J R

by William Gaddis

—And you want to keep it?

  —This whole question of, have you got a pencil? Never mind, you see it’s both a particle and an antiparticle, it has no electric charge nothing to distinguish it as matter or antimatter, for every class of particle there should be its kind of mirror image antiparticle same mass and spin and an equal but opposite charge and this reaction they’re talking about should produce fragments of equal energy but the positive ones are coming out more energetic than the negative ones, brings up the whole question of a basic lack of symmetry in our part of the univ . . .

  —And could you get your foot off the table Jack it hardly . . .

  —Only find one shoe yes but you see there might even be galaxies made of antimatter to balance ones like ours that are made of matter I meant to get a copy of this report, published in the Physical Review Letters wasn’t it? I meant to . . .

  —But Jack the date on this clipping is, it’s almost four years old it’s no use to you now is it . . . and it joined the crumpled heap with B F Skinner and Clocker Lawton’s Selections,—and what’s this . . .?

  —More trash, he muttered sinking away from her on the sofa, knee still against hers where he’d crossed his shoeless foot.

  —But it’s not your hand is it?

  —No.

  —Well who wrote it it’s quite marvelous, whose . . .

  —It’s trash isn’t it? Will you throw it out do we have to go over every God damned . . .

  —Oh honestly . . .! she stood, still looking at it.

  —All right it was mine, one of mine when I still . . .

  —I like hatless disheveled and gay it’s just sweet, and the bat, she said standing over him,—you’ve got Pascal twice here did you know? And this Taine, surely it can’t be the same one? the critic?

  Close as though to look, his knee rested against hers where his hand brushed inside, rising.—Why not . . .? his thumb brushed sudden warmth.

  —It’s certainly nothing we had in French Civiliza, Jack please don’t do that . . . she’d stepped abruptly away,—do you want to keep this then?

  —Thought I’d start a little anthology or . . . he sank back,—what are there about a dozen? Write a book with twelve chapters have the epigraphs ready how’s that.

  —You did tell me once about a book you . . .

  —Write twelve books have one ready for . . .

  —Jack please! don’t, start behaving the way you did on the train it’s just, it just isn’t . . .

  —Isn’t what! Told you on the train all I’ve ever done my whole God damned life spent it preparing, time comes all I’ve got is seven kinds of fine God damned handwriting only God damned thing they’re good for is misquoting other people’s . . .

  —Jack don’t be silly!

  —What’s so God damned silly about . . .

  —It’s simply unbecoming Jack I don’t like to hear you talk this way as though you could never . . .

  —Well what about last night then! What about last night!

  —Well what about last night.

  —If there ever was a, spend a whole God damned lifetime preparing if there was ever a time I, the one time in my whole God damned life I . . .

  —Don’t be silly, you’d been drinking and you were tired there’s nothing to be . . .

  —And the wasted . . .

  —Jack stop it! If you’d, Jack if you’ll stop holding your head and just try that suit . . .? she’d picked up the tray,—I thought we might go out for a walk . . . and she turned to the hall with it leaving him there hands drawn down his face, eyes left on the paper heaped crumpled at his knee before he reached for the dry cleaner’s bag and came half dragging it on the carpet.—Along the park, the lights should just be coming on, she called from the kitchen,—Jack? Can you see the moon from that window? where the whole corner of it’s gone? My mother used to say that’s where the fairies were spending it . . .

  The only sound was running water, and after the door closed behind them, none, until the doorbell rang, briefly, then long, a brief burst, and darkness accumulated, pierced by the telephone, repeated, repeated, plumbing chortled somewhere beyond the carpeted hall.

  —I’m really quite hungry aren’t you? Can you get the light? I thought I’d die at the look on Larry’s face when he saw you in that suit you wouldn’t think doormen noticed those things, do you like lobster Newburg Jack? It’s just a frozen kind I got it when you were in the liquor store, I’m afraid there’s not much lobster in it and Jack? No I can’t really kiss you with these bundles, will you have just one drink? before we eat? I’ll try to hurry, no please. There’s the paper. I’ll hurry . . . He followed her for a glass, back at the sofa undid the waist of the trousers, sitting, did it up at the sight of the tray.—Can you just move those papers, oh and we need a corkscrew don’t we . . .

