"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, Semitic 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.

"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.