Carpenter's Gothic

by William Gaddis

  — You saw how it ends.

  — I know how it ends. It doesn't end it just falls to pieces, it's mean and empty like everybody in it is that why you wrote it?

  — I told you why I wrote it, it's just an afterthought why are you so damned put out by it. This novel's just a footnote, a postscript, look for happy endings I come out mixed up with people like you and Klinger.

  — Five thousand. He tossed the canceled passport into the open carton, — you're going to need it… and his boot thrust out to tip the shoe crossed over a knee there, — see that? See where there's no hair growing till way above your ankle there? That's what I told you, that's the whisky and the cigarettes working on you together that's your circulation failing, that's when your toes turn green. Either smoke your cigarettes or drink your whisky that would mean you'd decided to, that you wanted it, but both of them together you know what that is McCandless? That's a character flaw, that shows an inferior character you know that? Talk about your lobotomies, when you used to say I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy where'd you get that, that's somebody else too isn't it because you've got one, the figures on lung cancer right in front of you like the facts staring those primates square in the face out there choking on Genesis and you say it's just a statistical parallel and light another. Five thousand. You're going to need it just for hospital bills… and his boot, gone back to fretting the carton, brought him down for a handful of scraps, snapshots, repetitive landscapes, uncomposed glimpses of dips, outcroppings, — is this it? He held one out, — Klinger's site? They all look the same.

  — If you don't know what you're looking for.

  — I know what I'm looking for. It's in this mess someplace if you, is that it? Everything you got up for Klinger you've sold it, you've already sold it.

  — Fine, I sold it. If that gets you out of here I've sold it.

  — I don't believe you. Who, who did you sell it to. I don't believe you, McCandless. He threw down the crumpled snapshots shaking free the torn half of an envelope, — what was in it. Eyes of addressee only what was in it… and he was down digging a hand in the carton, — where's the rest of it. You might have some classified material in this mess you know that? You might have walked off with some classified material… he straightened up emptyhanded. — They could clean this place out, get a court order and come in here with a truck they could clean you right out, you think that's something to grin about? Go ahead, pour another drink, you ever seen the FBI on a rampage? Tear out your bookcases rip up your floors you think they wouldn't do it?

  — You think they'd waste the time? you think they'd even…

  — I'll tell you who'll waste the time. I'll tell you who'll waste more time than you've left alive McCandless. That's somebody who thinks there's a leak and brings the pressure down from the top, and won't stop till they find it. Maybe three or four agencies running down sources and none of them knows what the other ones are after. They don't know who else is after what they're after. They're so jealous they won't share the time of day. They don't know if the other side's in there too, they don't even know who's on the other side and every one of them thinks the other ones have been penetrated so they penetrate each other. They're afraid they're being fed disinformation so they put out a little disinformation of their own, the only thing they know is if somebody says he's got what they're after and they haven't got it, if the other side says they've got it and pulls out the rug there's no way to prove they haven't. What did they pay you. That work you did for Klinger, you just said you sold it who did you sell it to. What did they pay you.

  — I thought you didn't believe me.

  — I don't… He came down stiff on the heels of the boots, picking short steps past the roll of the tent, the heaped magazines, back scanning the rows of books. — Maybe they'd turned Klinger. Maybe they thought we'd doubled him so they dropped him in that alley. They'd turned Seiko… he was pushing books aside on the shelf, peering in at the wall behind them. — Seiko brought you in, you knew that… He reached in tapping the wall there, pushed more books aside and tapped again. — You're not that important, you know that? Just a piece in the puzzle, a little piece in the big puzzle… He stood picking paint from a moulding with his thumbnail, — how much are you holding out for, ten?

  — If it's not that imp…

  — Ten thousand dollars, did you hear me? Because we don't like surprises. Because Cruikshank thinks there might be something to that story about the strike you made thirty years ago when you first went out there, that strike up above the Limpopo when nobody would believe you, when the…

  — Then why should he believe me now. That bloodless bastard why should he trust me now any more than I trust him. He's still trying to recolonize the whole continent? take it back a hundred years when Europe cut it up like a pie and they all took a piece?