  —I’ll get it . . .

  —No sit down . . . He sank back, turned as the lights went out to a flicker behind him.—It’s hardly a candle is it but it’s all I could find, she said bending to put it before them.—What is it?

  —Nothing. Your throat. I was staring at your throat.

  —Jack please, eat . . .

  —Hardly see . . . he moved the candle end closer, little more than flame hovering over a pool of wax by the time he leaned for it with a cigarette that flared up as they touched.

  —And your throat? those can’t help it . . .

  —All I’ve got, I thought you’d bought some in that little bag you came out with.

  —Those were cough drops I got for you, where did you find these?

  —In that raincoat, must have cultivated cancer to keep down his waistline, he said unfastening it, sitting back,—snappy dresser wasn’t he.

  —Oh he just wanted so to, he must have had forty pairs of awful socks he’d got in France those really short ones, little designs and elastic at the top and all that dead white skin showing when he crossed his knees but there was no way to tell him, I had to pretend they were getting lost in the laundry and it took me months to get rid of them. It was always a game he had to win, playing against him and helping him win.

  —Thought that’s what every woman knows.

  —No but I was so young, and he did try hard but he had such ideas of himself, of what he thought my family thought he should be and they never quite matched, Jack please don’t . . .

  —Well what . . . his hand dropped of its own weight,—tell you the story about the lady who has her portrait done by the Italian who scarcely speaks English? When she sees it she says it lacks sympathy, that’s a word he doesn’t know so he finds the dictionary says it means fellow feeling in bosom and the next time he shows her the port . . .

  —I don’t like that kind of story.

  —Oh.

  —Well you needn’t be . . .

  —What, old Lucien didn’t like fellows feeling in bosom?

  But she just sat there away from him, her head back and the wavers of light on her throat, twisting a strand of hair until she said—No, no he wasn’t jealous really, when he sent back low necks I’d bought it wasn’t for what anyone might do if I wore one, it was what they might think, of him, I was his wife and what they might think of him but he’d always point out décolletage to me at parties or a girl in a top her nipples showed through and I never really knew what he, I even bought a cigar once and almost made myself sick smoking it half way down and put it out right there in that ashtray where he’d see it when he came in, and he didn’t say a word . . . She drew the twisted strand across her lips in the last flareup of the candle—and it all, it just wasn’t fun anymore . . .

  —You don’t have music here do you.

  —No we, we simply never did, we’d go to concerts and things but we never did . . . Her hand closed in his between them, closer until their shoulders touched and he brushed the warmth of her throat, lips lingered at her ear and she turned her face to his in the dark. Suddenly he was bolt upright.—Was that like kissing a man?

  —Amy what in, wait . . .! he was up, af
ter her where lights came on down the hall—damn it Amy . . .? The bathroom door came closed against him, left him to turn to the bedroom for the light between the beds, shed the jacket in a heap to the floor.

  —Look it does, doesn’t it! She was there in the doorway yellow robe pulled open where she held up the strand of hair across her lip,—look like a mustache?

  His eyes dropped, he cleared his throat,—Yes and stop it or I’ll, I’ll come tousle the beard . . .

  —Jack . . . she pulled the robe closed but paused again, turned to the glass—it does doesn’t it!

  —Yes and stop it!

  —It must be strange, she said turning, coming between the beds holding the robe loosely, sitting across from him, lying back as he fought off those trousers—for a man, kissing a man, wouldn’t it be embarrassing?

  —I’m sure it would.

