Closing Arguments (Ballantine Reader's Circle) - Softcover

Busch, Frederick

 
9780449907504: Closing Arguments (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0449907503 ISBN 13: 9780449907504
Verlag: Fawcett Books, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

A small-town lawyer struggling with his memories of Vietnam, Marcus Brennan finds his life further complicated when agrees to defend a woman accused of killing her lover and then begins an obsessive affair with her. Reader's Guide included. Reprint.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Frederick Busch, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN Faulkner Award, is the recipient of the PEN/Malamud Prize for achievement in the short story. He recently won the Award of Merit Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, given in recognition of a writer’s lifetime achievement. His newest work of fiction is Don’t Tell Anyone. Fairchild Professor of Literature at Colgate University, he lives in upstate New York.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Opening Argument

Let’s say I’m telling you the story of the upstate lawyer, the post-traumatic combat stress, the splendid wife, their solitudes and infidelities, their children, his client with her awkward affinities, the sense of impending recognition by which he is haunted.

You can see me, can’t you? You can see me in my office after hours, after dark, after dawn. The bottle of ink, the sharp-nibbed pen, the pad of yellow sheets with their line after line.

Stand and be recognized a sentry was supposed to call to anyone dragging in after dark. Maybe they’d be on the end of a long-range recon. Maybe they’d be sappers with mines. The perimeter people at Da Nang were Marines, and they were disciplined. They almost always shouted something before they tried to kill you: the best defense is a good story.

Haunted is the word to use, though. His story’s about his wife, Rochelle, her need to publicly acknowledge his war, the recognition he will suffer if she does, and how she’ll suffer worse. The threat to him is real. The deception is real. This is a very cruel story, you know.

If one word is haunted, another is sad. Use it for his wife and kids. And betrayed, because the innocent can never be protected.

And numerous other words that in the course of this testimony you will be asked to consider. Family It was February, very cold, lots of snow. It warmed up during the day and rained, then it froze again: glass on top of slush. I slid my way home, it was ten or eleven, and in the kitchen I found Rochelle sitting over a cup of coffee the way people huddle at a fireplace. Jack was leaning back in his chair, sitting across from her, tilting so far back you knew he had to fall. Those big feet were planted in their unlaced moccasins, his socks were pooled beneath his ankle bones at the tops of the shoes. His face was tight. Tight. Schelle’s was wet with tears. I didn’t need filling in. I knew it. He’d been orbiting further and further. She’d been handling the distance. That’s what we tell each other. Handle it, we say. Which means you don’t take it personally that your kid is insulting you and pushing you and standing in your eyes. Because he needs you taking it personally so he can pop off.

I sat down in my coat. I waited in the silence a little.

“Hello, Dad,” I said. “Have a long day?”

“Yeah, Jack,” I answered myself. “Pretty tough. But I’m glad to see you, kid.”

“Me, too, Dad,” I said.

“Don’t,” she said. “Really. Don’t.”

“Can I do something?”

Schelle said, “Jack? Can you think of anything?”

His large, wet, very dark eyes looked over my shoulder at nothing. I said, “Mom spoke to you, Jack.”

With no expression, he said, “I didn’t hear the question.”

“I think we’re trying to find out why you’re angry. Am I right, Schelle?”

She nodded, reluctantly. I knew how much she wanted me out of this one.

“I can’t remember,” Jack said.

“Is it about something Mom or I did?”

Rochelle said, “We’ve pretty much been through this, Mark.”

“You could answer me,” I said. I was gentle.

“Excuse me?” Jack said.

“Why are you being so evasive, hon?”

“Me?” he said.

“Yes,” I said gently.

“What was the question?”

“Are you on drugs?”

“That’s a new question,” he said.

“Are you?”

Schelle said, “Mark.”

“I don’t think so,” Jack said with exaggerated care.

When he was younger, we’d been through one like this, we were homing on the end of it, and he said something mean, what a parent calls “fresh” before he clips the kid. We were standing up, I remember. Upstairs in the hall, I think. I put a four-finger jab, the hand rigid and fingers locked, directly into his solar plexus. He started to double, and I said, Stand up. I remembered that at the table, trying to get him to talk. Stand up, I remembered saying. I must have said it right. Because he stood. He kept wanting to collapse. His face was very white. His eyes got huge. He wobbled. I told him, The breath’ll come back. You won’t die of it. You’ll get your wind back. You stand and mind your manners, I told him.

I was thinking of that while we sat at the table. My face must have showed it. I must have showed whatever I felt. I thought I regretted what happened. I think my face showed something else. Because Schelle said, “Mark.”

She said it the way I would tell a dog to heel if I had a dog and trained it.

“Mark.”

I said, “Jack.” I sounded gentle. “Jack, it doesn’t feel like we’re functioning here. You know what I mean?”

He looked at me.

“I think you do,” I said. “You’re a troubled boy. You maybe need some help. Mom and I are willing to find it for you.”

“I’m not going to a skull doctor,” he said.

“Psychiatrist. Psychologist. Some kind of professional person who can help you,” Schelle said.

“I’m—listen to me: I am not going.”

Schelle said, “Darling, we don’t think you’re, you know, crazy. It isn’t anything to do with words like that. It’s for help. It’s what you do with a, say an infection. We don’t think you’re crazy.”

“No,” I said. “Good.”

Jack said, “She was talking to me.”

I said, “What?”

Rochelle said, “Are you all right, Mark?”

I said, “What?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Oh, yeah.” Problem Solving It feels good. It feels right. My radar intercept officer in back hears me howling when we go in. He calls the numbers off, we let the 500s go, and then we’re supposed to orbit, wait for the wing leader, go home to Da Nang. But I came in hard on my wing leader’s approach. A little close, but still in the classical mode. Maybe I cut it a little steep. I come in, Bird Dog the spotter is asking if I’m hit, my wing man’s heading back up toward 4,000 and he’s asking, Who’s hit?, and I’m howling. Six Phantoms in the squadron had the external pod with the 20 mm gun, they even had ammo that week, and I was in one of them. What I’m saying: it’s 1968, I’m a Marine Phantom pilot, I’m strafing a flak installation and it feels good. Turn the selector, look through the display, punch the tit. The ground jumps up around them, then they jump up. They explode, frankly, and sometimes you get to see. That’s why I was noisy going in and up and out, and everybody’s checking off, checking in, checking up, I level us off at 4,500, stable, and I say, “Goblin on an even keel. Goblin is silky, flight leader.”

“Tuck your ass in here and come home,” Baseball says.

“Roger from Goblin. Tucking in, heading home. Fuel is not an issue. I have you, Baseball. Here I come.”

“Baseball is overjoyed.”

But nobody chewed me. I killed some, and that was the job. We interdicted the Ho Chi Minh Trail. We flew out of Da Nang, and every now and again when we went out to bomb the berry people, we blew some up with cannon shells. Now here’s what I’m saying: you’re up there and I mean homing on them, running right down your own tracers...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Fawcett Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2001
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0449907503
ISBN 13 
9780449907504
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
262
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

Weitere beliebte Ausgaben desselben Titels

9780395589687: Closing Arguments

Vorgestellte Ausgabe

ISBN 10:  0395589681 ISBN 13:  9780395589687
Verlag: Ticknor & Fields, 1991
Hardcover