"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.
"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 announcement will have to be made soon.
"How are you, Bob?" Arthur Baron asks every time now when we pass in the hallway.
"Fine, Art. You?"
"That's good."
Otherwise, the changes will dominate attention at the convention. I must remember to be modest, bland, and congenial to one and all for the time being. I sometimes feel I have Arthur Baron over a barrel. This is known as a delusion of grandeur. (He could change his mind and keep Kagle for years and nothing consequential would result. Or someone else could fire Arthur Baron and me together without an instant's notice and there would not be a ripple in the total operation of the company. It would not falter.) And I don't entertain this thought seriously. But who will replace Arthur Baron when he does fall ill, dies, retires, is promoted, or runs out of ability and is eased away to the side? It won't be me. (Maybe it will.) I don't think they think I ever could replace Arthur Baron, just as Arthur Baron could never become Horace White when Horace White falls ill (it will be of a much different kind of disease from the ones that will put Arthur Baron, Green, Kagle, and me away — I sense that already — it will be something lingering and tediously progressive. Horace White is not the outgoing, wholesome type to fall ill and die rapidly. He will come creaking into the office on aluminum-alloy canes and wheelchairs for years after he is disabled, smiling, chortling dryly, looking ghastly, and alluding to old times familiarly, oppressing us all despotically right to the end, for he will still own stock), dies, or retires. (Horace White already has been eased aside.) Horace White can go no further in the company because there is nothing more he can do than be Horace White. He can be named to prestigious government commissions that issue reports on matters of grave national importance that are methodically ignored. (Arthur Baron and I can't do that.) His name looks good in the newspapers and on certain letterheads, for he is not merely Horace White but Horace White III, and his wife — she is his third; one died of cancer of the lymph and the second was crippled in a sporting accident — and his mother — she is now in the very high eighties (like the company's common stock again, ha, ha, after the most recent two-for-one split) — come out looking good enough in photographs of people who raise dogs or sponsor charity balls and prominent benefit performances of musical comedies, operas, and ballets. Arthur Baron can move up past Horace White (and so, in theory, might I), for the company does, in its own biologically deterministic and unpitying way, elevate ability over ownership, but he can never become Horace White (and neither, in practice, can I). Only another Horace White, a brother, cousin, son, nephew, or husband of an undistinguished sister, could move right into the corporate structure and meet all the requirements of being another Horace White. (Every company needs one.) He is such a small-minded, oblivious prick, a self-satisfied simpleton (I wonder why I do have such haunting dreams about him in which his thin features turn despotic and carnal and he seems so viciously out of character); he buys puzzles, perpetual-motion gimmicks, and other novelties in Brentano's book store and has his secretary send for me and other employees of the company to show them off (as though we could not afford to buy them ourselves if we wanted them. He wore a red blazer of nappy wool at the convention one night last year and took us all by surprise. It looked good. This year there will be other red blazers).
"Look at this," he will command, beaming, as though he had just chanced upon something of vast benefit to all mankind. "Isn't it something? Just stand still there and look at it. It will never stop as long as you keep doing this. Each one is always different."
"That's really something," I have to respond, and have to remain standing still until he grows tired of having me in his office and sends me back.
I hate to have to stand still.
I have had to stand still for the longest time now, it seems, for nearly all of my life. Nearly every time I search back I come upon myself standing still inside some memory, sculpted there, or lying flattened as though by strokes from the brush of an illustrator or in transparent blue or purple chemical stains on the glass slide of a microscope or on the single frame of a strip of colored motion picture film. Even when the film moves, I am able to view the action only in arrested moments on single frames. And yet I must have moved from where I was to where I've come, even while standing still. Was I brought here? I have this full country acre in Connecticut. I think I was. Who did it? Only in the army do I think I had more freedom of choice, more room in which to move about. At least I felt I did. I did. I was outside my family, had no wife, job, parent, children, met no one I cared for. I had no ties. I had no one anywhere I cared for. I got laid a lot. Overseas I went with prostitutes and enjoyed that too. I had fun. I enjoyed being away (at least it was something to do. If you sat home alone Saturday night, at least you were sitting home in a barracks, which was better than sitting alone in your own home on a Saturday night. One New Year's Eve in the army I had nothing to do and didn't care. We take weekend drives now to people I don't want to be with and can't wait to leave. A long weekend will break up my family one day. I stroke my dick. I stroked it often then too. I was often lonely and wished I had someone I could care for. I w
ould have liked a pen pal, a pin-up girl in a cashmere sweater and chaste pleated skirt, a sweetheart I adored who photographed beautifully and mailed me snapshots. I still would. I felt cheated, underprivileged. I wanted to be the nice boy in the Hollywood movie the nice girl was crazy about, that fellow in the love songs the girls were all singing to on the radio. I wasn't); and I know already that I'll be standing still again after I've been moved one giant step forward into Andy Kagle's position and have nailed down the job. I'll make my speech. I'll have important new work to do (nailing down the job), but I'll do it standing still. (And after I've done it and know I'm not in danger of being kicked out for a while, my interest will abate and my work will grow monotonous again.
