Frolic of His Own

by William Gaddis

  —Are you kidding? and I mean look, suppose Daddy is incontinent but he never gets there anyway because when he gets there he finds out there is no other side then what, where he already paid off this reverend didn’t he? and you don’t call that malpractice?

  —But in such a suit there might be a, as I say I’m not an expert in the law but I think as the plaintiff your daddy’s suit from the other side against the reverend would face the problem of jurisdiction, and . . .

  —I’m talking about me suing him right here on this side where he’s taking this money that ought to be mine for something he doesn’t come through with.

  —But you couldn’t really prove that he doesn’t come through.

  —Could he prove that he did?

  —Sounds more like breach of contract now, doesn’t it Gribble? and the glass came down emptied.—Is this all the wine?

  —It’s right there by your foot Oscar. Could he?

  —Well but first Miss ah, Lily if I may? He was pulling forth booklets and pamphlets ablaze with flaming colour, radiant with cerulean blues —at least from my long experience with automobile liability policy, the credibility of the parties to the contract in such an action is of primary importance. Of course we have God’s own unimpeachable word for the existence of the heavenly realm you refer to as the other side, and in the words of third John sixteen which I’m sure you have known by heart since childhood, where is it now, yes here. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. In other words assuming that your daddy . . .

  —You’re not a Mormon there are you Gribble? They stack them up like cordwood there on the other side, talk about finding a face in the crowd they’ve hollowed out a mountain out west somewhere full of genealogies that go right back to Methus . . .

  —I’m not no, I’m not a Mormon Mister Crease but I do belong to a serious Pentecostal Bible study group in fact I was about to ask you both to join us some evening, I think your contributions to the discussion would be greatly . . .

  —Having our discussion right here, find another glass for Mister Gribble will you Lily? Preaching the inerrancy of scripture I think he’ll take a little wine for his stomach’s sake?

  —No thank you no, no we never preach I’m only suggesting that if her daddy has stood up before witnesses to the truth and declared his faith in the belief so beautifully expressed in the simple words of this gospel and he should, in the course of events he does arrive on the other side unable to find her brother there? he came on turning to her with growing appetite licking his lips as his eyes dropped slightly from hers —isn’t it very possible that not having made a similar avowal of faith Bobbie may have gone elsewhere?

  —Very good Mister Gribble, even though of course we’re both aware that John is generally regarded as the least reliable of the gospels?

  —Perhaps in certain minor historical details, but . . .

  —But here he is with his contract for everlasting life, we’d call him an interested party? promising in the Lord’s name this immunity from death unless Bobbie here has failed to live up to this provision of belief and his immune system breaks down, he’s nonsuited I think it’s called and he’s tossed out of court.

  —Put in these terms I think he’s made my point nicely, don’t you? looking back at her eyes glittering with satisfaction, even cunning, taken up in a tone almost patronizing in its strained levity with —after all you could hardly bring your breach of contract suit against God naming him as an artificial person with his only begotten son as a necessary party now, could you? and he was suddenly busied unfurling a folder overflowing with stick figures tumbling into a blazing abyss —let me show you an artist’s rendering of . . .

  —Right here on earth Mister Gribble, she’s talking about suing this slippery reverend in Federal court under diversity of citizenship right there in a neighboring jurisdiction and it’s just a damned shame my father’s not still on the bench, sue him as a public official and his church would be held liable wouldn’t it? filling his glass again, —if you want a nice parallel to your scripture there right here on earth just take AIDS.

  —But that’s not, I think you’re straying a little far afield, people dying of AIDS aren’t . . .

  —That’s what it’s all about Gribble they don’t die of AIDS, they die from some regular old fashioned germ like pneumonia or tuberculosis because their immune system’s broken down like this lack of belief or the loss of it, same thing isn’t it? Acquired immune deficiency syndrome and they both end in death, your immune system collapses and some germ like this reverend steps in and finishes the job.

  —I really think your ah, your parallel is quite far fetched, people dying of terrible diseases like cancer and . . .

  —It’s all metaphor Gribble, it’s all metaphor! There’s no cancer germ is there? No, no cancer’s it’s an expression of life gone wild, these exuberant living cells suddenly cutting loose, multiplying all over the place having a grand time they’re all metaphors for reality right here on earth, people who’ve outlived it roaming around with what we used to call old timers’ disease and . . .

