Something Happened

"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 i

"What the hell are you so God-damned peppy about these days?" Joh

(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," Joh

"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 Joh

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 thi

"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?" Pe

Pe

Pe

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.

"It will be in Puerto Rico again, I'm sure," he repeats incessantly, and whispers, "Lester Black's wife's family owns a piece of the hotel there. As soon as they hurry up and make it official, I can begin. I wish they would."

I have ducked around file cabinets to avoid hearing him say that to me again. He could retire with a fortune in pension and profit-sharing benefits: he doesn't want to go. I'll make him. But what about Red Parker, who's just about my own age and isn't old enough to retire? How will I get rid of him? He has indeed been going downhill fast since his wife was killed in that automobile crash — the girls he goes with now are not nearly as pretty as the ones he went with when she was alive — but he might not crack up in time to do me any good. The a