Frolic of His Own

  —Harry, could you . . .

  —No.

  —But you haven’t even . . .

  —I said no Christina. Don’t get me into it. Better watch out yourself too when she says she may need you.

  —She just means my moral sup . . .

  —If she’s going to court she needs a witness. You were with her?

  —At the clinic? I had to go with her Harry, I mean you never know what’s going to happen at a place like that and of course it did, this nicely dressed young man in rimless glasses suddenly stepping up and throwing catsup on her fur coat, something about spilling innocent blood God knows what he was, animal rights or rights to life it was quite unnerving.

  —Probably both, and the gun lobby thrown in. You mean she had the abortion.

  —That’s why she’s terrified of going to prison, you heard her. This frightful boy demanding his paternal rights as though she were some sort of brood sow, she’d literally found him on the street picking up cigarette butts and pulling newspapers out of trashcans so she invited him to dinner and the police called just as they were sitting down. He’d stolen a book in a bookstore to bring her as a gift, some science fiction nonsense about people living under water, he kept telling them it was his book, he meant he’d written it there was his name on the cover but the price of books is so appalling these days he obviously couldn’t afford it but of course they couldn’t see it that way till she went down there herself and ordered fifty copies to calm them down. Now he’s ready to send her to prison for murdering his child. His child!

  —Nobody’s going to send her to prison, certainly make the world safer for democracy if they did but she’ll probably just be cited for contempt and fined, a good healthy one if she shows up in those diamonds. What was she doing at a public clinic?

  —She could hardly go to her own hospital, I mean not while she’s suing them could she?

  —You mean she’s got one set of lawyers bringing this suit for foetal endangerment and another set to defend her abortion. No wonder they talk to each other.

  —I suppose that’s exactly why she has two sets, I mean this way she probably counts on winning one or the other after the lesson she learned losing that dreadful custody battle over T J, she’s still livid about it.

  —But she won didn’t she? Doesn’t the boy live with her?

  —That was the problem Harry. Neither of them wanted him. Of course the father paid through the nose for support and a trust fund, one of these quart a day louts in ostrich skin boots who owned most of downtown Lubbock till somebody shot him and she had to take his estate to court against six other paternity suits for a settlement, I mean that’s hardly the case this time. God knows what this miserable boy thought he was up to, he’s really not quite bright if you take a look at his book.

  —Maybe just bright enough to figure if he got her pregnant she’d marry him, the inevitable divorce comes along and he ends up with the child and collects a bundle for its support. Like TJ in reverse.

  —Well you see you could help if you wanted to Harry, think about it. I mean of course he was planning something like that, he . . .

  —Probably the only way he could get it up, if you marry money you’re going to earn every penny and some kid fishing newspapers out of trash-cans who . . .

  —She said he explained that. He told her he was doing market research for some ad agency on what page people reached in the paper when they threw it away and how far down they smoked these different brands of cigarettes it all sounded rather bogus, she’s been buying him the most lavish gifts like a twelve hundred dollar robe from Sulka’s he tried to return for cash but they told him they’d be glad to credit it to her account so of course he kept it while apparently he’s been going around complaining that whenever there’s a ten dollar cab fare or she needs a lipstick she says all she’s got are hundreds and he has to take care of it, if you call that gratitude, she no, don’t answer it . . . motionless for the grating echo of her own voice, the beep and then, harsh and peremptory —Christina. I’d like you to call me.

  —That was quick.

  —I think he’s terrified I’ll pick it up and it will all go on his long distance bill instead of ours, he managed to steer that thing into the kitchen out there and saw that Ilse was throwing these five cent deposit soda bottles he has with his Pinot Grigio into the trash and made a dreadful scene, will you hand me those nail scissors? God knows what he expects to do about those hospital bills and how much he owes Mister Basie by this time, you’d think he’d already won the case from that grandiose interview in the paper and his, there’s some cotton right there could you, no by your elbow, could you hand it to me? I mean with that headline JUSTICE’S GRANDSON SEEKS JUSTICE obviously that’s what set Father off, pulling skeletons out of closets when they found they could manufacture a good story setting the father against the son my God, as though things hadn’t been bad enough between them long before this revolting movie came along and all this nonsense about madness in the family, you can’t blame him.

  —Ever occur to you that he might be?

  —Oscar? Mad?

  —The Judge.

  —Because he loses his temper? My God Harry they’re just a lot of, it’s just nastiness they’ll say anything just to . . .