  —My God, what’s going on.

  —Christina! I didn’t hear you come in where have you been, sit down and join us we’re talking about whether Lily’s daddy will bump into Bobbie when he gets to the other side and . . .

  —If he bumps into Harry that will straighten him out, Lily will you take this package? Be careful, it can spill.

  —Or Father! if he bumps into Father he’ll be . . .

  —I think I’d better be going now is that my coat? He was up jamming papers, folders, pamphlets together —and let me thank you for . . .

  —Lily walk the poor man out will you whoever he is, and Oscar for God’s sake settle down.

  —But where have you been. The last time you took my car like that you didn’t even . . .

  —It’s my car Oscar, I left yours in, hello? She was already at the phone —yes, give me Mister Peyton please, God what a day look at it out there, an hour ago the sun was, hello? All right then listen, give him a message when he . . . This is Christina Lutz now listen to me. I’ve just sent him something very important please see that he gets it, it’s got urgent and personal written all over it the minute he shows up, do you under . . . He’ll know what it’s in reference to! Tell him to call me in the country the minute he, what? What do you mean what country this country! He’s got the number and . . . it’s Lutz! Christina Lutz lutz Lutz! Mrs Harry Lut . . . exactly. I’m glad you read the papers, my God! she slammed it down —of all the, she saw that nice picture of him in the paper, isn’t that what I told you? Yesterday’s news you wrap the fish in where’s Lily, I got some lovely halibut after those ghastly fishcakes, you don’t think it will snow do you? will you look at those clouds? The wind almost blew me off the road when I, oh Lily? Who in God’s name was that.

  —Him! He asked me can I slip off to some prayer breakfast with him to tell you to update your homeowner policy for the porch out there while he’s getting around where he can look right down my front and . . .

  —I’ll take you right after lunch it’s all arranged, I got some lovely chowder did I give it to you when I came in? I don’t think you should eat a lot before they put you under, I used Bunker’s name that old pickled friend of Trish’s and they’re squeezing you in they’d just had a cancellation, you can take that plaid robe of mine and a nightgown I mean I assume you don’t own one I’ve never seen you in anything but your, what’s that bottle doing there. Oscar? by your feet?

  —No now listen Christina, before you start . . .

  —Just get me a glass will you? What time is it. I’d love to see them try to squirm out of this one, I’ll put Doctor Chichester right up there on the stand and send their precious white shoe image straight to the bottom.

  —No but listen Christina, we don’t even know who . . .

  —Of course you don’t, neither di
d I nobody did till his bill came this morning, Harry always said when you went to him his bill would be waiting in your mailbox before you got home thank God he sent a copy out here this time, he’s a dentist Oscar he’s been Harry’s dentist for years thank you Lily, just fill it up will you? The day it happened, that tooth that had been driving us both crazy keeping us up at night you remember when he drove out of here? and I told him for God’s sake to get it tended to and he said he’d try to squeeze it in? Would you go in and have a tooth scraped out and a temporary cap put on it if you knew you wouldn’t be around tomorrow? Would you? She stood there drawn up against the windows her coat flung wide as though braving the winds shaking the pine boughs beyond her, sweeping two black crows across a grey sky sullen with the threat of snow that came on in a flurry and was gone by the time their lunch was and the car had retreated up the driveway leaving him standing there staring after it as though they might never return —but I could hardly just drop her on the doorstep like some sort of foundling, could I? she said when she did, —I mean you could have put a light on out there for me couldn’t you? Have there been any calls? None, no. And what had he been doing? Nothing really, just, nothing. The sparkling surf broke down a dazzling beach where a cruise ship lay in the azure waters offshore and immaculate liveried blacks served exotic drinks to tawny blondes dancing the night away on the silent screen —I mean you can’t spend day after day pacing up and down here muttering about that ridiculous award of yours, it’s all over with isn’t it? you came out with something didn’t you? You can tell your friend Sam there you’ll pay their disbursements they’re all listed separately on that idiotic bill of his aren’t they? Basie buying drinks for the house and a fortune in postage stamps and he can whistle for the rest, she told me you’d cleared up your medical bills with that idiot from the insurance company and even some new teeth I mean my God, I can’t wait to see whether Bill Peyton will jam Harry’s dentist’s bill down their big time insurance company’s throat and make them cough up the poor thing was so upset when the hospital demanded payment in advance, all fifteen hundred she thought it would be seven nobody’d mentioned the operating room and the anesthesiologist and the rest of those vultures with their free toothbrush and printed menu I wasn’t even thinking when I picked up that lovely halibut, that she wouldn’t be here to help with supper God knows what we’ll have with it, I think there are some capers, I’ll simply do it in butter, and a white sauce? and some of your white wine here, and boiled potatoes served up, after the last shot was heard round the world on the evening news, on white china plates in the sepulchral silence of the kitchen left there in the sink when she switched off the lights behind them leading back up the hall to interrupt a famous actress done up as a nun in the midst of her orisons with —you’re not going to watch this thing are you? snapping it off as she passed for the stairs —because I’m simply exhausted, I’m going up and read something and Oscar? that heap of papers and those letters you wanted to keep when she tried to clean up in here you put them right back on the sideboard, will you do something with them? throw them out or put them back with that mess in the library where they belong? and where a reading lamp would stay lighted far into the night.

