William Saroyan - The Laughing Matter

“It couldn’t have been something ordinary,” May Walz said. “She couldn’t have been that rude if it had been something ordinary. She slammed the door in my face.”

“I went all over Clovis looking for him,” the man said. “Into every place that was open. The bars, the park, the poolroom, Susie’s.”

“Susie’s?” the woman said. “You didn’t tell me.”

“I was too busy trying to get you calmed down,” the man said. “You were frightened.”

“I was sure she’d come and open the door,” the woman said. “Other people fight and still manage to be polite. After all, they had asked us over. You weren’t too busy to tell me everything else. What’s it like?”

“Messy.”

“Was anyone there?”

“Two Mexican boys and an old man.”

“Who was he?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, it won’t get around that you went there, will it?”

“It never occurred to me.”

“A thing like that could be an awful nuisance,” the woman said. “This isn’t a big town like Fresno, or a city like San Francisco, where such things go unnoticed. Dade doesn’t go to San Francisco to visit the museums , does he?”

“What do you mean?”

“He goes for a week or so every couple of months, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“He never has to do with anybody we know here.”

“I don’t know anything about Dade,” the man said. “What’s more, I don’t want to. It’s none of my business why he goes to San Francisco. I don’t like his brother any more than I like him. I’ll phone and say we can’t make it.”

“We’ve got to go.”

“Why?”

“To let them save face, at least,” the woman said. “After all, if they’ve got no manners, we have.”

“Both of them make me feel uncomfortable,” the man said. “Inferior , even. I don’t want to go.”

“We’ve got to go,” the woman said.

“You want to find out what the trouble was,” the man said. “I don’t care what it was. What could it have been? He’s crazy, like his brother. They had a fight, and he went off. He came back, and it was all over. I don’t want to go. I don’t like being told to come to dinner.”

“I’m sure he meant to be as polite as possible under the circumstances,” the woman said. “I’m sure he gave you credit for knowing he was ashamed. I’m sure he believed you’d understand his need to make the invitation as short as possible. After all, he did remember to call. That alone shows that he’s not insensitive to our having been involved. He called early. It would be rude not to be there, all of us, at six.”

“I don’t like him,” the man said.

“Even so,” the woman said. “I think we’ve manners enough to go as if nothing had happened. Their kids are lovely and get along with ours so well. They’ll have fun, at any rate.”

“I don’t like the idea of going, that’s all,” the man said. “I’d like to think of some halfway decent way of getting out of it.”

“It’ll be easy to get out of it,” the woman said, “but there’s no way of getting out of it decently. Getting out of it can mean almost anything to them. Wouldn’t it be simpler to forget last night and go?”

“Sure it would,” the man said. “But I’m not sure I want to forget last night. You gave me a rough time. You gave yourself a rough time. What the hell for? You came home from the pictures and said they insisted that we go over. We put the kids to bed, with Mrs. Blotch sitting in the parlor, and we drove there. We found a drunken maniac on the road, who refused to greet us, or let us greet him. We found his wife in a faint in front of the house. We found his son trying to lift her up. The woman slammed the door in our faces. I chased all over town, going into places I don’t like to be seen in, looking for him. You stood there on the porch at the door half the night, scared to death. We sat up until three in the morning because we were so keyed up, believing we ought to, believing they might telephone. I’m not sure I want to forget last night. I think I’d rather forget him and his brother.”

May Walz had never known her husband to be so garrulous or so bitter about anything.

“I know what we’ll do,” he went on. “We’ll pack up and drive to Yosemite for a week. We’re planning to go before summer’s over, anyway. Why not go now? I’ll drive over and tell him, instead of phoning. That’ll make it decent enough. He’ll understand. I think he’ll prefer it. I’ll tell him the kids have had it in their hearts to get to Yosemite all summer, and they’ve been so eager to go lately that we decided to do something for once when they want us to.”

“We always have, haven’t we?” the woman said.

“That’s not the point,” the man said. “I’ll even ask them to go with us. He’ll refuse of course. I want to get this whole business out of the way. I don’t like it. I’ll drive over now. You start packing.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” the woman said. “It’s not as terrible as all that, whatever it is.”

“No, May. I don’t want to hang around.”

“You’re being silly.”

“Maybe I am,” the man said. “Even so, will you please do something for me once in a while? Will you pack up and get the kids ready?”

“I don’t understand,” the woman said. “What’s the matter?”

“We’ve made awful fools of ourselves.”

“We have?”

“They’ve made fools of us, I mean.”

“They have?”

“We got ourselves all worked up about people who haven’t the slightest interest in us, who regard us as dull and boring, who think we’re amusing, who laugh at us.”

“I had no idea,” the woman said. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s not decide one way or another for a little while. It’s early. We can always get to Yosemite in three hours. Can I have the car? I want to drive to Fresno to do a little shopping. When I get back we’ll decide.”

“How long will you be?”

“An hour or two.”

“Don’t take longer. I’ll be packing.”

“Warren,” the woman said with astonishment. “Let’s decide when I get back.”

“O.K.”

She looked at him strangely, and he noticed that she did.

“May,” he said, “I just don’t like shabbiness.”

“We’ll decide when I get back,” the woman said.

She put on a yellow button sweater and went out, the man following her to fetch a saw for some work he wanted to do. The kids were playing under an old olive tree he meant to trim.

“Mama’s driving to Fresno if you want to go,” he told them.

They decided after a moment that they did.

He was soon alone under the tree locking up for dead branches to saw off. He got up into the tree and began to saw upon the lowest of the dead branches, stopped suddenly, went into the house, and telephoned a friend in Madera, a man he had known longer than the twenty years he’d known Dade Nazarenus. He’d had a specific purpose in calling this man, but as they chatted he decided not to make this purpose known. Instead, he asked the man to come out and visit them real soon. He then went back to the olive tree to see about getting at least one of the dead branches removed.

In the 1948 Buick the woman wondered what could have upset him so. The clatter of the children, which she usually loved, now irritated her. When she suddenly slapped the youngest one for not sitting still after she had been asked twice to do so, May Walz drew the car off the highway and stopped. She joined the child in weeping silently, and after a moment all four of them were weeping silently, as if they knew why.