Carpenter's Gothic

by William Gaddis

  — I wish you would then, he said, found a pencil somewhere and tore the corner from a discarded calendar, just temporary, he was staying at a friend's place while he got things cleared up.

  — Oh… she read the scrap he'd handed her, her voice fallen, — it's not a real address is it, I mean it's just a box number it's not where you're staying with somebody who, you mean probably staying with somebody you've met since you, since she left I mean, I didn't mean…

  He'd finally turned facing her through a gasp of smoke, sunk back against the table length litter of papers, books, folders, dirty saucers, a coffee cup, a shadeless lamp. — It's simply a man I've known for a number of years, he said, — nobody there, he's out of the country. Now I don't want to keep you, you said you had an appointment and I've got a good many things here to…

  — Yes I didn't mean to pry, it's just… she backed off to the door, — I mean I don't blame you, living alone here for two whole years with everything like, everything just waiting like the silk flowers in there when you come down the stairs wait, oh wait I just thought of something before you start what you're doing wait, I'll get it… and she left him reaching down a thumbprinted glass from a bookshelf, pulling the bottle from the paper bag in the raincoat pocket and pouring a level ounce. He'd emptied the glass, made another cigarette and lit it at the sound of her down the stairs, the lines of her lips more clearly drawn now and those on her lids at less hazardous odds she came into the kitchen holding out the worn address book. — It was in the trash, it looked important I thought…

  — Do you go through my trash?

  She'd stopped short, across the table where he seized it from her — I didn't mean, I thought maybe you'd thrown it away by mistake it looked…

  — It's, all right he muttered, standing twisting the thing in his hands as though he might have said more before he turned for the trash to drop it in, and then he paused, bent over, reaching down into the trash after it — here, you don't mind if I rescue this?

  — No wait don't not that no I, wait… She caught the corner of the table, flushed, — oh… getting breath, — oh. He'd straightened up with the Natural History magazine.

  — I thought you'd thrown it out.

  — No that's all right yes, yes for that story about, on the cover? you said they steal cattle? And her sudden urgency seemed to weigh everything on his response, the Masai and their cattle raids, as though right now in this kitchen, clinging to the table corner, nothing else mattered.

  — Well, well yes, he said — they, it's their ancient belief that all the cattle in the world belong to them. When they raid other tribes they're just taking back what was stolen from them long ago, a good serviceable fiction isn't it… He held the magazine out to her — you might want to read it? It's not what I want anyhow, there's a piece here on the Piltdown fraud I can just tear it out and…

  — That's all right no, no keep the whole thing please. I, I just wish I could stay and talk to you, do you know what time it is? The clock stopped last night and I…

  — It's two twenty, he said consulting no more than her hands seizing one in the other, following her haste through to where her coat lay flung over the newel.

  — I won't be back till after dark/ I mean it gets dark so early now but if you need anything, if your work keeps you here I mean there's food in the refrigerator if you, if you get hungry before you go… She reached for the coat but he already had it, holding it up for her — because I won't get home till it's dark and that, Halloween out there, if they did that last night… she'd turned, a hand back to hold her hair up away from the sudden glint of perspiration beading the white of her neck where he settled the collar, — what they'll do tonight… All she'd get tonight would be the little ones in costume he told her, getting the door open on the blown leaves, the disconsolate streamers, the shaving cream exhortation across the black stream of the road where he watched her hesitant step down as one into the chill of unfamiliar waters, watched her down past the carrion crow raising scarcely a flutter before he pressed the door closed for the snap of the lock.

  Then he stood there, his gaze foreshortened to the stitched silence of the sampler's When we've matched our buttons… and when he did turn it was to walk over to the alcove and stand there looking out; to pause over the cyclamen, flick its silk petals for dust; to stand running a hand over the rosewood curve of a dining room chair looking over the plants, looking out past them to the unraked lawn, pressing a loose moulding into place with his foot each step, coming through to the kitchen, retracing steps leading him back through the sliding door to stand, where he could approach them close enough, reading the titles of books, taking one down to blow it off and replace it or simply run a finger down the spine, before he got over to light another cigarette and spread another folder on the litter before him. There he turned papers, removed one, dropped another crumpled into the Wise Potato Chips Hoppin' With Flavor! carton at his feet, folded, tore, made another cigarette put down beside one still smouldering in the yellowed dip of marble at his elbow shattering its still blue curl of smoke with an abrupt exhalation of grey to stare at a page, at a diagram, a map detail, a torn shred of newspaper already yellowed and he was up again, staring out through the clouded pane at the halting drift of the old celebrant out there, broom and flattened dustpan going on before, his wavering course to the dented repository ahead broken by doubtful pauses, getting his bearings, gaping aloft at faith stretched fine in the toilet paper celebration overhead. Inside there he poured another ounce of the whisky and went back to the kitchen, to the dining room, stopping to square the table and draw the chairs up even around it, putting his hands on things, till finally his steps took him mounting the stairs themselves and down the hall to the open bedroom to stand in its doorway looking, simply looking at the empty bed there. He'd come back up the hall, past sodden mounds of towels, socks, a long glimpse in at the white frill there in the bathroom basin when something, a movement no more than the flutter of a bird's wing, caught his eye through the glass at the foot of the stairs and he stepped back. Then the sound, no more than the sharp rustle of a branch, and the door came open, went closed again on the figure abruptly inside, one small hand on the newel like something alighted there. — Lester?

