Carpenter's Gothic

by William Gaddis

  — Paul, I don't think…

  — Don't have to, right. Now she says she had a letter from this other dear Christian mother out there saying Elton looked sick on the television and is he all right, how the first thing any good Christian mother wants to do is take care of her son so that's why Sally Joe's writing this letter, to say she just can't keep quiet anymore about what's going on. Elton's not sick she says, reason he looks so God damn ragged on television is the persecution he's getting from these forces trying to stop him delivering God's word, all these lies in the liberal press take any God damn thing he says and twist it around like this great harvest in Mozambique? I show you that?

  — No, but it hardly sounds…

  — Talking about his Voice of Salvation radio and this great harvest they're reaping in Mozambique, press picks it up and says what harvest, it hasn't rained there in three years everybody starving, going blind, pellagra cholera they know God damn well he's not talking about a plate of beans, talking about harvesting souls for the Lord twist around whatever he says, smear stories like that his mission's running deficits of eighty thousand a day that's why Sally Joe's writing this personal letter. Wakes up there in bed at night that's what I mean Liz, this woman's touch, wakes up and hears poor Elton creeping around the prayer room seeking God two or three million dollars in debt now what she wants, what she wants, Liz?

  — I think I can guess.

  — Right, just a little prayerful gift maybe ten or twenty bucks help get this God damn money pressure off Elton out there trying to save the country or he may just crack up.

  — Paul honestly, it's all…

  — Just be patient Liz? think you can just be patient for a minute? Getting to the God damn point here what she's talking about it's America, pray for America pray for Brother Ude all the same God damn thing, send in your prayerful tax deductible gift because if Elton cracks up that's accomplishing Satan's purpose whole God damn country go down the drain. Last chance that's what he's talking about, how deep this country's sunk in sin's why God's chosen Elton to broadcast this last warning's what these forces are trying to wipe out here, don't pull up our socks and bring in the Holy Spirit God damn fast the whole future of our great nation may depend on Elton's not cracking up, just pray for him send along this little gift and the Lord will use it to stop these satanic forces trying to see what she's saying Liz?

  — It's a very nice letter, Paul. Maybe if you take out the…

  — Nice? you think so?

  — The letter from the dear Christian mother asking about Elton's health yes, it's a very nice touch. You might want to take out the God damns but otherwise it's quite, after all you say you're getting an advance on writing a book and this should be good prac…

  — Didn't say I'm writing a book by a woman did I? He pulled the tie under his collar, joined it for the knot — still doesn't quite have that kind of warm sincere woman's touch though look, look Liz. Told me once you'd started a novel didn't you? long time ago?

  — That was a long time ago.

  — Write a novel you make up these different characters? put them in these situations getting rich, getting divorced, getting laid where they're talking to each other you pretend you're these characters so they sound real? Same God damn thing Liz, sit down for ten minutes pretend you're this good loving Christian mother Sally Joe writing a nice letter to…

  — Paul honestly! I, no, no why don't you get Doris Chin she, with her lone bluebonnet blowing on the flower strewn banks of the Pee…

  — One God damn time I ask you to do something? can't support me can't back me up? He pulled the dark plaid knot tight at his throat, — can't sit down for ten minutes write a nice letter like any good Chris…

  — Because I'm not a good faithful illiterate Christian mother because I'm not Sally Joe! She'd turned her back to the window, her hands tight behind her on the edge of the sink. — Is that the tie you're wearing?

  — Is, what the hell does it look like! Can't do this one little God damn thing, can't back me up can't support me stand there making fun of Sally Joe now you're making fun of my clothes?

  — It's just your tie, Paul.

  — What the hell's wrong with my tie!

  She picked up her cup of pale tea. — Someone you're supposed to meet at the airport? the little gift shop at the head of the ramp? and you'll have on a red necktie?

