J R

by William Gaddis

  —Stella how can we just not talk about it if you’re going to be the administrator? You come right down to it after all, it hasn’t been too bad to you.

  —What are you talking about.

  —Just these concerts and benefits of yours and these artists and people you collect . . .

  —What people do I collect.

  —Just these artists and these musicians and . . .

  —But who.

  —Well you take this Reuben we were talking about, he . . .

  —If you could simply see something more there than, what was it you said, a little sissified . . .

  —I didn’t mean anything Stella I just, I said there was people that might think he was kind of effeminate, he seemed like a nice enough little fellow that time you introduced me. But I just mean you add up these concerts and benefits and like this hundred dollar a plate dinner you’ve got tonight for this art museum, you add it all up and . . .

  —I thought you added it all up and took it off taxes and were just delighted.

  —Well all right Stella, all right. It’s just . . .

  —What.

  —I guess nothing.

  She turned on the radio and hardly searching found something of Delius that lasted all the way until, about to be identified, it silenced as they entered the tunnel.

  —What time is your dinner? he said as they emerged.—You want me to drop you off somewhere?

  —Home.

  —You have time to go home first? I could . . .

  —Just home.

  Lights approaching, passing, splashing wet surfaces in reflections suborned the reality of streets and distance.—Can’t hardly see where you’re going, he said never stopping, scarcely slowing until out of thousands, of hundreds, tens of brownstone steps, brownstone entrances, he drew up at one.—You’re in a hurry you go ahead up, I’ll park the car. You got your key? He reached across to open her door.—Watch where you step. He reached across to close her door.—You want to take your book?

  —What?

  —This Wagner Man and Artist, it’s been in the car . . .

  —All right, give it to me . . . and, watching where she stepped, she sought the entrance, head down until she reached it, fumbling for keys and then among them for one to fit the door, shaking them out under the light at the mailboxes, turning and saying suddenly—Oh! The man standing beside her wore the kind of small-billed cap with earmuffs tied over the top that boys wear, and one hand raised more in restraint than threat he put a shopping bag down with the other and straightened up, his clothes already open at the front scarcely demanding her attention there, pressed closer as her key trembled at the lock that moment wet down the side of her skirt and stockings, turned it and the door opened, tracking a wet print across the small lobby without a look back to rise in the empty elevator swallowing a sound in her throat and repeat the ritual of the keys, cross carpeting silently to light a single lamp and drop her bag and her book in a chair, into the bathroom hands fighting the zipper open at the back of her neck, stepping out of her shoes and pausing about to draw that gray dress up over her head, and then forcing it down over her shoulders rending a seam, her slip likewise, turning water on in the basin as she sat to strip off her stockings and drop them in with the slip, leaning naked over to turn on the bath and then holding there to the tub, coming back up, finally, with a towel she held up to her into the bedroom where the light caught her from behind as she reached to get a robe and then, more slowly, sat down. The telephone rang beside the bed. It rang again, and she sat, one hand covering her eyes, until it stopped ringing.

  —Stella . . .? Stella, you left the front door here open. Left your keys right in the door. She got up and went back into the bathroom.—Who was that on the phone?

  —Wrong number, she called over the sound of the tumbling water, and closed the door.

  She came out holding her robe closed lighting lamps barely brightening the living room under their opaque shades, down a corridor to the kitchen where he’d hung his jacket over a chair and had out a box of eggs.—You’re not ready yet?

  —I’m not going anywhere.

  —But the, you already got the ticket didn’t you? It ought to be quite a meal for . . .

  —I’m not hungry.

  —Oh. He looked back to what he was doing.—I didn’t mean anything against you going to these benefits and something like this dinner tonight Stella . . . he cracked an egg on the edge of a bowl, and she watched him scrape out the shell.—You sure you don’t want to go?

  —I just want some milk, she said reaching to a high shelf for a glass, turning him for that moment to look into the gape of her robe.

  —I was going to have some eggs, can I fix you some? It’s no hundred-dollar dinner maybe, but . . .

  —I’m going to bed, she said waiting to pour milk, watching him unwrap a stick of butter and scrape the flecks of it that remained on the paper into a pan.

  —You’re not going to sleep right off are you?

  —I’m going to take a pill, she said, and he turned to look down the line of her that took shape in the robe as she took her glass and left him staring there a moment longer. Moving more slowly he put his pan off the stove, got out ice and a glass and poured it half filled with bourbon. He sipped it and then suddenly came out through the living room for the hall, tapped on the door.—Stella . . .?

  Her robe lay in a heap on the foot of her bed and he sat on the edge of his,—I just had a good idea Stella, he rattled the ice in his glass at her back.—If I got Edward and your aunts there in for a tour of the place, take them around the plant and give them a real look at the whole operation, I’ll bet they’ve never even . . .

  —Why, she said without turning from the book she sheltered.

  —Why? To show them their stake in the General Roll Company is something pretty impressive, more than just a few pieces of paper that say they own, what do they own with James about thirty-five out of that original hundred shares?

  —It would . . . she cleared her throat.—It would be ridiculous.

