Something Happened   ::   Хеллер Джозеф

Whenever I have a really good bowel movement, my lonely hemorrhoid beginsto bleed. Maybe I ought to get it a friend.

Now that I have taken charge of my responsibilities, I do hear voices. I hear:

"You're a good administrator, Slocum."

"You've done a good job, Slocum."

"I liked the way you stepped right in and took over."

"You've got the department really humming, Slocum."

"You got Kagle out pretty smoothly, didn't you, Slocum? Ha, ha."

"I've never seen them working so hard, Slocum."

"I like the way you've taken control."

"I'm glad to see you're fitting in."

(I am fitting in.)

"Who's that?"

"Slocum."

"I'd like you to meet Bob Slocum," Arthur Baron and Horace White introduce me now. "He's one of our best men."

I meet a much higher class of executive at Arthur Baron's now when he has us to dinner. I play golf with a much better class of people. (Swish.) I have played golf at Round Hill twice already as a guest of Horace White, once with his undistinguished sister and her husband. She made eyes at me. (Swish.) I have a hitch in my swing. I have played at Burning Tree in Washington as the guest of a buyer and heard a deputy cabinet official tell an old joke poorly. I laughed. (Swish.) I laughed rambunctiously.

"Slocum's the name. Bob Slocum."

"Look me up the next time you're in town."

I have played at White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia as the company's representative to a national business conference. Maybe someday, if my game and my job continue to improve, I might even play St. Andrews in Scotland. (Swish.) I miss my boy. Martha the typist went crazy for me finally at just the right time in a way I was able to handle suavely. I took charge like a ballet master.

"Call Medical," I directed with an authority that was almost musical. "Call Personnel. Get Security. Call Travel and tell them to hire a chauffeured limousine immediately."

Martha sits in her typist's chair like an obdurate statue and will not move or speak. She is deaf to entreaty, shakes helping hands off violently, gives signs she might shriek. I wait nearby with an expression of aplomb. Her look turns dazed and panicky when anyone comes close. The nurses from Medical are quickly there.

"How are you, dear?" the eldest asks soothingly.

We have a good-sized audience now, and I am the supervisor. Martha rises compliantly, smiling, with a hint of diabolical satisfaction, I see, at the wary attention she has succeeded in extorting from so many people who are solicitous and alarmed.

"There, there, dear.