The Collected Stories of Richard Yates by Richard Yates

for him. All through adolescence he had specialized in it, gamely losing fights with stronger boys, playing football badly in the secret hope of being injured and carried dramatically off the field (“You got to hand it to old Henderson for one thing, anyway,” the high-school coach had said with a chuckle, “he’s a real little glutton for punishment”). College had offered a wider scope to his talent—there were exams to be flunked and elections to be lost—and later the Air Force had made it possible for him to wash out, honorably, as a flight cadet. And now, inevitably, it seemed, he was running true to form once more. The several jobs he’d held before this had been the beginner’s kind at which it isn’t easy to fail; when the opportunity for this one first arose it had been, in Crowell’s phrase, “a real challenge.”
    â€œGood,” Walter had said. “That’s what I’m looking for.” When he related that part of the conversation to his wife she had said, “Oh, wonderful!” and they’d moved to an expensive apartment in the East Sixties on the strength of it. And lately, when he started coming home with a beaten look and announcing darkly that he doubted if he could hold on much longer, she would enjoin the children not to bother him (“Daddy’s very tired tonight”), bring him a drink and soothe him with careful, wifely reassurance, doing her best to conceal her fear, never guessing, or at least never showing, that she was dealing with a chronic, compulsive failure, a strange little boy in love with the attitudes of collapse. And the amazing thing, he thought—the really amazing thing—was that he himself had never looked at it that way before.
    â€œWalt?”
    The cubicle gate had swung open and George Crowell was standing there, looking uncomfortable. “Will you step into my office a minute?”
    â€œRight, George.” And Walter followed him out of the cubicle, out across the office floor, feeling many eyes on his back. Keep it dignified, he told himself. The important thing is to keep it dignified. Then the door closed behind them and the two of them were alone in the carpeted silence of Crowell’s private office. Automobile horns blared in the distance, twenty-one stories below; the only other sounds were their breathing, the squeak of Crowell’s shoes as he went to his desk and the creak of his swivel chair as he sat down. “Pull up a chair, Walt,” he said. “Smoke?”
    â€œNo thanks.” Walter sat down and laced his fingers tight between his knees.
    Crowell shut the cigarette box without taking one for himself, pushed it aside and leaned forward, both hands spread flat on the plate-glass top of the desk. “Walt, I might as well give you this straight from the shoulder,” he said, and the last shred of hope slipped away. The funny part was that it came as a shock, even so. “Mr. Harvey and I have felt for some time that you haven’t quite caught on to the work here, and we’ve both very reluctantly come to the conclusion that the best thing to do, in your own best interests as well as ours, is to let you go. Now,” he added quickly, “this is no reflection on you personally, Walt. We do a highly specialized kind of work here and we can’t expect everybody to stay on top of the job. In your case particularly, we really feel you’d be happier in some organization better suited to your—abilities.”
    Crowell leaned back, and when he raised his hands their moisture left two gray, perfect prints on the glass, like the hands of a skeleton. Walter stared at them, fascinated, while they shriveled and disappeared.
    â€œWell,” he said, and looked up. “You put that very nicely, George. Thanks.”
    Crowell’s lips worked into an apologetic, regular guy’s smile. “Awfully sorry,” he said. “These things