The Floating Opera

by John Barth

  If you are no philosopher either, reader, take a good comfortable time to swallow that proposition—I daresay it will stick in some throats. If you can stomach it, why then you’ve done enough for one chapter and so have I.

  XX. calliope music

  My prose is a plodding, graceless thing, and I’ve no comprehension of stylistic tricks. Nevertheless I must begin this chapter in two voices, because it requires two separate introductions delivered simultaneously. †

  It’s not so difficult, is it, to read two columns at the same time? I’ll commence by saying the same thing with both voices, so, until you’ve got the knack, and then separate them ever so gradually until you’re used to keeping two distinct narrative voices in your head at the same time.

  Ready? Well: when I re-entered my office the clock in the tower of the Municipal Building was just striking two, and as if by a prearranged signal, at the same moment the raucous voice of a stream calliope came whistling in off the river: Adam’s Original & Unparalleled Floating Opera, one could guess, had just passed Hambrooks Bar Light and was heading up the channel to the bell buoy and thence to Long Wharf. For the thousandth rime I blushed at the clumsy ironies of coincidence, for it happened that just as I drew from my files the nearly completed brief of a litigation involving a slight injury to the left foot of perhaps the richest man in Cambridge—who stood to be some fifteen thousand dollars richer if my client lost the case—the calliope broke into “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers,” and a few minutes later, when I was reflecting on the difficulties my client would have in scraping together that sum, the melody changed to “What You Gon’ Do When De Rent Comes ’Round?”

  In fact, even to think of the name Adam’s Original & Unparalleled Floating Opera—its completely unsubtle significance—when I had before me the extraordinary case of Morton v. Butler, was the greatest of accidental ironies: never did there exist such an unparalleled floating opera as the law in its less efficient moments, and seldom had the law such inefficient moments as those during which it involved itself—nay, diffused, dissipated, lost itself—in Morton v. Butler. Hamlet listed “the law’s delay” as one of the things that could drive a man to suicide. That I don’t accept the Prince’s list, your starboard eye has already observed; that neither Morton nor Butler accepted this particular annoyance as suicidal is evidenced by their both still walking the earth. Let me review the case, a bump on the log of my story:

  It’s not so difficult, is it, to read two columns at the same time? I’ll commence by saying the same thing with both voices, so, until you’ve got the knack, and then part them very carefully until it’s no trouble for you to follow both sets of ideas simultaneously and accurately.

  Ready? Well: you’ll recall that chapter before last I declared to Mister Haecker that anyone who wishes to order his life in terms of a rationale must first of all answer for himself Hamlet’s question, the question of suicide. I would add further that if he wants my respect, his choice to live must be based on firmer ground than Hamlet’s—that “conscience does make cowards of us all”: that to choose suicide is to exchange unknown evils for known ones. This position (like Montaigne’s argument against revolution) is, as the Prince admits, simply cowardly, not reasonable. On the other hand, if one chooses to die, for mercy’s sake let this choice be more reasonably founded than Hamlet’s, too—merely escaping “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” is as cowardly as is fearing dreams beyond the grave. Don’t think I’m an indiscriminating promoter of suicides: I merely hold that those who would live reasonably should have reasons for remaining alive. Reasonable enough?

  But I cannot accept bad luck as sufficient reason for anyone’s suicide, including my father’s. Indeed, it was the absence, in my opinion, of any valid reason for his hanging himself that turned me into a cynic after his death, though I had, no doubt, the seeds of cynicism in me all along. It was a sudden qualitative change, the impingement of the world onto my philosophy.

  Before I tell you more about my reaction to Dad’s death, and about the little adventure that followed it, let me review very briefly the case on which I spent my afternoon hour’s work—what I meant to be my final hour’s work as a lawyer. It will serve as an introduction to Col. Henry Morton, who plays a role in the little adventure, and at the same time keep you from assuming that I simply loafed all afternoon, when in fact I did some fruitful wall-staring. Here’s a resume of the case, a bump on the log of my story:

  Morton v. Butler, by June of 1937, was a litigation almost six years old, and at the time of this story the litigants hadn’t yet even begun to try the case on its merits, but were still enmeshed, via their attorneys, in procedural disputes. Col. Henry Morton, the packer of Morton’s Marvelous Tomatoes, along with his wife, was the plaintiff, and was represented by Charley Parks, my neighbor and poker partner. I represented the defendant, Mr. William T. Butler, an investment broker who happened to run the New-Deal wing of the local Democratic machine, the other, conservative, wing of which was run by Col. Morton.

