The Tragedy of Arthur_ A Novel - Arthur Phillips [113]
“That was a fake, too, Dana. I threw it out years ago.”
“Oh, my God. You are such a bastard. I was there when he signed it. I was with him.”
“Well, there you go then.”
“No. Him. Dad saw your guy downtown, in front of the IDS, and he asked him to wait while he went and bought a baseball. The guy—Crew?—”
“Rod Carew.”
“—Carew. Carew was in a hurry, and he said, ‘No, sorry, mister, let’s just do it at the ballpark,’ all that, and Dad could see he was going to lose this opportunity to make you happy, and so he said, ‘Guard my little girl, Mr. Carew!’ and then Dad just ran off and left me there with a strange baseball player. First, your hero was a little annoyed, then I got him to see it was funny, and he laughed about it, and then I talked to Rod Carew for fifteen minutes, told him about you, and then Dad came back with a ball, and Rod Carew signed it for you.”
“I don’t believe you. Why have you never told me that?”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Who wrote the play, Dana?”
“Ask your professors.”
“I’m asking you. You can’t tell who wrote it? I thought Shakespeare was a god, the giant, head and shoulders better, the greatest writer ever to touch English, inimitable!”
“No. The plays are inimitable. Arthur included.”
“Who wrote it? Come on, who wrote it?” I kept demanding, more and more aggressively, the best words available to express my anger at her for taking Dad’s side, for standing between me and the love of my life. “Come on, Dana. Billion-dollar question. Who wrote it? Who? Teach me, smarty. Who?”
She stood up, picked up her coat, and walked out, yelling from the hall, “Shakespeare wrote it! Dick.”
She cooled off enough to write me a few hours later:
FROM: dsp
DATE: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 23:41:42 -0600
SUBJECT: you suck you suck you suck
Ok. You make me a straw man. You make me hold all the dumb, weak-ass arguments so you can whip them (me) and prove how smaaaht you are. You are, but not because of this.
I don’t care who wrote it—plain enough? I don’t want the money, so don’t publish it on my account. I don’t love the man from Stratford more than I love you. I don’t even say I like his plays more than I like your books, ok? Sorry about that before, but isn’t this good enough? How’d I do?? That’s the real thing you want to know, isn’t it? You’re as original as he is? As good? Fine. You are. I promise. Now please please cut it out.
Just leave well enough alone. Because you don’t know what you don’t know? Because you might do more harm by meddling? Because I like it very very much. Each time I read it I like it more.. I am fully prepared to continue loving it if it’s his or if it’s Dad’s. (Has it ever occurred to you, by the way, that maybe mom wrote it? Or me? And dad only helped us with the paper and ink? All three of us toiling away, just to impress you?)) I think it should be read and performed. I might stage it myself if I ca nwrestle the rights from you, Shylock.
What about “A thing of beauty is a joy forever”? He didn’t say “an accredited thing”. So let it go out into the world and make some people happy. A thing of beauty. A joy.
Let it happen, please. Please. For me. Let people think it’s Shakespeare’s, because it is, or it might be, or it might as well be, and then people will read it. And some of them will like it. And then if it’s actually Dad’s? And people like it? Then what a gift you are giving him! He wants to impress you and you’re letting him show off to the world FOR YOU (even if you know better).
Your reputation. Ok. Think of a reputation not as a monument, but as a bank account. Now you spend a little for Dad. People read it and think it’s Shakespeare and if Dad was so pathetic as you think, then what a kindness you’re doing his ghost, the ghost of a pathetic failed man, unlike you in every way. The single most generous gift you could ever give him, proving you forgive him everything else—maybe that’s what he was asking for, in his clumsy way: forgiveness. And he was asking YOU because only YOU would know the real value of