Something Happened (52 page)

Green is not going to fire me now—he merely wants to abuse. He is having one of his tantrums. (He has static in his head.) But my fear blows hot and my fear blows cold. And I sometimes think I am losing my mind. The fear (and the mind I am losing) does not even seem to be mine (they seem to be his)—broiling on my insides one moment like a blast furnace, chilling my whole skin like foggy winter wind the next, alternating out of control against me from within and without inside the sagging pavilion of my tapered, made-to-measure, Swiss voile, powder-blue shirt, the very finest shirt fabric there is, Green has told me. It’s almost funny. I could have worn a dark broadcloth or heavier oxford weave to work today that would have contained without blotches the flows of telltale
sweat spreading beneath my arms and trickling down my chest and belly from my breastbone.

“Try wearing a sweater next time,” I can almost hear Green saying, reading my mind. “Cashmere. A cardigan. Like mine. That’s why I wear one,” I can hear him add, reading his.

It’s almost uncanny the way he’s still got the whammy on me. I wish he would die. But this one, I feel with some basis, I might eventually be able to lick. I have age, Arthur Baron, and spastic colitis on my side.

But not as easily as I’d hoped.

I’d like to shoot him in the head.

I wish I could make a face at him and stick my tongue out. (I wish I could have a hot sweet potato again or a good ear of corn.)

“Do you want to fire me?” I ask awkwardly instead.

“I can humiliate you.”

“You are.”

“I can be a son of a bitch.”

“Why should you want to fire me?”

“Without even giving you a reason.”

“You’d have to replace me with somebody else.”

“To make you remember I can. You’re not a free citizen as long as you’re working for me. You sometimes seem to forget.”

“Not anymore.”

“Neither am I. To let you feel what true subjugation is. You wouldn’t be able to get a better job without my help, and you wouldn’t be able to take it if you did. You’d have to give up your pension and profit sharing here and start wondering all over again if they like you there as much as we do here. You’d spend three years and still not be sure. You’re dependent on me.”

“I know that.”

“And I’m not sure you always know that.
I
always want to know you are. I always want to be sure you know you have to grovel every time I want you to. You’re a grown-up man, a mature, talented, middle-level, mediocre executive, aren’t you? You don’t have to stand there sweating like that and take this from
me, do you? You do have to stand there and take it, don’t you? Well?”

“I’m not going to answer that.”

“Or I can give you another big raise and humiliate you that way.”

“I’ll take the raise.”

“I can make you wear solid suits and shirts and striped ties.”

“I do.”

“I’ve noticed,” he answers tartly. “You’re also playing golf.”

“I’ve always played golf.”

“You haven’t been.”

“I play in the tournament at the convention every year”

“With a big handicap. You’re in there as a joke, along with those other drunken charlatans from the sales offices. And that’s another thing I don’t like. You don’t belong to the Sales Department.”

“I have to work for them.”

“Would you rather belong to Kagle?”

“You.”

“Why?”

“You’re better.”

“At what?”

“What do you want from me?”

“Who do you work for, me or Kagle?”

“You.”

“Who’s nicer?”

“He is.”

“Who’s a better person?”

“He is.”

“Who do you like better?”

“You.”

“Now we’re talking intelligently. You shouldn’t be thinking of a better job now, Bob.” His pace slows, his voice softens. He is almost friendly, contrite. “I really don’t think you could find one outside the company.”

“I’m not, Jack. Why should I want to?”

“Me.”

“You’re not so bad.”

“Even now?” His eyes lift to look at me again, and he smiles faintly.

“You do things well.”

“Everything?”

“Not everything. Some things, Jack, you do terribly. I even like the way you’ve been talking to me now. I wish I could be rude like that.”

“It’s easy … with someone like you. You see how easy it is? With someone like you.” He sighs, a bit ruefully, sardonically. “I’m not going to fire you. I don’t know why I even started. I get scared sometimes when I think about what would become of me if I ever had to leave the company. Do you know what’s happening to the price of meat?”

“It’s high, isn’t it?”

“I don’t, either. But I worry what would happen to me if I did have to know. They’ve cut my budget.”

“How much?”

“That’s not your business yet.”

“Kagle said they were going to.”

“You’re thick with Kagle.”

“It might help.”

“Thicker than with me?”

“He needs me more.”