  — Just, God damn it… he came down heavily in the chair pulling away the knot at his throat, — always one step ahead of me… and he sat there slumped, staring at the arrows and crosses, the gang of ciphers, horde of v's, arrows and smudges. — Try to get the whole God damn thing together here there's always somebody in there waiting to cut you down, depend on them to come through you look around and they're not there. That movie I started and the big star playing Marco Polo OD'd on drugs? this whole big media conference center idea I had for Longview it was mine Liz, whole God damn idea was mine what happens. Your pal Jack Orsini all lined up with the investment, Ude still hung up on his broadcast licensing so Orsini pulls back and Adolph sells Longview right out from under us and the whole God damn, why I'm just asking for a little patience Liz all I'm asking, back me up a little that's all.

  She emptied her cup into the sink and stood there running water into it. Outside, the movement of the cat on the leaves was almost imperceptible and below, the yellows and pinks of wild cherry were already gone with the lost glance of the sun; still she looked.

  — Try to, try to get all the God damn pieces together, he came on to her back, — wring a dollar out of Ude down there he's already got one hell of a mess building up with the IRS, county health board ready to close him down says his new indoor plumbing's dumping raw sewage into the Pee Dee and they're going over that school bus wreck with a fine tooth comb, next thing somebody comes out of the woodwork with a court order to dig up that old bum he baptized says it's her brother, now they want to get Pearly Gates up there. Whole God damn hall full of white schoolteachers they want to get Gates up there in his, get Gates up there…

  He was sitting with his shoulders fallen, staring at his hands, when she turned with — I think it's getting late Paul, if you…

  — Look did Chick call? He looked up, — he ever call back?

  — Well he, no, no not since he called to say he'd just got out, that's all he said. I mean I didn't know who he was or…

  — He was my RTO. Chick was my RTO… He'd gone back to staring at his hands, one over the other there on the table as though to hold it still — whole God damn, call you up like that out of nowhere we want a real showing from the Lightning Division, come down to that God damn wailing wall see all your old buddies even get you a wheelchair, ride down Constitution Avenue in a God damn wheelchair… and his hand broke away to seize one of the sodden pamphlets opened to display a figure suspended by the wooden limitations of the artist's intentions headlong against black over a firescape of torment — get Gates up there, comes back both legs smashed no parade he'll have his own God damn parade. You get Bobbie Joe, you get Ude up there Reverend Ude under his powerful anointing by the Holy Spirit already insulted the Jews now he's ready to take on the Catholics, he's got Gates fired up with how Satan's mad as hell over all these souls they're harvesting for the Lord do any God damn thing he can to get their crusade going against the forces of the Antichrist Ude says God's promised to give him an army, valiant soldiers of the cross marching on to war, they get this hall full of white schoolteachers? wheel in this big spade in combat gear? You'll see them climbing right up the God damn walls where's the, got to get going I thought you'd set the clock… His chair banged the wall and he came up sweeping the booklets together, — take these with me thought I'd turned on the radio, find out what the hell time it is where you going.

  — I was just going up to get your red necktie.

  — I've got it Liz! Right there in my God damn bag now don't, try to show a little God damn patience… He stood shaking his shoulders into his jacket, tearing away the dark kn
ot at his throat and jamming it into a pocket, wadding up the papers piecemeal in a turn for the living room where he opened his bag and jammed them in — and look… He got a foot up on the edge of the coffee table pulling the lace tight with a sharp tug for emphasis, and it snapped — God damn it! and he was down on the edge of the chair with the shoe off, hands trembling in his effort to rethread it and when he got it back on and knotted he sat there, and then he suddenly reached out to seize the magazine of Natural History. — I have to look at this God damn face every time I sit down? crushing it up in his hand — God damn smartass grin I still see it at night listen, if that, listen Liz if that same, if that Sergeant Urich if he calls again hang up just, hang up. Bands, flags, Drucker and his bag of ears just hang up they, fall in behind because they shut us out, eighty percent disability says they can provide a wheelchair? sit there in the rain see these weeping mothers running their fingers over a name nobody can pronounce? He twisted the magazine hard in both hands thrusting it at her, — just get this God damn thing out of the house?

