572
PARTISAN REVIEW
"No, but thi s is reall y, rea ll y ho rribl e," said Henri etta . "Do
you think," sh e asked Rita, " I could be of an y help if I talked to
h ·
~"
1m.
" H e' ll mos t likely tell you it's no thing, a virus," she
an swered . "An elk virus."
" I know wha t you mean ," interrupted Ri cky. T h ey turned
to him with alarm. " He's crazy . H e reall y thinks thi s is an elk
tree, just because h e wants it to be. Somebody," h e sa id, tossing
up three larger pebbl es, "should reall y call hi s bluff sometime."
T h e grown -ups thought about th a t for a coup le of minutes.
Fina ll y Rita said: "Oh go away Ricky."
34.
What was taking R oy
so
long?
Sad to repo rt, Roy was feeling sorry for himself on the john.
It
began wh en h e no ti ced th e gues t towels bes ide him, lovely
towels with blue and brown Peru vian design s. H e recall ed that
he had bought them for Rita long ago in Ho ll ywood .
In
the
store th e towels h ad been stiff and coarse, but Roy fi gured they
would soften with a few washings.
It
had seemed to him tha t the
towels were too ex·pen sive to rema in stiff and impracti cal.
Young, newl y ri ch , in love, th e songwriter beli eved mon ey was
like tha t: it would au toma ti call y buy you things tha t were bo th
lovely to look a t and practi cal, too. But the towels n ever
soften ed . They remained compl etely useless, scra tch y. Roy's llfe
seemed to him a fo ll y.
Roy drew three sh eets of to il et paper from the spool. He
h eld th e fir st on e, the furth es t on e, in hi s h and.
" Damn it already, Ri cky!" h e heard.
It
was Henry yelling.
H enry h ad jumped up and brushed the pebbl es from hi s lap
onto Ri cky's face. " Enough a lready!"
Roy pull ed on the furth est sh eet.
It
ripped inadequa tely.
In stead of getting all three sheets, he onl y go t part of on e. A sob
of outrage, a t things bo th grea t and small , came out of Roy.
Immedi a tely he sn apped back, h e regained control-but thi s was
a very fru strated man .
35. Isn 't it unusual for a successf u l m an to act like that?
I'm.afraid not very. You should h ave seen him earli er in the
middl e sea t of the sta ti on wagon.
