Sloan Wilson - Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

They had left the villa just in time to get back to Rome before dark. When they had returned to her room, she had started cooking supper on a small primus stove he had given her, and he had lain down on the bed and glanced at his watch again. It had been only six o’clock — still fourteen more hours, eight hundred and forty more revolutions of the sweep hand before he had to check in. He had stretched out on the soft bed, full of an incredible sense of luxury, thinking of the minutes ahead as a king might think of his empire. Maria had sat, looking wise and contented, stirring a pan of soup, which slowly had begun to steam, giving a fragrance to the air.

Only a few days after that he had bought a mandolin in a little music store they had happened to pass while walking home from a restaurant, and he had spent many afternoons lying in Maria’s room strumming it idly, not really trying to play it, but finding great relaxation in the feel of the smooth steel strings under his fingers. Maria had loved it — her father had played the mandolin, she had said. The mandolin had been one of the things Tom had left her, along with the jeepload of canned goods and twelve cartons of cigarettes.

Now, lying alone in his hotel room in Atlantic City, Tom involuntarily glanced at his watch, with the same old sweep hand emptily ticking off the minutes. It was just youth, he thought, and the war, which, if it did nothing else, taught the value of time. Somebody should make me and Betsy check in at a transportation desk every morning and give us just one more day — that might teach us not to waste time. How different Betsy and Maria are, he thought. Betsy’s parents had not died — instead of dying, they had retired to a modern bungalow in California, from which they sent their daughter pictures of themselves smiling and picking oranges. Nobody whom Betsy loved had ever died or left her for long. Ever since she was twelve years old, Betsy had been told she was beautiful — she did not like to hear it any more. I wonder if anyone tells Maria she is beautiful now, he thought. I wonder what kind of word Caesar will bring me about Maria after Gina writes her family in Rome. I wonder what Maria will do if Caesar tells her where I am, and that I look rich.

THE FIRST THING Tom did when he got back to his office the next day was to call Hopkins on the interoffice communication box.

“Glad you’re back!” Hopkins said cheerily, as though Tom had just returned from a voyage around the world. “Have a good trip?”

“Fine,” Tom said. “Did you want to see me?”

“Yes,” Hopkins replied. “I’ll send a girl down with the latest draft of my speech for Atlantic City. Let’s have lunch tomorrow, and you can tell me what you think of it. Would one o’clock be all right?”

So that’s all he wanted, Tom thought. He said, “Fine! I’ll meet you in your office tomorrow at one.”

An hour later an exceptionally pretty office girl arrived and with a dazzling smile handed Tom a large manila envelope from Hopkins. Tom opened it and extracted the speech, which had grown and changed since he had worked on it. “It’s a real pleasure to be here this evening,” he read. “I tremendously appreciate this opportunity to discuss with this distinguished gathering what I believe to be the most crucial problem facing the world today.” Having made this point, the speech went on — in fact, it went on and on and on for thirty pages, saying over and over again in different ways that mental health is important. The last ten pages were devoted to the thought that mental-health problems affect the economy of the nation. “Our wealth depends on mental health,” this section concluded. “Yes, our wealth depends on mental health!”

Tom put the speech down, feeling slightly ill. Good Lord, he thought, they’re going to sell mental health the way they sell cigarettes! He left the speech on his desk, walked over to the window, and stared out over the city. Standing there, he shrugged his shoulders in an oddly hopeless way.

“Let’s have lunch tomorrow, and you can tell me what you think of it,” Hopkins had said.

“ Well, of course I’m just talking off the top of my head, but I think this draft has some fine things in it, and, on the other hand, I have some reservations, ” Tom imagined himself saying. That was the way it was done — always feel the boss out to find what he thinks before committing yourself. Tell the man what he wants to hear.

“ I’m sorry, but I think this speech is absurd. It’s an endless repetition of the obvious fact that mental health is important. You’ve said that over and over again and finally turned it into a cheap advertising slogan. If you want to form a mental-health committee, why don’t you find out what needs to be done and offer to help do it? ”

A few years ago I would have said that, Tom thought. Be honest, be yourself. If the man asks you what you think of his speech, tell him. Don’t be afraid. Give him your frank opinion.

That sounds so easy when you’re young, Tom thought. It sounds so easy before you learn that your frank opinion often leads directly to the street. What if Hopkins really likes this speech?

Tom shrugged again. The thing to remember is this, he thought: Hopkins would want me to be honest. But when you come right down to it, why does he hire me? To help him do what he wants to do — obviously that’s why any man hires another. And if he finds that I disagree with everything he wants to do, what good am I to him? I should quit if I don’t like what he does, but I want to eat, and so, like a half million other guys in gray flannel suits, I’ll always pretend to agree, until I get big enough to be honest without being hurt. That’s not being crooked, it’s just being smart.

But it doesn’t make you feel very good, Tom thought. It makes you feel lousy. For the third time, he shrugged. How strangely it all works out, he thought. The pretty girl smiles as she hands me the innocuous manila envelope with the speech. I’ll go with my boss for luncheon to a nice restaurant somewhere, with music playing in the background, perhaps, and people laughing all around, and the waiters will bow, and my boss will be polite, and I’ll be tactful, and there in such delicate surroundings, I’ll not be rude enough to say a stupid speech is stupid. How smoothly one becomes, not a cheat, exactly, not really a liar, just a man who’ll say anything for pay.

Tom remained by the window a long while, looking down at the cars crawling along the streets below. It was queer to be suspended motionless so far above the city. It was almost as though his parachute had got stuck in mid-air, halfway between the plane and the ground.

That night when Tom went home he put the speech back in the manila envelope and on impulse took it with him. Betsy and the children met him at the station in South Bay. “What’s that?” Janey said, eying the big envelope. “Is it a present for us?”

“No,” Tom said, and handed the envelope to Betsy. “This is Hopkins’ speech. I’d like you to read it and tell me what you think of it. Hopkins wants me to have lunch with him and give him my opinion on it tomorrow.”

“I’ll look at it after dinner,” Betsy said, and casually put the envelope down on the front seat of the car.

“Mother has a surprise for you,” Barbara said. “She got it for you today.”

“Hush!” Betsy said. “How is it going to be a surprise if you talk about it?”

“I can hardly wait to find out what it is,” Tom said, and, realizing he had been so preoccupied that he hadn’t kissed Betsy, leaned over and patted her on the shoulder. “It’s good to get home,” he said.

She turned toward him with a quick, vivid smile. “It’s not much of a surprise, really,” she said. “Don’t get your hopes up.”