JК
Something Happened :: Хеллер Джозеф
Страница: 396 из 398(Red Parker doesn't know that yet. He mails warmest greetings from St. Thomas every time he flies down there with some other female whack.) I get call reports every Friday now, and they are accurate.
"Well, at least there's one good thing," Brown conceded to me grudgingly when we got back to the office. "We can stop wasting time on these stupid call reports."
I made myself ready for the worst, stood up, and confronted him squarely. "No, you can't. I'll want them all on my desk by the close of business every Friday."
"You're a pisser."
"And I don't want you to say I'm a pisser."
Our eyes locked. There was hatred between us. I saw his large fists clench and was trembling inside. I thought he was going to give me my punch in the jaw right then — until I suddenly realized the blood was draining from his face too, faster, probably, than from mine. He was afraid also. He was dissolving: sick little tremors were playing like maggots around his mouth and sinewy jaw. All his truculent bravery was vanishing, and I saw him slipping away from me someplace from which I knew I would never see him return.
"Johnny!" I wanted to cry. "Johnny Brown! Where are you going?"
"Okay," he mumbled, looking down.
But he was already gone, transubstantiating himself like witchcraft into someone obsequious, cringing to hold on to a job he would no longer be able to do. I have had him transferred to another division of the company and replaced by an Italian graduate from a business school who wants to make good, and who is afraid of me.
I play more golf. (Swish!) And am getting quite good.
Kagle's off the payroll with his pension and profit-sharing benefits and has a two-year contract with the company as a part-time consultant whom no one will ever use.
But I've still not been able to hire a Jew. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and Advertiser and I don't know where to find one. (Green found one to replace me and is paying him more money than he was paying me. I hope he's not pushy.)
Martha the typist is gone. (In every office in which I've ever worked, though, there was always at least one person who was going crazy slowly, and I am waiting to see how long it will take Personnel and Providence to send along the next one.)
A man named Gray has joined the company from a high government post and will fit right in between Black and White. We have no primary colors left, I believe, although we probably have some reds, ha, ha, most of us feel blue, ha, ha, and all of us are yellow.
"Well, at least there's one good thing," Brown conceded to me grudgingly when we got back to the office. "We can stop wasting time on these stupid call reports."
I made myself ready for the worst, stood up, and confronted him squarely. "No, you can't. I'll want them all on my desk by the close of business every Friday."
"You're a pisser."
"And I don't want you to say I'm a pisser."
Our eyes locked. There was hatred between us. I saw his large fists clench and was trembling inside. I thought he was going to give me my punch in the jaw right then — until I suddenly realized the blood was draining from his face too, faster, probably, than from mine. He was afraid also. He was dissolving: sick little tremors were playing like maggots around his mouth and sinewy jaw. All his truculent bravery was vanishing, and I saw him slipping away from me someplace from which I knew I would never see him return.
"Johnny!" I wanted to cry. "Johnny Brown! Where are you going?"
"Okay," he mumbled, looking down.
But he was already gone, transubstantiating himself like witchcraft into someone obsequious, cringing to hold on to a job he would no longer be able to do. I have had him transferred to another division of the company and replaced by an Italian graduate from a business school who wants to make good, and who is afraid of me.
I play more golf. (Swish!) And am getting quite good.
Kagle's off the payroll with his pension and profit-sharing benefits and has a two-year contract with the company as a part-time consultant whom no one will ever use.
But I've still not been able to hire a Jew. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and Advertiser and I don't know where to find one. (Green found one to replace me and is paying him more money than he was paying me. I hope he's not pushy.)
Martha the typist is gone. (In every office in which I've ever worked, though, there was always at least one person who was going crazy slowly, and I am waiting to see how long it will take Personnel and Providence to send along the next one.)
A man named Gray has joined the company from a high government post and will fit right in between Black and White. We have no primary colors left, I believe, although we probably have some reds, ha, ha, most of us feel blue, ha, ha, and all of us are yellow.