Something Happened by Joseph Heller

anything?”
    “No.”
    “Anything about me, I mean.”
    “No.”
    “Well, what did he say? He must have wanted to see you about something.”
    “He wants me to put some jokes in a speech his son has to make at school.”
    “Is that all?” Green snorts with contempt, satisfied. “I could do that,” he sneers. “Better than you.”
    Up yours, I think in reply, because I know I could squash him to the ground and make him crawl like a caterpillar if I ever do find myself in Kagle’s job. But he does believe me, doesn’t he?
    “What did Arthur Baron want?” Johnny Brown asks.
    “He wants me to put some jokes in a speech his son has to make at school.”
    “You’re still a liar.”
    “A diplomat, Johnny.”
    “But I’ll find out.”
    “Should I start looking for another job?” asks Jane.
    “I’ve got a job you can do, right here at hand.”
    “You’re terrible, Mr. Slocum,” she laughs, her color rising with embarrassment and pleasure. She is aglow, tempting. “You’re worse than a boy.”
    “I’m better than a boy. Come into my office now and I’ll show you. What boy that you go with has an office with a couch like mine and pills in the file cabinet?”
    “I’d like to,” she says (and for a second I am in terror that she will). “But Mr. Kagle is waiting for you there.”
    “What did Arthur Baron want?” Kagle asks as soon as I step inside my office and find him lurking anxiously in a corner there.
    I close the door before I turn to look at him. He is shabby again, and I am dismayed and angry. The collar of his shirt is unbuttoned, and the knot of his tie is inches down. (For a moment, I have an impulse to seize his shirt front furiously in both fists and begin shaking some sense into him; and at exactly the same time, I have another impulse to kick him as hard as I can in the ankle or shin of his crippled leg.) His forehead is wet with beads of perspiration, and his mouth is glossy with a suggestion of spittle, and dry with the powdered white smudge of what was probably an antacid tablet.
    “Nothing,” I tell him.
    “Didn’t he say anything?”
    “No. Nothing important.”
    “About me?”
    “Not a word.”
    “You mean that?”
    “I swear.”
    “Well, I’ll be damned,” Kagle marvels with relief. “What did he talk about? Tell me. He must have wanted to see you about something.”
    “He wants me to put some jokes in a speech his son has to make at school.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And he didn’t say anything about me, anything at all?”
    “No.”
    “Or the call reports or the trip to Denver?”
    “No.”
    “Ha! In that case, I may be safe, you know. I might even make vice-president this year. What did he talk about?”
    “Just his son. And the speech. And the jokes.”
    “I’m probably imagining the whole thing,” he exclaims exultantly. “You know, maybe I can use those same jokes someday if one of
my
kids is ever asked to make a speech at school.” He frowns, his face clouding suddenly with a distant distress. “Both my kids are no good,” he reminds himself aloud abstractedly. “Especially the boy.”
    Kagle trusts me also. And I’m not so sure I want him to.
    “Andy,” I call out to him suddenly. “Why don’t you play it safe? Why don’t you behave? Why don’t you start doing everything everybody wants you to do?”
    He is startled. “Why?” he cries. “What’s the matter?”
    “To keep your job, that’s why, if it’s not too late. Why don’t you start trying to go along? Stop telling lies to Horace White. Don’t travel so much. Transfer Parker to another office if you can’t get him to stop drinking and retire Ed Phelps.”
    “Did somebody say something?”
    “No.”
    “Then how do you know all that?” he demands. “Who told you?”
    “You did,” I bark back at him with exasperation and disgust. “You’ve been telling me about all those things over and over again for months. So why don’t you start doing something about