I will not want what I have and will be in fear of losing it. I will not ever be convinced my illegal thoughts and dreams are not apparent to the authorities in the company, and I will still slither numbly into dismay at sight of a closed office door of a higher executive from behind which something small as a mouse might emerge that will bear my secrets out into the open and leave me worse off than dead. For everyone to see.) Everything dead lies still unless winds ruffle the feathers, fur, or hair. (I have the feeling now that I have already been everywhere it has been possible for me to go.) The sight of a dead dog on a highway is enough to turn my stomach and wrench my heart with pity. It reminds me of a dead child. And I never even had a dog. Children and dead dogs evoke sympathy. Neither can speak. No one else. Two dead dogs on a highway seconds apart lead me to think my sanity is finally going and that it is no longer possible for me to separate what I see from what I remember or what I don't want to see. In flickers of disorientation I often glimpse in silhouette from the rear or side people I did not know well and have not seen or thought about in decades (total strangers take on the identity for a second of kids I remember from elementary or high school or people I was acquainted with briefly in other jobs or brushed against uneventfully in the army. I was once beaten up by an enlisted man who didn't know I was an officer). They are always people I was not close to and do not want to see again. (I don't catch unreal glimpses of people I do want to see.) Real and imagined events overrun each other in my mind in hazy indistinction. I sometimes find it hard to be certain whether I have done something I intended to or only thought of doing it but didn't. I have answered letters twice. I have no system. Others I don't answer at all because I remember wanting to promptly and think I have. There's much I think of doing and saying I know I'd better not. I'd lose my job or go to jail. I am growing forgetful. My eyesight is deteriorating: I wear reading glasses now and require a stronger prescription every year. Periodontal work will save my teeth only for a while. I know I repeat myself at home with my children and my wife (my children point that out with unkindness): soon I'll be repeating myself with everyone everywhere and be shunned as a prattling old fool. In southern Louisiana, I learned recently (on a business trip to New Orleans, where, because I found myself alone in a strange, big city, I picked up a chunky, Negro whore in a bar and asked her to follow me to my hotel room. I figured if she could make her way through the hotel lobby into my room, I could make my way into her. I get so lonesome in glamorous cities in which I have nobody I can call. Everybody else, I feel, is having a good time. I get the blues when it rains. The blues I can't lose when it rains. I've never learned how to make friends in strange cities. Men who strike up conversations with me appear homosexual and drive me off.
"I've got to go now. I have this friend I have to meet."
"Take care."
All I know how to do in a strange city is read the local newspapers. Late at night, I'm good at that in bed. I'm good at eating candy bars in bed too. I get the feeling when I'm alone in strange American cities that I have no inner resources and no cock. She was just under thirty. She said she was a mixture of French, Chinese, and Mexican parentage and could therefore do sweet things to me in bed no one had ever done before. She said it only half seriously in a husky southern drawl. I knew she was Black. I haven't been with Black girls much in this country, only twice before, but I knew that much. I've been afraid of them, first for my dignity, now for my life.
"I don't dig," I said, "French, Chinese, and Mexican girls." I was kidding back with her in the bar. "I want someone Black."
"I'm a little of that too," she chuckled heartily. She was simple, good-natured, guileless, and I felt myself in charge. She asked for fifty dollars, grinning. I got her to agree to twenty. Then I threw in ten dollars more to inspire her by my generosity and make her like me and really do sweet things to me no one had ever done before.
"I can show you a good time," she vowed.
By the time I returned to my hotel room I no longer wanted her and hoped she wouldn't follow. I had all the evening newspapers for New Orleans and Baton Rouge and was raring to take my clothes off and get to work on them. I have this clinging fear of catching a venereal disease somewhere and bringing it home to my wife. How would I get out of that one when she found out she was infected? Easily. Lie and deny. She did. She paid off the desk clerk, she said. She rapped softly on the door and came in smiling, and I had to stare at her as she undressed in order to get interested again. She wasn't pretty.
"Do it slowly," I requested. "Take them off slow. And shimmy a little."
"Sure."
I don't like girls who get out of their clothes too quickly. I get the feeling they've been getting out of those same few clothes all day long for other men before they came to me. "Okay."
"Sure. Some men —»
"Not now."
"Huh?"
"Come here. Shhhh."
"Sure."
She was still grinning. She had nothing different to offer. In San Francisco not long ago a stunning, willowy blonde who looked like royalty whispered the same alluring promise and turned out to be lying also. She made me give her a hundred dollars. Whores in Naples, Rome, and Nice after the war had uttered the same exotic guarantees and had been no more successful in filling them. I guess there's really not that much variety around for normal degenerates like me. It was flat, and over quickly.
"Where's all those sweet new tricks of yours?" I taunted, and was pleased I was justified in doing so.
She was hurt and looked a little frightened, and that was gratifying to me also. "I did what you asked, hon," she apologized hesitantly. "Didn't I?"
"You're supposed to do things I don't ask. It's okay."
"Didn't I?"
"You were fine."
"Did I show you a good time?"
"Really. You can go now if you want."
"I thought you wanted me the whole night."
