University of Northern Iowa

The Subject of the ConversationAuthor(s): Walter SandersSource: The North American Review, Vol. 268, No. 1 (Mar., 1983), pp. 39-40Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25124375 .

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THE SUBJECT OF THE

CONVERSATION (?\ rZjijS |W|!

Walter Sanders P\S P\li

Otart here. At lunch, I am told, the women in the office talk either about their children or their husbands. From

reports, the children have childhood ailments and child hood problems, typical, predictable. A cold, a sore throat, a quarrel with a sibling, a matter of disobedience, a bout

with the flu?the whole family will probably be down with it before long, of course. Concern for the child's condition elicits further complaints about all the trouble

they cause. Sam began kindergarten and at the end of the first day reported that his jeans would not do. He would not return, could not return to school the next day in such

pants. His had bell-bottoms, how could his mother have made such a mistake? No one in Sam's class had worn bell-bottoms to school that day. Solution: Sam got straight-leg jeans that evening and now no one, five years

old or older, can tell, should they look at the area between his knees and the tops of his shoes, that his jeans are any different from those of the rest of his classmates. Of course children do not like to look different from others. But what, I ask myself, is going on here? Are the pressures on the parents or the children greater? I regarded the story as

containing some humor. Sam's year went well after the

change. His alphabet and reading and art work are much like those of other five-year olds. Or. Harold broke his

wrist in a fall from a place he had been warned not to climb to. He got a cast. His cast is five weeks old and Harold is seven. Harold spent the day at the office with his mother and the other women who work in the office. Harold

sorted papers according to their color for the women until

the doctor could see Harold and his cast that afternoon. His cast was removed by four. The women didn't get much work of their own done that day because they spent most of the six hours that Harold was placed with them

finding things for Harold to do that Harold enjoyed and would do. It is not known to me whether Harold reads

books, but it is assumed that he can. He is seven and should. Emily and Stevie can't get together in any sort of

agreement about what TV programs they shall watch.

Maybe each child, a woman suggests, should have a

personal TV. That's what happened in her house. Now each child goes to his room and watches whatever he

wants. Peace about TV. But then, this other mother

wonders, if she and her husband get another TV set what will they do when they want to watch a program and all the sets are being watched by the children? Occam's

Razor: unheard, because unspoken there, my wife in

forms me, cut out TV viewing until the children learn to

share or compromise. I am privy, through my wife in the

office, to all. Sticky, consuming problems that make me

groan.

Worse. Husbands, yes husbands, are the source of

much of the lunch discussion and complaints during breaks which occur as the occasions demand. They can do no right. They are stupid. They are insensitive. Some

thing is wrong, I think, when I hear report of this public display. Where is the emotional support? the intimacy?

This talk is different from that about the children. Bill

forgot an anniversary and Susan knew he would for she

began talking about the possibility two weeks at least before the day slipped by without a card. All the women in the office heard, over and over, almost each day of

those two weeks, the prophecy that Bill, this year, finally, would forget the day. Sue's prophecy was fulfilled, she

announced, triumphantly it seemed to my wife, the day after the event. And what did Sue do the night of the

anniversary? Solution: she triumphantly reminded Bill that he had forgotten. What happens in their homes?

What do these women want? What are they so angry about? When I go to pick up my wife at the office I am

civil, cordial, pleasant, gracious at times and the other

women, I have come to suspect, detest my wife but not

me for what I do. But my presence does not stop them in their attacks, their bragging, really, of whose husband has

been most brutish, most recently. My wife complains to

me that she has nothing to talk to these women about.

Awards should be given for the woman in the office who has suffered the greatest indecency the day or night be fore. Oh, the problems I hear.

Kathy's birthday came and went. She had drawn up a list of birthday presents George was supposed to get her this year. It was a long list which she read to all in the office. "He'd better get me everything on that list," she

said, "or he'll never hear the end of it." My wife took a

cake, which I had baked, to the office the day of Kathy's birthday. The cake was eaten, I heard, in a fury, for

George had failed to get Kathy all the items on her list. Who do I sympathize with? I get lost in emotions.