  —No look, look. How much of it is just plain sloppiness, you see it every day. Read something in the Times if you were there yourself you saw something entirely different, look at me quoted on Royal Crown, Roman Catholic, R C Cola and Classic Coke, New Coke, Coke II and Vatican II, these Episcopals and the Pepsi Generation they take a case like mine in the hundreds of millions and label it Pop and Glow, pop for the drink and glow for the church, turn it into a circus because that’s what newspapers are now, entertainment. No malice just freedom of the press, take the Spot logo or your cleancut young man with the catsup bottle it’s all freedom of speech, prying into your father’s private life? But you don’t feed the fire, you don’t lose your temper and hand them a headline like this last one. DAMN THE PUBLIC’S RIGHT TO KNOW, SAYS JUDGE. Not the way to get seated on the higher court and if he’s been telling Oscar what the . . .

  —Well my God Harry he hasn’t been telling Oscar anything, I mean they don’t even speak. Oscar tries to dig things out of that doddering old law clerk of his down there who’s numb with drink most of the time because Father insists on doing everything himself and now of course that picture of the house they had in the paper, a rundown country mansion in an exclusive Long Island enclave they captioned it sagging veranda and all, one look at that and Oscar’s panicked that Father will get on us again to sell it.

  —Why he did it in the first place, nobody ever won an interview Christina the minute you let them in the door they . . .

  —He didn’t let them in, he asked them in Harry that’s the point. It was his own ridiculous idea, he saw his name mentioned in the paper and thought he’d better set the record straight as he put it, make sure the whole world knows he’s only seeking justice and then of course he got carried away and probably wrecked the whole thing.

  —A little late even if he wanted to, nothing to do now but sit tight waiting for the ruling on summary judgment and pray you get the right judge. I got a look at our man on the case, real red brick university product all English tailoring really full of himself, Swyne & Dour’s token ethnic they came up with when they got a look at Mister Basie.

  —Well I mean it’s Mister Basie who’s got Oscar so carried away, I hope to God he’s as smart as you say.

  —No he’s smart Christina, the way I hear he handled that deposition he’s smart, even imagine them bringing him into the firm to dress up its image with a few more minorities before some loose cannon comes up with an antidiscrimin . . .

  —Well for God’s sake don’t tell that to Oscar or he’ll, Harry please. I mean do you have to stare? abruptly drawing her knee up hugged against her breast, biting her lip with concentration on a cuticle —like that story I never understood about John Ruskin taki
ng years to tell that poor girl why he’d never laid a hand on her because he was so disgusted by what he saw the first night they were married? bent closer without a look up, and an emphatic snap of the scissors —going for ten year old girls who were more like those pristine Greek statues he was besotted with, I mean my God didn’t he have pubic hair too?

  —Read Freud.

  —I’ve read Freud Harry. I don’t want to read Freud.

  —His little essay about Medusa’s head sprouting snakes instead of hairs?

  —That’s why I don’t want to read Freud.

  —Talking about your friend Ruskin, Christina. He was horrified when he saw her naked because she didn’t have a penis.

  —Well that’s the most absurd, I mean you’ve got it backwards anyhow. It’s the girl who collapses with penis envy when she sees that he has one.

  —That’s what his daughter Anna came up with because she didn’t have one. What panicked Ruskin was castration anxiety, so his fertile imagination transformed her pubic hairs into a den of what he didn’t see there in Freud’s version of the terrifying aspects of female sex, left poor Ruskin getting old obsessed with visions of snakes right to the end.

  —It sounds more like the DTs but I mean Oscar’s terrified of them too, he saw one sunning itself on a flat rock out there by the shed when he was a little boy and he’s still petrified every time he passes it.

  —Why doesn’t he just get rid of the rock.

  —Well obviously he’s terrified of what might be under it, I mean he says what frightened him was how fast the thing moved. He’d heard about them crawling around without legs and thought they’d go about as fast as an earthworm, it’s that without legs that frightens him.

  —Like a penis, better still the ornaments in those brothels in Pompeii where they had wings but I wouldn’t worry about Oscar, I’m sure Lily’s got a really flourishing . . .

  —I’m sure she has Harry, and I’m sure you’d like, my God, you know I made the most awful gaffe out there talking about Japan? as she came down on the bed beside him —when we were in Hokkaido? her voice falling with the reminiscent search of her hand through the hair thick on his chest, —those two days we barely left our hotel room to eat and I told him you spent them in those endless conferences while I wandered around that museum with the . . .

  —Where’s the gaffe, he knew we had a trial run on that Japan trip before we . . .

  —Not Oscar no! No I’m talking about Mister Basie, telling him about that museum and I suddenly found myself talking about the hairy Ainu and the more I tried to get away from it the worse it got. Stocky, dark, thick and hairy I mean can you imagine? as her hand descended, exploring deeper till it came to rest as on a failed promise —God knows what he was thinking, he said he’d heard about that conference in Japan but he didn’t remember you ever talking about your hairy Ainu I don’t know what I said, I’m sure I was blushing I almost burst out laughing but he was cool and so serious I couldn’t even, I mean can you imagine? And where her voice broke off abruptly muffled against him her hand took up down there moving in silent reciprocation, gone unrewarded for its defeat to rise and surface again in her voice. —Did you sleep at all last night? coming up on an elbow and examining him that close, —your eyes are bloodshot and these terrible circles, the hours you put in they’re just wringing you dry. Your tooth aches it’s probably an abscess and you just put it off with these painkillers they’re destroying you, can’t you see? These absurd Coke II and Vatican II Pepsi Generation Episcopals this idiotic case is destroying you?