  —But not as much as a woman with a woman . . . and she caught her breast away from him crowding beside her, brushing the warmth of her throat, lips lingering at her ear and then his tongue abruptly tracing its details, hand gone from breast to breast under the robe until they went crushed under her as he came to one elbow to sweep its yellow from all the whiteness of her back. From his her own hand came, measuring down firmness of bone brushed past its prey to stroke at distances, to climb back still more slowly, fingertips gone in hollows, fingers paused weighing shapes that slipped from their inquiry before they rose confirming where already they could not envelop but simply cling there fleshing end to end, until their reach was gone with him coming up to a knee, to his knees over her back, hands running to the spill of hair over her face in the pillow and down to declivities and down, cleaving where his breath came suddenly close enough to find its warmth reflected, tongue to pierce puckered heat lingering on to depths coming wide to its promise, rising wide to the streak of its touch, gorging its stabs of entrance aswim to its passage rising still further to threats of its loss suddenly real, left high agape to the mere onslaught of his gaze knees locked to knees thrust deep in that full symmetry surged back against him, surges his hands on either side bit deep as though in their possession all her eloquent blood spoke in her cheeks till he came down full weight upon her, face gone over her shoulder seeking hers in the pillow’s muffling sounds of wonder until they both went still, until a slow turn to her side she gave him up and ran raised lips on the wet surface of his mouth.

  He reached a knee, and scratched.—Think you’ve got fleas here.

  —Don’t be silly. You don’t really do you?

  —They like empty places, nice thick carpet, he said turned from her the moment it took to catch the curl of a single hair from his lips.

  —Jack you, no please, she held his hand away,—you didn’t see one? I can’t imagine how, what could we do?

  —Round them up and train them, start a little circus.

  —No they don’t really have those. Do they?

  —Have what, flea circuses? Never heard of a flea circus?

  —Of course I’ve heard of them that’s what I mean, it’s just a story isn’t it. Do you have to scratch so?

  He looked down his arm’s length where his scratching stopped, pink glistening dark to purple squeezed up between his fingers—make you feel like Lawrence’s old warrior Auda . . .

  —I think it’s dear . . . her head come over on his chest, breast crushed against him as though yearning toward the defeated enemy to trace its withered ridges with a nail, course the quiescent color of a vein all for a moment taken by lips and tongue gone undefined with wetness and as abruptly up pressed back against his shoulder before he could move, until she whispered—can you reach the light?

  —Thought I might have a cigarette, he said reaching to turn it off.

  —You don’t need one, she reached across to hold his shoulder,—Jack? Have you ever seen one? really?

  —A cigarette?

  —A flea circus, they don’t really dress them up in little clothes and train them to pull carts and things? Why would, who would do that?

  —Just somebody who . . . he cleared his throat in the dark,—maybe just somebody afraid of failing at something worth doing . . .

  —But if they really do it they must think it’s worth doing, she turned on her face away from him,—the only bad failure’s at something you knew wasn’t worth doing in the first place. Isn’t it?

  And whatever he whispered was gone, turned to her on his side to move his hand down where it rose to rest that night as it might have on a lectern, along the creviced margin between those white slopes opened to the lesson where congregation thronged a dream.

  —Jack?

  Up on one elbow he brushed sunlight from his face, brought hers in shadow.—How long have you been awake?

  —Do you want coffee? Jack no please, let me get up and . . .

  —Most elegant throat I’ve ever seen . . .

  —Yes and yours are you taking that penicillin? It sounds . . .

  —Not talking about mucosa damn it, Amy . . .?

  —In the living room? where we’ll have more sun . . .? and there, when she came with the tray—who are you calling? And Jack do you know the seat of those shorts is quite gone?

  —Hello? Mister Eigen please, in public relations. Like me to put on my dressing gown?

  —What that filthy raincoat? She set cups off on the table,—do you want to keep these clippings?

  —Thought you’d thrown them all, hello? Mister Eigen yes, in . . . What do you mean no longer there wait, wait let me speak to somebody in . . . What the whole department . . .? No, no I’ll try to get him at home . . .

  —What happened? She handed him a cup,—is this the friend who had the . . .

  —Friend who apparently just lost his last refuge from reality, sounds like it’s too late for him to be the things he never wanted to be either, he’s . . .

