town, telling his wife that he’s in a meeting, putting his tie in his pocket. And once a week his wife remarks that she doesn’t understand how he can get his tie wrinkled. He takes off his shoes and puts on sneakers, and takes an old brown corduroy jacket off a coat hook behind his desk. His secretary is still in her office. Usually she leaves before five, but whenever he leaves looking like a slob she seems to be there to say good night to him.
“You wonder what’s going on, don’t you?” MacDonald says to his secretary.
She smiles. Her name is Betty, and she must be in her early thirties. All he really knows about his secretary is that she smiles a lot and that her name is Betty.
“Want to come along for some excitement?” he says.
“Where are you going?”
“I knew you were curious,” he says.
Betty smiles.
“Want to come?” he says. “Like to see a little low life?”
“Sure,” she says.
They go out to his car, a red Toyota. He hangs his jacket in the back and puts his shoes on the back seat.
“We’re going to see a Japanese woman who beats people with figurines,” he says.
Betty smiles. “Where are we really going?” she asks.
“You must know that businessmen are basically depraved,” MacDonald says. “Don’t you assume that I commit bizarre acts after hours?”
“No,” Betty says.
“How old are you?” he asks.
“Thirty,” she says.
“You’re thirty years old and you’re not a cynic yet?”
“How old are you?” she asks.
“Twenty-eight,” MacDonald says.
“When you’re thirty you’ll be an optimist all the time,” Betty says.
“What makes you optimistic?” he asks.
“I was just kidding. Actually, if I didn’t take two kinds of pills, I couldn’t smile every morning and evening for you. Remember the day I fell asleep at my desk? The day before I had had an abortion.”
MacDonald’s stomach feels strange—he wouldn’t mind having a couple kinds of pills himself, to get rid of the strange feeling. Betty lights a cigarette, and the smoke doesn’t help his stomach. But he had the strange feeling all day, even before Betty spoke. Maybe he has stomach cancer. Maybe he doesn’t want to face James again. In the glove compartment there is a jar that Mrs. Esposito gave his mother and that his mother gave him to take to James. One of Mrs. Esposito’s relatives sent it to her, at her request. It was made by a doctor in Puerto Rico. Supposedly, it can increase your height if rubbed regularly on the soles of the feet. He feels nervous, knowing that it’s in the glove compartment. The way his wife must feel having the parakeet and the ferris wheel sitting around the house. The house. His wife. Betty.
They park in front of a bar with a blue neon sign in the window that says IDEAL CAFE. There is a larger neon sign above that that says SCHLITZ. He and Betty sit in a back booth. He orders a pitcher of beer and a double order of spiced shrimp. Tammy Wynette is singing “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” on the jukebox.
“Isn’t this place awful?” he says. “But the spiced shrimp are great.”
Betty smiles.
“If you don’t feel like smiling, don’t smile,” he says.
“Then all the pills would be for nothing.”
“Everything is for nothing,” he says.
“If you weren’t drinking you could take one of the pills,” Betty says. “Then you wouldn’t feel that way.”
“Did you see
“No,” MacDonald says. “Why?”
“Wait here,” James says.
MacDonald waits. A dwarf comes into the room and looks under his chair. MacDonald raises his feet.
“Excuse me,” the dwarf says. He turns cartwheels to leave the room.
“He used to be with the circus,” James says, returning. “He leads us in exercises now.”
MacDonald looks at
“Huh,” MacDonald says.
“How come
“Listen,” MacDonald says, “Mother asked me to bring this to you. I don’t mean to insult you, but she made me
