— Why didn't you tell me!
— Well don't smash the furniture, you didn't want to be interrupted did you?
Dear Sir.
In examining the situation surrounding your recent automobile accident we find Ace Worldwide Fidelity as the vehicle's insurers to have claimed immunity from any further participation in the matter pursuant to renunciation of the prevailing No Fault coverage by the former attorney for the vehicle's owner who remains, nonetheless, the attorney of record in that capacity having sequestered the file pertinent thereto pending settlement of allegedly unpaid billings to his client. We have, therefore, in the interest of expediting this matter to your satisfaction and to ensure that the controversy to be adjudicated will take place in an adversary context, moved to sever your claim for extensive personal injuries suffered as the accident victim, and are proceeding on these grounds with an action on your behalf for recovery of substantial damages against the parties referred to above.
Please be confident that our long experience in these matters assures you of full protection of your rights. We advise you to refrain from discussing this matter with anyone and should you be approached regarding any aspect of it that you promptly refer such inquiries directly to us. We urge you to feel free to call us at any time with any questions that may occur to you in the course of these proceedings.
Sincerely yours,
— Jack Preswig. Look at that. Sincerely yours, Jack Preswig. They've put the whole case in the hands of some flunky who's probably not even… — You find your lawyers on matchbook covers what do you expect.
— That's got nothing to do with it Christina. They all do it, these white shoe firms and all of them, look at Harry, a senior partner will bill you three or four hundred dollars an hour, look at Swyne & Dour, they put an associate on it and only bill you maybe one fifty. Look at Mister Mudpye.
— And look at Mister Basic. You're simply not making any sense Oscar, I don't know what in God's name you're complaining about. You want them to save you money don't you? Now where are you going.
— To get back to work! couldn't she see? spending all day here trying to capture these voices of men a hundred years ago swept by the tide of events toward the end of innocence? to bring them to life caught up in the toils of history, struggling vainly with the great riddles of human existence, justice and slavery, war, destiny, things are in the saddle and ride mankind in Emerson's voice cut short by the tin trivial interruption of Jack Preswig? It mightn't sound so trivial when he got their bill she prompted him, and it had sounded to her like he'd spent most of the morning that way on the phone himself, calling the zoo and asking for — But that's exactly what I mean! he broke out, calling hotels, he'd been calling hotels in the theatre district, he'd been calling the theatre he'd tried calling the Directors Guild he'd even called the newspaper, he couldn't make an appointment and just send this script off if he didn't know where to send it could he? If he had somebody to help him, if he had a secretary like everybody else to handle these miserable chores but he was the one who ended up talking to their secretaries who were paid to be devoured by trivia, his indignation swerving back to the lilt of a brogue from the pages he'd picked up again struggling to recapture a voice from a hundred and more years ago, to bring it to life — now the word is out that it's no more than a war to free the naygers?
— Is Lily in the kitchen? I forgot to ask her to peel those carrots for supper, and one of these days might it occur to you to shave.
— Yes, preserve the Union! he came on in a burst that brought him back to his feet — with four million naygers running around free? Why, the woods is full of them right now, and do you expect a nayger to go back into slavery once he's been as free to come and go as yourself? The phone's ring caught him off balance. By the time he got there it had stopped ringing; by the time he was back out of reach it rang again, stumbling over a wastebasket — hello? Well who is it… Well who are you calling! what… hello? hello? He slammed it down, — Idiot! his hand straying down to the bulge in his trousers, was she out there in the kitchen? her nimble fingers stripping the hard length of a carrot? but all he found was the wilted package of Home Runs down there distending his pocket and he had one out down the hall before he reached the door.
— Oscar? Who was that on the phone. Well where is he.
— I heard something fall down before. I thought maybe it was him.
— You'd hear more than that if it had been, my God it was simpler when he was in his little cart at least you knew where he was, like a baby. You can't wait for them to learn to walk, the minute they learn there's not a minute's peace you wish they'd never, what was that.
— Christina! The doors crashed closed down the hall — the car's gone!
— It's right out by the porch Oscar, I can…
— Not yours, mine! The one that was in the accident, it's gone!
— Well it can't be, it's practically dark you can hardly…
— It's gone Christina, it was right out there beside the shed it's gone.
— Why in God's name would anyone, well call the police.
— That's what I'm doing! Where the…
— The number's right there stuck to the, will you put that thing out! What were you doing out there anyhow.
— That's what I was doing! You don't want me to smoke in here so I, hello? Yes, yes I want to report a stolen car, it's… what? It's a red… No, my name? Yes it's…
— Take that thing away from him will you Lily? Throw it in the, not in the fireplace no and open a window before he gives us all cancer. They probably drove it away when we'd gone shopping and he was sitting right here gaping at his odious nature program, God knows who would want it. Oscar? when he'd hung up, — who was that on the phone.
— Well who do you think it was! I just called the police didn't I?
— I know you just called the police. When the phone rang earlier, who was it.
— I don't know. It was some hysterical woman who could hardly…
— My God. Was it Trish? But you wouldn't know her voice anyhow you haven't seen her for years, not that it's changed since her operation for, what did she say?
— Nothing, I told you, just a lot of garbled…
— I'd better call her. Do you have to turn that thing on right now? and she had the phone, — even hear myself think while somebody's trying to sell me toothpaste, will you see if that water's boiling yet Lily? I put the, hello? Hello? Yes it's Christina, are you… No, Christina, it's Teen, yes are you all right? You sound… yes, did you call earlier? who? No, a rude man who hung up in your face? No he, you must have had a wrong number, you don't sound… oh my God! She turned her back to the diverting spectacle on the silent screen where the evening news led off with the inevitable skeletal parade scantily tailored in garments of pounded bark against an arid landscape, distant Mozambique this time, a woman with milkless dugs lofting a child deprived of food had there been any by a mouth fungus in the swelling vanguard of Africa's twenty eight million famine orchestrated candidates for oblivion — but my God how awful, how did it happen? Far to the north, a gold mitred Pope in ankle length skirts rebuking a benumbed audience fresh from the potato fields with the revelation that all children born and unborn were gifts of God gave way, nearer home, to a fetid congregation of homeless being ousted from their digs under a railway trestle — still in court? But which was it, this nonsense about foetal personhood or for wearing the skins of these dead chinchillas my God that's all they're good for isn't it? a fur coat? A new denture cleaner and brightener, a new itch fighting shampoo, the radiant testimonial of a halitosis survivor nonchalantly sweeping up dead leaves with a bamboo lawn rake whipped up in a Chinese prison and back to news on the economic front, the trade deficit, a burgeoning bank fraud, a lugubrious President announcing China's most favoured nation status — chewing your bandages? Well stop him. Will you turn that thing down!