  —What? Well but why, if they really saw what they’ve got there they might not be so ready to see a lot of outsiders coming in and . . .

  —Simply getting them in to a desolate place like Astoria, it wouldn’t impress them they’d be horrified.

  —Well but . . . he stood up rattling the ice in his glass as he raised it.—Wait, you come to think of it now they must have nearer thirty, maybe twenty-seven shares altogether, that Jack Gibbs he took five shares with him when he quit didn’t he?

  —Took? And she did half turn, more to pull the blanket back to her shoulder as his weight sank the edge of the bed.

  —I don’t mean to sound like he stole it Stella, your father wanted to give it to him for all the help he’d been with those ideas he had I went right along with it, but that was just the thing with him you know? How he’d work out some crackerjack idea right to the point you could do something with it then he’d just leave it there, like it wasn’t worth just getting down and doing it . . . he brought the glass down shaking nothing but ice in it.—A while after he left there I’d look in book stores when I passed one to see if there was a book with his name on it, he said that’s what he was doing writing a book. If you ever heard him talk about these ideas he had about random patterns and mechanizing you name it but if he ever wrote that book, I sure never saw it . . . he rattled the ice again staring into the glass.—I used to think he must be the smartest man I ever met, why he’d . . .

  —He probably was. Is that what you came in to tell me?

  —Well no Stella I just got off on it talking about those five shares, you figure if these death taxes take maybe up toward half this forty-five percent of the company your father had that leaves maybe twenty-five coming to you, with my twenty-three we’re still on top of things and if anything comes out of this old lawsuit that just came back to life with that jukebox company there’s no telling where it will take us. You see but now if you have to split
what comes down from your father with Edward there and he takes up with what your aunts and your Uncle James hold, well that could give them a maybe four percent margin for control so where these five shares that Jack Gibbs had fit in that could turn the whole, Stella . . .?

  —What is it.

  —I just wasn’t sure you were listening to me Stella, I mean I thought going out there to see them like we just did we’d at least get a clearer line on things even if we didn’t dig up these papers but your aunts, I just couldn’t get across to them, your Aunt Anne there talking about somebody called the young planter whose father was an undertaker part of the time I don’t think they even knew who I was. And Edward there, I can see how he’d be that upset coming into the place like he did but standing up there singing like that, talking about going into the shoe business someplace nobody’s heard of . . . he swirled the ice in the glass, drank off the bit of water to rattle it again.—Stella? I mean I just don’t know what you meant saying maybe he’s suddenly scared James isn’t his father, did he say if . . .

  —I just mean he’s a rather selfish boy, that’s all.

  —Yes well that’s what I mean he certainly looks like he can use the money, that’s . . .

  —Well it’s not what I mean! her sudden turn lost her the sheet from her shoulders,—he’s a boy with a lot of romantic ideas about himself and everything else I tried to help him get rid of that’s all, now please . . .

  —Well but Stel . . .

  —And please stop calling me Stella! she pulled the sheet up as though it was the force of his stare that had abruptly bared her breast spilled toward him there, turned on her back to reach the light.

  —But, but that’s . . .

  —Oh I just mean stop saying it . . . the light went out and the mass of her thighs rose again under the blanket as she turned away.

  Back in the kitchen half tending his eggs he poured some more bourbon finally settling down to eat with his left hand, a blunt pencil in his right sketching, adding, subtracting, crossing out on a kitchen pad he brought with him into the living room when he was finished, moving among the furniture like a stranger looking for a chair large enough, a lamp bright enough, moving Spring in Derby biscuit and Brassaï Retrospective to make space enough for his forms and papers and the latest catalog of Ardo Heavy Duty Stamping Equipment and Parts List, squeezing off his shoes and working on a larger yellow pad until the telephone rang. He looked down the hall as he crossed the room to answer it to what appeared to be light under the bedroom door, but it continued to ring until he answered it, and then went dead in his hand.

  In the bathroom he lifted her things dripping from the basin across to the tub and washed, in the bedroom stepped on Wagner as Man and Artist broken open on the floor between their beds looking, as he got into his own, at the shadow of her thighs’ descent there just beyond reach and unchanged it seemed in any detail next morning as he paused again up on one elbow to look, and then stepping on Wagner as Man and Artist got to the bathroom and shaved, lifted her things from the tub to the basin and picked up his shoes dressing half in the hall, restoring Spring and Brassaï, gathering papers and locking the door after him humming, out into the day and as he steered through streets and over the bridge and down rows of false fronts desperately simulating brick and fieldstone, stray fretful bars of Phil the Fluter’s Ball.

  —Leo? he called barely inside over the clatter of machinery,—come over here a minute. Look . . . he spread yellow pad pages on a filing cabinet.—This problem we been having over there with number three, if we just go get this wall knocked out right here and move this whole setup right over around this way we’ve got the line running right through with nothing to hinder, you see what I mean?

  —Run into money.

  —Well hell I know that. It’ll double this whole production run just about too.

  —You might double your rim all right, but it will run you into money.

  —Well let’s see how much. You get onto those people we had to do those shipping platforms, that little Eyetalian, get them in here for a cost estimate.