  — What are you doing here.

  — You didn't know? It's my house… He came out on the stairs, — you should have told me you were coming, saved you some trouble… and down them, — you could have been up on a morals charge.

  — What are you talking about.

  — The ladies' room at Saks.

  — Still getting it all wrong aren't you, McCandless… and in fact the plastic card he'd sprung the lock with was still in his hand. — Always getting it wrong… and the card went thrust into a pocket of the speckled tweed jacket that seemed, from behind now, to draw the narrow shoulders even more close as he stood by the coffee table looking about. — Interesting old house, you know what you've got here? the head cocked this way, that, — it's a classic piece of Hudson river carpenter gothic, you know that?

  — I know that, Lester.

  — All designed from the outside, that tower there, the roof peaks, they drew a picture of it and squeezed the rooms in later… darting now along the line of the ceiling moulding to the crumbled plaster finial where it met the alcove's arch, — you've got a roof leak there… as though he'd come to give an appraisal, come up to buy the place, — have it fixed before it gets worse. You getting into the redhead?

  — You should have asked her.

  From the alcove back to the chimneypiece and down, his steps followed his glance through to the kitchen as the phone rang and he stood there at the table studying the smudges, crosses, hails of arrows till it stopped ringing. — She got kids?

  — You should have asked her.

  And at the sliding door now, — I thought you were neater than this, McCandless. What was this, the garage? He stepped in over the cascaded books, a carton marked glass, fluttered a hand up to stir the sti
ll planes of smoke. — I thought you were going to quit those cigarettes… He turned half perched on the edge of an open filing cabinet. — You see these white doors from the outside, it still looks like a garage. Who did all the work in here, put in all these bookshelves, you? But all that came back was a puff of smoke, a hand reaching past him for the thumbprinted glass. — You know that's the worst thing you can do at your age? the cigarettes and the whisky? They work together, kill the circulation. Lose a couple of toes and you'll see what I mean.

  — How about a couple of thumbs.

  — Maybe you got it backwards. Maybe that never really happened, McCandless. Maybe what really happened was what happened in your rotten novel… The boots dangled bump, bumping against the metal file. — I didn't hear about it for a month. I didn't hear about it till I was back in Nairobi. Maybe it was just bar talk.

  — No no no, don't try that on me no, you knew damned well I was still there when you pulled out. You knew they had Seiko.

  — Seiko was theirs. He knew what was coming… Bump, bump, — trouble with you McCandless, you'd always blame somebody else wouldn't you. What do you know about the redhead.

  — They rented the house, they got it through an agent that's all. Is that what you want to know? what you came all the way up here for? Worried about my health, chat about architecture is that what you…

  — Just taking an interest… One of the boots thrust out to flick open a manila folder heaped on the floor. — You rented them the house, what are you doing here.

  — Cleaning things up. I came up here to get things cleaned up what about you. What in hell are you doing here.

  — What things.

  — All of it. Everything.

  — Quite a job. At your age that's quite a job isn't it… Pages spilled from the manila folder with a stab of his boot. — What's this.

  — Read it. Take it with you and read it.

  — I don't want to read it. I don't need to read it… He bent over the file drawer to push aside a folder, another, — maybe I can help you. Clean all this up you'll need some help won't you, he brought up papers in a handful, caught one from dropping with the rest — here's your accident policy with Bai Sim Casualty, Burundi, convenient offices everywhere. Loss of life five thousand dollars, taken out by Lendro Mining that's not very flattering is it.

  — One trip, that was one trip across the… — Now wait, wait. Loss of both hands, both feet, both eyes, a hand or a foot and an eye you still pick up the five thousand. That's not bad is it. Nothing here about thumbs though… He'd glanced up at the tobacco spilling from the ends of a paper being drawn into a new cigarette, — or toes, it's got to be the whole hand or foot. Loss means actual severance through or above wrist or ankle joints for hands or feet, maybe you'll have better luck next time… and he let it fall with a new handful of envelopes, ticket folders, a prescription — didn't know you needed glasses, I never saw you with glasses here, you better hang on to this… He held out a bank note, — ever get back over there you may need it. What are these.

  — They're comic books. Take them with you and read them.

  — I don't want to read them.

  — No take them, take them. They're good clean fun, one there on God creating the universe and there's a really juicy one on the wages of sin take them along, hand them out on the subway.

  — And don't start that again.

  — I start it? Good God Lester you're the missionary, you're that skinny kid in the cheap black suit, the black tie and that cheap white shirt you washed out every night in the…

  — Who are you working for, McCandless. He waved away a fresh cloud of smoke coming down from the file, turning up folders stacked on the floor with the point of a boot. — You've got some job here, you know that? he came on, unrolling a map far enough for a glimpse of familiar coastline to let it go with a snap, picking up a notebook to riffle blank pages, dropping it to hold up a glossy square of colour. — What's this.

