— He's expecting the insurance man about the accident and he told me he wanted your advice.
— Look I just said I'm in corporate law, I'm not one of these ambulance chasers I don't even know what happened, now let me…
— I told you what happened. He's been talking about getting the ignition on that car fixed for years, the way he's talked about getting new teeth but he…
— Oscar what the hell happened.
— Well this car, it's not new, I mean it wasn't new when I bought it and about a month ago the ignition switch broke and the garage didn't have one, they had to order a new one but it hasn't come in yet so they showed me how to start it by touching a wire from the coil to the battery and usually I stand beside it but this time…
— He was standing right in front of it Harry. When it started suddenly it slipped into Drive and I mean why were you standing in front of it Oscar, how could the…
— Because there was a puddle beside it and I didn't want my…
— Look nobody's asking him that, Christina. The insurance covers the owner of the car so he just sues the owner.
— But he owns it Harry, it's his car he owns it.
— The owner's insurance would probably go after the driver.
— But there wasn't any driver that's the point! The car ran over him and nobody was driving it.
— Let them worry about that, go after the car's maker for product liability, it couldn't have been in Drive or it wouldn't have started, probably the only proof they'd need, just the incident itself. Res ipsa loquitur Oscar, like the chandelier falling on your head. What kind of car is it.
— It's a Japanese car a red one, whatever got into him to buy a red one.
— When you buy a used car Christina you can't always choose the colour, I saw the ad in the paper and when I…
— Look Oscar I've got to get downtown, hope the next time I see you you're out playing baseball… with a clap on the supine shoulder and — I hope there's nothing under that bandage, you could have a nice lawsuit right there. Christina? I'll be late. Oh and Oscar? He was through the door, — don't sign anything.
— Why does he want to see me playing baseball? I've never, ow! What are you doing!
— Just cranking your bed up a little, laid out like that it's like talking to a corpse.
— Well stop it stop! It's fine it's, listen I've got five cracked ribs and this shoulder throbs like a, it's like a hot poker and my leg, I can't even…
— I know all that yes, you told me on the phone. Don't they give you anything for pain in this place? And these pillows…
— Please they're fine!
— I mean they don't seem to care what happens to you, lying around here in this slovenly mess. I've brought your robe and pajamas, at least you won't have to greet people wearing this shroud looking thing.
— Why do you say that.
— Say what.
— This shroud. And being laid out like a corpse.
— Well, you look like you're ready for the potato sack race, is that any better? And I mean does anyone? come to see you?
— That's what I'm telling you. Last night, a man in a black suit I thought he was a, that it was one of those pastoral visits but it wasn't, it was frightening, he ow!
— Well don't wriggle then, can't you just lie still? She'd snapped the sheet straight, tucked in the corner. — Who was it.
— Because this medication they give me, I think it's Demerol, it's as if there are holes in my memory and things that are happening to me are happening to somebody else, because all you really are is your memory and…
— Well who was it, a black suit Harry wears a black suit, black raincoat black shoes there's nothing frightening about Harry.
— I didn't say that Christina, that was just why I thought it was a pastoral call but he kept talking about taking messages to the other side and I, gradually all I could think of was that mysterious stranger calling on Mozart offering him money to compose a requiem when he asked me if I was a terminal case and offered me money to…
— Well my God of course it's these drugs they're giving you, just a hallucination nobody came offering you money to compose a requiem, now…
— He was here! He was here ask the nurse, call the nurse and…
— And he offered you money.
— To carry messages to the other side, yes.
— Well really.
— Yes well really! He puts ads in the papers, he reads the death notices and finds people who've lost a loved one and they pay fifty dollars to have a message delivered by somebody on his way to the other side when he gets there and we split it. I'd get twenty five for each message I took over and, I mean you would, once I'd departed, and then he asked me if I spoke Spanish and where the charity ward was where maybe he could find some Puerto Ricans, don't you see?
— I see nonsense, a lot of morbid nonsense.
— That mysterious stranger offering Mozart money to compose a requiem and he thought it was his own? for his own death? while he was trying desperately to finish The Magic Flute? Did you bring those papers? those notes I asked you for?
— Oscar you're not going to die, you're just banged up and how you expect to get anything done here flat on your back in the first place, it's as bad as that pain in your left arm when you were trying to finish that monograph on Rousseau and you were so worried about tenure? Because if you'd had a fatal heart attack it wouldn't have mattered whether you had tenure or not would it? She'd pulled forth the robe with its worn quilted facings and something beige all arms and legs from Hong Kong, reaching deep in the shopping bag for — these notes, it's all I could find the way you've piled things up in the library, those stacks of old newspapers why you can't simply clip something out instead of marking it with a red pencil and saving the whole paper, it's like everything else. The whole place looks disgraceful, not that anyone's coming to look at it. You hadn't even called that real estate woman.
— We have to talk about it Christina, the housing market is down and this whole inflationary…
— Talk about it, my God we've been talking about it for a hundred years since you used to jump out at me behind the door to the butler's pantry it's got nothing to do with the housing market, it's not a house, it's a place. Someone spending two million dollars isn't just looking for a…
— Two million four, we said two million four but…
— All right two million four! Do you expect two million four from somebody who's looking for a handyman's dreamhouse? Are you just going to lie here till somebody shows up and that veranda caves in on their heads then you'll have a lawsuit, since you seem to be getting so fond of them. Here's the mail. Where shall I put it.
— Anywhere just, where I can reach it, do you see my glasses?
— They're right here where I put them, with your precious newspapers. I thought we'd paid this plumber.
— I thought I'd wait till the end of the month when the…
— And these tree people? They should pay us, those broken limbs when you come up the drive, have you talked to them?
— Well I, not exactly, no.
— Not exactly? I mean either you've talked to them or you haven't.
— Well I called but the line was busy, it's all been, since you left trying to do everything there myself and get my own work done, it's been…
— How long does it take to write a check, you know you're going to pay sooner or later but you just can't part with it till you have to? I mean no one's asked you to do everything yourself Oscar really, since the day I got married you've behaved as though Harry had simply come in and stolen a good housekeeper from you. We are all kind of related now after all and you could make a little more of an effort with him, couldn't you? He's awfully busy in court today but he took the time to get this copy of Father's Opinion and come all the way up here to see you, like one of the family I mean wasn't that quite thoughtful?