Detective

to go, because in no time at all she came in to keep me company.
    The problem with my wife, and it is a problem, is that she really likes me. At least that’s the impression that she gives, and I have no way to prove it false. And more than just liking me, she respects me. She thinks I’m intelligent, and capable, and worthy, and she wants the best for me. In short she drives me nuts.
    The other part of the problem is I like her too. She’s a very nice person, and is generally pleasant and agreeable. That’s not to say she doesn’t have a temper—when provoked she can be a regular hellcat, and her sarcasm is a wonder to behold, but such outbursts are rare and always for good reason. But most of the time she’s just nice.
    And that’s the trouble.
    Take my job, for instance. If she simply bitched about how few hours I was getting, and how little money I was making, and how we couldn’t possibly live on it, that would be fine. I could give it right back to her and we could have screaming arguments of the type where everything gets said but nobody really gets hurt, and afterwards you feel better about it.
    But my wife doesn’t do that. She doesn’t complain about how little I’m making. She sympathizes with me for making so little. She laments the fact that such a fine person as me should be stuck in such a dead-end job. She encourages me to quit the job and find something else. And she supports my decision, whatever it may be. The end result, of course, is just the same as if she had simply bitched and moaned, with the added aggravation that her position is invulnerable and I have nothing to complain about.
    I have never been able to figure out if she is as naively nice as she seems, or if she knows she is driving me nuts. I have tried to discern this information by means of such subtle questions as, “Do you know you’re driving me nuts?” but they never result in any concrete answers, and only serve to lead the conversation through various detours, all of which eventually lead it back to the same thing.
    My gut feeling is my wife must know what she’s doing. When she urges me to get out and find another job, she says things like, “You’re good with people,” which I take to mean that she thinks I am afraid of people, and have to be encouraged to go and meet them. She says, “You’re good on the phone,” which I hear as, “If you had the gumption to pick up the phone you might accomplish something.” She says, “You’re too good for this job,” which I hear as, “Why are you so lazy, and timid, and stupid that you can’t find something else?” But since she never says the things I hear, I can never answer her. The end result is I often want to strangle her.
    “So how’d you do today?” she asked, as I hung my pants over a hanger and began to unbutton my shirt.
    “A broken leg in Brooklyn. Three hours.”
    Her face fell in dismay. “But it’s six o’clock.”
    “It came in late.”
    She shook her head. “Oh, Stanley,” she said, sympathetically. “How awful for you. To sit around all day long waiting and then wind up with three hours. This job. This awful job.”
    “It’s not that bad,” I mumbled. I pulled on a T-shirt and began looking for my shorts.
    “It’s not fair,” she persisted. “It’s not fair for them to keep you on call all day long, make you work overtime, and then only pay you for three hours.”
    “It’s the nature of the job,” I told her.
    A search had not revealed my shorts in the drawer. I headed for our bathroom to see if they had wound up in the hamper.
    “It’s a terrible job,” she said, following me into the bathroom. “You’re such a talented writer. It just isn’t fair that you should—you’re not going to put those on, are you? They’re filthy.”
    “They’re fine,” I told her, bringing the prized shorts out of the bathroom and putting them on, relieved that the subject had changed.
    It didn’t stay changed. “I know I encouraged you to take this job,” she went on, “because we needed the money. But it was supposed to be temporary. I never would have suggested you take it if I thought it would turn into a deadend job. How long have you been doing it now, six months?”
    I muttered something unintelligible and looked around for my sneakers.
    “I was looking in the paper today,” she said. “I know there are no jobs for creative writers, but there are jobs in related fields. Editing. Advertising. Proofreading. Jobs where