  Toast, but no butter, tea but no milk in it both gone for the white sauce the night before, Oscar? but no response in her rush for the phone, for the hospital later than she’d thought when she came down only to be left stranded in a white corridor’s passing parade of motley looking no worse off than what you’d dodge in the street till a familiar beige coat hurried toward her —just to get my ass out of here before they charge us for another day, they wake me up at five o’clock this morning I still didn’t eat anything but some ow! as they swerved for a corner and again finally pitching up the cratered driveway —no I’m okay, they’re just a little sore that’s all, their heels clattering up the steps, down the bare hall echoing the emptiness pervading the house like a sudden chill, —Oscar? Where are you.

  —Oscar? God only knows, there’s some canned soup I brought in yesterday just sit down. Oscar? I mean he can’t have gone out he’s probably in the kitchen, French onion or tomato. Lily?

  —He’s in there, Christina.

  —He’s in where, ask him if he wants . . .

  —In the library. He’s just sitting in there. He looked right straight at me like he never saw me before he didn’t even move, it’s spooky.

  —Don’t be ridiculous, I mean he can’t have been drinking this early can he? Oscar? as they reached the doorway together, —what is it. You look like you’ve been sitting there like that all night, what’s the matter. Will you answer me? beside him now shaking his shoulder, reaching down to catch the papers spilling from his lap when her wrist was seized so hard she almost came down on him —my God! breaking away as he leaned down slowly to pick them up letter by letter —what is going on! He was standing up heavily now, the papers crushed up in one hand reaching the other to turn off the reading lamp.

  —It’s a farce, Christina. It’s just a farce.

  —Well of course it is! What is! following him out —what is a farce.

  He’d got all the way up the hall and as far as the windows, standing there looking out over the pond before he said quietly —I’ve been lied to all my life.

  —But what . . . she broke off, sitting down slowly, both of them sitting down silently watching him framed there against the sky shattered with an exaggerated gesture turning upon them as though the footlights had just come up.

  —When we came back from France like beggars looking for a new exile and you sent me up there to see him? his voice quavering with indignation —coming in here in your fine French clothes demanding your rights he said to me when I asked him for the money he owed my father when I’d spent the morning trimming frayed cuffs pinning up the hem on my father’s threadbare coat to look fit to call, five hundred dollars! in a gasp of outrage subsiding to a murmur muttering —to lay up treasures in heaven Thomas while you seek here below, on a sharp intake of breath —Only justice! As a farce yes, play it as farce because that’s what it is isn’t it!

  —Oscar what’s happened, I don’t under . . .

