead and wounded in the West Wood while the Twentieth Massachusetts marches out with the look, look that’s Holmes! wounded again yes the same man isn’t it? the one they left on the beach at Ball’s Bluff? You can hardly see the, it’s terrible, watching it all on this tiny screen we should have one as big as this room seeing it in a theatre look at it, we’re supposed to be looking out over forty acres, twelve thousand dead and wounded in barely four hours it’s not even ten o’clock in the morning.