Read Online Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates - Free Book Online Page B

own. They knew what forgiveness was; they were willing to take him for better or worse; they loved him. Why couldn't April realize how simple and necessary it was to love? Why did she have to complicate everything?
      The only trouble was that the funnies seemed to go on forever; the turning of each dense, muddled page of them brought the job no nearer to completion. Before long his voice had become a strained, hurrying monotone and his right knee had begun to jiggle in a little dance of irritation.
      "Daddy, we skipped a funny."
      "No we didn't, sweetie. That's just an advertisement. You don't want to read that."
      "Yes I do."
      "I do too."
      "But it isn't a funny. It's just made to look like one. It's an advertisement for some kind of toothpaste."
      "Read us it anyway."
      He set his bite. All the nerves at the roots of his teeth seemed to have entwined with the nerves at the roots of his scalp in a tingling knot. "All right," he said. "See, in the first picture this lady wants to dance with this man but he won't ask her to, and here in the next picture she's crying and her friend says maybe the reason he won't dance with her is because her breath doesn't smell too nice, and then in the next picture she's talking to this dentist, and he says . . ."
      He felt as if he were sinking helplessly into the cushions and the papers and the bodies of his children like a man in quicksand. When the funnies were finished at last he struggled to his feet, quietly gasping, and stood for several minutes in the middle of the carpet, making tight fists in his pockets to restrain himself from doing what suddenly seemed the only thing in the world he really and truly wanted to do: picking up a chair and throwing it through the picture window.
      What the hell kind of a life was this? What in God's name was the point or the meaning or the purpose of a life like this?
      When evening came, heavy with beer, he began to look forward to the fact that the Campbells were coming over. Ordinarily it might have depressed him ("Why don't we ever see anyone else? Do you realize they're practically the only friends we have?"), but tonight it held a certain promise. At least she would have to laugh and talk in their company; at least she would have to smile at him from time to time and call him "darling." Besides, it couldn't be denied that the Campbells did seem to bring out the best in both of them.

    "Hi!" They called to one another.
    "Hi! . . ." "Hi! . . ."
      This one glad syllable, borne up through the gathering twilight and redoubling back from the Wheelers' kitchen door, was the traditional herald of an evening's entertainment. Then came the handshakings, the stately puckered kissings, the sighs of amiable exhaustion—"Ah-h-h"; "Whoo-o"—suggesting that miles of hot sand had been traveled for the finding of this oasis or that living breath itself had been held, painfully, against the promise of this release. In the living room, having sipped and grimaced at the first frosty brimming of their drinks, they pulled themselves together for a moment of mutual admiration; then they sank into various postures of controlled collapse.
      Milly Campbell dropped her shoes and squirmed deep into the sofa cushions, her ankles snug beneath her buttocks and her uplifted face crinkling into a good sport's smile—not the prettiest girl in the world, maybe, but cute and quick and fun to have around.
      Beside her, Frank slid down on the nape of his spine until his cocked leg was as high as his head. His eyes were already alert for conversational openings and his thin mouth already moving in the curly shape of wit, as if he were rolling a small, bitter lozenge on his tongue.
      Shep, massive and dependable, a steadying influence on the group, set his meaty knees wide apart and worked his tie loose with muscular fingers to free his throat for gusts of laughter.
      And finally, the last to settle, April arranged herself with