(The speaker is an elderly man sitting in an armchair.)

And he goes. Goes home. Breaks the news to his wife. They try to decide the best way to tell their daughter. But things aren’t so bad, not yet. After all, they had a feeling this might happen, right? It’s not as if it’s happened without warning. And Daddy’s already got a placement agency out there, sending his resume around, trying to find him a position. It’s only a matter of time, right? No. It turns out to be a matter of never. Never, because he’s forty now and everyone’s looking for younger people. Never, because engineers are doing their own technical writing now. Never, because there’s a recession on and nobody’s hiring. Never because, as he finds out one day when he actually goes in to talk to the woman at the agency who’s been trying to place him with all these companies, there are negative character references in his file.

She reads them to him. “Humorless.” “Shy.” “Keeps to himself.” “Weak personality.” “No point of view.” “Seems nervous.” “Not a team player.”

And she informs him she’s very sorry, but the agency doesn’t think they’ll be able to place him at this time.

Well, he’s not going to be able to tell anybody about this. Can he just go home and tell his wife, his daughter? No, of course he can’t. He sits in his car in the parking lot of the agency for a long, long time. Thinking what to do.

Finally he goes home. Says nothing. Starts sending out a few resumes of his own, making a few calls. Gets nowhere. Goes out early every morning for interviews. Some of the interviews are real. They lead nowhere. The rest of the interviews are made up. Excuses to get out of the house. He goes to the library. He goes into the city and walks around. He drives somewhere, he parks somewhere, and when it starts getting dark he drives home. Sits down to dinner and tells them about his day. “How did the interview go?” “I thought it went very well. Of course, they couldn’t promise me anything.”

And it goes on like this for a while. But the real interviews drop off, the phone doesn’t ring, the subject doesn’t come up at the dinner table. And one day, when he’s told them he’s flying up to Connecticut for an interview, his daughter runs into him in a Kentucky Fried Chicken in downtown Washington, where he’s sitting in a corner booth reading the Bible. And the first thing he says to her is, “Why aren’t you in school?”

His secret is out. His daughter starts to cry. He gets up and just gets the hell out of there.

Maybe he should have stayed and tried to talk to her.  But what’s he going to say? He and his daughter have never been very close. She’s always been closer to her mother.  He and she don’t get along. They don’t see eye to eye. The generation gap. You know how it is.  It’s kids.  It’s just the way they are.  He doesn’t like her. All right? He just doesn’t like her.

Which is perfectly plausible. Perfectly within the bounds of reason. Oh, sure, they handed her to him a few moments after her birth and he did what he was supposed to do, smile proudly, hand out cigars. And she’s cute for a couple of years, but as soon as she starts to talk he starts to see her for what she is.

A spoiled little brat.

And a smartypants. Always with a smart answer. And always wanting something. Blissfully unaware of the work that goes into every dollar. Like her mother. Doesn’t care at all about the sacrifice he’s making for them. Nothing for himself. Everything for them. But never enough. Always they want something more. They don’t even need to say it. He knows it by the way they crane their necks as they drive through the neighborhood, admiring this one’s car, that one’s pool. He’s expected to get it for them. That’s his job. That’s what he’s been put on earth for, as far as they’re concerned.

And he had to toe the line. She...that little punk...she had the luxury of disapproving of his job. And telling him so to his face while his job was keeping her in velour skirts and Frye boots. “Daddy, can I have some money for a new pair of Frye boots?” She could at least have specified she didn’t want money with North Vietnamese blood on it. She could’ve refused it when he offered it. But no.

There was a snow day - it snowed about an inch and a half, no school, but Daddy had to work - he took her with him, to see his office, to see what he did. Perhaps she’d understand a little better. Perhaps it might bring them a little closer. She stood there in the middle of the room, her hands as far into her pockets as they could go. She took a look around at all the photos on the walls, the mock-up scale models on the shelves, all the military paraphernalia. She said, “Are you proud of yourself?” And the song she liked to sing most, as she strummed along on the guitar he’d bought her for Christmas, was something by that awful Bob Dylan about Jesus will never forgive what you do.

But did she congratulate him for losing that job? No. How her little face fell. No ski vacation this year. Now she was going to have to work her way through college like everyone else. Oh how Daddy had failed her. Failed both of them. How about the way he’d failed himself? Anybody ever stop to ask that question?

The only thing that was a source of any comfort to George was the Bible, which he now had plenty of time to read. He drops any pretense of looking for work and stays home, reading the Bible.

Nobody says a word to him about it, or about anything else, for that matter. Everything is quiet. Everything is peaceful. The end is drawing nigh. Thanksgiving is approaching. Do you want me to go on?