Panic!

“Jack, what’s the point of going over it again and again? It’s settled now. We’re divorced, the judge made a fair evaluation—”

“Fair! Oh my God, fair! He gave you everything, he gave you my guts, he made me a goddamn indentured servant!”

“You’re being melodramatic, Jack,” she says with that cold, empty rationality. “You always were childishly ineffective under stress.”

“You frigging slut!”

“Jack, Jack, I’ve heard all the words before and they don’t mean anything to me. Now please, won’t you leave? If you don’t, I’ll have to call the police, and I really don’t want to do that. Go home and go to bed. You shouldn’t drink, either, you know.”

I grow cunning. I take a step forward, with the room tilting slightly, and I point a finger at her as if it is the blade of a dagger, aiming squarely between the heavy white mounds of her breasts. “I’m not going to pay the alimony, Phyllis,” I say softly, and I smile at her with the only side of my mouth which seems to respond.

“Oh, don’t be absurd.”

“I’m not going to pay it.”

“If you don’t, you’ll go to jail.”

“They have to catch me first.”

“And just what is that supposed to imply?”

“What the hell do you think it implies, huh? I’m leaving town, I’m getting out of this state, I’m going as far away from you as I can go.”

“I don’t believe you. You won’t quit your job, your precious job. Being Humber Realty’s star salesman has always been your one shining ambition.”

“I’ve already quit it,” I say slyly. “I quit it at four this afternoon. Call Ed Humber if you want confirmation. Go ahead, call him.”

She frowns again, and there is a faint touch of incredulity to the set of her mouth. Good! I’m getting through to her now, I’m getting to the core of her.

“I’ll put the police on you if you do a silly thing like going away,” she says coldly. “I’ll have you brought back and thrown in jail.”

“You think the police care about nonpayment of alimony? You think they’ll make much of an effort to find me?”

“I won’t let you deprive me of what’s rightfully mine, Jack.”

“No? How you going to stop me?”

“I’ll stop you.”

“No,” I say, “no, you won’t, Phyllis,” and I feel exultant. I’ve won! I’ve finally won! There are fissures in the ice shell now, I’ve penetrated, ’I’ve done what I came to do. I move forward, and a kind of loose, liquid laughter finds its way out of my throat, a strident, ecstatic mirth. Her face contorts, mottles, I’ve put it into you and broken it off, Phyllis, you bitch, and I reach out to put my hand on the doorknob.

She slaps me.