Something Happened

"Call me," I asked her. "As soon as you're settled. Or even before."

She did. When she called, I said I was busy and would call her back. I haven't. Sometimes when I'm asleep, I try to wake up and can't. Sleep has me in its grip, and that is my dream.

I am trying to get my affairs in order. I have written a list.

"Listen," I say to my wife one day in a quietly decisive ma

"I don't want to talk about it."

Neither do I.

I think I'm in terrible trouble. I think I've committed a crime. The victims have always been children.

"Are you angry with me?" I inquire of my boy with an appraising smile, in a voice I keep as bland as possible.

"No. I'm not angry."

A flicker of some kind has crossed his face. My question is disturbing him. I'm almost afraid to go on.

"You don't talk to me much anymore."

"I talk." He shrugs. "I'm talking now." He wiggles with unease, a downcast mood darkening his features. He will not look at me.

"Not as much as you used to. You're always in your room."

He shrugs again. "I like it there."

"You don't like me to ask you questions, do you?"

"Sometimes."

"What do you do in there?"

"Read. Watch television. I do my homework. Think."

"Alone?"

"I like it."

"You didn't use to."

"Now I do."

"Are you always able to do all of your homework without me?"

"Not always."

"What do you do?"

"It's all right if it's wrong."

"Wouldn't it be better, though, if it were always correct?"

"The teachers don't care. Can I go now?"

"Where?"

He smiles apologetically, anticipating the humor of his reply. "To my room."

"Sure," I consent genially, with a heartiness that is false. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't angry with me."

"You stay in your room a lot," he pauses near the staircase to argue over his shoulder defensively. "Mommy stays in her room. You don't think there's something wrong with me, do you?"

"But I always let you come into mine."

Oh, God — here he is, a sensitive, candid, alert little boy, no larger now, it seems, than he was as a toddler; and I am quarreling with him, near tears (and with a lump in my throat), as though I were a rejected suitor, fencing with him selfishly as I would with my wife or my daughter.

How shall I die? Let me count the ways. (No, I won't.) I've been through that juvenile exercise before and won't waste time. None is good. I'm unable to eradicate from my mind the image of that vigorous, prosperous, large, handsome man who fell dead in the lobby of my office building a few weeks ago as we were nearly abreast of each other. I saw him clearly as he fell forward. Even as he was doubling over and crumpling he looked the epitome of radiant and robust indestructibility until his face hit the floor with a soggy whack and blood from the impact shot out of his mouth. I continued walking past him without a hitch in my stride. I made believe I didn't see. When I got back from lunch, he wasn't there. He had been taken away. I was disappointed. Someone had distorted reality for the sake of neatness. (I have things organized very neatly now upstairs.) I still catch myself looking for him in the spot where he fell. I still remember him falling. This morning on my way to work I saw an unconscious derelict lying on the steps of Saint Patrick's Cathedral, staining the stone platforms with a fluid that could have been urine or whiskey. Policemen were there and had the situation in hand. They didn't need my help.

It's a good thing they didn't.

Woe, woe, alas, and alack. My wife is unhappy too again. We have arrived at a reasonable understanding: it isn't all my fault and there's not much I can do to improve things (even though I still won't tell her I love her and she refuses pointedly to ask). She makes no difference to anyone.

"I wish I had a career at something exciting."

"It isn't too late."

She lifts her eyes to study me in steadfast gaze. "It is too late."

"Of course it is."

She accepts the fact that Kagle was fated to go no matter what I did, and that if I had not gone in to replace him, I would never have been allowed to go anywhere else.

"You'd get a housekeeper, wouldn't you?" she says dreamily. "And put Derek in a home. Or you'd send the children away to boarding school and move into the city."

"If what?"

"If I committed suicide or died of cancer or just moved away alone or with some other man."

"Are you thinking of any of those?" I ask with healing indulgence.

"And I wouldn't blame you. I just don't make a difference to anyone."

"Neither do I," I have to confess intimately. "Except to you and the children. Not even Derek."

"I'd be satisfied with that. No, don't lie to me about it," she adds with dignity and a very small, regretful smile. "I wouldn't believe you."

My wife feels she makes no difference to anyone anymore and she is probably right.

There is so much torment around, even for her. I have to make a speech. My boy will probably perish without me (or I without him. I think I may always have felt that way about him). Oh, my God — we go into torment long before we even know what suffering is. We are saddled with it before we can even see. There is so much i

"Jack," I could begin, with an air of disarming joviality, "I think I'd like to hire a Jew. Do you know of any? I'd want a smart one."

"I'm afraid that would be impossible," he might reply, with the same pretense of amiability.

"Aren't there any smart ones left?" I could follow up, tauntingly.

"Oh, yes," he would answer. "But a smart one wouldn't work for you. And if you're going to hire the other kind, you'd might as well stick with a Protestant. They'd make a better appearance, for you."