All These Condemned

Chapter Five (Wallace Dorn — Afterward)

I was most definitely happy that I did not have to join that undignified scramble for clothing in the dark while Winsan ran to switch the lights back on. I heard their wet panting. And it alarmed me a bit to recall how close I had come to joining their little debauch. I had, indeed, been tempted for a few moments, thinking of the dark lake-wet flesh of women in the night. It is the mood of recklessness that Wilma knows how to develop, going at it quite coldly, for all the impression of warmth that she gives.

I wondered what Wilma had been thinking as the water had closed over her. Knowing her, I would judge that it had been a feeling of vast impatience, of plans interrupted. Not fear, I believe, because I feel that she, like a child, would be utterly incapable of objectively contemplating her own demise. She had a nice knack of making others die a little. Now she had died a lot. Thoroughly. And I found it quite pleasant to think about, actually. For me it was an extraordinarily convenient death. We had had our little chat. Death made her decision meaningless, as I had intended that, somehow, that decision should be made meaningless.

I felt as though now I could begin the process of recreating my own dignity. The years of Wilma had left me precious little. Nothing, perhaps, but the appearance without the substance. Now perhaps I could begin to feel that I could be free of all these other dreadful people. Free of Randy, that husk, that ethicless nothing. Free, of course, of Hayes, and of having to use his utterly talentless blobs in the Ferris program. Free of the Jonah woman, that crude, un-feminine clown. Through at last with Winsan, who is an almost obscene exaggeration of my own loss of self-respect. Of all of them, Paul Dockerty would be the one I would keep, out of necessity. And he is the best of the lot. Perhaps he is the best because, barring Gilman Hayes, he is the most recent. A few more years or perhaps a few more months would have given him over to Wilma in some devious way so that through her control she could despoil him.

I knew I would deal with Paul from now on, and sensed that he would retain our association. I had nothing to fear. I kept telling myself that. Nothing at all to fear.

It did not become quite horrible for me until they were all assembled and went back and forth in their boats, dragging for her body. I envisaged the cruel hooks seeking her flesh. I have always been too imaginative, I believe.

I could not watch it. I had been told by a uniformed and rather officious young man that I could not leave. I went to my room. I wished to ignore the whole episode. I donned my treasured flannel robe and sat in the deep chair in my room in darkness and smoked my pipe and tried to think of the work that would face me once I returned to my office. But all the time I was aware of them out there, with their lights and boats and hooks and their snickerings. I knew that it would be in the papers and that Mr. Howey would feel it necessary to call me in for one of his little chats.

I used to feel that he liked me. He does not seem to like me any more. He cannot claim that I do not do my work. It was, of course, Wilma Ferris who poisoned him about me. That is not fair. I did not seek out the Ferris account. What Mr. Howey does not seem to realize is that I can be most effective when I handle those accounts where business is conducted on the proper plane. You should be a gentleman in business relationships. Calmness and careful thought can be much more effective than all the self-conscious bustling about in the world. A good quiet lunch and a brandy and a discussion of business problems. I never asked for the Ferris account. I have never felt entirely competent to handle it because I was never able to talk properly to that damnable woman. She seemed to be forever laughing at me. And I do not consider myself to be a ludicrous man. I am educated. I am rather well set up. I have health and, I trust, a certain dignity.

I did not ask for the account, and had it not been given to me to handle, I should probably, even now, be on much better terms with Lucius Howey. It is quite clear to me that she poisoned him against me. Deliberately, maliciously.

I do not understand such people. One must have good will. At times, naturally, I have been forced to deal firmly with underlings in order to protect myself. But good will is my credo. If all my accounts were such reliable conservative old firms as Durbin Brothers, life could be very enjoyable. We agree on the media. I never attempt to force them to increase their total bill. We are in complete agreement on the dignity of the copy. And what finer program to support can there be? Their Citizens’ Forum improves the mind. The Durbin Brothers consider it a privilege to support the Forum. They are my idea of the business person who is aware of his obligations to the society in which he lives. True, it is a rather small account. But an excellent product. Excellent.

They would never be guilty of the sort of behavior that Wilma was guilty of that hideous day when I took the new copy to her apartment at her request. I had toned down some of the obvious floridities in it. And I had repaired some rather clumsy layouts. She was expressionless as she read the copy. I could not guess her reaction.

And then she had torn it all to bits and scattered them on the floor. I did not know her well. I made some sound of dismay.

She came over to me, her face contorted, and leaned so close to me that I leaned back in alarm. She called me Buster. She said, barely opening her mouth to say it, “Buster, you need some of the facts of life underlined for you, don’t you? That was supposed to be perfume copy. With that senile drivel you couldn’t sell sachet to your maiden aunt. All you got to do in that copy is to tell the girls that if they smell better they’ll be had more often.”

“Really, Miss Ferris!”

“Don’t boggle at me, you stuffed shirt. I said sexy copy and I want sexy copy. In my perfume line, I’m not selling smells. I’m selling sex. If that distresses you, Dorn, go paddling off and I’ll get somebody who can understand what I’m talking about. Maybe you don’t approve of sex, you bloodless old nanny goat.”

“I cannot permit you to talk to me in this manner.”

“I’ve heard tell you used to write fair copy. Get over to that desk and write something remotely usable or you’re going to be known in advertising alley as the boy who bungled the Ferris account.”

There was nothing I could do. Actually the woman alarmed me. She kept me there for three hours. Finally I turned out something she liked. I more than half expected the magazines to turn it down. To my astonishment, they took it without comment.

We had similar scenes later. I could never guess how she would react. And most of the time I was off balance because I was wondering why she should give the constant impression of laughing at me. She had to dominate me. I sensed that. And I could not prevent her doing it.

I actually believe that my helpless feeling of being dominated was what finally led me into the ultimate mistake there at her apartment. I really believe that I was finally reversing our roles by regressing to that most basic of male-female relationships. And, believing that, I spent a fool’s hour in that ripest of gardens, believing that I was inflicting my will on her, enjoying to the utmost her really remarkable favors and then, to my complete horror, as I began dressing, fully expecting warmth from her, and a certain humility, she sat on the edge of her bed and began snickering and finally collapsed in helpless laughter. For a long time she could not tell me what amused her. When she could speak, she said she had imagined some rather coarse, crude things, most of them to do with my mode of dress and my behavior, though I have always felt that I behaved with the dignity of a gentleman.

So the expected reversal of roles led only to greater humiliation.

I know she poisoned Mr. Howey against me.

I cannot understand a person like that.

I am totally glad she is dead.

I am very glad.

I rejoice.

And I am not afraid.