  —Is this the friend who had the accident with the, who hurt his eye?

  —Schramm? He reached for a plate.—No. What are these.

  —They called them bow ties they’re really rather awful, I thought they were pastries with some sort of filling, Jack what happened to him you were awfully concerned.

  —He just, nothing . . .

  —Is he all right?

  —All right yes he’s fine . . .! Pastry crumbs came down on her robe where he leaned back.—Schramm’s dead Amy, he just couldn’t make it he’s dead.

  —Oh . . .! her coffee splashed, she pulled the wet robe away and reached its hem to dry her leg up from the knee,—Jack I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .

  —Nothing for you to, nothing to say he just finally couldn’t make it.

  —But did he, was it another accident?

  —Only God damned thing any of us has done lately that wasn’t an accident . . . he came back resting on her leg there drawn up behind him,—all getting to the point there’s no time left for accidents . . .

  —Jack please don’t start . . .

  —Well God damn it Amy doing things badly because they’re not worth doing, or trying to believe something’s worth doing long enough to get it done . . . She’d bent forward over him to put down her cup and he came back against her, robe fallen open where he traced a pastry crumb along a crease of white—it’s just, sometimes it’s just too God damned long to be able to keep believing something’s real . . . he traced back along the crease above,—Schramm standing in that tenement window he’d watch a truckload of smashed car fenders go by and think the poor bastard driving it was doing something real, and the man I just called here, Eigen . . .

  —But Jack that was Schramm . . . she brushed a hand at his temple, gone lower,—Mister Schramm, it wasn’t you . . .

  —This man I just called Eigen, he wrote a novel once some people thought was very important . . . and he paused for his tongue to pursue a crumb along the crease drawn under the settling of her breasts,—finally found everything around him getting so God damned real he couldn’t see straight long enough to write a sentence . . .

 
; —But Jack they’re not you . . .

  —Whole Türschluss generation, kind of paralysis of will sets in and you’re . . .

  —But they’re not you Jack they’re not you! She’d pulled back from him against the sofa’s arm.—I don’t like to hear you talk this way it’s, it’s ridiculous . . . and she was reaching over him abruptly to stack cups—I, honestly I don’t want to hear it anymore, will you help me get these things together so we can go out?

  —Out?

  —Yes to get you a suit and, and simply to get some air, do you want to keep these clippings and . . .

  —Thought you’d thrown them out . . . and his lips blurred on her breast’s fall against them as she reached over him.

  —No, I . . . her hand came back slowly, empty,—I thought you might want them . . .

  —What for, too God damned late to . . .

  —Jack don’t you see? And her hand, both her hands were up as she sank back against the sofa’s arm holding him where his lips drew up the dark circle, tongue traced its pebbled rim,—Jack if you keep talking that way that I’ll finally believe it . . .? her leg falling slowly against the sofa’s back with the weight of his hand—and I liked the, about the bat, about the mouse and the angel . . . his hand’s weight gone in fingertips brushing down, brushing the soft spread as though by chance—and the rest, about physics and antimatter I didn’t understand it but . . .

  —That was stupid . . . his free hand down, disentangling for his knee to come up close beside her where her hand ran toward him, nails raking toward him, and he reached up to spread the robe away—all backwards, proving symmetry to call this beautiful God Amy, what immortal hand or eye . . . lips silenced at her knee, run down where all that moved now of his hand were hidden tips of fingers as hers rose and closed tight.

  —But it doesn’t matter if I understand, it’s when I hear you talk about something you care about . . . her hand drew closer, thumb brushed the drop squeezed up and drew it to a thread—that’s what I understand . . . where his lips moved she suddenly fell wide, hand drawing closer stripping vein and color as his knee rose over her and jarred the telephone, still holding closed as though against a sudden plunge, or sudden loss, when the telephone rang, her arms came free, came up, her shoulders’ struggle against his knee come down and legs drawn tight in a twist away as the telephone box went to the floor and she got the receiver wrong end round.—Hello? knees drawn up tight, she righted it.—Hello . . .?