"So did I." I forced a laugh. "But I can't go that distance anymore. I must be getting old. I thought I could when I was looking you over in that bar. Those are some knockers you have. Mmmm. And some big ass."
"You like it?"
"And how. I like them big on a short girl."
"I'm short, all right." She was pleased as punch with my compliments. "You want some more?"
"But I can't. I guess my eyes are bigger than my dick."
She was relieved I wasn't angry.
"You're all right down there too," she complimented me.
"I know. You can keep the money. I enjoyed it."
"Did I show you a good time? Was I really good?"
"As good as the best. And I've been to Paris."
"Really?"
"I've even been to Bologna."
"I don't know about that."
"That's where they really know how to slice it."
"You sure you don't want me to stay till morning, mister? You're nice. I got no place I have to go."
"I've got an early plane."
"I could stay in the other bed until you want me. I don't even snore. I'll bet you'll want some in the morning." She giggled. "I'll do what you want. I do everything."
"You should put your legs up higher."
"It hurts. I get cramps here."
"And you really don't do any
thing new."
"I did what you wanted. You got to ask, hon."
"I am not bizarre."
"I don't know about that."
"I'm never sure what I want." I felt positively regal using a word like bizarre with her. "You're supposed to help me find out what I want. I'm not saying that because I'm unhappy. It will help you with other men."
"Some men beat me up."
And I have no compelling fetishes, although certain silken undergarments get me hot and are more attractive to me than the parts they cover. Big tits in bras and jersey can get me hot. Small ones make me romantic. Small asses on slim girls are starting to draw appreciating gazes from me. Many of these are on very young girls, and this is something new. The only woman I've ever wanted to beat up was my wife, and that — to my shame — was over money. She insinuates I give too little but won't take more. I felt most content as I watched her dress to leave, lofty. She looked comical and naпve stuffed into flowered bikini underpants. I thought a moment of flipping her over my knees and paddling her smooth muscular bottom but remembered she'd be heavy. That's the trouble with so many of our damned picturesque sex fantasies: they hurt. I've pampered myself before with the temptation of spanking a nice ass someday but never got one beautiful enough. Maybe there are no beautiful ones outside of magazines. I'm in love with a four-color magazine page. She still smiled; I was sorry for her, in a patronizing, uncommitted way. I wonder what happens to squat, homely Black and Puerto Rican whores with one missing molar when they grow too old — who takes care of them — and ugly to attract handsome, pinstriped libertines like me. I know what happens. They attract me anyway if I'm alone in New Orleans where everyone else seems to be having a good time. I ought to know by now that hardly anyone over the age of four ever has a good time anymore. Women do, at weddings and movies. It was a waste. The hundred-dollar beauty in San Francisco was a waste. She didn't look like an aristocrat once I had her. She looked like a skinny girl in need of sunshine or more red corpuscles. I'm glad I never had to see either of them again. I wonder what happens to homely white whores when they grow older and lose their figures and lose their teeth. They become public drunkards with gravelly, masculine voices who quarrel with each other loudly on sidewalks in warm weather. I still had all my newspapers after my little Black beauty left — thank God — and I ate three sticky candy bars and drank two cans of soda from a vending machine in the hall as I read them. I would have felt self-conscious going down into the lobby again that night. I went to sleep with caramel and nut crumbs in my mouth. I had what might have been the start of a homosexual dream, stopped it in time, and switched reels into the middle of a different dream I barely remembered in which I was a failing history student at the University of Bologna striving to find my way out of the yellow rock tangle of school buildings in time to catch a plane back home to my wife. There was a hatchet-faced, bleached-blond, scrawny actress I was trying to flee who kept sliding along the opposite sides of the stone walls in stealthy pursuit. She carried an icon of some kind cradled in her hands that was smaller than herself and could have been a human figure carved out of a penis — feces? — or a stick of African sculpture. I seemed able to identify all and wanted none, and that's why I was running from her. Her face was Horace White's. The next day I worried intermittently on the plane going back about carrying syphilis, gonorrhea, or crabs home to my wife from New Orleans. In the dream, I was failing in Bologna because I had been unable to find my way to any of the classrooms all year, although I had tried repeatedly. I itched. I scratched. I always itch afterward. Guilefully, I would deny to my wife I'd even had it and accuse her of having given it to me. Both statements could not be true, of course, but she would be intimidated by my yelling and unable to grasp that, and I would yell in sanctimonious outrage and convince her. There are no convenient army prophylactic stations around anymore dispensing soapy absolution by the pint for our sins of the flesh. They're gone too. So is sin. Most of my favorite restaurants are closing. There is only crime. I often don't enjoy it. My climaxes often aren't. Other times there's this gigantic, spurting leap. The difference is me. It's got nothing to do with them. They all do pretty much the same things by now. So do we. Sometimes it really dances. Other times it only stirs as much as necessary to get the ridiculous ritual over with. In Italy after the war, girls from Bologna stated they were the best in all Europe and wheedled for premium fees; they were no different from lower-class girls in Naples and Rome. They did the same things. They were interchangeable. They still are.
Something Happened Page 42