“I don’t need you at all.”

“You’d have to replace me, wouldn’t you?”

“No. As far as the company is concerned, no one needs anyone. It goes on by itself. It doesn’t need us. We need it.”

“Should I talk to Kagle?”

“Kagle’s a damned fool. It doesn’t help him to downgrade us. You’ll get your raise, if I get mine.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“I’m not begging you to.”

“I’ll cut the leg out from under him.”

“That isn’t funny,” Green retorts.

“I know.”

My smirk feels alien and bizarre, as though someone else had smirked for me and stuck it on.

“You’re supposed to be his friend.”

“It just came out,” I apologize in confusion. “I didn’t even know I was saying it. I’ll go talk to him.”

“I haven’t asked you to. I don’t know why I even
care. None of us are going anywhere far. Kagle limps. I’m Jewish. Nobody’s sure what you are.”

“I’m nothing. My wife’s a devoted Congregationalist.”

“Devotion isn’t good enough. She’d have to be a celebrity or very rich. You’ve got a crippled child of some kind you don’t talk about much, haven’t you?”

“Brain damaged.”

“Serious?”

“Hopeless.”

“Don’t be too sure. I’ve heard—”

“So have I.”

“I know a doctor—”

“I’ve seen him.”

“Why—”

“Cut it out, Jack. I mean it.”

“I’ve been wondering if you had limits,” Green replies. “I just found out.” He looks sorry, reflective. Green has problems with his children, but none like Derek, which gives me an effective advantage over him I might want to use again. (The kid comes in handy after all, doesn’t he?) “You’ll get your raise,” Green tells me finally, “and I’ll probably get mine. I might even let you make your speech this year.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I won’t believe it until I do it.”

“It’s part of my strategy. You wouldn’t be able to handle this job if they decide to give me Kagle’s. I could do better. Better than him. I might be able to make vice-president that way.”

“Kagle’s not.”

“Kagle limps and has hair in his nose and ears. Nobody with a limp or a retarded child is ever going to be president.”

“Roosevelt limped.”

“I mean of the company. The company is more particular than the country. They cut my budget. That’s what I’m sore about. And I don’t trust you. I’ll get it back. But I’ll have to fight for it. I’ll have to grovel. That’s the way I have to fight, and that’s the part I hate. That’s the reason I wouldn’t recommend
you to replace me. You’re not qualified. You can’t grovel.”

“I grovel.”

“You grovel, but not gracefully. It’s like your fawning.”

“I could learn how.”

“I know how. See Green, Green says. See Green grovel, Green jokes. That’s the reason they cut my budget. They like the way I grovel. They cut it every year. Just to see me grovel.”

I will cut it even more, for I know how much of the expensive and truly urgent work we produce is not needed or used. I must remember to seem humble and unexcited and trustworthy. Green is right. Nothing any of us does affects matters much. (We can only affect each other.) It’s a honeycomb; we drone. Directors die; they’re replaced. I’ll retire Ed Phelps. I must look innocent and act reserved. If I feel like kicking my heels, I must kick them in my study at home or in Red Parker’s apartment in the city. I must stop using Red Parker’s apartment. It shows. What will I do with Red Parker? He’s younger than Ed Phelps. I must be nice to everybody. (I must act dumb.)

“What the hell are
you
so God-damned peppy about these days?” Johnny Brown demands, with one of his light, big-fisted pokes in the arm.

(It isn’t difficult to imagine that fist in my face.)

“You,” I jolly him back. “You’re giving me call reports.”

“Have you checked them against the sales figures?”

“These are what count.”

“They’re full of shit.”

“As long as they sound good.”

“Don’t count on it,” Johnny Brown answers. “There are better ways the salesmen could spend their time than making up lies like this. I’d know how to handle them. I’d make sure the bastards were out on sales calls all day long. I’d take the chairs out of their offices. They hate writing up these.”

“Arthur Baron wants them for Horace White and Lester Black.”

“Ask him why.”

“The computer breaks down and cries if it doesn’t get good news.”

“You’re a card.”