  What happened was simple. On October 31, 1931, Mr. Butler was driving his Cadillac sedan down Court Lane, just outside my office, and Col. Morton’s only son, Allan (for whom the Colonel had a great, if over-protective, affection), was driving his Cadillac sedan down Gay Street, which meets Court Lane at the creek. Col. and Mrs. Morton were passengers in their son’s car. The two cars met at the bottom of the hill. Butler had to make a right turn up Gay Street, and young Morton a left turn up Court Lane. Both drivers signaled their turns, and each saw the other’s signal. Then (from what I gather privately) both drivers executed poor turns simultaneously, Butler turning too wide and Allan Morton too short. The automobiles collided, and both were damaged slightly. Also, Mrs. Morton broke her spectacles and scratched her face on the lenses, and the Colonel wrenched the tendons of his left foot. The drivers got out; Butler and the limping Colonel shook hands, as rival candidates for the same office might.

  “Well, Bill!” the Colonel bellowed heartily. “Can’t you drive that machine?”

  “Not on the same street with that boy of yours!” Butler guffawed back. The two men chortled and chuckled, slapped each other on the shoulders, and then parted, having tacitly agreed that the injuries didn’t seem serious, and that among responsible gentlemen such private affairs didn’t go to court. Next day, Butler sent Mrs. Morton a fifteen-dollar spray of mixed flowers, and the Colonel sent Butler a quart of Haig & Haig.

  Had it not been for Franklin Roosevelt, the affair might have ended there. But Roosevelt was elected in 1932, initiated the New Deal just afterwards, and in the summer of 1933 sailed up the Choptank to Cambridge, to dedicate the just-completed Harrington Bridge across that river. Both factions of the party were enthusiastic: when it was announced that the President would not come ashore, but would broadcast his dedication from the presidential yacht Potomac, anchored out by the bell buoy, Col. Morton took it upon himself to have razed the old freight house that stood on Long Wharf, declaring it to be a natural place of concealment for assassins with high-powered rifles. The city council nodded, and the old structure came down. The Colonel then declared that no private vessels should be permitted to leave the creek or the yacht basin while the Potomac was at anchor—the scene otherwise would be disrespectfully cluttered. The mayor made such a resolution, and the yacht club followed suit. Surely a magnanimous solicitude for an anti-New Dealer! But of the citizens of Cambridge, thousands of whom respectfully lined the bulkheads to see the Potomac and listen to the President’s amplified voice, only one was invited aboard: “Old Bill” Butler, of the Butler Democrats.

  One month later, for no stated reason, Mr. Butler dropped into my office and described to me his automobile accident of nearly two years before.

  “I’ll want you to handle it if anything comes up, honey,” he chuckled (it was his habit always to speak with a chuckle, whether the thing he said was funny or not).

  And not long after that (it was, in fact, on October 13, 1933, just two wee
ks before the statute of limitations would have run out), Charley Parks called me to say that he was filing suit against Butler for Col. and Mrs. Morton, who claimed personal injuries, and for Allan Morton, who claimed damages of $75.00 for repairs to and $600 for alleged depreciation in the value of his Cadillac. The injury claims of the Colonel and his wife totaled nearly $15,000; their hospital and medical expenses amounted to a total of $854.26, and in addition they claimed $14,000 for pain and suffering (in the case of the Colonel) and mental anguish (resulting from Evelyn Morton’s permanent, if faint, disfigurement and the Colonel’s perpetual limp). I guessed at once that even had Mr. Roosevelt remained in Washington, Butler’s retaining me as his counsel would have been sufficient reason for the Colonel to decide, belatedly, to press the case, for as you shall see directly, between the Mortons and myself there was small love lost. I worked out my strategy at once.

