"No," Helen said. "I really don't think so. What good does it do?"
"What good?" Garp asked. "Well, it's the truth. And it will be good for Ellen."
"And for you?" Helen asked, knowing that he wanted a kind of public humiliation of the Ellen Jamesians.
"Okay," he said, "okay, okay. But she's right, goddamnit. Those nuts ought to hear it from the original source."
"But why?" said Helen. "For whose good?"
"Good, good," Garp muttered, though in his heart he must have known that Helen was right. He told Ellen she should file her essay. Ellen wouldn't communicate with either Garp or Helen for a week.
It was not until John Wolf called Garp that either Garp or Helen realized Ellen had sent the essay to John Wolf.
"What am I suppose to do with it?" he asked.
"God, send it back," Helen said.
"No, damn it," Garp said. "Ask Ellen what she wants you to do with it."
"Old Pontius Pilate, washing his hands," Helen said to Garp.
"What do you want to do with it?" Garp asked John Wolf.
"Me?" John Wolf said. "It means nothing to me. But I'm sure it's publishable. I mean, it's very well written."
"That's not why it's publishable," Helen said, "and you know it."
"Well, no," John Wolf said. "But it's also nice that it's well said."
Ellen told John Wolf she wanted it published. Helen tried to talk her out of it. Garp refused to get involved.
"You are involved," Helen told him, "and by saying nothing, you know you'll get what you want: that painful attack published. That's what you want."
So Garp spoke to Ellen James. He tried to be enthusiastic in his reasoning to her--why she shouldn't publicly say all those things. These women were sick, sad, confused, tortured, abused by others, and now self-abused--but what point was there in criticizing them? Everyone would forget them in another five years. They'll hand out their notes and people will say, "What's an Ellen Jamesian? You mean you can't talk? You got no tongue?"
Ellen looked sullen and determined.
I won't forget them!
she wrote Garp.
Not in 5 years, not in 50 years will I ever forget them;
I will remember them the way I remember my tongue.
Garp admired how the girl liked to use the good old semicolon. He said softly, "I think it's better not to publish this, Ellen."
Will you be angry with me if I do?
she asked.
He admitted he would not be angry.
And Helen?
"Helen will only be angry with me," Garp said.
"You make people too angry," Helen told him, in bed. "You get them all wound up. You inflame. You should lay off. You should do your own work, Garp. Just your own work. You used to say politics were stupid, and they meant nothing to you. You were right. They are stupid, they do mean nothing. You're doing this because it's easier than sitting down and making something up, from scratch. And you know it. You're building bookshelves all over the house, and finishing floors, and fucking around in the garden, for Christ's sake.