J R

by William Gaddis

  —It’s stifling, almost hot she said,—why don’t you open that again, that window . . . Again her light came up as if to search its casement out but held on him as he turned from it, opened, swept slowly down the desperate inquiry he posed, and then went out. Some sound of his come forward with him broke and left her sigh, so aspirate it seemed laid out there even when it was done, so heavy that it squared her shoulders turned from him so he ran on her elbow raised up against him in what light there was.—Can you undo this? little hook . . .? Hands suddenly in collision there he sought it but—no, she said,—I’ve got it, and left his hands hung shaping indecision for the instant till he caught her waist and caught his parting lips against the damp hair fallen at her temple. She turned and stepped away, not even looking, her hand behind her coursed the zipper down.—You can save that till we’re in bed, she said, inclined to draw the gray dress up and off, to steady a hand against a rafter and thrust one shoe away and then the other.—You don’t have to try to seduce me, Edward.

  —I, Stella I . . . from there the tremor ran right through his fingertips tearing at laces, at his belt, a button, buttons, her shape a white slip bending forth to bring the torn spread into line before she raised it over her, lay back, and stared into the shadow of the beam in the eave’s drop above her head, unblinking for the flash that filled the skylight and as motionless for the thunder that came after.

  —Well?

  —I just . . . wanted to look he whispered, his voice like one long out of use gone in abrupt and shapeless fragments that might have framed apology or gratitude, or both, coming down, fighting a foot out of the spread’s tear as his shoulders came down to hers and lips delayed at her throat brushed up the scar there, moistened quickly before they sought her own. The opened window beyond was still enough but she turned her face from his so sharply toward it there might have been a light, some sound, some sudden movement from outside to leave his lips lodged at her ear so, filling its convolutions with his gasp of shock at how unseen beneath the spread her hand, unhesitating and without surprise, caress, or brush of exploration found and closed on him swelled to bursting and, silent, motionless, knees fallen wide, led him left thicketed there in dry abrasion as he swarmed over her and clinging headlong wrenched her shoulder in a plunge that left her open eyes fixed on a gap between the rafters where, even in this light, the points of shingle nails showed through in irregular rows, her only sound one that she might have made out of impatience jostled in a crowd, her only movement that sharp turn of her head away from the quaking rise of his, catching the threat of his lips and protest stifled in a bleat against her throat.

  There half withdrawn from ambush lightning froze him seeking kneehold, poised upon the thrust to come, the thunder to come, the ease of the screen door below hung shaken twisted on one hinge, as wind might have shaken it, and then the crush of glass underfoot and the voice still to come, and loudly,—Stella? And then the thunder, sounding far away.

  —Up here, she called unblinking past his shoulder,—we’re coming down . . . the instant’s twinge of her knees gone, limp as her hands spread wide beside them there palms up as though listlessly waiting to be filled.

  —You’re what?

  Her hands closed empty where he’d come down all weight and she gained an elbow bringing her shoulders up, dropping them with a sigh of movement no more than pushing a chair back leaving table.—Don’t try to come up without a light, she called again, one foot out to the floor, and the other—it’s quite a mess . . .

  —But who is that!

  —Just Norman . . . she stood steadying a hand to the rafter’s slant as she pressed into one shoe, then the other, bent to pick up that gray dress from the floor.

  —I’ve got the police, the voice came up to them again,—Stella?

  She stood hands high for the dress to drop round her and pulled its shoulders into place walking the length of the bed to stand there, waiting, till his hands left fighting buttons and rose to pull its zipper closed.—Yes we’re coming, she called back, dangling the flashlight lighted toward the door and pausing, one foot cocked on Miss Isadora Duncan and Mister Walter Damrosch, to run its spot up on him full sitting on the welter of the bed, staring at her.—Edward’s here.

  —Edward? Up there?

  —He’s trying to get a window closed.

  —Up there?

  —He’ll be right down . . . and she turned for the stairs as the sound of rain came, finally, scattered across the roof, a fall that now gave substance to the stilled beams of headlamps in the drive where those of flashlights rose and fell to cadenced steps come back and round the range of yew and up the terrace and through the door to fall on broken glass and flee across the inkstained carpet, darting, climbing, caught fixed in niches, they scaled the walls and leaped the beams to skirt the hayloft.

  —Who found it like this?

  —We did, officer, I did, an hour or so ago . . .

  —And who are you?

  —We’re, I’m part of the family we came out visiting, my husband and I.

  —Visiting? Him?

  —That’s Mister Bast yes, she said as a light caught him on the stairs and led him down before it leapt the fireplace for the kitchen.—Norman? You’ve never met Edward?

  —Sorry, it’s a hell of a way to meet you Edward . . . he took his hand and shook it.—Be careful there, Stella. I guess you didn’t find anything, any papers? He took the light from her and splashed it over them,—be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Even that waiver they couldn’t find that, your aunts, right over in the house there, Edward. The one Coen just brought out for you to sign? The light came down like the cut of a saber.—I couldn’t get across to them in there at all. That ink, watch your shoe there Stella . . .

  She stepped aside.—I think they just want to wait until . . .

