“I shoulda left her. You know that? I should’ve gone through with it last summer, when I really had the ball rolling—you know that? You know why I didn’t? You want to know why I didn’t?”
“Arthur. For Chrissake. This is getting us exactly nowhere.”
“Wait a second. Lemme tellya why! You want to know why I didn’t? I can tellya exactly why. Because I felt sorry for her. That’s the whole simple truth. I felt sorry for her.”
“Well, I don’t know. I mean that’s out of my jurisdiction,” the gray-haired man said. “It seems to me, though, that the one thing you seem to forget is that Joanie’s a grown woman. I don’t know, but it seems to me—”
“Grown woman! You crazy? She’s a grown child, for Chrissake! Listen, I’ll be shaving—listen to this—I’ll be shaving, and all of a sudden she’ll call me from way the hell the other end of the apartment. I’ll go see what’s the matter—right in the middle of shaving, lather all over my goddam face. You know what she’ll want? She’ll want to ask me if I think she has a good mind. I swear to God. She’s pathetic, I tellya. I watch her when she’s asleep, and I know what I’m talkin’ about. Believe me.”
“Well, that’s something you know better than—I mean that’s out of my jurisdiction,” the gray-haired man said. “The point is, God damn it, you don’t do anything at all constructive to—”
“We’re mismated, that’s all. That’s the whole simple story. We’re just mismated as hell. You know what she needs? She needs some big silent bastard to just walk over once in a while and knock her out cold—then go back and finish reading his paper. That’s what she needs. I’m too goddam weak for her. I knew it when we got married—I swear to God I did. I mean you’re a smart bastard, you’ve never been married, but every now and then, before anybody gets married, they get these flashes of what it’s going to be like after they’re married. I ignored ‘em. I ignored all my goddam flashes. I’m weak. That’s the whole thing in a nutshell.”
“You’re not weak. You just don’t use your head,” the gray-haired man said, accepting a freshly lighted cigarette from the girl.
“Certainly I’m weak! Certainly I’m weak! God damn it, I know whether I’m weak or not! If I weren’t weak, you don’t think I’d’ve let everything get all—Aah, what’s the usea talking? Certainly I’m weak … God, I’m keeping you awake all night. Why don’t you hang the hell up on me? I mean it. Hang up on me.”
“I’m not going to hang up on you, Arthur. I’d like to help you, if it’s humanly possible,” the gray-haired man said. “Actually, you’re your own worst—”