  — I said cash, McCandless. Ten thousand cash you don't have to trust anybody, sitting here in this mess pretending you don't know what's going on over there? Look at it, it's a nightmare, twenty years of independence and the whole continent's a nightmare, they've wiped out everything it took a hundred years to put together. Everything's gone backwards, more than a million of them killed by their own governments, the rest can't even feed themselves. Ninety five percent of those countrief. used to grow their own food now every one of them imports it, seven or eight hundred different languages they can't even talk to each other, one in a hundred of them's a refugee, sleeping sickness, river blindness, starvation, madness, anywhere you go there's madness, people going staring mad is that any better? is that what you want?

  — Good God no Lester, far be it from me. Better off with your missionaries back there in good old King Leopold's Congo, the Belgians using them for pistol practice, chopping off their hands, stringing them on fences, burning their…

  — Will you stop it? It's just your, you know what it is? It's cheap. It's like your book there it's cheap, it's the same cheap, condescending, twisting things around like this having business with the Bible and all the rest of your cheap…

  — Nothing cheap about it Lester, a trillion dollars' worth of weaponry and your evangelicals in there warming things up with don't fool yourselves thinking I come to send peace on earth, I come not to send peace but a sword. Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty! Sing them a few bars of that? The Son of God goes forth to war A kingly crown to gain; His blood red banner streams afar…

  — Whose evangelicals do you want then! Whose fundamentalists do you want, talk about your little taste of Georgia how about a little taste of Islam? You think your Georgia judge there sounds any different from an ayatollah? You talk about chopping off hands, you want them sitting you out there in a public square with the Moslem Brotherhood piling in shouting Allah Akbar while they, where's your insurance policy, actual severance through or above the wrist and you run in to collect your five thousand from Bai Sim convenient offices everywhere? Whose jihad do you want, McCandless! They've been at it for a thousand years, they've been at it since ten ninety when Hasan brought his cutthroats out of Qum, cut your throat and they're guaranteed a seat in paradise. Talk about having business with the Bible how about having business with the Koran, if you think…

  — That's a generous offer, how about having business with neither damned one of them. I don't quite follow what you're trying to…

  — You could end up on the wrong side, you know that? You know that, McCandless?

  — I'll tell you one thing I know. I'll tell you…

  — Because maybe they turned you. Maybe people think they turned you. It's the same thing.

  — I'll tell you one thing, people don't think. You're up there picking through my books why don't you look for the…

  — Don't, no don't start that again, look for the second book of the Republic take it with you and read it, it's good clean fun we've been over all that, don't…

  — No no no, no it's the Crito, Lester. Where it doesn't matter what the many think because t
hey can't make you wise or a fool, it's Crito you're looking for, right up there next to the encyclopae…

