—I just finished telling you what I mean Whiteback, it has nothing to do with curricular anything. The function of this school is custodial. It’s here to keep these kids off the streets until the girls are big enough to get pregnant and the boys are old enough to go out and hold up a gas station, it’s strictly custodial and the rest is plumbing. If these teachers of yours strike just sit still and keep the doors open, by the time these kids have been lying around the house for a week their parents will march the teachers back in at gunpoint.

—You know what I stop and remember Tom? She’d turned abruptly, resting elbows back on the sink’s edge, facing him.—I remember Doctor Brill telling us David needed his operation for double hernia when you first went to work there and you put it off, and put it off. There was that baby and we didn’t know what was going to happen but you kept putting it off till your company medical benefits took effect, so you wouldn’t have to . . .
—Marian you . . . you have a real instinct don’t you Marian, a real God damn instinct . . .
—And you didn’t want him. Did you, you didn’t want him in the first place.
—What, Marian what the hell do you think you’re saying?
—David. You didn’t want him in the first place.
—Marian you, you’ve said some rotten things but you, that’s the rottenest thing you could say isn’t it, so completely . . . dishonest and rotten.
—Well it’s . . .
—I wanted to wait to have children, didn’t I, I wanted to wait till we got ori our feet, that wasn’t David I didn’t want, there was no David and if you ever dare to, you know God damn well that when he was born when he was David you know God damn well he’s everything I . . . he stopped and got breath.—You’ve got a real instinct for the jugular haven’t you Marian.

—Coen God damn it can’t you see what I mean? Can’t you see this is what’s going to happen right here, after all it took to put all this together? Can’t you see you go public and all these people owning you want is dividends and running their stock up, you don’t give them that and they sell you out, you do and some bunch of vice presidents some place you never heard of like the ones that turned this out, this wood product they call it, they spot you and launch an offer and all of a sudden you’re working for them trimming and cutting and finally bringing in people to turn something out they don’t care what the hell it is, there’s no pride in their work because what you’ve got them turning out nobody could be proud of in the first place . . . He broke the piece over his knee and stood up with the bottle,—if they’d just understand I’m not just trying to grab this whole show for myself but to keep it doing something that’s, that’s worth doing . . .

—I mean like what’s all this in the oven.
—Oh that’s mail yes, I put Mister . . .
—Well like take it out so we can make this pizza okay?
—Yes but, no but the oven doesn’t work, they turned off the . . .
—Like what do you mean it doesn’t work, I mean when I went out you said you use the oven to . . .
—No I was going to say the gas is turned off so I just use it to keep Mister Grynszpan’s mail separate I, I didn’t know you meant a frozen pizza why did you . . .
—Look man I get a frozen pizza so I can slip a couple of records in, okay? So like now what are we going to . . .
—I don’t know I, I mean there’s no place here to play them but if you . . .

—Come off it man, I mean like you’re this telephone man okay? Like how am I supposed to know where you install a telephone, I mean just install it like they taught you how to install a telephone in telephone man school okay? And she got a foot up on the side of the tub to dry a knee as he turned to hurry a box through the door and knelt beside the film cans opposite her to tear it open.—Man like wait a minute, she paused on a dry knee,—I mean like that’s supposed to be a telephone?

—Just opening the mail, Mister Bast here got us a . . .
—Stop, stop it look it’s slicing most of it in half . . .
—Must be some God damned little adjustment here . . .
—Bast pull the plug will you? before he loses a finger? Damn it Jack look at this mess, what do you . . .
—Just have to match them up God damn it what do you think technology is for, have to open them all by hand? Just match bottoms to tops, here, anybody got a top half from the Internal Revenue Service? Tell you one thing from the bottom half here somebody’s in one hell of a mess . . .

—Oh, then would, would you like to buy some greeting cards then?
—Tom got a boy here selling greeting cards, what grade are you in.
—Six M, Mrs Manzinel . . .
—Tom boy out here working his way through six N selling greeting cards. What’s the greetings.
—Well see these are all occasion cards, like for all different occasions they’re all . . .
—All occasion cards Tom, got them for all different occasions.
—Like birthday, anniversary, you know all these different occasions like . . .
—Got a friend jumped out a window, got a card for that?
—Well gee I, maybe get well . . .
—Can’t get well, went home and hung himself got a card for that?
—Well gee I, I don’t think so but maybe you could . . .
—Got a woman on alimony sleeping with a book salesman hell of an occasion, got a card for that?
—Well gee I, like here’s sympathy maybe you could . . .
—Jack God damn it what are you, hello Chris what is it.
—Oh hi Mister Eigen I, I was just selling these greeting cards . . .
—Says they’re for all occasions Tom but every God damned occasion I can think of is . . .

—Well damn it I, don’t you think I . . . he came down against the chair drawn up to the typewriter,—writer who can’t even find a pencil, God damn instinct for the jugular told me the reason I don’t finish it I’m afraid to compete with myself, terrible slowness of things in a dream . . . and he tore the page from the typewriter.—They wheeled, I fired, and they were gone, but there on the ground with a broken damn it Jack do you know how many times I’ve written that? rewritten that? Marries a writer like a politician wants him to win, she thinks you’re in some God damn competition running for something, one God damn person take your doubts to lay them in her lap and she . . .

—Just told you Tom worst God damned thing you can do, bunch of God damned open wounds lay them in her lap what the hell do you expect. First time she has to get the God damned knives out she can’t resist them, laid them all out for her she knows right where they are can’t resist them, in here think you’re writing a play characters come out of your typewriter what the hell you expect them to look like all those God damned knives going on around you, bunch of God damned arms wandering around bereft of shoulders right out of Empedocles hell do you expect. God damned knives going around she’s standing at the sink in the kitchen man down there no hands no ears no God damned face drinks pints easier to hold between his wrist stumps, she’s standing at the sink has to get the God damned knives out knows right where they go what the hell do you expect . . .

—Damn it Beaton haven’t got time to go through this mess, this the people we’re talking about?
—One of them yes sir, this appeared in an upstate newspaper during their takeover of an ailing textile firm called Eagle . . .
—Couple of blacks, are they?
—No I think not sir that, I believe that’s simply the poor quality of the photocopy, the one on the left there, a Mister . . .

[...] You see I still have confidence in you sir, or should I say in the artist who dwells within you, the artist who disdains such mundane details as selecting a fresh shirt in the morning, who steps forth into the workaday world the rest of us inhabit indifferent to the glances he draws because his shoes fail to match, why? Because his mind has been elsewhere, his inner ear tuned to the sonorous tones of horn and kettledrum, tones it is his sacred duty to let us hear with him. I have the confidence he will and you must too sir [...]