Something Happened

by Джозеф Хеллер

  "Does he have to race?" I inquire. I am deferential and disarming with Forgione. I control my urge to be sarcastic: I do feel superior to him, and afraid; I know I am better than he is, and that I am weaker. "Isn't there something else they can do? Or him?"

  "Life is hard, Mr. Slocum," Forgione philosophizes (and I would like to tell him to take his philosophizing and shove it up his ass). "He has to learn now that he has to be better than the next fellow. That's one of the lessons we try to teach him today to prepare him for tomorrow."

  "I feel sorry for the next fellow."

  "Ha, ha."

  "Who is the next fellow? Poor bastard."

  "Ha, ha."

  "Maybe he's the next fellow."

  "That's why we train him now. You wouldn't want that to happen to him, would you? You wouldn't want him to be the next fellow that everyone's better than, would you?"

  "No. He's this fellow to me. He's the one I care about. That's why I came to the school to speak to you."

  "Maybe I am riding him a little too hard. But that's only for his own good. It's better to be too hard than too easy. Sometimes."

  "Mr. Forgione, you have children, don't you?" I argue back in a reasoning, slightly more determined manner (inasmuch as he has not yet smitten me dead with the short-handled hammer of his fist and has retreated to a position of vindicating himself). "You know I can't just look the other way and allow a child of mine to come here if he's going to be so upset by things or because he thinks you pick on him. Would you do that?"

  "I don't pick on him, Mr. Slocum," Forgione objects quickly, swallowing uncomfortably, his neck bobbing with emotion. "Did he tell you that?"

  "No. But I think he feels that way."

  "I try to help him. I don't pick on him. It's his friends. It's all his friends that pick on him. They get angry and begin to yell at him when he slows down and starts laughing and doesn't try to win. Or when he passes the basketball deliberately — he does it deliberately, Mr. Slocum, I swear he does. Like a joke. He throws it away — to some kid on the other team just to give him a chance to make some points or to surprise the kids on his own team. For a joke. That's some joke, isn't it? He throws the ball away when someone charges at him. He gets scared. It's his friends that get angry and start to yell at him — not me. I just try to get him to do things right so they won't. That's when they really get sore and turn on him, and then he starts moping and looks like he's gonna cry and says he feels sick or has a sore throat and wants to see the nurse and go home. He acts like a baby. He turns green. I don't like to say this, Mr. Slocum, but sometimes he acts like a baby."

  (I could kill Forgione for that; I could kill him right there on the spot because what he says is true and I didn't want anyone to notice.) "He is only a kid, you know." I fake an indulgent laugh.

  "He's nine years old."

  "How old is that?"

  "That's time to start learning some responsibility and discipline."

  "I don't want to argue with you."

  "I don't. I tell you this, Mr. Slocum. He's got to learn to start facing things."

  "He's trying. He's trying very hard."

  "Then they don't want him on their team. They complain to me that they don't want him on their team if he's not going to try. It's no secret. They do it right in front of him. Now they complain to me that they don't want him on their basketball team because he isn't any good. That isn't such a funny joke to kids who are playing their hearts out to win. What amI supposed to do? Whose side should I take? Can't you do something?"

  "That's why I came here. To try."

  "Can't you talk to him, Mr. Slocum? And try to explain to him why he should try to do things straight and right. It would be better for him, not me."

  It would indeed. With no great effort I can picture my little boy looking scared and green with Forgione, for I have seen him often enough looking that same way with me when we are in some unfamiliar place and he thinks I'm going to leave him there or that I am going to try to make him dive from a diving board. How can I explain to Forgione that I like my little boy pretty much the way he is (do I? I'm not sure), that it's all right with me if he's not competitive, aggressive, or outstanding, although there are times, I must admit to myself, when I wish he were more so, when I am displeased with him because he isn't, and would probably be more proud of him if he were. And I guess he must know that too.

  He does not know yet that I have come to Forgione to try to obtain special favors for him, and I do not want him to find out. I think he might be too mortified, feel too nakedly degraded, ever to be able to face Forgione again. And I know that I will be peeved with him when I leave for having made it necessary for me to come (and for spoiling my morning and most of my peace of mind the evening before after I made my decision to go to Forgione once and for all and was already regretting it), and that I would like to kick all those other snarling, snapping little kids in the ass and smash their smelly, snotty, bellicose little heads together for ganging up against him. (And making it necessary for me to do something. Oh, shit — I sometimes think I could be so happy alone, but I know I would not be.)

  "Can't you leave him out for a little while, if he asks you to?"

  "Is that what he wants?"

  "Yes, I think so. Although I don't think he will ask you. And I will talk to him. But don't say anything."

  "If that's what he wants, sure. I don't pick on him, Mr. Slocum."

  "Maybe he'll get a little of his confidence back. Just for a few days."

  "I try to help."

  "Tell him he looks a little tired or something."

  "Have him come to me with an excuse. Let him limp a little or bring a note from you saying he feels sick. So the other kids don't find out and make fun of him."

  "It wouldn't be a lie. On days when he has gym, he does feel sick and feels like throwing up. He doesn't eat breakfast. He comes to school without eating anything."

