Collected Fictions Read Free Page B

badge number, the one who had said just a sled.
    As for the custodian, it would appear that the fellow has taken to coming on a weekday.
    I am not at home weekdays.
    My wife is. And she is afraid, I tell you, afraid.
    MY FRIEND CALLED . I was about to leave, and perhaps I was not paying very close attention. Perhaps I should have examined his proposal more carefully. But it was a Wednesday, and Wednesdays I always vacate my office a quarter hour sooner than is otherwise my habit, this to provide time to pick up the laundry before presenting myself at home.
    I was courteous enough, I think. I do not think I was especially abrupt. But I expect I was not listening very closely. As a result, I not only failed to hear him well enough to advise him with prudence, but of course I can also have no confidence that I will reproduce his sentences accurately. I believe, however, he said something approximate to this:
    "I have the thing, just the thing. A really incredibly good idea, something extraordinary and giving, just as you said. You see, the thing was she was always complaining that I was unreasonably hesitant to let her share in my world, to be with the people I was with, that sort of thing. You know the sort of thing I'm talking about—they do it all the time. I mean, once you're really involved with them, what they invariably want from you is to get really involved with you—hear about your friends, hear about your job, hear about your wife, all the dreariness that you of course don't . It gets that way with them, this pushing at you and pushing at you for more and more of your life. Oh, God, you must have had your own experiences with what I am talking about. Honestly, I really don't think they can help themselves. I mean, they know better, don't they? I mean, they've got to know that if they keep it up, they're going to end up pushing you too far. But they do it and they do it—and you go and do precisely what they don't want, hold back, hold more and more back, until it's yourself you figure you won't hand over to them anymore. The point is, that's exactly why my idea is right on the money. Because the idea I had is to give a party, a sort of going-away party—something that will give her what she wants but end it at the same time. Just me and her and my two closest pals—you and this other pal I have—because I was always telling her about the two of you guys and she was always so terribly interested. It drove me nuts the way she was always asking to meet you two, me always having to invent excuses why she couldn't, these two great buddies I have who happen to be my two best buddies, you and this other buddy of mine."
    I think I remember saying, "Please, be sensible, you and I are not precisely on such terms." Or I may have said, "Please, be sensible, that is a vulgar and doomed plan."
    I do not know what I said. I know that that night, when I had emptied out my briefcase to sort my papers, I found a notation giving this man's name, a restaurant, a date, a time. I still had this in my hand, amazed, when I went to ball up the laundry wrappings to stuff them in the trash. I don't know why I did not discard the slip of paper along with the rest. You will understand that it was not because I must have said yes to the fellow and was unprepared to go back on my word. Perhaps it was because I had said yes and was bound not to dishonor the queer impetus in me that had made me do it. In any event, I put the reminder in my pocket and the laundry wrappings in the trash basket, lifted out the plastic liner, cinched it, and tossed the whole arrangement down the stairwell for the custodian to find it when he would.
    The bastard.
    THERE IS CHICKEN POX and there is chicken pox—and my boy had the second kind. We cautioned him not to scratch. Please understand that he is the quality of boy who respects a caution. I know he tried all he could to resist. But a mad itching is a vile thing, and when it is rampantly in its mania, there is