  — What does it look like.

  — It looks like an infrared scanning. I know what it looks like. Where. Where was it. He stood there kicking at a heap of magazines, Geotimes, Journal of Geophysical Research, Science, — we lost track of you there for a while, you were out in Texas? Oklahoma? I saw your name in the paper didn't I?

  — How in hell do I know what you saw in the paper.

  — Testifying as the big expert witness? the big authority on the age of the earth? One of those trials over teaching science in the schools, you were the big…

  — Genesis, teaching laundered Genesis in the schools where do you think those damned comic books came from. Try to teach them real sdence they'll run you out of town, tell them the earth's more than ten thousand years old they'll lynch you, the same damned smug stup…

  — You wrote this? He'd straightened up with a magazine crushed open in the heap. — What did you find up there.

  — Up where.

  — The Gregory Rift, it's about the Gregory Rift.

  — I know what it's about, that's my name on it isn't it? Take it, take and read it.

  — I don't want to read it. Were you up there for Klinger?

  — I wasn't up there for anybody.

  — What did you find up there.

  — Same thing the Leakeys found up there fifty years ago, those fossil remains they dug out of the volcanic ash on Lake Rudolf read it, take it and read it.

  — You ought to stick to this, McCandless. You ought to stick to writing science, you know that? The magazine went tossed to the floor, — your fiction is really rotten, you know that? He'd kicked aside a cobwebbed roll of canvas, the black on white, or was it white on black roll of a hide, getting over to run down a row of books in the bookshelf, Plate Tectonics, Second Gondwana Symposium, Continents Adrift, — Runciman's History of the Crusades volume two, where's one and three. Greek Tragedy? Travels in Arabia Deserta? And here's your man with the grasshoppers isn't it… he pulled the Selected Poetry down and blew dust from it, — you've got everything mixed up here. It's like the inside of your head, you know that? and he thrust it back unopened. — four drinks and you'd start on the grasshoppers making merry in the…

  — No no no, no it's the little people Lester, The little people making merry like grasshoppers In spots of sunlight, hardly thinking Backward but never forward, and if they somehow Take hold upon…

  — Look. You've got a Bible here.

  — Foolishly reduplicating Folly in thirty-year periods; they eat and laugh too, Groan against labors, wars and…

  — What's the Bible doing here. It's in here upside down. What's it doing upside down.

  — Maybe it tripped over Doughty, read it. Take it with you and…

  — I've read it. He pulled it out to right it, — it's got no business here, you know that? You've got no business with the Bible.

  — Always get it right don't you, came through a fresh billow of smoke. — That hat has no business on the bed, these chickens have no business in the parlour like you having business with…

  — Don't start all that.

  — You were what, thirteen? when you were ordained? Signed up for two years over there in your cheap suit when you were twenty? Up there in the Luwero Triangle restoring the Ten Tribes of Israel, firing up the Bagandas for the Second Coming someplace in Missouri with your moronic angel and the golden plates he'd hidden in a…

  — I said don't start that! We, we've heard it we've heard it before, the same harangues, the same raving, ranting…

  — No no no, no it's history Lester, five hundred years of it, your Portuguese sailing into Mombasa plundering the whole east coast, ivory, copper, silver, the gold mines spreading the true faith right up the Zambezi valley slave trading all the way? the whole damned nightmare sanctified by a Papal Bull good God, isn't that what you'd call having business with the Bible? So damned busy picking through my books find that one, Christianizing the Bakongo kingdom in the fifteenth century read it, take it and read it it's up there on the next she
lf, baptizing Nzinga dressing him up in European clothes teaching him manners till he finally figures out they're selling his whole damned population to the plantations in Brazil and they…

  — You ever think what your lungs look like inside, Mc-Candless? Look at this. Will you look at this? He'd turned reaching through the drift of smoke to snap on the shadeless lamp rearing from the litter at the end of the table, coming away dangling a black length of cobweb — just touch it, feel it, that's what they'd feel like, that's what they look like… The thing stuck to his fingers and he bent down for the short sleeve of the zebra hide's foreleg wiping his hands on it. — I thought some doctor told you you were at the end of the line, that's what we thought happened when we lost track of you but you always know better don't you, you're always smarter than everybody else they're all just grasshoppers, aren't they, like this… as though it were what he'd been looking for, bringing down a book in a yellow jacket — it even looks cheap, even the title, even this name you made up you wrote it under.

  — It's a name isn't it? Look in the phone book. It's just not mine.

  — You make money on it?

  — That's not why I wrote it.

  — That's not what I asked you. It's rotten you know that? He'd cracked the spine, spreading its pages — picking his nose, listen to this. Picking his nose in the back seat of the mud spattered Mercedes, Slyke hunched down in the darkness watching them carry the body back to that's me isn't it. Slyke, that's supposed to be me? You never saw me pick my nose here, here's the only good thing in it up at the top of this chapter, where it says the fool is more dangerous than the rogue because the rogue at least takes a rest sometimes, the fool never, you know why it's good? Because you didn't write it, why didn't you write it.

  — Because Anatole France wrote it before you were born, says it right there doesn't it?