  "I didn't know that. Does he say anything about me?"

  "Only a little. Nothing bad. That he's scared and can't do things. He didn't ask me to come here."

  "I'm only trying to help him when I get on him to try to make him do better and try harder. I'm just trying to get him to realize his maximum potential so he'll do the best he can and be much better off. You ought to tell him I said that."

  "I don't even want him to know I came here. Let him do push-ups or something for a few days and see what happens when we take the pressure off. Okay?"

  "He's no good at push-ups, either. Or at chinning, sit-ups, rope climbing, or tumbling. In fact, I don't think I could give your boy a good rating at anything, Mr. Slocum. But running. He's pretty fast. But he doesn't always try. He kids around."

  (I have to suppress another smile.) "Maybe that's hereditary," I say. "I was never much good at anything either."

  "Oh, no, Mr. Slocum," Mr. Forgione corrects me with, a laugh. "Anybody can be good at anything physical if he works steadily to develop himself."

  "I hope so," I concede diplomatically. "I know I used to spend a lot of time in gyms," I lie. "But I never seemed to improve very much."

  "You've got a good build. I can see that from here. Your boy could be a fine athlete, Mr. Slocum, if he'd only apply himself harder. He can run like a weasel and has quick reflexes. You should see the way he flinches when he thinks I'm gonna yell at him. Or one of the kids."

  "He may be afraid to ask you. Even if I give him the note."

  "I know what to do."

  "He might be too embarrassed. And you won't tell him I spoke to you. I wouldn't want him to know."

  "Sure. No."

  "And you're not going to get even, are you? Take it out on him because I came here to ask?"

  "No, of course not," Forgione exclaimed indignantly. "Why would I want to do that?" (Because you're human, I think.) "What kind of a man do you think I am?"

  "Cro-Magnon," I reply crisply.

  (But that, of course, I say to myself. Outside myself, I laugh softly in a prete
nse of congeniality. I wonder if the time will ever come when I will begin, without recognizing I am doing it and without detecting the change, saying out loud the things I now say privately to myself or verbalize in contemplation and if I will therefore become psychotic or one of those men — more often than not they are women — who talk out loud to themselves on sidewalks and buses. If that happens, I will blend my inner world with my outer world and be disoriented in both. I will be pathetic. I have trouble enough deciding which is which now and which one is the true one. I worry gravely about all lapses of self-control. I think it may already be happening, that I do talk to myself out loud — my children tease me and say I did talk to myself out loud while rehearsing the speech I wasn't allowed to give at last year's convention — sometimes when I'm drunk or very deeply immersed in work or introspection. Sometimes I catch myself almost mouthing words that I intend to write down when I get to my desk at the office or in my study at home, or that I plan to say to whoever it is I am on my way to meet. At least, I think I always catch myself in time. I can't be sure. There may be times already when I don't. I know I occasionally do gesticulate with hands and head when preparing myself for conversations, but that is almost in the nature of a rehearsal of which I am aware. I am so afraid that I will start talking to myself someday that I feel I already do. People will make fun of me. Or look the other way and pretend I'm not. I suffer chest pains frequently because I'm so afraid of suffering chest pains someday and dying of a heart attack. My brother died of a heart attack while waiting for something in the waiting room of his office, and my father died of something else while I was still just a little boy, and my mother, as I can't forget, was struck down in her old age by a number, some of them too subtle and minute in individual effect to be counted, of cerebral vascular accidents, as they are euphemistically called — they did not seem like «accidents» — that set her tongue clattering inside her mouth when she tried to talk and turned the rest of her, eventually, to bloodless pulp. God, how I grew to detest the sight of her! And wanted to cry, in love, sympathy, and self-pity, and would not let myself do anything like that. I kept control. I was strong. I can be strong and unemotional when it comes to someone else. I think I may worry as much about talking out loud to myself as I worry about stuttering. I think some of my dreams may be homosexual. I think I'm afraid I might start stuttering incurably when I even think that thought of being homosexual. I don't know why I feel that way about those dreams. And I also feel that some of my other dreams may be heterosexual, and I do know why. I am chasing and pumping away with girls in those dreams and almost get there, almost get all the way in, but never do. I never even come. They always break off unfinished. Is it my mother? Nude and cooperative? And know also that much of my waking life is composed of defenses against behavior I am not aware of and would find difficult to justify. Why do I feel like crying so often and why do I refuse to let myself do so. ever? There are times, afterward, when I wish I did and regret I didn't. I often used to feel like crying after quarreling with my daughter. I am no longer proud that I can remain unmoved. I hope desperately that my little boy never finds out I'm a fag if that is what I really am, although I think I might derive some nasty gratification if my wife began to harass herself about that possibility. I hope I never lose control of myself in anything. I never have, not even with a girl. I wish I wanted to. I'm glad I don't. I hope I never have a stroke that makes me stutter or renders me paralyzed or speechless. I hope I never have a heart attack. I hope I'm never senile and pee in my pants and want to molest children. I wonder what kind of person would come out if I ever did erase all my inhibitions at once, what kind of being is bottled up inside me now. Would I like him? I think not. There's more than one of me, probably. There's more than just an id; I know that; I could live with my id if I ever looked upon it whole, sort of snuggle up and get cozy with it, exchange smutty stories. Deep down inside, I might really be great. Deep down inside, I think not. I hope I never live to see the real me come out. He might say and do things that would embarrass me and plunge him into serious trouble, and I hope I am dead and buried by the time he does. Ha, ha.)

