by Ray Succre
TED:
Bald. That’s Don Cheaser, executive head of the company that’s payin’ for all your big crowd shots. We got three sponsors right now but Cheaser Co. is the heavy. Don’s real hands-on, too. We got him for a few productions right now. The guy keeps us fed and he doesn’t send other people, either. Comes down here himself. It’s unnerving but he’s real useful.
EMERY:
Oh?
TED:
Yeah, you just have to be careful of him. Watch your mouth, and all. Real religious.
EMERY:
I see. Well, I do know about his company. They’ve been around since I was a kid.
TED:
Sure. And Don rules the roost on this production. In fact, you should meet him. Come on, let’s go talk to him, get you introduced.
EMERY:
Now?
TED:
Yeah, you want to? He’s a good person to meet.
EMERY:
(nervous and surprised)
I- I guess it wouldn’t hurt, sure. Uh, but what do I say? I’m just the writer.
TED:
You’ll think of somethin’. Talk about the program or how you like his product. Just don’t swear or say anything immoral. Come on.
The two men approach DON CHEASER.
TED:
(Walking up beside CHEASER)
Hey there Don, you got a second? This is Emery Asher; he’s the writer of this production.
CHEASER:
(Rushed, stopping with an incincere smile):
Okay. Nice to meet you. Like the story. Keep it up.
EMERY:
(with humor)
Thank you, Mr. Cheeser. I’m very glad to meet you! And I’d like you to know that I eat your product every few nights with some decent beer.
CHEASER:
(frowns and raises eyebrow)
You don’t say.
EMERY:
I do! My kids love it, too.
TED takes EMERY’S arm, stopping him with a grunt. CHEASER continues on, leaving them behind. He wears a look of disinterest.
TED:
(sighs with embarrassment)
Oh, Asher. Come on. Let’s go.
TED and EMERY begin walking back toward the gates.
EMERY:
(calling over shoulder)
It was nice to meet you, Mr. Cheeser.
TED:
(with a shaking head)
For Christ’s sake, Asher. You eat it with beer?
EMERY:
Did I say something wrong? Beer isn’t immoral. Not yet.
TED:
Oh, for the love of- you got the wrong company, stupid. Cheaser Co. doesn’t make Cheeser’s Crackers. They make hair grease and petroleum jelly.
DISSOLVE TO:
The passage of time. Dim and rarely seen but in hindsight. The several years of free-lance had grown into a full-fledged occupation, and while the pay was rising and the contracts arrived in the mail, at times certified, and though rights were negotiated and productions completed or dropped, there was still the temerity of free-lance, the temporary and quick nature of it. Emery was treading heavy but had made some distance, though only so long as he kept his arms moving, only so much as he navigated the waves and breathed right. At any moment, he might run out of heat and start to sink; he might drop beneath the other swimmers. If this happened, the paddling and frantic energy needed to get back to this position, this surface, would be more than he could wage and would likely spell the end of things.
The scripts went out with regularity and his local bank teller actually recognized his name from a show. The money came in sudden, frivolous bursts, and then tapered into slow dribbles. The mail carrier made jokes about being promoted to script-handler and the constant inundation of Beth’s ears with the workings of the television world began giving her a knowledge of its aptitudes and habits that could rival many workers in the industry. She began reading over his scripts with a director’s eye, something she was not so apt with, but that he did find helpful, and involving her was necessary so that the two of them had the same understanding of his career. She braced him and he was thankful for it. Beth could have easily chosen to be exhausted with him, but had instead braced herself and dove into the pool. His daughters concocted small, parental adventures for him to undertake, and his wife absolved him from some of the more time-consuming tasks, for the time being. He considered himself a lucky man. He wrote and he wrote.
The third year of free-lance was functioning, and so short, and the girls were growing and he smoked and smoked and just needed to keep swimming, keep rowing the arms forward, paddling and breathing his temporary best until something big might happen. He tried to keep focus, to arouse his difficult regimen with clarity until some particular night when he might be called upon for a production of real capital, until his name was more than simply recognized by one or two people, but rather—
“Son of a bitch, it’s me!” he shouted, still holding the telephone.
“What’s wrong?” Beth asked, entering the living room quickly with a jar of mayonnaise in her hand. It was a Wednesday night near the beginning, middle, or end of Spring. It could have been any time, really.
He stood in the living room, holding the telephone and buzzing in the light of the television.
“That new award,” he said, feeling a bit drunk, “I got a nomination.”
“What for?” she asked. He only stared at her then, his eyes slim.
“Oh, come on; you know what I meant. Which story?” she rephrased.
“It’s for All the System.”
“Ha! Congratulations! You know I’ve always-”
“Just like that! No warning, no hints... just nothing!”
“Well, this is wonderful! I think it’s your best one, too. You should call your mother and tell her the news. And William.”
“Quick, turn on some music. Son of a bitch, I want to move around.”
He stepped over and set the phone back in its cradle then, surrounded in spring and good news, his face contorted in a look that exhibited thankfulness, shock, doubt, and for the briefest of moments, abject self-love.