  — Don't you want to take a coat? she came after him.

  He had the front door open but he stood there, looking out, looking up, — little bastards look at that, not even Halloween till tonight but they couldn't wait… Toilet paper hung in disconsolate streamers from the telephone lines, arched and drooped in the bared maple branches reaching over the windows of the frame garage beyond the fence palings where shaving cream spelled fuck. — Look keep the doors locked, did this last night Christ knows what you're in for tonight… and the weight of his hand fell away from her shoulder, — Liz? just try and be patient? and he pulled the door hard enough for the snap of the lock to startle her less with threats locked out than herself locked in, to leave her steadying a hand on the newel before she turned back for the kitchen where the radio, muttering to itself all this time, took this opportune silence to tell her that three men whose boat had capsized in Long Island Sound had been saved in a thrilling rescue operation by the Coast Guard and she snapped it off, her eyes drawn in a kind of perplexity there emptying the cup of tea he'd left cold on the table and putting it aside unrinsed in the first of what became, as the morning fell away, a progress through the house of chores abandoned, dry wisps of lingerie in the bathroom basin and damp towels and socks as far as the floor in the hall, the vacuum cleaner dragged out and left and even paper towels and the spray bottle to the head of the stairs where she caught the bannister, turned back for the bathroom and quietly threw up.

  She woke abruptly to a black rage of crows in the heights of those limbs rising over the road below and lay still, the rise and fall of her breath a bare echo of the light and shadow stirred through the bedroom by winds flurrying the limbs out there till she turned sharply for the phone and dialed slowly for the time, up handling herself with the same fragile care to search the mirror, search the world outside from the commotion in the trees on down the road to the straggle of boys faces streaked with blacking and this one, that one in an oversize hat, sharing kicks and punches up the hill where in one anxious glimpse the mailman turned the corner and was gone.

  Through the festoons drifting gently from the wires and branches a crow dropped like shot, and another, stabbing at a squirrel crushed on the road there, vaunting black wings and taking to them as a car bore down, as a boy rushed the road right down to the mailbox in the whirl of yellowed rust spotted leaves, shouts and laughter behind the fence palings, pieces of pumpkin flung through the air and the crows came back all fierce alarm, stabbing and tearing, bridling at movement anywhere till finally, when she came out to the mailbox, stillness enveloped her reaching it at arm's length and pulling it open. It looked empty; but then there came sounds of hoarded laughter behind the fence palings and she was standing there holding the page, staring at the picture of a blonde bared to the margin, a full tumid penis squeezed stiff in her hand and pink as the tip of her tongue drawing the beading at its engorged head off in a fine thread. For that moment the blonde's eyes, turned to her in forthright complicity, held her in their steady stare; then her tremble was lost in a turn to be plainly seen crumpling it, going back in and dropping it crumpled on the kitchen table.

  It was still there when she came back down the stairs, differently dressed now, eyeliner streaked on her lids and the colour unevenly matched on her paled cheeks, there was still a quaver in her hand when she reached for the phone, in her voice when she said — Who, hello…? She swallowed and cleared her throat, her free hand moving to smooth the picture out flat on the table before her — I'm sorry, who… oh… The voice burst at her from the phone and she held it away, staring down close at the picture as though something, some detail, might have changed in her absence, as though what was promised there in minutes, or moments, might have come in a sudden burst on the wet lips as the voice broke from the phone in a pitch of invective, in a harried staccato, broke off in a wail and she held it close enough to say — I'm sorry Mister Mullins, I don't know what to… and she held it away again bursting with spleen, her own fingertip smoothing the still fingers hoarding the roothairs of the inflexible surge before her with polished nails, tracing the delicate vein engorged up the curve of its glistening rise to the crown cleft fierce with colour where that glint of beading led off in its fine thread to the still tongue, mouth opened without appetite and the mascaraed eyes unwavering on hers without a gleam of hope or even expectation, — I don't know I can't tell you! I haven't seen Billy I don't know where he is! I'm sorry… she crushed the picture up in her hand, — I can't now no, no there's someone at the door… Someone hunched down, peering in — Wait! She had it crushed in a step for the trash taking Natural History's crumpled Masai with it, — wait… she caught breath coming through, seizing the knob tight, and then — oh… getting it open, — Mister McCandless I'm sorry, I, come in…

  But he paused where she'd faltered, caught the newel with her hand. — Something wrong? I didn't mean to alarm you.

