our share was $300, minus expenses. But it was something to do, something to do. After the coop was built, Craig dug in at his farm up-state, and that left me alone. I want you to remember that, because if I made a fool of myself, I was wide open for that, with nothing to do and nobody to do it with. When you get a little fed up with me, just remember those feet, with no spurs to keep them from falling off the desk, because what we had going on wasnât a war, like now, but a depression.
It was about four-thirty on a fall afternoon when I decided to call it a day and go home. The office is in a remodeled loft on East 35th Street, with a two-story studio for drafting on the ground level, the offices off from that, and the third floor for storage. We own the whole building and owned it then. The house is on East 84th Street, and itâs a house, not an apartment. I got it on a deal that covered a couple of apartment houses and a store. Itâs mine, and was mine then, with nothing owing on it. I decided to walk, and marched along, up Park and over, and it was around five-thirty when I got home. But I had forgotten it was Wednesday, Dorisâs afternoon at home. I could hear them in there as soon as I opened the door, and I let out a damn under my breath, but there was nothing to do but brush my hair back and go in. It was the usual mob: a couple of Dorisâs cousins, three women from the Social Center, a woman just back from Russia, a couple of women that have boxes at the Metropolitan Opera, and half a dozen husbands and sons. They were all Social Register, all so cultured that even their eyeballs were lavender, all rich, and all 100% nitwits. They were the special kind of nitwits you meet in New York and nowhere else, and they might fool you if you didnât know them, but theyâre nitwits just the same. Me, Iâm Social Register too, but I wasnât until I married Doris, and Iâm a traitor to the kind that took me in. Give me somebody like Craig, thatâs a farmer from Reubenville, that never even heard of the Social Register, that wouldnât know culture if he met it on the street, but is an A1 engineer just the same, and has designed a couple of bridges that have plenty of beauty, if thatâs what theyâre talking about. These friends of Dorisâs, theyâve been everywhere, theyâve read everything, they know everybody, and I guess now and then they even do a little good, anyway when they shove money back of something that really needs help. But I donât like them, and they donât like me.
I went around, though, and shook hands, and didnât tumble that anything unusual was going on until I saw Lorentz. Lorentz had been her singing teacher before she married me, and he had been in Europe since then, and this was the first I knew he was back. And his name, for some reason, didnât seem to get mentioned much around our house. You see, Doris is opera-struck, and one of the things that began to make trouble between us within a month of the wedding was the great career she gave up to marry me. I kept telling her I didnât want her to give up her career, and that she should go on studying. She was only nineteen then, and it certainly looked like she still had her future before her. But she would come back with a lot of stuff about a womanâs first duty being to her home, and when Randolph came, and after him Evelyn, I began to say she had probably been right at that. But that only made it worse. Then I was the one that was blocking her career, and had been all along, and every time weâd get going good, thereâd be a lot of stuff about Lorentz, and the way he had raved about her voice, and if she had only listened to him instead of to me, until I got a little sick of it. Then after a while Lorentz wasnât mentioned any more, and that suited me fine. I had nothing against him, but he always meant trouble, and the less I heard of him the better
It was about four-thirty on a fall afternoon when I decided to call it a day and go home. The office is in a remodeled loft on East 35th Street, with a two-story studio for drafting on the ground level, the offices off from that, and the third floor for storage. We own the whole building and owned it then. The house is on East 84th Street, and itâs a house, not an apartment. I got it on a deal that covered a couple of apartment houses and a store. Itâs mine, and was mine then, with nothing owing on it. I decided to walk, and marched along, up Park and over, and it was around five-thirty when I got home. But I had forgotten it was Wednesday, Dorisâs afternoon at home. I could hear them in there as soon as I opened the door, and I let out a damn under my breath, but there was nothing to do but brush my hair back and go in. It was the usual mob: a couple of Dorisâs cousins, three women from the Social Center, a woman just back from Russia, a couple of women that have boxes at the Metropolitan Opera, and half a dozen husbands and sons. They were all Social Register, all so cultured that even their eyeballs were lavender, all rich, and all 100% nitwits. They were the special kind of nitwits you meet in New York and nowhere else, and they might fool you if you didnât know them, but theyâre nitwits just the same. Me, Iâm Social Register too, but I wasnât until I married Doris, and Iâm a traitor to the kind that took me in. Give me somebody like Craig, thatâs a farmer from Reubenville, that never even heard of the Social Register, that wouldnât know culture if he met it on the street, but is an A1 engineer just the same, and has designed a couple of bridges that have plenty of beauty, if thatâs what theyâre talking about. These friends of Dorisâs, theyâve been everywhere, theyâve read everything, they know everybody, and I guess now and then they even do a little good, anyway when they shove money back of something that really needs help. But I donât like them, and they donât like me.
I went around, though, and shook hands, and didnât tumble that anything unusual was going on until I saw Lorentz. Lorentz had been her singing teacher before she married me, and he had been in Europe since then, and this was the first I knew he was back. And his name, for some reason, didnât seem to get mentioned much around our house. You see, Doris is opera-struck, and one of the things that began to make trouble between us within a month of the wedding was the great career she gave up to marry me. I kept telling her I didnât want her to give up her career, and that she should go on studying. She was only nineteen then, and it certainly looked like she still had her future before her. But she would come back with a lot of stuff about a womanâs first duty being to her home, and when Randolph came, and after him Evelyn, I began to say she had probably been right at that. But that only made it worse. Then I was the one that was blocking her career, and had been all along, and every time weâd get going good, thereâd be a lot of stuff about Lorentz, and the way he had raved about her voice, and if she had only listened to him instead of to me, until I got a little sick of it. Then after a while Lorentz wasnât mentioned any more, and that suited me fine. I had nothing against him, but he always meant trouble, and the less I heard of him the better
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