CUT TO:
INT. ASHER LIVING ROOM - NIGHT
EMERY is excitedly gesturing about and trying to get control of himself as BETH watches, amused.
FREEZE SCENE. We see all motion stop. EMERY is in mid-step, goofy look on his face, and Beth has halted while turning for the radio. The image currently frozen on their living-room television is one of four men in suits and varying ties peering out from behind the screen at EMERY with looks of puzzlement.
We see HOST ASHER enter into the living room in a trim, black suit, interrupting our frozen scene. This second Asher walks center, between EMERY and BETH, to address us. He is the only thing in the scene that moves or makes sound. HOST ASHER wears a smug look. He has a burning cigarette between the fingers of his right hand. He holds an Emmy in his left. We see him place the cigarette between his lips and then, with his right hand now free, he reaches into his pocket, extracting a quarter. We watch as he flips the quarter in the air and catches it. He takes a drag from his cigarette, opens his palm to see the coin-toss result, then he exhales and smiles. HOST EMERY looks back up at us and, removing the cigarette from his mouth, he composes himself and speaks.
HOST ASHER:
Son of a bitch.
ACT II
_______________
Introduction to the Paperback
All the System and Other Stories, by Emery Asher
Billo & Samuel, 1958
Thanks and Gratitude
At first, thanks must be given to both editor, J. Kemp, and his company, Billo & Samuel, both of which played a part of this project seeing any light. For the opportunity of collecting these four teleplays into the book format, I am a bit shored, and quite flattered. Being offered a book was unexpected, and a signpost or testament to the small bit of limelight a television writer can achieve these days. Never has it been better, and I
certainly hope something good is to be found in the reproduction of these scripts into a book. This is my first, true foray into a mode that does not transmit on airwaves, but print is an old friend of mine, and I am pleased to reach you in such a way. My first doubts were as to whether these stories could entertain an audience without actors or visual properties, but I feel they do, and in the end committed to compiling them into a book and penning this short introduction. Billo & Samuel has been good enough to offer, and in being grateful, I feel a need to provide some background on some of the events and story behind these stories of events. I don’t wish to give a manifesto, but I would like to explain a little about the nature of television, and what made the scripts in this book acceptable, or worthy of being compiled in print.
About the Stake of Television
There is no document that can, with adequacy or decree, describe the odd fortes and peculiar advent of a writer in the television game. Various shadows compel various writers, and the medium is far from understood as a whole by those who attempt to navigate its mountains. The early troubles that clotted the workings of scriptwriting for the home screen have not diminished, but are still ever prankishly in effect. This studio industry has workarounds and nice patches, but the inherent weaknesses and a lean toward the demographic approach are basic. These disadvantages are unresolvable, really, and there is no dodging the saturation of airwaves with wrestling and drama (much of it stilted). There is writing that, at times, seems as if its master was wrestling with his own material, and the commercials, of course, are a gaudy interruption when longer than they need to be, which is universally always. The scene of directors and producers, every sort of hand to gain proximity to the process, including a writer, is approaching the time of its adolescence, and as difficult to control as it has been, will worsen for a time still more. The television world is as if a case study in all things acceptably botched. You cannot justify or defend against these traits, but knowledge of how they came about is most certainly available. There is much to learn and still remaining are the winnows of technique and the destruction, or at least, dashing, of the cinema and Broadway mindsets from those conscripts drawn into the game.
As with radio, Hollywood, or the book world (into which I am now joining through a sincere and surprising back door), there is the plausibility that television will release enough of its own carbon dioxide that no animal attached to her habitat might escape before the inevitable suffocation. It may very well fire the pistol backward through its brain. There is still much to attempt and wage in this place, however, and as the cards are dealt, day in and day out, we know these are early days, and a heartening truth is that we are now giving our best, or at the least, giving our attempts at the best and hoping for espousal through our newly enervated critics.
Uncertain Events
The standard unit of measure for a radio or television writer’s failure is one day. This general failure is made up of many smaller incidents that compound easily. They are collected and evaluated to the day, and they accrue their interest in his worth to the day. The writer re-evaluates and moves his failures about in the mind shortly after the Sun sets each evening. It is an incessant task. Failure lets up, however. The trying rejections are punctuated, and almost parenthetically, in successes. Cry foul or cry applesauce; you’re on your way somehow. Acceptance is often as surprising as it is brief; a man does not always seek out those brief accolades he receives, but is awarded them. The days come and go, bringing with them and then taking away each rejection or promised payment. The days do little for the soul, however. The true metric of a writer, I believe, is in the momentary life. This is a rotation of grand or awful instances that roll round and round, not by days, or years, but by their own fortune. A critic blares your name with vehemence and vitriol from his article, or the sale of sales comes in. The newest scripts face rejections, or the mail brings a choppy burst of checks. The commute from a sale to production might fatigue one nearly to flight, or the Emmy is offered. These occur quickly and in scattered array, and a playwright for television has to enjoy or despise them just as quickly.