  — No I'm, please, please go right in and, and whatever you…

  — No, no here, sit down. He had her arm, had her hand in fact firm in one of his — I didn't mean to alarm you.

  — It wasn't that… but she let him lead her to the edge of the frayed love seat, her hand in a sharp tremor as his escaped it. — It's the, just the mess out there, Halloween out there…

  — Like the whole damned world isn't it… he was pulling off the battered raincoat, — kids with nothing to do.

  — No there's, there's a meanness…

  — No no no, no it's plain stupidity Mrs Booth. There's much more stupidity than there is malice in the world… Something in a paper bag protruding from the raincoat pocket banged the coffee table as he passed and he caught it up more carefully, and then from the kitchen, — Mrs Booth? I didn't know you had children?

  She turned sharply. — What? He was sorting keys from a pocket when she came in, standing there over the blobs and crosses, lightning strokes, hails of arrows — oh, oh that that's just, nothing… She sat down, at her elbow the eyes stared from the paper bag holes on the ragged shred of newsprint — do, do you? She edged it under the damp heap of bills, — have children I mean? He didn't have children, no, he told her, over thrusting a key in the padlock, shaking it loose. — Oh and wait, wait I'm glad I remembered. Have you got another key? to the house here? He nodded, why, had she lost hers? both of them? — No they were stolen, I mean my purse was stolen with both of them in it I know it sounds silly but…

  — It doesn't sound silly. Where.

  — Was it stolen? At Saks, in the ladies' room at Saks, I'd been… When, he wanted to know. — Last week, about a week ago I'd been… And what else was in it, credit cards? a driver's license? anything with this address? — I don't know, I'm not sure I mean there wasn't much money and my card at Saks wasn't, it had expired anyway and there was nothing you'd, anything like a license. I've never had a license. I mean I don't even know how to drive.

  He was having difficulty getting a key free of the rin
g, twisting it awkwardly, finally getting it off with a wince, — here… handing it to her, — incidentally, that man who showed up here looking for me? Has he been back?

  — Oh he, no. No that rude one no, I mean not that I know of and I've hardly not been here, Paul wants the house kept locked so I've been here whenever he's away not that I wouldn't anyhow, she came on as though a pause would lose him through the door he'd slid open, — be here I mean. Paul's gone now he'll be gone for two or three days and you'll probably leave before I come back, I mean I have to leave in a few minutes I have an appointment this afternoon but it's not like, it's not really going somewhere… He'd gathered up the wadded raincoat, turning for the door, hadn't he overheard her on the phone mention Montego Bay? — Oh did you? And she was up pursuing this parting pleasantry of his round the end of the table with — when you were here last yes I, maybe I did but we've had to postpone it. We have friends there who, people who Paul's awfully fond of but he's been so busy, he travels so much now but it's all just business, places like down south and Texas and Washington I mean no place you'd ever really want to go to… She'd come as far as the door where he stood just inside, examining the room as though for some detail in its disarray that might have changed since he'd left it. — They all just expect everything to get done then it's always Paul that has to do it, he's the one that has all the ideas he depends on people then he looks around and they're just not there that's why they depend on him so much, he…

  — Yes while I think of it he said, his back to her standing there making a cigarette, — would it be convenient to give me a check for the rent?

  — Yes I, that's what I was just going to say… she recovered the cautious step she'd taken into the room where the books lay cascaded from her last retreat there, — I mean that's why Paul forgets things here sometimes, when he left this morning he forgot to give me the rent check to deposit I mean if we mailed it to you, if we mailed you the rent then I'd know I mean I do the mail but if we still don't even know where you live?