I grovel gracefully with Johnny Brown and get the call reports I want for Arthur Baron. I’ll get a raise. (My wife and children will have more money.) What will happen to me if Arthur Baron has a stroke soon? (He
is
overweight and smokes cigarettes, and I don’t know a damn thing about his blood pressure, blood lipids, or cholesterol count. I don’t even know what blood lipids are, or what they’re supposed to do.) Who would look after me if Arthur Baron died? (Who would get his job?) Horace White? I’d hate to have to rely on that stingerless wasp for protection while sleek, Semitic Green with envy was burrowing away at me from below with his quicker mind and brilliant vocabulary and Johnny Brown was bunching his fist to punch me in the jaw. I hope he doesn’t. A punch in the jaw would just about ruin me: it would damage not only my face but my reputation for efficiency and authority. It would be much worse for me than kicking Kagle in the leg. I could, conceivably, kick Kagle in the leg and pretend it was a joke or do it when just the two of us were together in his office and not many people would have to know. But everyone in the company would know if Johnny Brown punched me in the jaw. (I wish
I
were the one who was strong and courageous and
he
was puny and craven. He makes me feel two feet shorter than I am, and sexually impotent.) How would top management feel about someone in middle management who’d been punched in the jaw and felt sexually impotent? Not good, I think. My wife would lose respect for me. I wouldn’t want my children, my neighbors, or even Derek’s nurse to find out. No one with a limp, a retarded child, or a punch in the jaw will ever be president of the company or of the world. If someone had punched Richard Nixon in the jaw, he would never have made it to President. Nobody wants a man who’s been punched in the jaw. It’s hard to put much faith in the intelligence of someone who’s been punched in the jaw. It would do
me
no good if Brown were fired afterward; it wouldn’t
un
-punch my jaw.
What will I do if he does? (How will I handle it?) I know what I will do. I’ll fall down. But suppose, to my wonderment, I didn’t fall down? I’d have to try to punch him back. Which would be worse? I know which would be worse.

Both.

I have sudden failures of confidence that leave me without energy, will, or hope. It happens when I’m alone or driving back from somewhere with my wife and she is at the wheel. (I just want to stop, give up.) It often follows elation. Everything drains away, leaving me with the apathetic outlook that I have arrived at my true level and it is low. There are times now when I have trouble maintaining my erections. They don’t always get and stay as hard as they used to. I worry. And sometimes they do—it all charges back vigorously—and makes me feel like the heavyweight champion of the world. That’s a good sensation. There are times when I’d not be afraid to fuck anybody, when there is not even the thinnest curtain of doubt to weave myself through in order to start doing the job. I don’t even think of it as a job. It’s a pleasure. I will not hesitate to make Ed Phelps retire.

“Oh, boy,” says my wife, impressed. “Where is it all coming from? You’re like a young boy again.”

“What do
you
know about young boys?” I banter, smarting a little in jealous recoil from the comparison.

“I know more than you think I do. Come on.”

“I think you do.”

“You’re even younger now than you were when you were younger,” she says with a reveling laugh.

“So are you.”

“Any complaints?”

“Of course not.”

“Come on. Why do you always like to wait?”

“Again?” Penny asks, with an exclamation of flattered delight. (She is so honored and appreciative when I want her.) “How come you have so much time for me lately? Wait,” she laughs, in the throaty voice of a sensuous contralto. “Wait, baby. You don’t give a young girl a chance.”

Penny is thirty-two now and I have been going with her for nearly ten years. She is no longer in love with me. I was never that way about her.

Penny and my wife are just about the only two left with whom I feel completely at ease (and also the two I find least intriguing). With every other girl I can call (I have a coded list of twenty-three names and numbers in my billfold, my office, and in a bedside drawer in Red Parker’s apartment, and I might get a
Yes
from any one of them on any given evening or afternoon) each time is like the first time all over again (a strain. It’s a job. I’ll have to do well. I liked it better when they thought they were doing us a favor. I’m sorry they ever found out they could have orgasms too. I wonder who told them).

I know I can make a good impression on Arthur Baron by forcing Ed Phelps to retire. And unlike Kagle, I’ve had no close relationship with the kindly, prattling old man who’s been with the company more than forty years and whose duties are now reduced to obtaining plane and hotel reservations through the Travel Department for anyone who wants to use him, and following up on shipping, transportation, and room arrangements for the convention. He has to make certain enough cars have been rented and enough whiskey ordered. His salary is good, although his raises the past ten years or so (ever since he grew obsolete and became superfluous and expendable) have been nominal.