It is not true
- Slocum claims that it isn't true that disabled children are favored by their parents, because he doesn't much care for Derek.
- He describes his gorgeous two-story colonial home in Connecticut, complete with flowers and other picturesque amenities that he cannot stand.
- Then he confesses that he once molested his little girl cousin and felt so bad he gave her a dime not to mention anything.
- He laments over Virginia, claiming that not a single person in the world understands how he still feels about her.
- Slocum also confesses that life has been one sterile office desk after another since his job at the insurance agency. Maybe the few years he spent in the army were his best years.
- Slocum discusses his relationship with women, claiming that he doesn't want to see any of them frequently and can't bear being with them for long. He's always sorry about all of them.
- He talks some more about sex and Virginia, saying his seventeen-year-old self never had the confidence to go all the way with her. They would kiss in the office halls but stop suddenly when they heard somebody coming. Ooh, how juicy.
- He discusses a dream in which his wife leaves him, and he wakes up talking about how he wants a divorce but could never go through with it.
- Slocum continues to talk about his affairs, and about how he likes younger women but they are too young for him.
- Then he goes back to the past and exchanges more dirty talk with Virginia. Then he comes back to the present, where he feels frustration, leisure, and discontent at home and at his job.
- He says he's gifted with insights about death and breakdowns, knowing his wife, Kagle, and the typist Martha might snap soon.
- He also fears again that something very tragic is going to happen to his son, and he won't pass age nine. Won't anything just happen to Derek?
- Slocum has a minor violent outburst and a Freudian moment when his id makes his ego aggressive and disagreeable in ways he cannot suppress. But he soon comes back down to earth.
- He's back in the office with Kagle and jokes that he'd like to hit him across the face with a lamp. The two chuckle at the joke. Nervous laughter; so awkward.
- He misses his mother and then says he wishes he could photograph all of his dreams with a motion picture camera. Then he'd like to photograph others' dreams to find out what's going on in their minds.
- Slocum fears he's nothing more than an illustrated flow chart with a wife, daughter, and son. He admits that his children will never make it to the White House to pose with the president. This shifts to a brief lamentation for the Kennedy brothers' deaths.
- There's an argument with his wife and he says he can't wait to get to work.
- At work, Slocum tells his boss Green that his wife does not like him, because he doesn't allow Slocum to speak at the convention. Kagle is brought up, and Green reveals that Kagle is through. Green also tells Slocum to stop being so cheerful, because he wants inferior people with superior minds.
- Slocum wants Green dead as much as he wants Kagle dead.
- Then he becomes afraid when he thinks about what would become of him if he ever had to leave the company. He also realizes that if anyone did leave, the company would go on, because it doesn't need the workers as much as the workers need the company.
- Green claims he might even let Slocum give the speech this year at the convention. Slocum doesn't believe him, and Green says he shouldn't.
- Slocum has another existential moment and questions his place in life. He also questions his sanity a bit and may be starting to lose his mind.
- His wife has nothing to do during the day and claims she isn't good at anything. Slocum doesn't want to feel sorry for her, since he is too busy feeling sorry for himself.
- Slocum's worried that his wife might be having an affair and checks for signs of it, though he is also disappointed not to find any.
- But he doesn't want to go crazy.
- Slocum meets with Arthur Baron to discuss the terms of his promotion. Both determine that they don't want Kagle around, but neither can fire him.
- Slocum's training himself for his promotion, organizing speeches, and playing golf.
- He predicts that his money-obsessed wife and daughter will be pleased with his promotion. He also predicts his mistress Penny might kill herself if nothing lasting happens to her soon.
- Then he returns to the memory of Virginia nearly being raped in the basement of the auto insurance company, and talks about how he discovered Virginia was dead by calling Ben Zack at the agency. He continued to call, pretending to be somebody different, just to hear how Zack delivered the news each time.
- Virginia kills herself with gas before she's twenty-five, just like her father had done before her.
- Slocum finds he's glad that Virginia's dead, so that she doesn't haunt him.
- He feels as safe with his wife as he does with his mistress Penny.
- He also doesn't know what to do about Derek, or what will happen to him if he doesn't die soon.