  Now, although Charley and I have on occasion enjoyed long sessions of legal hair-splitting over beer and seven-card stud, at no time did we ever say in so many words that we were making game out of Morton v. Butler. Nevertheless, here is what happened in the remaining two months of 1933: On November 20, the three plaintiffs filed their official complaint, charging that the collision had been due to Butler’s negligence in that he took the corner at an excessive rate of speed; that he failed to have his car under proper and adequate control; and that he was guilty of other acts of commission and omission. On December 15, I filed for Butler a petition for severance of Allan Morton’s action from that of the other plaintiffs. On December 29, the Circuit Court dismissed the petition. I went to Butler’s New Year’s Eve party and drank sloe gin.

  1934: On January 9, I filed a petition to set aside the court order of December 29, which had dismissed my original petition. On April 26, the court set aside that order and granted the severance we wanted. Then, on May 4, I obtained a writ to join Allan Morton as an additional defendant, along with Butler, in the severed suit of Col. and Mrs. Morton, and filed a complaint against him—substantially identical to his complaint against Butler. On June 18, Charley Parks answered for Allan, pleading in new matter the statute of limitations, which of course had run out nearly eight months ago. On August 8, Butler replied to the new matter. On October 26, Charley filed a motion, in Allan’s name, for a judgment on the proceedings relative to Butler’s complaint. On December 29, exactly a year since the dismissal of my original petition for severance, the court dismissed my complaint against young Morton, and on New Year’s Eve, far from committing suicide (as Hamlet would have done by this time), I got drunk at Butler’s party, on vodka sours.

  1935: On January 10 (while Harrison Mack Senior, by the way, was dying in his bed in Ruxton), I petitioned for permission to file an amended complaint for Butler. On January 18, the court granted its permission, and I filed an amended complaint against Allan Morton, averring that his parents, in their complaint against Butler, had charged that their $15,000 injuries were due solely to Butler’s negligence; that Butler was prepared to serve a copy of that very complaint against their son; that Butler admitted neither in whole nor in part their charges; that Allan had been negligent in the operation of his Cadillac; that only the actual trial would determine whether Allan’s own negligence had been the sole or a major contributing cause of the accident, but that it was one or the other; that Butler desired to be able to protect his right of contribution in the event the court found him to have been jointly or concurrently negligent with Allan; and that therefore Allan was jointly liable with Butler upon the causes of action declared upon by Col. and Mrs. Morton. On February 6, Allan—or rather, Charley—filed his answer along with new matter again pleading the statute of limitations. On April 8, the court, while not ruling on the accuracy of Butler’s charges, dismissed my amended complaint on five grounds, all as sensible and exceptionable as are the grounds for any such ruling. Charley and I played poker a few times in March and April, and then on May 1 a stipulation of counsel was filed, agreeing to my filing a second amended complaint for Butler against Allan, and I filed the new complaint, a document differing from its predecessors only in its rhetoric. On May 21, Charley filed Allan’s answer, with new matter as before. On October 21, the court dismissed the second amended complaint on the same grounds as before, and on November 12 entered orders in each of the two cases separately to the same effect. By this time I was well enmeshed in the Mack will case, but nevertheless, as Charley grinned and Butler chuckled, I took the Circuit Court’s order to the Court of Appeals on November 13. That New Year’s Eve I drank Sherbrook rye, first with the Macks in their club cellar, then with Butler in his club cellar, and finally with Jane in my room, but did not get drunk.

  1936: The Mack will case was now involved in its own glorious intricacies, but I found time on March 17 to argue in the Maryland Court of Appeals for reversal of the Circuit Court’s order. The question, for both courts, was whether, since the statute of limitations prevented our joining young Morton as an additional defendant on grounds of sole liability, we had averred in our amended complaint facts sufficient to warrant a finding of joint or concurrent liability, and the Court of Appeals agreed (on December 4) that we did not. But they quite reasonably allowed me to appeal to the Maryland Supreme Court their affirmation of the Circuit Court’s order, so that the procedural question might be finally determined. That New Year’s Eve, as I recall, I drank alone in my room.

