Theresa Platt (she had been Terry Sheehan) watched her husband across the breakfast table with eyes that smoldered.But Orville Platt was quite unaware of any smoldering in progress.He was occupied with his eggs.How could he know that these very eggs were feeding the dull red menace in Terry Platt's eyes?
When Orville Platt ate a soft-boiled egg he concentrated on it.He treated it as a great adventure.Which, after all, it is.Few adjuncts of our daily life contain the element of chance that is to be found in a three- minute breakfast egg.
This was Orville Platt's method of attack: first, he chipped off the top, neatly.Then he bent forward and subjected it to a passionate and relentless scrutiny.Straightening--preparatory to plunging his spoon therein--he flapped his right elbow.It wasn't exactly a flap; it was a pass between a hitch and a flap, and presented external evidence of a mental state.Orville Platt always gave that little preliminary jerk when he was contemplating a serious step, or when he was moved, or argumentative.It was a trick as innocent as it was maddening.
Terry Platt had learned to look for that flap--they had been married four years--to look for it, and to hate it with a morbid, unreasoning hate.That flap of the elbow was tearing Terry Platt's nerves into raw, bleeding fragments.
Her fingers were clenched tightly under the table, now.She was breathing unevenly."If he does that again," she told herself, "if he flaps again when he opens the second egg, I'll scream.I'll scream.I'll scream!I'll sc----"He had scooped the first egg into his cup.Now he picked up the second, chipped it, concentrated, straightened, then--up went the elbow, and down, with the accustomed little flap.
The tortured nerves snapped.Through the early-morning quiet of Wetona, Wisconsin, hurtled the shrill, piercing shriek of Terry Platt's hysteria.
"Terry!For God's sake!What's the matter!"Orville Platt dropped the second egg, and his spoon.The egg yolk trickled down his plate.The spoon made a clatter and flung a gay spot of yellow on the cloth.He started toward her.
Terry, wild-eyed, pointed a shaking finger at him.She was laughing, now, uncontrollably."Your elbow! Your elbow!""Elbow?"He looked down at it, bewildered, then up, fright in his face."What's the matter with it?"She mopped her eyes.Sobs shook her."You f-f-flapped it.""F-f-f----" The bewilderment in Orville Platt's face gave way to anger."Do you mean to tell me that you screeched like that because my-- because I moved my elbow?""Yes."
His anger deepened and reddened to fury.He choked.He had started from his chair with his napkin in his hand.He still clutched it.Now he crumpled it into a wad and hurled it to the center of the table, where it struck a sugar bowl, dropped back, and uncrumpled slowly, reprovingly."You--you----" Then bewilderment closed down again like a fog over his countenance."But why? I can't see----""Because it--because I can't stand it any longer.Flapping.This is what you do.Like this."And she did it.Did it with insulting fidelity, being a clever mimic."Well, all I can say is you're crazy, yelling like that, for nothing." "It isn't nothing.""Isn't, huh? If that isn't nothing, what is?" They were growing incoherent."What d'you mean, screeching like a maniac?
Like a wild woman? The neighbors'll think I've killed you.What d'you mean, anyway!""I mean I'm tired of watching it, that's what.Sick and tired." "Y'are, huh?Well, young lady, just let me tell YOU something----"He told her.There followed one of those incredible quarrels, as sickening as they are human, which can take place only between two people who love each other; who love each other so well that each knows with cruel certainty the surest way to wound the other; and who stab, and tear, and claw at these vulnerable spots in exact proportion to their love.
Ugly words.Bitter words.Words that neither knew they knew flew between them like sparks between steel striking steel.
From him: "Trouble with you is you haven't got enough to do.That's the trouble with half you women.Just lay around the house, rotting.I'm a fool, slaving on the road to keep a good-for-nothing----""I suppose you call sitting around hotel lobbies slaving! I suppose the house runs itself! How about my evenings? Sitting here alone, night after night, when you're on the road."Finally, "Well, if you don't like it," he snarled, and lifted his chair by the back and slammed it down, savagely, "if you don't like it, why don't you get out, hm? Why don't you get out?"And from her, her eyes narrowed to two slits, her cheeks scarlet: "Why, thanks.I guess I will."Ten minutes later he had flung out of the house to catch the 8:19 for Manitowoc.He marched down the street, his shoulders swinging rhythmically to the weight of the burden he carried--his black leather handbag and the shiny tan sample case, battle-scarred, both, from many encounters with ruthless porters and busmen and bellboys.For four years, as he left for his semi-monthly trip, he and Terry had observed a certain little ceremony (as had the neighbors).She would stand in the doorway, watching him down the street, the heavier sample case banging occasionally at his shin.The depot was only three blocks away.Terry watched him with fond but unillusioned eyes, which proves that she really loved him.He was a dapper, well-dressed fat man, with a weakness for pronounced patterns in suitings, and addicted to derbies.One week on the road, one week at home.That was his routine.The wholesale grocery trade liked Platt, and he had for his customers the fondness that a traveling salesman has who is successful in his territory.Before his marriage to Terry Sheehan his little red address book had been overwhelming proof against the theory that nobody loves a fat man.
