Something Happened

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Something Happened Page 41

by Джозеф Хеллер


  "You flirt."

  "I have a reputation for arrogance and eccentricity to protect me. You haven't. You're only what you're doing. I have rose fever. If I look like crying, it's allergenic. What's so funny?"

  "I wish I could use a word like that."

  "You can't. Not while I'm around to use a better one. You can't think as quickly as I can, either. You don't have style enough to be as eloquent and glib as I am, so don't even try. That girl won't help you. Go for wealthy divorcees, other men's wives, and attractive widows."

  "Widows aren't that plentiful to come by."

  "Read the obituary pages. You're smiling again."

  "You're funny."

  "But you aren't supposed to be laughing now. Slocum, you're in trouble and you don't seem to know it. And I don't like that."

  "Why am I in trouble?"

  "Because you work for me. And you've been too 'fucking' cheerful for my taste."

  "I thought you didn't want that word."

  "You don't seem as much afraid of me as you used to be."

  "I am, right now."

  "I don't mean, right now."

  "Why should I be afraid?"

  "And I don't like that. It makes me afraid. The last thing this Jack Green wants is someone secure enough in his job with me to walk around whistling Mozart's Great Mass in C Minor — I looked it up. Don't grin. You're as easy to impress as the rest of them. What baffles me is how you know it."

  "I know a girl who —»

  "I can be that pretentious here. You can't. I don't want whistlers working for me. I want drunkards, ulcers, migraines, and high blood pressure. I want people who are afraid. I'm the boss and I'm supposed to get what I want. Do you know what I want?"

  "Good work."

  "I want spastic colitis and nervous exhaustion. You've been losing weight too, haven't you? I've got spastic colitis. Why shouldn't you? I take these pills. I want you to take them. Want one?"

  "No."

  "You will, if you want to keep working for me and ever make a speech at the convention. God dammit, I want the people working for me to be worse off than I am, not better. That's the reason I pay you so well. I want to see you right on the verge. I want it right out in the open. I want to be able to hear it in a stuttering, flustered, tongue-tied voice. Bob, I like you best of all when you can't get a word out because you don't know what that word should be. I'm not going to let you speak at the convention this year either. But you won't know that, even though I'm telling you. You won't be sure. Because I'm going to change my mind and let you prepare and rehearse another three-minute speech on the chance I might not change my mind again. But I will. Don't trust me. I don't trust flattery, loyalty, and sociability. I don't trust deference, respect, and cooperation. I trust fear. Now, that's a fluent demonstration of articulation and eloquence, isn't it? You could never do something like that, could you?"

  "What's wrong, Jack?" I repeat lamely, almost whining, with a weakness that makes me abject. "Why are you doing this?"

  "I have the best paid department in the company. You're stuck here."

  "I know that."

  "I get criticism for the high salaries I pay."

  "I know that."

  "Unless I decide to fire you. I'm stuck here too. Do you know that also? I want inferior people with superior minds who feel in their bones their lives would be over if they lost their jobs with me. And I want that to be true. Now it's visible, now it's coming right out in the open where I want it. Now you're afraid. Yes. Go ahead, Bob, relax — hide your hands in your pockets. They're trembling."

  (I would kill him if I dared.) "Why do you want me to be afraid?"

  "You work for me! I can fire you, you damned idiot. And so can two hundred other people neither one of us even knows about. Do you doubt it?"

  "Christ, no."

  "Isn't that reason enough? I can bully and degrade you anytime I want."

  Oh, Christ, yes — he's got the whammy on me still. He can't fire me; but every cell inside me is convinced he can and bursts open in panic. (My mind has a brain. My glands don't.)

  And I do not trust myself to reply without stuttering disgracefully, effeminately, a sissy. I do not feel I can unblock my mouth, unlock my tongue, and unlimber all my cheek and lip muscles to try a single word until I have sorted through all possible sounds and selected what that first word should be, and at least the one behind it, which might guide me safely to the next. (If I keep my sentence short, I might get out a complete one. I must begin with a one-syllable word. All possible sounds go clumping about in my mind like a jumble of lettered wooden blocks in a noiseless children's classroom.) Otherwise, there might merely come from me an unintelligible gabble or shriek. I feel like a slice of scorching toast ablaze in a toaster, and then my pores gush open in a massive flow of sweltering perspiration before I even have time to recollect that they don't have to. I don't need to be afraid of Jack Green anymore. I merely have to pretend. But I am.

  (And I fear I always will be.) I hate him so and wish him dead as Kagle. I wish he had cancer of the thyroid, prostate, and colon. He hasn't. Him I probably would visit in the hospital just to hear him speechless and see him wasting away. I'll probably be in a hospital before he will, and he will not stoop to visit me. (Perhaps he will — just because he'll know I'll think he won't.) I wish I could be like him. I envy and idealize him, even now as he gazes away from me with a look of studied indifference that approaches boredom. He will not even give me the satisfaction of gloating victoriously. (I am not that important to him. How marvelous.) I wish I could do that. Maybe someday, if I practice regularly (when he is not around to observe with excoriating contempt that it is he I am training myself to emulate), I'll be able to carry off similar things with other people with the same disdainful composure.

  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 whiter 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 sur
e. 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, S
emitic 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 unpunch 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.

 

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