  1937: Now I had never agreed with the two lower courts that what they thought was the question was really the question. And so, on April 26, I argued to the Supreme Court that the real issue was whether a defendant in a tort action who, like Butler, was barred by the statute of limitations from joining an additional defendant (to whom he was also liable, you see) on the grounds of sole liability, might yet preserve his right of contribution by pleading joint or several liability without alleging facts admitting his own liability to the plaintiff (Col. and Mrs. Morton). My position was that if Butler, in order to establish Allan’s joint liability, were obliged, in addition to averring facts showing Allan’s negligence, to admit his own negligence, it amounted to denying Butler’s right to bring Allan on the record at all, since any such admissions could be placed in evidence and exploited by Col. Morton when the case came to trial. Now, since in our amended complaint we alleged facts establishing Allan’s negligence, all we were pleading, actually, was that if, when the thing ever came to trial, the jury should find Butler to be negligent as the plaintiffs charged, then Allan’s negligence, as described in our complaint, was also a contributing cause of the collision. The Supreme Bench, reasonable fellows all, saw no justification for not allowing such a plea, especially in the case of an automobile collision, where it is always possible that both drivers were at fault. On May 24, they rendered their opinion, which reversed the order of the Court of Appeals affirming the order of the Circuit Court dismissing our second amended complaint against the additional defendant, and remanded the record to the Circuit Court with a procedendo.

  There was no appealing this judgment. Charley set me up to a drink, and the suit was ready to be tried. Col. Morton in effect suing his only-begotten son. Bill Butler chuckled happily, for with Roosevelt so firmly entrenched in the White House and in public popularity as he was in 1937, the Morton wing of the local Democratic party could ill afford any bad publicity.

  I wish, reader, that I could at this point announce some trump that I’d saved to play on this last day of my career, when already I’d been able to settle, as far as I was concerned, the Mack will case in favor of Harrison. But the truth is that my interest in Morton v. Butler ended with the Supreme Court’s ruling, for that terminated the procedural dispute. I didn’t mind missing the actual trial, which would be dull enough whoever won. I had got out the record of the case on this last afternoon only because Bill Butler, according to a note Mrs. Lake had left on my desk, was coming to see me at two-fifteen.

  At two-thirty he strode in, chuckling, a bald, beefy fellow with good eyes and
bad teeth, carrying a shoe box.

  “What do I owe you, Todd old cod?” he sang out. “What’s my bill, hon?”

  “You owe me your skin,” I smiled. “Charley would have hanged you. You better wait till after the trial to pay me the rest of your bill, though.”

  “Ain’t going to be any trial,” Butler chuckled.

  “Does the Colonel know that?”

  “Oh hell yes indeedy,” Butler chuckled. “He’s the one thought of calling it off, honey. Called me yesterday, day before, gives me the old family squabble routine, old party harmony song and dance. Haw! Told me if I’d let some of his boys run on my ticket next year in the primary, he’d call off the suit.”

  “You didn’t have to take any conditions.”

  Butler chuckled grandly. “I told him he could have sheriff and one county commissioner if he’d call his damn state cop off my ass. You know that cop Yarberry, that the Colonel got him his job? Every time I go over the new bridge that Yarberry is after me—Colonel’s got him looking for me. I could tell you plenty on Yarberry and the Colonel, hon! Old Colonel don’t care about one lousy county commissioner, but he sure does want sheriff, so he promises to curb his cop and drop the suit. I already sent Evelyn another bunch of flowers.”

  “Hell, you didn’t have to give him a thing, Bill,” I said again. “He’d never sue his boy.”

  “Haw!” Butler chuckled. “Tell you the facts, Todd, I didn’t have a sonofabitch in the stable to put up for them jobs, that I would walk on the same side of the street with, so old Colonel would of got them anyhow. That’s principles, boy! Give Roosevelt another go-round in ’40, honey, and I’ll elect you governor. How ’bout that?”

  “No trial, then?”

  “No trial,” Butler chuckled. “Fetch in old Charley-horse from next door; we’ll try the Colonel’s whiskey.”