  — It's not what I'm looking for! I'm not talking about what the many think, I'm not talking about what I think, I'm talking about what Cruikshank thinks. If you won't take ten thousand for this work you did for Klinger he thinks you've been turned, you've already handed it over, you've been sold out for nothing… He'd come sharply away from the bookcases, back toward the table, tripping on a heap oí magazines, catching balance to give them a kick, — I'll tell you what I think. If that work you did for Klinger is here in this mess someplace you couldn't find it if you wanted to. You came up here to clean it up and you can't clean it up, you know why McCandless? You can't clean it up because you're part of it. You've got no more money than what's in your pocket, you haven't even got carfare to Luanda where they might take you in… He'd come close enough, waving away the smoke, to reach down for — your thousand shilling note here, get back to Kampala this will get you a bed for the night if they don't put out your eyes and leave you in a ditch first. Here. Here's your Survival Handbook just in case you miss our picnic in the clouds and if anybody's going to miss it you are. Keep handy for future reference says it right on the cover, you're going to need it. Here's your timetable, all it was good for was so you'd know how late the trains were, now they've all run off the tracks and you're left sitting here with the timetable smoking your, wait, wait don't make another one here, smoke one of these… he'd seized the tin of State Express, — talk about stupidity and you sit here smoking yourself to death here, smoke all of them… he shook them loose over the table there, — smoke them all they're as dead and dried up as you are, your Frank Kinkead raving about scratching the surface of reason and there's this void right under it aching to believe anything absurd, where he wants to give out free chess sets like they give out free Bibles for endless cheap entertainment, anything to fill the emptiness any invention to make them part of some grand design anything, the more absurd the better, magic, drugs, psychedelics, Pan Koo and the Tibetans' prayer wheels, the assumption of the Virgin and the three secrets of Fatima, Moroni's golden tablets or just God, God, God… Suddenly he had the bottle by the throat — here, have a drink. Where's your euthanasia contract sign it, I'll witness it for when you're physically or mentally disabled and can't make your own decisions maybe it's here, maybe the time's here have two drinks, have five… he thrust the upended bottle's neck into the glass, — have twenty…

  — What in hell are you doing!

  The bottle was wrenched away and he backed off, holding his hand down to look at it like something alien, stroking his smarting wrist at the joint with a healing care looking for something to wipe away the splash of whisky, the smell of it, — sixteen, McCandless. That's the last offer. That's their limit, I didn't set it they did, that's what I'm authorized… he stood wiping his hand on the back of his trousers, — cash. Any currency you want, anyplace you want it delivered and a one way ticket to get there, if you want a cover we'll provide you a cover, show up in Kinshasa selling snow-shoes and we'll provide it. Sixteen thousand.

  — What's this one way ticket, your wicked fleeing where no man pursueth? you think I'm on the run?

  — It's when, McCandless. When… He was back far from reach scraping a moulding, down tapping the wainscotting, — when no man pursueth, Proverbs twenty eight, but the…

  — And the righteous are bold as a lion is that it? You break in here picking through papers, tapping the walls what do you…

  — It's but, McCandless, but the righteous are bold as a lion Proverbs twenty eight, one. He tapped, tapped again, straightened up — You know what this was in here? This was the kitchen, you know that? You've got this wainscotting all the way around and listen… he tapped, — now listen over here. You hear the difference? This is the flue. This little cement slab this is where the stove was and this is the flue for that extra chimney. You've got an extra chimney out there that doesn't go anyplace, I couldn't figure it out. This was the kitchen, your kitchen in there was the dining room and your dining room was the family parlour. It's too bad you never had kids, you know that? He'd turned backed against the dictionary stand there just inside the sliding door, — you could have bullied them with all your great ideas like you bully everybody else… he flicked over a page of Webster's second, tossed over a sheaf of them where a card stiff with invitation and the subscript Hope you and Irene can come lay inserted in the cleft, — you know that? I said we used to talk, we never did. You used to talk. You talked and I listened, Helen Keller in the woods when the tree falls and all the rest of your, the truth and what really happens you know something? They didn't recruit me McCandless, Cruikshank didn't recruit me. You did. You know that? He tossed over pages, paused appearing to study a colour plate display Orders of Knighthood and of Merit in garish contrivances of crosses and ribbons. — Just leave this whole mess behind you and you're out there with sixteen thousand walking around money. We don't have much time.

  — I heard you.

  He heaved the book closed. — You ever think of putting smoke detectors in here? You could have a real fire, you know that? Books, papers, nothing but paper, your beams have been drying out for ninety years. You ought to think of your tenants McCandless, you ought to put in smoke detectors. You ought to think of the redhead. Anything you've got squirreled away here would be gone in a minute with the rest of your trash, anybody who was after it wouldn't have it but they'd know nobody else would show up with it and pull out the rug. You think fires start by themselves? He pulled the jacket tight, turned through the door for the kitchen, buttoning it. — You'll thank me someday, you know that?

