Thank You and Good Night

by Ray Succre

  CUT TO:

  A fussing baby. So tired and only willing to sleep in the frivolous sense. Never going very deep when out, like her father. She turned her head and waved an arm in a mild flail before falling back to sleep. She had a scent not unlike her mother’s, but entirely unlike Rebecca’s. Emery was immune to his own scent, whatever it was. The little girl lifted her chin and then settled, out again. He yawned, tilted his neck until the gratifying crackle rushed toward the base of his skull.

  “Okay,” William said, “I have to ask: Why is it you only call me late at night, Em?”

  “Because I know you’re awake.”

  “Yeah, the family curse. But I’m awake during the day, too. You should call me in the afternoon sometime. I’m funnier. Besides, this only keeps me awake longer.”

  “You wouldn’t answer if you didn’t want to talk. It’s useful. Besides, we work all day.”

  “That’s true, but try me on a weekend or something.”

  “Neh, night is the only time I have when I can sit down and talk to somebody for more than a minute. You can ask me to call during the day, but I’ll defy you openly.”

  “Because you’re a big shot.”

  “Psh. Yeah, me. Hey, speaking of big shots, though, I might be on to something a lot bigger than the usual shows, at least.”

  “Oh?”

  “I have a new agent now. Dave Allen. He’s one of the Warren Agency guys. These agents out in Los Angeles are sharks and they operate out of Hollywood, which does things differently than New York. They’re taking on television personnel right now. Like you wouldn’t believe. It seems the money is finally stacking up. Oh, Dave’s agency has some real heavyweights, too. Neil Simon. Sydney Lumet. That Buddy Holly fellow. I think Hitchcock is one of theirs. Writers and musicians and athletes and everybody. I even heard they have Marciano. Big stuff. They’ll probably have politicians, soon enough.”

  “Didn’t Marciano hang it up last year?”

  “Yes. Deservedly. But I’m sure he still needs an agent. Anyway, they signed me on, and right now they’ve got a few of my pieces floating around some new pools and something good is on the line. You already know about the three pictures I signed on to write for Pacific, but better than that, do you remember that suspense series I was trying to pitch when I was doing radio?”

  “Suspense. Was it the thing with the cruise and everybody disappears?”

  “Oh, no. That was just a two-parter. This was a series that would have a different story each episode. Not a serial, but an anthology.”

  “Wait, yeah. I remember. Inside the Mind?”

  “The Other Side of the Mind.”

  “Right, okay.”

  “And I’m just calling it The Other Side now. Thing is, I converted it for television a ways back and I’ve been fishing it just about everywhere. No luck at all. I was just about ready to pack it away when my agent forwarded me a letter from CBS. You know CBS.”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay. So, I got that letter last week. They want me to come down to the studio next month and pitch it to a big producer over there in Los Angeles. They seemed to like the idea much. Want to hear more about it. Loved the two sample scripts they had. I sent three more and they still want me to come out, so things are looking good for a show, so far.”

  “That’s good news, but... you’ll be writing suspense, huh? That’s a little pulpy, isn’t it? I mean, considering your Emmy and all,” William said.

  “Sure, in a manner. I want it to be poignant, but yes, also suspenseful. Not pulpy, just based in speculation. But I want the whole thing: Science fiction, horror, war stories, crime drama, comedy, fantasy... just all of it. And if I do that, in those means, I can say a lot about people that I normally can’t get away with. They’d be stories that chew over the human condition, but they’d be conveyed in speculation.”

  “What about romance?”

  “Not so much of that, no.”

  “Oh hell, you’re gonna put lessons into everything. I know you. You couldn’t get enough of Aesop’s Fables when you were little, and you want to make more of them now.”

  “Well, not fables. Morality tales, disguised.”

  “Who’s morality?”

  “The common one. I’d use fantasy and horror, mostly. People aren’t so nervous about that, and the sponsors would give me a longer leash because any controversy would be hidden. I’d get to hire my own writers, for a change.”

  “You wouldn’t write it yourself?”

  “I would at first. And always some of it. Maybe most of it. But I don’t think I could handle an entire anthology on my own. That’s weekly, brother. It would still be my show, though. Paydirt, too. Exceedingly nice paydirt. I’d have a joint production agreement, so I’d be a producer, as well as a writer. I have to figure out what to call my production company. Well, if any of this takes off, I mean.”

  “Crazy. Money is always nice, though. Women, too. And power. Can’t forget about power.”

  “I’d love to have more money. Women, no. I have all I need regarding those; two daughters and a wife are all the women I’ll ever need. But power... that’s pretty apt because if I get to produce, it means I’d have creative control and I could run things my way. And being an hour-long program, I’d have room to write and I wouldn’t have to stifle things so much. This show could really be a product straight from the imagination.”

  “Sounds like it is, already.”

  “Nice jab, but I could actually run wild if this deal happens. That would more than make up for the drudgery of having to write a weekly show, which I feel I’m a little past, at this point. That kind of freedom and money, though… how could a Binghamton kid pass that up?”

  “If my studies were correct,” the older brother interjected, “they threw Aesop off a cliff.”

