Disturbing the Peace (Vintage Classics) by Richard Yates

the tussle his pajama pants fell and revealed genitals so shriveled and small that they might have been an infant’s too, and he clutched them either in shame or anxiety.
    “Hey there, sexpot,” Spivack said in passing.
    “Save me, buddy,” the shuffling men were saying of their cigarettes, “save me …”
    “Yeah, yeah, we’ll save you. Hey, look, Wilder: there isn’t a soul in Jerk-off City. Want to sit down?” And they sank onto the stained mattresses. “Want to read my letter? I mean I worked like a bastard on it; seems like somebody ought to read the damn thing.”
    “Okay; sure.” He accepted the smudged, much-folded sheet of paper and opened it.
     
Dear Sis; dear Miss Priss:
If you are languorously glancing through
The New Yorker
and sipping an ever-so-extra-dry martini when you receive this letter, or if you are changing from a terribly sweet little cocktail dress into something svelte and provocative for evening, or if you are dabbing a delightfully subtle Parisian scent at your throat in preparation for prolonged and exquisite dalliance with your husband tonight, then don’t bother to read it. Drop it among the crushed gardenias and the empty Liebfraumilch bottles and the Tiffany invitations to parties you’ve chosen not to attend.
If, however, this letter finds you on your knees in your dungarees scrubbing the kitchen floor, or scouring a pot so badly encrusted with last Saturday’s
Boeuf Bourguignonne
that your fingers bleed into the Brillo, or better still sitting and grunting and raising a stink on what I believe your husband calls the “John,” then read the hell out of it, baby. This is important. This is reality.
     
1. – Call Dad.
2. – Call Eric and Mark.
3. – Tell your husband he is a simpering, pretentious little fool.
4. – GET ME OUT OF HERE .
    HENRY
    “So whaddya think?” he asked.
    “Well, it’s pretty funny, but the general tone does seem a little—”
    “‘Hostile,’ right? That’s every psychiatrist’s favorite word.”
    “I wasn’t going to say that; I just mean it seems a little on the self-defeating side. Doesn’t seem very likely to accomplish its purpose.”
    Spivack sighed and stuffed it back into his pajamas. “Ah, I guess you’re right. Purely an academic question anyway. Haven’t got an envelope; haven’t got a stamp.”
    Wilder’s name was called on Thursday morning. He stood by the cop at the door, combing and recombing his hair while Spivack gave him last-minute counsel.
    “It’s an inquisition. They ask you questions – loaded questions, the kind that’d never stand up in a court of law – and when you answer they don’t listen to you: they listen at you. They let everything you say slide past and hang in the air while they study it. Because it’s not the substance they care about, it’s the style. You can almost see them thinking ‘Mm; interesting. Why did he make that slip? Why that particular choice of words?’ Oh, and they watch you like hawks too. Not just your face – it’s very important to keep a straight face and look ’em in the eyes – but everything. Squirm around in your chair, cross your legs, put your hand up to your head or anything like that and you’re dead.”
    “Okay, Wilder,” an orderly said. “Let’s go.”
    There may have been less than a dozen white-coated men in the interview room but there seemed to be twice that many. They sat row on row in chairs with writing-panel armrests, like students, and Wilder faced them alone in an ordinary chair with his sweating hands on his thighs, as if he were their teacher. Nobody smiled. A bald, heavy man in the front row cleared his throat and said “Well. What seems to be the trouble?”
    It probably lasted a quarter of an hour. First he did his best to tell them about the business trip to Chicago, about the week of insomnia and heavy drinking, about Paul Borg and St. Vincent’s and the poorly remembered events that had brought him here.
    Then came the