  — I'll thank you right now Lester, came on behind him, into the kitchen, — I'll thank you for leaving.

  — Get smoke detectors in there now they'd go off before you could put them up. What was that about the ladies' room at Saks.

  — She had her purse stolen. It had her keys in it.

  — Could have been anybody… He'd stopped there standing over the table, arms drawn close as wings, studying that page of crosses, smudges, hails of arrows as the light came on. — You know one good thing in that rotten book of yours? He turned the page to one side, to the other, — that scene where this Frank Kinkead is out on deck setting up this steamer chair on that night passage down from Mogadishu? where he gets his thumbs caught in the hinges when he comes down in it and his own weight's got him trapped there yelling for help, he's out there all night and nobody goes by but the black boy who sees him twisting around yelling and just thinks he's drunk. Maybe that's what happened… He had the page upside down, brought it back as he'd had it. — Maybe that's what really happened.

  — Maybe Methuselah lived nine hundred years. Here, I'll let you out.

  — Wait, you know what this is? He thrust the page over, — it's Cressy. I just figured it out. It's the battle of Cressy, look. Here's Edward the Third up here, and here… the long smudge under his thumb — the rear center in reserve, the Black Prince on his right and Northampton on his left and the archers, two wings of English archers eleven thousand of them, look. The battle order's drawn up between Wadicourt and Cressy this is Cressy here, it ought to be further up… he got the pencil by the phone, a circled X — here's Cressy here, and here's the French. Here's Estrées down here it ought to be further over… a circled + —here's the French attack look, these long arrows from Estrées under Philip of Valois, he's this big cross here and all these little crosses coming up here twelve thousand men at arms, six thousand crossbows and all these draftees, these little v's? These irregular columns coming up from Abbeville it ought to go like this, the road went like this… a heavy parabola — and here, here's the thunderstorm, this big lightning streak? The storm that delayed the first attack when the crossbows went in and the English longbows cut them down on both flanks, their own cavalry rode down on them from behind… the horde of ciphers — by midnight the French army wiped itself out look at them, sixteen att
acks and the archers cut them down every time they came in, I wish I'd seen that. That was the beginning of firepower… he emphasized a smudge and stood off from it. — I wish I'd seen that.

  — Always get it right don't you, Lester.

  — Sixteen thousand, McCandless. Here's a phone number… he scribbled in a space just east of Estrées. — You don't have much time.

  — I'll let you out. It's Halloween out there too.

  — What do you…

  — What you came for isn't it? trick or treat? I'll let you out.

  — You know something, McCandless?

  — I said I'll let you out!

  But even with the light gone on there under the sampler by the door, and the door pulled open, — you see that now? this was the front parlour? for guests? They probably kept the blinds drawn so the sun wouldn't fade the carpets. Those drapes, those silk flowers all of it, she's got nice taste hasn't she, the redhead. She'll walk out on you too, you know that? How old was that Jeannie, the one you had down in the Bureau of Mines she lived on DuPont Circle. They always do, don't they? And even there in the open gape of the doorway on the dark outside he'd caught a hand loath on the doorframe, looking down the road where figures, three, four of them came blown in white sheets up the hill toward the broken patch of streetlight. — You know the rottenest thing you did in that book? Making Slyke a Mormon. You didn't need to do that. It wouldn't have changed the story any. You want to know something, McCandless? God loves you whether you like it or not, you know that? The wind up from the river brought the straggling figures closer, close enough for the headlights of a car rounding the corner to freeze them catching at masks as it passed. — They want a haunted house, they've found it… and then, out on the crumbled brick where the wind in the festooned branches scattered the light on the black of the road, on the fence palings opposite and the exhortation melted down the windows of the white frame garage beyond, — lucky thing for the redhead they didn't hang you up by your dingus.