  —Mister Angel? If you got a minute there’s something here I think you’d ought to know about, we’d maybe ought to go over here out of the path . . . Leading the way to the shelter of filing cabinets he dug in the inside pocket of a suit curled round its collar down the length of its lapels coming up with a soiled envelope,—I figured you . . .

  —Mister Angel . . .?

  —Wait a second, that’s Terry calling me.

  —Mister Angel? Oh, I didn’t see you back there. Mister Coen’s on the telephone from the hospital.

  —Coming. I’ll see you later Leo, get hold of that Eyetalian . . . He followed her down a hall of plastic flats and cement block painted a green, eyes held on the practiced rise and. fall of her step one foot crossing the path of the other before her and a tight turn at the door where she pushed red hair away from her face and held up the phone.—Gee they hung up on us . . .

  —That’s all right he’ll call back.

  —Gee I wouldn’t have picked him for reckless driving, you know Mister Angel? Like he’s always so shy and quiet when he comes in, you know?

  —Well it wasn’t reckless, he’d broke his glasses, been out in Long Island and couldn’t see where he was going.

  —Gee, she said turning back to her typewriter, and he leaned back hands clasped behind his head, looking across to how the fullness curbed in her simulated leather skirt spilled from the sides of the orthopedic typist’s chair, abruptly bringing his eyes up to the hair pushed back at each return of the carriage.

  —Terry? What would you think of a little redecorating in here, maybe getting some of that paneling up on the walls and covering over those pipes up there.

  —Gee, I think that would be real nice.

  —We even ought to get some carpet in here and plants, we could get some plants in here and get a new leather sofa instead of that old chair over there, and a coffee table.

  —That would be real nice Mister Angel.

  —And we ought to get some pictures up on the walls here.

  —I saw one downtown of the ocean that was real nice, you could like almost hear the waves looking at it.

  —We have pictures back in the files here, historical pictures of some famous musicians autographed to old Mister Bast back from the days when the business was piano rolls we could even, there’s an old Welte-Mignon down there in the basement we could get working, shine it up and put it out in the front there where you come in, you know what I mean?

  —Yes I, that would be real nice.

  —For, you know, when we have visitors to come in, somebody coming in that didn’t know anything about the business, I think they’d be pretty impressed . . .

  She turned to answer a buzz.—They want you out on the floor, Leo. That would be real nice Mister Angel, she said as he got up and hung his jacket on the coat rack, going out.

  —You get that Eyetalian in this quick, Leo?

  —What? Oh. No, it’s this what I was going to show you before.

  —What’s that Leo, he said following him to the shelter of the filing cabinets.

  —I figured you better have a look at these. The soiled envelope came out and he closed a frayed buttonhole behind it,—see what goes on here.

  —Where did these come from?

  —Boys in the shipping room had them.

  —But the, this, is this Terry here?

  —Don’t know who else it is, with a ass like that on her.

  —But who’s the, the man here, that’s not one of our men.

  —Might be one of the soldiers from over to the base there.

  —And, this one? these?

  —More soldiers I guess. What you going to do.

  —Well hell I, I don’t exactly know right off. You can’t just go and be that sure from these they’re none of them real sharp and . . .

  —You mean you think they maybe ain’t her? They used that kind of camera that develops itself b
ut just because you can’t see the color of every hair, you don’t see tits like that come down the street every day. I don’t know who else it could be with a ass like that.

  —Why hell you never saw her naked like this neither did I Leo, hell. She might, it might be just somebody’s trying to get her in trouble, she . . .

  —Like she didn’t know they was being taken? Look at this, no this here one with the three of them in it she’s twisted around him looking right in the camera having a whale of a time, look at that.

  —Well you can’t just, unless it’s a hundred percent certain you can’t just go around and, hell there’s things they can do now with doctoring pictures that you can’t hardly tell it.

  —That’s some doctor then is all I could say. You mean like pasting on somebody’s different face? Look at this here, you’d have to have a picture of her eating a cucumber to paste onto this one, that’s some doctor.

  —Well just right now let’s just . . .

  —Wait, wait, that there one spread-eagled over the chair look at it, don’t that look like that old leather chair right there in your office? all them little brass studs showing out of under her knees?

  —Well, it . . .

  —And the corner of this here curtain showing you can almost make out the little design, see it?

  —Well it, it sure as hell does but we’re just going to wait and don’t say anything till . . .

  —You think them boys in the shipping room ain’t saying . . .

  —You just tell them to do what they’re paid to around here and any that don’t understand that get out, that’s the first God damn rule right down the line produce or get out and something else, you know that big old Welte piano down there in the basement? Go down and take a look at it, see what shape it’s in.

  —I used to play on that Mister Angel, the old man had it right up in the . . .

  —Well go down and see what shape it’s in, we might clean it up and set it up out here in the front.

  —All right but all them tubes and bellows, that’s all probably cracked and . . .

  —Just do what I’m asking will you Leo? and he turned down the wall of porous green tapping the soiled envelope against his leg out of sight as he came in behind his desk.