is…Not her fault …But not mine, either!
“I have an idea,” she said. “Why don’t you let me walk Marshall? Or I’ll get Eddie to do it. You go upstairs and read Campbell a story before she goes to sleep. She’d love it. You’re not home this early very often. Why don’t you do that?”
He stared at her. It wasn’t a trick! She was sincere! And yet zip zip zip zip zip zip zip with a few swift strokes, a few little sentences, she had …tied him in knots!—thongs of guilt and logic! Without even trying!
The fact that Campbell might be lying in her little bed —my only child!—the utter innocence of a six-year-old!— wishing that he would read her a bedtime story…while he was…doing whatever it was he was now doing …Guilt!… The fact that he usually got home too late to see her at all …Guilt on top of guilt!… He doted on Campbell!—loved her more than anything in the world!…To make matters worse —the logic of it! The sweet wifely face he was now staring at had just made a considerate and thoughtful suggestion, a logical suggestion…so logical he was speechless! There weren’t enough white lies in the world to get around such logic! And she was only trying to be nice!
“Go ahead,” she said. “Campbell will be so pleased. I’ll tend to Marshall.”
The world was upside down. What was he, a Master of the Universe, doing down here on the floor, reduced to ransacking his brain for white lies to circumvent the sweet logic of his wife? The Masters of the Universe were a set of lurid, rapacious plastic dolls that his otherwise perfect daughter liked to play with. They looked like Norse gods who lifted weights, and they had names such as Dracon, Ahor, Mangelred, and Blutong. They were unusually vulgar, even for plastic toys. Yet one fine day, in a fit of euphoria, after he had picked up the telephone and taken an order for zero-coupon bonds that had brought him a $50,000 commission, just like that , this very phrase had bubbled up into his brain. On Wall Street he and a few others—how many?—three hundred, four hundred, five hundred?—had become precisely that…Masters of the Universe. There was…no limit whatsoever! Naturally he had never so much as whispered this phrase to a living soul. He was no fool. Yet he couldn’t get it out of his head. And here was the Master of the Universe, on the floor with a dog, hog-tied by sweetness, guilt, and logic…Why couldn’t he (being a Master of the Universe) simply explain it to her? Look, Judy, I still love you and I love our daughter and I love our home and I love our life, and I don’t want to change any of it—it’s just that I, a Master of the Universe, a young man still in the season of the rising sap, deserve more from time to time, when the spirit moves me—
—but he knew he could never put any such thought into words. So resentment began to bubble up into his brain…In a way she brought it on herself, didn’t she…Those women whose company she now seems to prize…those…those…The phrase pops into his head at that very instant: social X-rays… They keep themselves so thin, they look like X-ray pictures…You can see lamplight through their bones…while they’re chattering about interiors and landscape gardening… and encasing their scrawny shanks in metallic Lycra tubular tights for their Sports Training classes…And it hasn’t helped any, has it!…See how drawn her face and neck look…He concentrated on her face and neck …drawn… No doubt about it…Sports Training…turning into one of them—
He managed to manufacture just enough resentment to ignite the famous McCoy temper.
He could feel his face grow hot. He put his head down and said, “Juuuuuudy…” It was a shout stifled by teeth. He pressed the thumb and the first two fingers of his left hand together and held them in front of his clamped jaws and blazing eyes, and he said:
“Look…I’m all—set—to—walk—the—dog…So
“I have an idea,” she said. “Why don’t you let me walk Marshall? Or I’ll get Eddie to do it. You go upstairs and read Campbell a story before she goes to sleep. She’d love it. You’re not home this early very often. Why don’t you do that?”
He stared at her. It wasn’t a trick! She was sincere! And yet zip zip zip zip zip zip zip with a few swift strokes, a few little sentences, she had …tied him in knots!—thongs of guilt and logic! Without even trying!
The fact that Campbell might be lying in her little bed —my only child!—the utter innocence of a six-year-old!— wishing that he would read her a bedtime story…while he was…doing whatever it was he was now doing …Guilt!… The fact that he usually got home too late to see her at all …Guilt on top of guilt!… He doted on Campbell!—loved her more than anything in the world!…To make matters worse —the logic of it! The sweet wifely face he was now staring at had just made a considerate and thoughtful suggestion, a logical suggestion…so logical he was speechless! There weren’t enough white lies in the world to get around such logic! And she was only trying to be nice!
“Go ahead,” she said. “Campbell will be so pleased. I’ll tend to Marshall.”
The world was upside down. What was he, a Master of the Universe, doing down here on the floor, reduced to ransacking his brain for white lies to circumvent the sweet logic of his wife? The Masters of the Universe were a set of lurid, rapacious plastic dolls that his otherwise perfect daughter liked to play with. They looked like Norse gods who lifted weights, and they had names such as Dracon, Ahor, Mangelred, and Blutong. They were unusually vulgar, even for plastic toys. Yet one fine day, in a fit of euphoria, after he had picked up the telephone and taken an order for zero-coupon bonds that had brought him a $50,000 commission, just like that , this very phrase had bubbled up into his brain. On Wall Street he and a few others—how many?—three hundred, four hundred, five hundred?—had become precisely that…Masters of the Universe. There was…no limit whatsoever! Naturally he had never so much as whispered this phrase to a living soul. He was no fool. Yet he couldn’t get it out of his head. And here was the Master of the Universe, on the floor with a dog, hog-tied by sweetness, guilt, and logic…Why couldn’t he (being a Master of the Universe) simply explain it to her? Look, Judy, I still love you and I love our daughter and I love our home and I love our life, and I don’t want to change any of it—it’s just that I, a Master of the Universe, a young man still in the season of the rising sap, deserve more from time to time, when the spirit moves me—
—but he knew he could never put any such thought into words. So resentment began to bubble up into his brain…In a way she brought it on herself, didn’t she…Those women whose company she now seems to prize…those…those…The phrase pops into his head at that very instant: social X-rays… They keep themselves so thin, they look like X-ray pictures…You can see lamplight through their bones…while they’re chattering about interiors and landscape gardening… and encasing their scrawny shanks in metallic Lycra tubular tights for their Sports Training classes…And it hasn’t helped any, has it!…See how drawn her face and neck look…He concentrated on her face and neck …drawn… No doubt about it…Sports Training…turning into one of them—
He managed to manufacture just enough resentment to ignite the famous McCoy temper.
He could feel his face grow hot. He put his head down and said, “Juuuuuudy…” It was a shout stifled by teeth. He pressed the thumb and the first two fingers of his left hand together and held them in front of his clamped jaws and blazing eyes, and he said:
“Look…I’m all—set—to—walk—the—dog…So