  —It’s almost over Christina, I’m . . .

  —It’s not almost over. Somebody will win, somebody will lose, somebody will appeal and it starts all over again doesn’t it? isn’t that what happens?

  —And if it didn’t? reared up on his own elbow sweeping the space around them with an arm, space magnified, reflected in the mirrored walls, expanded without bounds through sheets of glass to the floor all light and space where no shadow found refuge, all crystal geometry, —if it didn’t, Christina? Could we live like this?

  —Like this? when you don’t sleep, you don’t eat, you left the key in the front door when you came in last night you’ve never done that, all your obsessions with order and security you’ve never done that, and the night you forgot our address here? You actually forgot our address? Do they know what they’re doing to you? even care? I mean I just hope they’ll pay your bills at Payne Whitney when the time comes.

  —Look, nobody’s going to Payne Whitney. I went to the doctor didn’t I? Heart fine, EKG fine, liver, cholesterol everything fine? Just tired, just a little overtired that’s all, he . . .

  —Well then find another doctor! Do you think the doctor they send you to is going to tell you they’re destroying you? My God, will you look at you? her own eyes spilling down the length of him, resuming the gentle motion of her hand —I don’t know what I’d do if you, if anything happened? her frown suddenly melting —to the hairy Ainu? throttling the surge that was filling her hand there, —wait. I’ll be back. The mirrored door swung open on the bathroom, and from there —Don’t you dare answer it!

  Her voice echoed in grating counterfeit and then, in brisk rejoinder, —Christina? I called you some time ago and I would appreciate it if you could take a moment from your thrilling domestic pursuits to do me the courtesy of calling me back. It might be important. I might be having a seizure. The house might be burning down. I’d like to speak to Harry too. Please call me back.

  • • •

  —Oscar?

  —What is it. Will you hang this up?

  Had he got that card she’d sent him, she wanted to know, abruptly straining upright to dislodge his hand, —with a picture of Mickey Mouse in a cowboy suit? But he wasn’t talking about Mickey Mouse, he loathed him in fact, said he was everything that was wrong with this country, a cheap smug little racist no, no he was talking about the last time he’d seen her, he’d asked her then hadn’t he? whether she’d ever slept with this, this lawyer of hers, and she’d told him she hadn’t? —It was true, she sulked. Was, was true, what about now? She’d said she’d never been to bed with him hadn’t she? —It was true, Oscar.

  —I don’t believe it.

  —I don’t care if you believe it! You haven’t even said you’re glad to see me. It’s too late to say so now anyway so don’t bother. Are you? But he just wanted, demanded to know what happened down there, she’d said she had to fly down for that funeral and instead she’d driven down there to Disney World with him and —I just told you didn’t I? You don’t believe me anyway you just said so, that I even went to the funeral? where this Reverend Bobby Joe gets his hand on my knee because the dressmaker didn’t have time to let down that hem right up under my skirt while Daddy and Mama are sitting right there listening to him tell how my brother’s sitting up there on the right hand of Jesus where he’s already set this dinner table with these presents from his enemies while we can all see Bobbie laying right there in the casket ten feet away? It was spooky.

  —I believe it, that you went to the funeral I believe it, that’s why I gave you money for the plane ticket when you . . .

  —I knew you’d say that, about the money. That you’d remind me about the money because it humiliates me, that’s why you do it isn’t it. Isn’t it? That’s even why you think I came over to see you now isn’t it, the first thing when I’m back, you haven’t even asked how I am. I’m exhausted, can’t you see that? how my hand quivers, look. Why do you keep it so cold in here, what do you care about the money anyway, with this seventy five million dollars you’re getting at least couldn’t you turn up the heat? But this was getting ridiculous he broke in again, what seventy five million dollars, that was just a number, it could have been a million, a hundred million and what made her think he was getting it anyhow? —It said it right in the newspaper didn’t it? in that story he showed me about that war movie we saw and your father down there with that dog he’s got trapped in that junkpil
e that bit somebody didn’t you see it? with that same picture of him you’ve got in there in the room with all the books?

  —That’s my grandfather no, they got everything wrong and that seventy five million dollars look, look at that pile of papers on the chair it’s all motions affidavits and depositions I don’t know how much it’s going to cost, it’s all . . .