  "Ha, ha, Forgione," is what I do say, to indicate to Forgione that my question was not intended to be taken seriously. "I do. I really do, Mr. Forgione."

  "What?"

  "Appreciate it. I'm glad you understand."

  "That's okay, Mr. Slocum. I'd do that to help any kid."

  "Thank you, Mr. Forgione. I feel much better now."

  I put my hand out eagerly in order to shake his, and find that I feel much worse when I depart from him.

  I went there braced for battle, prepared to take on all comers, if necessary. I have won my point too easily, and go away feeling I have lost. I am depressed. Good God! I catch myself wondering as I commute into the city by train to my office again. What in the world have I done to my poor little boy now? I find myself furious with my wife for having prodded me to go there. Suppose Forgione is intent upon revenge? I don't want to have to go looking around for a private school to transfer my little boy to, not now; yet Forgione can make me. I am in his power, and he is not in mine. Last year it was a saturnine battle-ax of an arts and crafts teacher (his Mrs. Yerger, and mine too again, for that time. For every season there is a Mrs. Yerger, it seems — there always has been — and a Forgione too) that came very close to making me move him out of his public school (he pleaded with me to let him stay) into an expensive private one that might have turned out to be just as evil. This year it is sturdy, umber Forgione, with his damned gym and muscular physique. (We moved to Connecticut to get away from Negroes. Now I've got this stocky Italian weight-lifter to worry about.) Does Forgione, as I now feel absolutely certain, resent my having come to the school to complain to him (did I make a very bad impression on Forgione?) and criticize and interfere with his work in relation to my child? Will he strike back at me, with immense personal satisfaction, by browbeating and disgracing my boy even more than he already has? Tune in the next day to find out. And I do tune in shakily all the next day to find out, with a telephone call home at lunchtime (to ask, ostensibly, if there is any important mail, but really to make certain he is still alive, that no word of his death has come from school) and with another telephone call home late in the afternoon.

  "Guess what?" my boy exclaims cheerfully, answering the phone (to my vast relief and amazement).

  For Forgione, bless his noble heart, turns out fine. (I am more tense about gym than my boy at breakfast that morning. My coffee is flavored with the bitter taste of bile. Forgione is an executioner, masked in dire, enigmatic intentions, and I ponder all day long in my office over what kinds of criminal atrocities are being committed against my boy behind the brick walls, closed doors, and blind windows of that penitential institution of a school. I am more tense than my boy because I can objectify anxieties he does not even know he suffers from yet. I have an imagination that is infinitely more sophisticated and convoluted. He does not know yet about Leopold and Loeb, and I do. He does not know about cunning, older, polymorphous perverts, driven and deranged, who brutalize and murder children for no good reason. I have the same scorching foresights he has of strange, fierce, scowling men abducting, harming, dismembering him, and there are days — or used to be when we lived in the city, and still are, even now that we have retreated into the suburbs — when I will glare accusingly and belligerently, bluffing, of course, at every strange man I see in his vicinity — handymen, delivery men, construction men, insurance men, even clergymen — as potential kidnappers, sadists, ruffians, degenerates, or mad murderers who torture and mutilate their disbelieving victims before and after killing them, even though I know that's impossible. I picture it anyway. And now Forgione's face is swimming among them, heartless, symbolic, carnal, alien. I am crazy: no wonder my boy tends to be fearful. For a long time in the city I was too fearful to allow him to walk to school alone, even though the school building was only a few blocks away and other kids his own age were alrea
dy doing it; at the same time, I kept urging him to get up the courage to try it, pointing out to him that he was big enough and intelligent enough and would have to do it someday, and assuring him that nothing would happen to him if he waited always for the light to turn green and looked in all directions before stepping from the curb and crossing each street. I was afraid he'd get lost. I am afraid of traffic accidents. I also feared drunkards, junkies, unhappy laborers, explosions, bigger, bullying schoolboys, and truants from high school come to prey on the smaller children in elementary school, most of them Black, Puerto Rican, or Italian, who would take his ice cream money, tear his clothes, bloody his face, or pull his ears off; I was even afraid of falling cornices, and so, I think, was he. I would telephone the house two or three times a day from my office to ask if any important mail had come or my dry cleaning, but really to make sure that everyone there was still alive, as far as anyone who was there could tell — if no one answered the phone when somebody should have, I would think of calling the police, the apartment building superintendent, or one of the neighbors — to verify that he had made it back home safely from school for lunch — which meant, by deduction, that he had made it to school safely after breakfast — and that he had found his way back home successfully again after schoo — which meant, once more, that he had made it back safely to school after lunch, that day.