Again. I hear that Helen's husband is reported to have done something really stupid, just what Helen expected him to do. "Clark is so stupid all the time," Helen said. "I

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW/March 1983 39

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can't rely on him. I don't know what to do with him. I told him to pick up the cleaning on his way home from work last night and he didn't do it. And I told him that because

of his stupidity I had nothing to wear this morning. He

always forgets to pick up the coffee or the milk or what

ever. I don't know where his mind is. Sometimes I won

der if he even thinks. He's so stupid." The other women

in the office, my wife tells me, nod their husbands into the same condition, compare notes about their husbands'

stupidities and agree that, indeed, men are out to make

the lives of their wives as miserable as possible. I have come upon these women toward the end of day,

when work has ceased, when their husbands and children

will be meeting and joining in their secret lives together. I wonder what these women will say when they rejoin their

husbands and begin again living with them. Lately, as I have entered the office, I have heard the sound of the other women in my wife's voice as she greets me with,

"So there you are, finally, I thought you were never

coming or that you had forgotten me." It is no reunion. I

am not late. I look at the clock on the wall hoping my wife will follow my eyes. I recall the eagerness, of a moment

earlier, of my thoughts of seeing her again. I am coming to

realize more and more that she is doing what they all do,

only more tentatively since I am there. I wonder what has

been said during the day, and my thoughts begin to dwell

on the possibilities among my latest blunders. I believe that my wife has begun to imitate the others. Maybe that's how it starts. But I notice that the other women are

aware of the tone of the greeting, these days, and that

they smile, slightly, not at my appearance in the office,

but, I think, at the fact that finally my wife has begun to become one of them. When I mention the effect of a comment to her, I am told that she had not been aware.

Privately I consider that worse than a conscious effort. I

wonder if tomorrow my wife will join in wholeheartedly with a particularly juicy tale of some lapse of mine. I think whether I have forgotten to do anything I had agreed to for this day.

I can see it coming. My worry is a personal worry. I do

not know how to escape the delight that they take in

seeing one of us fail. It will not be long now before, I fear, I will become like George or any other or all of them. And it will not matter w7hat I have done or left undone. I will

have ceased being myself and will have become one of the husbands who irritates more than he pleases. The disaf

fection will not mean that I have changed so much as it will mean that the women in my wife's office have a new

recruit. Somehow they could not bear her not joining in. I will stand guilty in collusion with the other men. What will I do with my civility and my charity? Which husband will I outdo in my cowardliness?

CHILDHOOD ( '^

" . ^ ftK?

Peter Gordon IKiB ^2 1111 _ 111,

1954 Dance grabbed us that year. Dance and exposure and

noise. The crowds were easy, the adulation, the envies.

You didn't get pegged on conspiracies then, you accepted the anonymous kiss. We developed skills, we wouldn't

founder. This was 1954 and we were early in our lives,

coming to bloom. America asked for us by name: Mary,

Marie, Otto (what the country would have given for Otto's yellow hair), Harry, Bonnie, and me.

Mary7 was 12, our baby dancer. Harry, Bonnie, and

Otto were 13, while Marie beat me to 14 by three days, three lousy days. Really, we were only ballroom dancers

at heart. We didn't break much new7 ground that year. We

waltzed, we foxtrotted, w7e rearranged the syncopated feet of the cha-cha with something our manager, Mister

Z, called the Pop. The Pop featured the male dancer

(Otto, especially, was so adept) kicking his feet at the shins of the female dancer, who backstepped in counter

point. Done by children, it was fast and lovely. Some

times Mister Z dressed us in blue tights and we did flips and backflips on rubber matting. We flopped. Mostly, we

waltzed, we foxtrotted, we Popped. We danced in chiffon and tuxedo, under Mister Z's

delicate invention. Mary appeared onstage first, curtsied,

began to spin. Otto emerged from the wings, beautiful

Otto, to take Mary's small hand. They waltzed. They

giggled. They stopped. They watched Ham* and Bonnie come dancing down from the north end of the stage,

maybe waltzing, maybe not. Harry was skinny and

Bonnie was thick and slow. But Bonnie dominated the

dance, holding Harry at bay, smiling at his feet. Otto and

Mary7 began dancing and smiling with them until some

thing else happened: Marie tiptoed onstage. Dark hair, dark eyes, the beginnings of breasts under chiffon. The four dancers froze. The boys took heart. Otto approached

Marie, begged for a dance. Marie refused. Harry ap

40 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW/March 1983

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