  —I just told you didn’t I? that I’ve been lied to all my life? No, no I cast myself a hundred years too early didn’t I, with those tragic heroics of John Dryden’s, sound the trumpet! beat the drum! when it was farce all the time, Sir John would have grasped that if only he’d read it, if only I’d got it to Sir John Nipples he would have played it as farce when his School for Scandal fell through, with Sir Lucius O’Trigger, yes. Sir Lucius O’Trigger playing Thomas based on a true story no, here’s the true story! thrusting the letters at them crushed in his hand where one of them fell as it trembled there, and another —these letters, these damned letters those old ladies were sitting on in that historical society down there till Father got hold of them here’s the true story, the whole sad, miserable pitiful true story. Laying up treasures in heaven where moth and rust corrupt and thieves break through and steal she was lying all the time! It’s all here in these letters whining, begging, broken promises and more promises no wonder they hid them away because she’d married the wrong brother, she’d married the drunk. Grandfather’s father the charming, weak, careless dandy it calls him in one of them, one of the letters here gambling away everything and dying of drink as a diplomatic flunkey in the embassy job his brother’d got for him as a last resort God, the words I put in their mouths! When my father died in an embassy post where they gave him nothing, no promotions and let him rot there till it was over and we came back to beg from his brother what was really ours? How’s that for farce! That loathsome hypocritical old woman lying through her teeth, poisoning Grandfather against his uncle who’d worked and fought his way up as a mine owner your uncle never gave things away she says, not a smile not a penny and his own brother lying dead and buried in a foreign land? The one line I got right there, where Thomas says to her it’s as though you cherish injustice, the one line I got right for
all the wrong reasons because it’s all here in one of these letters, Grandfather storming in demanding his rights from an uncle who didn’t owe him a thing but maybe he admired his brashness, maybe he saw his own driving obstinate will in this angry young man and decided to give him a chance, that broken down farm and three hundred dollars just barely a chance to see what he could make of it knowing he’d been lied to by that loathsome old woman protecting her useless husband and herself for ever marrying him that’s the true story! And Father knew it. Father knew it all the time didn’t he, that his father’d been lied to and that’s where it all came from, the battlefield hero and the distinguished career on the High Court bench up there beside Justice Holmes because he’d been lied to like I have, like I have.

  —Oscar . . .

  —Like I’ve been lied to all my life.

  —Oscar can’t you see? can’t you see that Father was only protecting his own father? because he knew how you idolized your grandfather and how much your grandfather loved you that’s what he tried to protect isn’t it? for your own good my God, I mean the way Father came through for you didn’t he? with that appeal writing the whole thing up and sending somebody up here to win your appeal for you, coming through for you standing behind you having faith in you like you realized that day saying you’d lost yours in him? Can’t you see all that?

  —No, he whispered, and he leaned down to pick up the letters that had fallen abruptly wrenching them all between his hands straightening up to cross the room slowly and throw them all together into the empty hearth. —No I never told you, that day we took him to the airport, when we took the law clerk to the airport sitting in the car and he found Grandfather’s watch in a pocket he’d forgotten to give me and I said something like that to him, that Father’s coming through with his love for me showing it that way without asking anything in return and he chuckled. He just chuckled as though it was all, as though it was all just a farce no, no he said, the Judge never gave a damn for things like that, all that sentimentality or the movie you wrote he knew they were just using it to keep him off the circuit court he never blamed you, he may have thought you were a fool but he never thought you were venal and he didn’t draw up that appeal for love of anybody, not you or anybody no. It was love of the law. When he got his hands on that decision he was mad as hell. He acted like the closest person in his life had been raped, like he’d come on the body of the law lying there torn up and violated by a crowd of barbarians, what was the matter with you? What in hell was wrong with your lawyers not following it up, letting a wide open trap that was laid for you slip by them for this new judge to fall into, he had me on the phone and then he grabbed it himself trying to run down this lawyer that handled your case there, he’s no longer with the firm they told him same thing they told me, we have no record of his whereabouts and hung up. Want it done right you do it yourself that was him all right, your father, had me up for two nights digging out every citation that applied and a hundred more to be sure patching up that appeals brief with them like bandages wherever there was a scratch on this body he held dearer than his own life or yours or anyone else’s, this love he had for the law and the language however he’d diddle them both sometimes because when you come down to it the law’s only the language after all and, and I can still smell the whisky on him and the smoke and hear his rasping voice shut up in the car there together, and what better loves could a man have than those to get him through the night.