There is no more time to revel in a treasured hour than there is to grumble in a loathsome one. It is an hour, and the next is already en route. That the writer must surpass his acceptances in the same manner he gets over his failures is in no way indicative of how those things function: The acceptances get over you fast. The rejections cling and itch you like damp clothes, weigh you down and cause the bourbon to glimmer.
I do remember an incident, early in my career, late 1952, when I had to drive across New York with Arlie Waller, a director who was working on shooting one of my scripts. We were driving from a meeting at the Columbia Broadcasting System headquarters to a bar where many from the production were waiting for us. Many of the crew were having a bit of celebration over the finalization of the remaining set for Isle of the Viceroy. We had a bit of shooting to do still, but were very close to the end-zone. As the two of us drove across town, Arlie and I fell into a busy discussion on a script I had dreamed up but had yet to set into type. He was offering some changes to my story’s premise and advising me about story elements. I was annoyed, trying to champion myself, being somewhat of a baby about his notions “affecting the fluidity of the theme” and “ogling my characters with unnecessary detail”. I knew better, but for a few minutes, I had forgotten.
My mood was effecting my driving, and I had all the sorts of defensiveness a green writer might carry. At one dismal point in the conversation, and as it turned out, the final point, I voiced with spite: “You produce the shows and I write the stories. Stay in your office and I’ll stay in mine,” and as if the universe sought to place its own sort of period at the end of that silly harangue, the entire passenger side of my car scraped against a retaining wall and we stopped with force, the front end perched against a devastated lamp-post.
We exited the wrecked car and our argument was manifest. What had been a rambling over story had become an automobile accident in less time than a nostril requires to fully flare. I opened the trunk to check on my typewriter, which turned out to be fine. While the trunk was open, however, Arlie was able to view my subsistence, my commuter life, the shoddy heaps of underwear and neckties, snack food packages, and the iron with its cord tangled up in all of it like a constricting snake. This was all the debris of my traveling habit, and accoutrements to the grueling and constant, six-hundred and fifty mile commutes from Ohio to New York for work. The argument over story ended abruptly. Arlie stared into my trunk and then looked up at me.
“Brother, you gotta relocate,” he told me.
After some talk with two policemen and a pull truck, we managed to get ourselves to the bar by taxi, where Arlie delighted in telling every detail of the accident, the argument, and especially doting on those portions of the story that involved the contents of my trunk. Worse than this embarrassing, ongoing recount of our accident, Martin Ward was there, someone I had badly wanted to meet, and a person who, to a beginning writer, was one of the men to know. Arlie went on and on about the underwear, the iron, the garbage wrappings, and my earnest worry over the state of my typewriter.
“So I’m seein’ a pair of white briefs with a leaky quart of oil sittin’ on ‘em. Leaky! Who could wear those the way they’re stained? Do you actually put those on, Asher?”
I was mortified, but no longer defensive. I had lost that adrenaline on the way over. Ward, a man to meet, approached me near the counter after several beers and put his arm around me, seeing my ongoing distress at the day’s events and the exposing of my lousy travel life. My nerves were a mess, from the argument, the wreck, and now the embarrassment of literally having my ‘dirty laundry’ exposed. Ward could see I was beginning into a state of half-drunk panic.
“Look,” he said, “nobody cares how you drive or what you got in your trunk. Calm down. All they care about is your work and how it affects their work. Outside of that, this is just a bunch of guys at a bar, and you’re
one of ‘em. Relax. We have a great script and you wrote it.” He gave me a slap on the back then and ordered another beer. We had a few and then I hailed a taxi to the train station and bought a ticket back to Ohio for the weekend. It was an eye-opening experience and effected me in ways not at first discernible. It may seem silly or novice now, but that accident and the brief talk with Martin Ward was truly the first time I felt to be an actual part of the television world, and in any way connected to others in the game. Until that day, I had felt merely to be an interloper, a sort of industry tourist or an unattractive suitor, one that managed to find a bit of luck here and there, but would not be around for long.
On the path to enterprise, and especially in the television business, a writer meets many accomplices. Through these, he is given occasional memberships to sources of work that exist all over town. You cherish these and use them when needed. Who you know does not make you a good writer, but simply more visible. This is a necessity; a good writer that knows no one is a ghost before death. When your mind is a bit cracked and your days bent from exhaustion or the incessant rummaging in yourself for meaning, these people have a treasury of advice and can direct you toward work. They usually bring it out when you’re in trouble, which is the exact right moment to do so. A slap on the back and a simple statement are often all a writer needs to continue against the wind. Uncertainty and struggle are tough on everyone in the television industry, but due to his nature, and emotional aptitude, the stuff of creativity, a writer is all the more susceptible to his bridge groaning beneath those weights. People like Martin Ward, and even Arlie Waller, came along enough that I was propelled forward. Were I to write a short script of my life, these accomplices would have a scene of their own, and if my life went over budget, I wouldn’t shorten that scene or give them less lines, not for anything.