  —Wait? Wait till the tax people step in and pull the whole company out from under all of us? He put his empty hand on the shoulder sunk before him and the light dwelled on the tie knotted out over the collar,—I don’t care who inherits what, you and Stella, you understand that Edward? It’s all in the family, that’s just where we’ve got to keep it.

  Light from behind caught his barbered neck.—You’d never even know this place was back here. The policeman shot his light up the stairs,—let me just take a look up there. They must have been throwing plates around, watch where you step . . . he lit a way behind him.—What do you do here, use it like a summer house? Who reads all the books, you? he followed his light into the hayloft.—Anything taken? You miss anything?

  —I don’t know I, I don’t know what they wanted.

  —A place for a little fancy screwing . . . the light swept over the tumbled bed.—The first chilly day and that’s what they look for, a dry place to screw where they won’t freeze their nuts . . . He pulled away the spread and paused his light along the sheet.—You ever find any drugs in this place? any joints? needles? empty bottles of glue? Underfoot Miss Isadora Duncan and Mister Walter Damrosch grated in his turn for the door.—You better try to get the whole place boarded up.

  —Edward? came from below.—We’re going to have to leave . . .

  And there Norman’s arm sank his shoulders hunching the man to do so, gesturing the light with his free hand as he went on with—what that’s got to do with the price of apples here anyway Stella, his father James there going out and adopting that Jewish boy out of that Jewish orphan asylum don’t mean he thought Edward here was . . .

  —The boy had talent, you’ve heard him play Edward?

  —He, Reuben you mean? he, he plays like an acrobat it’s all technique he, like a stunt like asking somebody to . . .

  —Why you’d want to bring that up right now for anyway Stella, if James wanted to take the boy in he just must have thought . . .

  —For his talent yes that’s what you just said Stella his talent, for his talent . . .

  —But wasn’t it? She was gone behind the light,—just the talent he loved? not the b
oy?

  —Well sure and with Edward here it was the boy, like you’d expect a . . .

  —That’s what she said! Just the boy not the talent, that’s what you meant isn’t it Stella? Because there wasn’t any talent that’s what you meant isn’t it? He ducked from the weight of the arm on his shoulder into the beam of light—isn’t it? The talent yes that he had it and I didn’t that’s what you meant when I, when you came out here and wouldn’t even listen to what I’d . . .

  —Edward please . . .

  —What please what! you can’t even, just now it’s what you meant up there just now too isn’t it when you knew all the time . . . he caught balance backed against the piano as overhead in the beams, from the kitchen, through the bull’s eyed door to the garage lights came on all together, and a policeman through it brushing his hands.

  —Want to get this place boarded up, lucky these kids didn’t burn it down for you.

  He was staring down at the label of a record underfoot as though its label were in a language he did not understand and looked up slowly at the fragments of plates, glass, records and more records flung among books split, ink splattered pages of music some still untorn, with a sound of trying to clear his throat.—Kids . . .?

  —Kids . . . the policeman nodded past his elbow,—who else would shit in your piano.

  —You, you never can tell . . . he stared for an instant at the staved and unfinished notes on paper crumpled and smeared in the strings there before he turned with one step, and another as vague, to reach and tap a high C, and then far enough to fit his hand to an octave and falter a dissonant chord, again, and again, before he corrected it and looked up,—right? Believing and shitting are two very different things?

  —Edward . . .

  —Never have to clean your toilet bowl again . . . he recovered the dissonant chord,—right?

  —Well yeah you, you want to get the place boarded up, some kid gets hurt in here you could be in real trouble . . . straightening jackets, belts, pocketing pads, flashlights in departing scurries to the lighted eaves, toward the door abruptly choreographed, Sousa in chords of play by ear, a glissando descending to a dull thump.

  —Kids that’s all! a generation in heat that’s all . . . he pounded two chords against each other’s unrest—no subject is taboo, no act is forbidden that’s all . . .! and he struck into the sailors’ chorus from Dido and Aeneas,—you’ll never, no never, have to clean your . . .

  —Look Edward we, we have to get back in to New York Stella’s got some dinner to get to and, watch that glass Stella . . .

  —Rift the hills and roll the waters! flash the lightnings . . . he pounded chords,—the pulsating moment of climax playing teedle leedle leedle right inside your head . . . he found a tremolo far up the keyboard.

  —Edward that’s enough please, we’re leaving . . .

  —Wait wait trust me cousin! you wanted to hear this part . . . he banged C, hit F-sharp and bracketed C two octaves down—how she turned her bosom shaken in the dark of . . .

  —Stella you think maybe we should wait and . . .

  —I think we should leave yes, Edward . . .?

  —Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the rooftree wait here’s Norman’s part, it may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought . . . he hunched over the keys to echo the Ring motif in sinister pianissimo,—he will hold thee something better than his dog, a little dearer than . . .

  —All right yes maybe we just better go along, Edward?

  —Rain or hail! or fire . . . he slammed another chord, stood there, and tapped C.—Master tunesmith wait . . . he dug in his pocket,—make a clean breast of the whole . . .

