Free The Graduate by Charles Webb Page A

beginning to get light outside to find that the can of beer or the drink he had been holding had fallen out of his hand and spilled into his lap or across the rug. But usually the movies kept him awake. After a while he was able to calculate just how much to drink so that the moment the last movie ended he could set down his empty glass, turn off the set and go upstairs and be asleep almost the moment he slid in between the sheets of his bed.
    One evening, an hour or so after dinner had been finished, Mr.
    Braddock came into the den where Benjamin was watching television.
    Benjamin glanced at him, then back at the screen. Mr. Braddock closed the door behind him and walked to the set to turn itoff.
    Benjamin scowled at him. Mr. Braddock seated himself behind a desk in the room and looked for a long time without saying anything at an ash tray Benjamin had perched on the arm of his chair.
    “Ben?” he said finally, quietly. “What’s happening.”
    “What’s happening,” Benjamin said, grinding out a cigarette.
    “Yes.”
    “Well up until a minute ago I was watching TV.”
    Mr. Braddock shook his head. “Ben, I don’t know what to say to you.”
    “You don’t.”
    “No.”
    “Well what’s the problem then.”
    “You’re asking me what the problem is?”

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    Benjamin shrugged and reached into the pocket of his shirt for a new cigarette. “I don’t see that there is one,” he said. “The only problem I see is that you came busting in here and turned off a program.”
    “Ben,” his father said, shaking his head. “Can’t you talk to me? Can’t you try and tell me what’s wrong?”
    “Look,” Benjamin said. “Nothing’s wrong at all. I mean you—you walk in here, you turn off the TV, you start wringing your hands and crying and asking me what’s the problem. Just what in the hell do you want.”
    “Have you just lost all hope?”
    “Oh my God,” Benjamin said. He lit his cigarette and dropped the match into the ash tray.
    “Well what is it then,” Mr. Braddock said, holding up his hands. “You sleep all day long. You drink and watch television all night.
    Sometimes you disappear after dinner and don’t come home till the next day. And you’re trying to tell me there’s no problem? Ben, you’re in a complete tailspin.”
    “I’m in a complete tailspin.”
    “Ben,” Mr. Braddock said, “we are your parents.”
    “I’m aware of that.”
    “We want to know what you’re doing. Ben, what do you do when you take off after dinner. Do you sit in bars? Do you go to the movies? Is there a girl you’re meeting somewhere?”
    “No.”
    “Well then what.”
    “I drive around.”
    “All that time?”
    “That’s right.”
    Mr. Braddock shook his head. “That’s rather hard to believe,” he said.
    “So don’t believe it.” Benjamin reached down for the can of beer on the rug beside his chair.
    “And what are your plans. Do you have any plans at all?”
    Benjamin swallowed some beer and returned the can to the rug. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Look,” he said. “I’m The Graduate
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    perfectly content. All summer long you nagged at me to have a good time. So now I’m having one. So why not leave well enough alone.”
    “This is what you call having a good time?”
    “This is what I call having a ball.”
    Benjamin finished his cigarette slowly. When he was done he ground it out in the ash tray and sat a few moments longer with his arms resting on the arms of the chair and staring ahead of him at the dark screen. Then he glanced up at his father. “Do I have your permission to turn on the television?”
    “No.”
    “I don’t.”
    “No.”
    Mr. Braddock stood and walked to the window of the den. He looked out into the dark back yard. “I want to talk about this,” he said.
    “Dad, we’ve got nothing to say to each other.”
    “But we’ve got to, Ben.”
    “We don’t.”
    “Ben I—I want to talk about values. Something.”
    “You