The Tragedy of Arthur_ A Novel - Arthur Phillips [109]
“Of course she is,” said Mom. “She’s an actress. You think she wouldn’t like more press time? ‘Actress Finds Shakespeare Play’? Please. But, Arthur, I don’t think … are you sure that index card says what you think it says? This is a lot of money.”
I have total sympathy for that position: it is a lot of money, and one should think very hard about one’s purported principles before throwing away a lot of money, especially money your long-suffering mother and romantically betrayed artist sister could use. I promised Mom I would think it over before I acted, and I wasn’t just being nice. I also wanted to drive to Petra’s to see who was where, reciting my one remaining article of faith as I motored over.
I tried. I waited and mulled over that index card, but I could (and still can) see only one interpretation.
39
BERT THORN CALLED TO REVEAL that there was a will. In the same call, he requested my “word as a gentleman” that his time consulting on the probate, as well as a lingering balance from my father’s old accounts, would be “taken care of appropriately out of proceeds.”
Besides that unfortunate reminder of my father’s legacy, the will itself cattle-prodded my most predatory suspicions. He had drafted it two months before his release from prison, before the visit where he haltingly, so sincerely, lured me into this folly. Nevertheless, he wrote it as if my participation were a certainty. First:
“I direct that my son, Arthur M. Phillips, serve as my literary executor, and I direct that he see to the publication, protection, and promotion of the play The Most Excellent and Tragical Historie of Arthur, King of Britain by William Shakespeare, so as to maximize the financial return from the play to its beneficiaries. I hereby give and bequeath ownership of my copy of the 1597 edition of that play, and all monies which may be derived therefrom, in the following percentage shares: 28 percent to my said son, Arthur M. Phillips; 24 percent to my daughter, Dana S. Phillips; 24 percent to my former wife, Mary Arden Phillips diLorenzo; and 24 percent to my friend, Charles R. Glassow, if he survives me. If he does not, I direct that his share be divided equally among the three other beneficiaries just named.”
Upon hearing that last name over the phone, my mother interrupted my reading with salty Iron Range profanity, circa 1945, in original pronunciation. I had been a little puzzled by the division of revenue when I first read it, but at the time I had only felt a bitter, head-shaking amusement at my father’s manipulations of me. I wasn’t moved to my own full-throated obscenity until his next stipulation:
“The Most Excellent and Tragical Historie of Arthur, King of Britain was written by William Shakespeare. Should my son and literary executor, Arthur M. Phillips, at any time in the future attempt to publish, or cause the performance of, or in any other way disseminate the play under his own name, or in any way publicly imply that it is his own work, or the work of any writer other than William Shakespeare, then I hereby revoke the said gift and bequest to him, and his said 28 percent share thereof shall belong in equal shares to the other three beneficiaries named above, or their survivors, provided they take all available legal steps to enforce my direction.”
In other words, he could conceive only of a son as thieving as the father. Before he’d even asked if I would do it, he was defending against the possibilities that I would steal his play for my own fraudulent literary ambition (Look at me! I wrote a Shakespeare play!) or I would sink his plans out of spite (as I was the snitch who had squealed to Doug Constantine), and in either case, I would lose my inheritance. And he would sic his wife, daughter, and criminal chum on me to make sure I did the kingpin’s bidding.
I don’t think that in my entire life of