Lancelot Read Online Free PDF

and even the “nigger” business was not quite as it sounded though, but part of a new broad manner he’d hit upon, found possible, just as he’d found it possible to be grave and loving at weddings in the family and even unsmiling, put his arm around a niece, and, not quite as tall as she, kiss her and wish her every happiness and mean it. Not even the “nigger” business was as it sounded because he operated on blacks and whites alike and didn’t call them niggers or even by their first names and sat them down together in his waiting room and did more for them than I did. He outdid me in the race thing. He did more and talked less.
    â€œNo. A type IV-AB cannot beget a type O no matter who or what the mama is.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œWhat you got is a nig—”
    â€œI know, I know.”
    â€œâ€”ger in the woodpile.”
    â€œI know.”
    The thunder machine started up again.
    â€œMy God, what’s that, Lance?”
    â€œA thunder machine.”
    â€œA what? Never mind.”
    â€œThank you. Royal.”
    â€œGive my love to Margot.”
    â€œRight, right,” I said and almost forgot to say, Give mine to Charlotte. “Give my love to Charlotte.” I hung up.
    Give my love. I thought of something and called Royal again.
    â€œIs the period of pregnancy exactly nine months?”
    â€œIt depends on what you mean by month. Average gestation for a full-term infant is ten lunar months. Two hundred and eighty days. But why—”
    â€œWhat’s the average weight of a full-term infant?”
    â€œMale or female?”
    â€œFemale.”
    â€œSeven pounds.”
    â€œThanks. Royal.”
    â€œOkay, Tiger.”
    Tiger. Did he call me that in school? Or was there a note of condescension?
    â€œThanks.”
    My records were very good. In seconds I can, could—Jesus, the place burned to the ground, didn’t it?—no, still can. The pigeonnier didn’t burn and I guess the records are still there. I could look up any given day’s receipts of the tourist take at Belle Isle.
    I made calculations. This time the equations were simpler. In fact there were no equations because there were no variables. It was arithmetic. I needed four pieces of data. I had two: Siobhan’s birthday, April 21, 1969, and birth weight, 7 lbs. Subtract 280 days from April 21, 1969. I looked at my feedstore calendar. The remainder is July 15, 1968. I could remember nothing. Can you remember where you were in the summer of ’68? You can? Yes, you would. You didn’t keep records but you always had a nose for time and places. I remember you stone drunk here in New Orleans, on the ground in the weeds, on the levee, peaceable and not quite unconscious, sniffing the soil and saying “What place is this?” Is that why you chose the god you did, the time-place god?
    My third and indispensable item came from a shot in the dark. The dark of the dead file where I kept old income tax data and work sheets. A shot in the dark, not really a lucky—unlucky?—shot, but rather the only shot I had. My worm of interest tingled and guided me like a magnet to a manila folder neatly lettered DEDUCTIONS , 1968. I’m sure you don’t have to worry about deductions but it’s a good way to remember where you were and what you did ten years ago. A hundred years from now histories will be written from the stubs of Exxon bills. Bastardy will be proved by Master Charge. There was a chance I could find out where I spent the summer or at least hit on enough clues to remember the summer. Suppose Margot and I had gone to Williamsburg to talk to the National Heritage people about Belle Isle (we did one summer). A possible deductible. It would show: Coach-and-Four motel bill, Delta Air Lines carbon. Suppose I had spent two weeks in Washington with the Civil Rights Commission (I did that in the 1960’s). A deductible: receipted Shoreham