  —Once you get things straightened out maybe you can call us up Edward? I’d like to get this waiv . . .

  —Oh please! she caught his arm closing his suit jacket and his coat, hat on now tucking ends of his muffler and seeming all clothes beside her,—Edward? goodnight . . .

  —We’ll call you up Edward, you’ll just be right here will you?

  —I don’t know! he was getting a foot up now—I’ve had some offers, I’ve . . .

  —But where would you . . .

  His foot came down on the cluster at middle C—to, yes to Tribsterill go into the shoe business there . . . he bent to tie the lace—get to wear them around of course, where the muck runs down to . . .

  —Please!

  —Or wait yes that other place what was it, go into import export there in the privacy of my own . . .

  —Well you just let us yes I’m coming Stella, watch that shovel there . . . and he got her arm past curtains stirred through the broken pane and the screen door hanging there on one hinge, neither open nor closed.—Kind of hate to just leave him there like that but I couldn’t see where there was anything we, watch that puddle . . . he caught her elbow as they gained the lawn.

  —A laughing place . . . stabbed after them making their way round the yew, and then a sprinkling of piano notes, as beams of the police car swept them in an officious turn and sought the opening in the hedge.

  —You think maybe we ought to stop in there again? He nodded over her head to the lighted windows where streak mounted streak down clapboards and glass from the gutter dangling at the corner of the house and branches thrashed where the trees rode high losing sight of each other as though readying to hurl their fruit in all directions and make a real night of it, one to emerge from with old wounds reopened and new ones inviting attention.—Or just to tell them goodnight . . .? but he was already holding opened for her the door of the car, and nothing turned her to look out or back as their lights caught the opening in the hedge, and then moved through it.

  She leaned forward to turn on the radio, fleeing one wad of sound for another there as he swung the curve past the pepperidge tree.—Uh? She’d snapped the radio off.—I kind of liked that, he said as she rested back with that aspirate sigh leaving no sound but the regular rhythm of the windshield wipers. Passing the firehouse he began to hum and, passing the dark cavity of the Marine Memorial Plaza, she turned the radio on and sat back abandoning it to a novelty group playing Phil the Fluter’s Ball with vocal accompaniment that could only be described as suitable.

  —Kind of hated to go off and leave him like that . . . they stopped for a light,—the way he was acting, you think he’ll be all right? The car moved ahead.—Stella?

  —What is it.

  —I said do you think Edward will be all right.

  —Whatever all right means.

  —Well does he always go around with his necktie tied out over his neck and his hair like that? and his shirttail out under his jacket in the back? Just seeing his face, the look on it . . .

  —I’m sure you’d have a look on your face if we came home and found the place ransacked.

  —That isn’t just what I meant though, he . . .

  —You’re driving too fast with this rain.

  —It was you that was in such a hurry.

  —I just, I thought we should leave.

  —Do you think he’s going to press a claim? to your father’s estate I mean.

  —If you force him to.

  —Me? Why would I want to do that?

  —Just by going on about it the way you do.

  —Well hell Stella what am I supposed to do then, it’s all got to be settled he could just as well give you that waiver even if he wants to claim your father for his instead of James like you said he . . .

  —That’s not what I said. Can’t we go more slowly?

  —All right, but you said . . .

  —I said maybe Edward’s suddenly afraid he’s not Uncle James’ son. There’s quite a difference.

  —Why. What’s James got to leave him? The car slowed somewhat.—Stella? What’s . . .

  —I heard you! You just can’t understand anything you can’t get your hands on, anything you can’t feel or see or, or count . . .

  —Well I just meant . . .

  —Be careful . . .!

 
—It’s all right I saw him coming, the way they build these little foreign cars they don’t give you room to move your . . .

  —Obviously it wasn’t built for someone your size I don’t know why you insisted on buying it, but you can’t drive so fast on these wet roads.

  —It’s all right, he said,—I saw him coming . . . and he leaned forward and turned the radio off, and stayed that way, leaning forward over the wheel as though searching for landfall on a horizon far out ahead.—Why hell, I’m just trying to hold things together here, everything your father and I built up there. All this time every penny’s gone right back into the business so there’s just no cash, there’s no excess cash around to pay off these death taxes and they come in, the tax people come right in and take their bite before anybody else even gets to taste, you see what I mean? There’s two, three million dollars tied up here, maybe closer to four altogether but there’s no way to know what value the tax people will put on your father’s forty-five percent because it’s a family company and the shares have never been traded. They can just get some shyster appointed to administrate forcing us to go public and sell shares to raise cash for these taxes, they all end up with a nice cut and we end up with a crowd of stockholders squabbling for dividends and bankers who know as much about punch cards and continuous forms as a hog does about holy water in there telling us . . .

  —Yes, all right.

  —You see what I mean? And we’ve already borrowed against assets, we borrowed for that last big expansion and now the tax people are even trying to deny us interest on that loan as a deduction like we been taking it the last six years, can you beat that? And they’re trying to force us to settle that claim right now, too, can you beat that?

  —No.

  —What?

  —I can’t beat it, no. I can’t even understand it. I simply wish we could stop constantly talking about it.