Recoil (15 page)
Authors: Jim Thompson
“What are you chasing all over the office for? Can’t you stay out of that restroom for five minutes? How can you ever get any work done if you’re never at your desk.”
“I manage to get my work done,” I said.
“I asked you a question.” He scowled at me. “You must have been back to the toilet six times in the last half hour.”
I knew there was no use correcting or arguing with him. I knew I’d better think of something fast or I’d be in big trouble. And it was just about the worst time possible for
that
kind of trouble. Mother—Martha’s mother, that is—had been having some pretty hefty doctor bills, and it looked like Martha was going to need a new upper plate any day—it hadn’t been much good since she’d got it mixed up with the garbage and put it in the incinerator—and Bob was just getting started in high school. Bob had gone right from the Kenton Hills Grammer School to Kenton Hills High School. He’d gone from grade to grade with the same kids, ever since he’d started to school, and I hated to think of how he’d feel if I lost my job and we had to move and he had to start into some strange school with a strange bunch of kids. He hadn’t been doing too well in school lately, as it was. It might set him back seriously if he had to make a change now.
Henley was waiting for me to say something. He was hoping I’d tangle myself up, give him an excuse to fire me. I think he was, anyway.
“Well,” he said, “how about it? For God’s sake, are you deaf and dumb?”
And all of a sudden I had an inspiration.
“No, I’m not deaf and dumb,” I said, looking him straight in the eye, “and I’m not blind either.”
“Huh?” he grunted. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that restroom was getting to be a kind of play room,” I said. “People have been hanging around back there, smoking and swapping jokes, when they should be out here working. I’m putting a stop to it.”
“Well, say, now.” He leaned back in his chair. “That’s all right, Al! Been giving ’em hell, huh?”
“They get out fast,” I said, “when they see me coming.”
“Who were they, Al, some of the worst offenders? Give me their names.”
“Well…” I hesitated. And I thought about Jeff Winter and Harry Ainslee and some of the others that had tried to knife me every time I turned my back. One of their favorite tricks was to loaf along until they saw I was tied up on something, then spring some deal that had to be settled right away. You know, trying to make it look like I was slowing down. Like I was a bottleneck and they couldn’t get their jobs done on account of me.
But I wasn’t going to be lowdown just because they were. I wouldn’t be like them for any amount of money.
“I think one’s been about as bad as another,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to name anyone in particular.”
“Mmmm. Uh-huh,” he nodded. “Well, I’ll tell you what you’d better do, Al. You lock the place up, and keep the key at your desk. Make ’em come to you for it whenever they want to go.”
So that’s what I did. That’s how I squeezed out of one of the tightest places I’d ever been in. And there wasn’t anything wrong with it, was there? After all, I was supposed to be in charge of the outer office. The men should get permission from me before leaving their work.
Henley didn’t ride me about a thing for the rest of the day, and he stopped watching me. Then that night, as I was getting ready to leave, he called me into his office again.
“Been thinking about you, Al,” he said. “Looks like you’re more on the ball than I thought you were. You keep it up, and maybe we can boost you to three-fifty.”
“Why, that’s—that’s fine!” I said. My salary was three twenty-seven-fifty a month (and it still is). “I’ll certainly do all I can to deserve it.”
“Three-fifty,” he said, his eyes veiled, smiling in a way I didn’t understand. “That’s pretty good money for a man your age, isn’t it?”
“Well” I laughed. “I’m not exactly a Methuselah, Mr. Henley. I won’t be forty-nine until next—”
“Yeah? You don’t think it is good money?”
“Yes, sir. I mean—I was just going to say that.…Yes, sir,” I said.
“You agree you’d be damned lucky to get it, a man your age?”
“I’d be…be darned lucky to get it,” I said. “A man my age.”
I went on home, not feeling too good although there wasn’t any reason why I shouldn’t have. I’d done the right thing, the only thing I could have done. I hadn’t hurt anyone and it looked like I might have got myself a raise, so everything was all right. But I guess I kind of wanted someone to tell me it was.
We had pickled beets, peas, and sweet potatoes for dinner that night. It seemed that Martha had taken the labels off the cans to make some candlestick shades, and she didn’t know what was in them until she opened them up.
I said it was a dandy dinner, the very things I liked. Sometimes I forget myself and scold her, but I try not to. She can’t help it, you see, according to the doctors. She’s been a little giddy ever since she started going through the change of life. Maybe even before.
Well, so we all started eating, and I brought up the matter of the raise in an offhand way. I mentioned that first, and then I just sort of dragged in the other things, the restroom and so on.
Martha said it was wonderful; she carried on for a minute or two about how smart I was. “I guess you showed them,” she said. “They have to get up pretty early in the morning to get ahead of my Al.”
Bob looked down at his plate, He didn’t eat anything.
“Didn’t you hear your father?” Martha frowned at him. “All those people have been picking on him, and now he’s got
them
in hot water. And maybe he’ll get a raise besides!”
“I’ll bet he don’t,” said Bob.
“Well, now,” I said. “I really didn’t get the boys in any trouble. Nothing like it. I simply…What makes you think I won’t, Bob?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled. “I’m not hungry.”
“You see?” I laughed. “You can’t tell me, can you? If you don’t have a reason for a statement, you shouldn’t make it.”
“ ’Scuse me,” he said. “I don’t want anything more to eat.”
He pushed back his chair, and started to get up.
I told him to stay right where he was.
“Al,” said Martha, nervously. “If he doesn’t want to eat—”
“I’m handling this,” I said. “I’m still head of this family. He acts like I’d—he made a certain statement. Now, he can explain himself or he’ll sit there and eat.”
Bob hesitated, his head bowed over his plate. He picked up his fork and began to eat.
“I don’t think I’m unreasonable,” I said. “Why, my God, if I’d been willing to do the things that some people do, I wouldn’t have to—to—worry about a job. I’d be sitting on easy street. I’ll tell you something, young man: if you had just a few of my problems, things I never even mention, maybe you’d…”
I went on talking to him, trying to show him where he was wrong. And he was wrong. Like I say, I’m not unreasonable. I’m not like Henley. I wasn’t just being ornery, trying to make him say something he didn’t want to just because I was worried and sore at myself.
I’m not like that. I hadn’t done anything to be ashamed of.
“You see, Bob?” I said. “Answer me!”
He didn’t answer. He poked a bite of sweet potato into his mouth.
And then, suddenly, he choked and his face went white, and he started vomiting.
…That’s when he really changed.
He was never quite the same boy after that.