  “That’s just a myth. I think Aesop is a myth, too. I’m not especially planning on writing animal allegories, and I certainly don’t live near any cliffs.”

  “Those skyscrapers in New York are pretty tall, Em.”

  “Say, that’s good, but if the show is chosen, I’d be in Los Angeles, Will. We’d have to move. To Hollywood.”

  “I have no parry to that. Enjoy the desert.”

  “Yeah, wish me luck.”

  “Luck. To be serious, though, I’m proud of you, little brother. I really am. You seem to be making it all work, and even if this show doesn’t happen, I know you’ll have other things on the line soon enough. Dad would be proud of that, too.”

  “Thanks, Will. The truth is that I’m swinging wild, though. I have to keep trying to land these bigger fish or we’ll starve.”

  “Ah: ‘Fish, I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.’ Remember how that one turned out? Just don’t let a big fish drag you all over the damn sea, Em.”

  “I see your point. Listen, I think I should probably get off the phone and make for that script. I’m tired of you.”

  “Good. Leave me alone,” William said.

  “I’m going to end this boring call.”

  “I inferred that already. And I ended my half of this call about ten minutes back.”

  “All right, another time, big brother.”

  “Sounds good. Oh hey, Em. Before I forget, call mother sometime. She tells me you don’t call much and I know she wants to hear from you.”

  “All right, I’ll do that. Goodnight.”

  “Yeah, goodnight.”

  He was upset with himself for not having told Beth. Not so upset with keeping the day’s news from William, and he hadn’t even thought about giving his mother the news. He supposed he had come into a sort of grand and lustrous achievement, concerning the notice he had received in the mail that day, the potent letter, but it didn’t feel like achievement, not inside of him. He had merited the nomination, yes, but only in the most technical manner. He had qualified for it by being available and working hard and continuing as fast as he could. This in no way differentiated
him from others, however. Many other writers deserved the nomination just as much. An apparition in his mind, one that eagerly devoured praise and that had been born from his ego’s flatulent exhaust, had begun to howl and glut on the letter. However, a tired portion of him suspected that praise was not what the letter truly contained. Emery began to surmise he was in a particular spotlight simply for the fact that it now knew where to find him. He had been given a trophy once, and was now to be tolerated as a person for whom trophies might go. Medals and epaulettes. Jingles like chimes in his mind. Frivolous fringe and lace.

  He had begun to feel like a slave to the bitch goddess of success, and worse, a goddess that did not understand him or know him. The letter sat in his breast pocket, warming him and yet disturbing his sense of worth. He felt strange and wary. The content of the letter had bolstered him, as it should have, but somehow the new honor had the quality of a growl. He should have told Beth straightaway. Now he felt muddy and foolish. He would tell her tomorrow, after the mail came so he could fake that the letter had just arrived.

  Vivian stirred in his arm again. They were both uncomfortable, and should have been in a proper bed. After placing the phone on the receiver, he worked his second arm around her, cradling the little girl and admiring the slight bead of sweat that had surfaced on her exposed temple. He bent down and placed his cheek against her, feeling the warmth and life and his actual worth. His meaning was this, and existed beyond the ramparts of New York and television and letters that came bearing bad news or wonderful news, either of which somehow turned him cold inside, messages of failure and penalty or success and reward that inadvertently struck him in a cruel way, things he did not feel were truly his own. How could a person live up to these things? Having a name somewhat meant being enslaved by it.

  He sighed and gently nuzzled his chin atop her small, lovely head.

  “They’re putting daddy up for another Emmy,” he whispered.

  Chapter Twelve

  The nervousness was a hive, and many-particled; the crawls and shaky posturing had begun within his brain and back. The Los Angeles morning had arrived, after much fitful sleep, and the event was in his day’s future. There was a buzzing sort of trouble in his legs and jaw. This waned with the onset of breakfast (of which he ate little), and returned as the time of the meeting drew close. He had planned, organized, and thought up a variety of responses and statements he might use if the producer cornered him in some way. They did not often do this, but he had met a few that had the habits of bears. Los Angeles was warm, coated in asphalt, and the glints from passing cars were incessant.

  Emery’s week had been given over to preparation and contingencies. Now, in proximity of the interview, his bones had begun to rattle against their joints and his thoughts had become scrawny. His skull felt small. He sensed he looked awkward and measly. This was remarkably similar to how he had felt before any jump in the Pacific.

  The writer had little to lose if he botched the pitch, but so much to gain if he brought it around. As Beth glanced through the hotel window at downtown Los Angeles, marveling at the old, positioned flora and the broadness of the sky in such warm weather, Emery put his arm around her and tried to find some form of astonishment with the view. Through the prism of his fidgety mood, he could see but scrub and structure through the hotel window, little more. His nerves were vociferous, triggering on the anxiety. The day’s schedule was a simple one, but it felt as if his career was now sweeping him across a floor with a push broom.

  There were others like him, trying to get somewhere from everywhere else, and they kicked up so much dust. Every speck was trying to avoid the dustpan, and he was there, too. Emery stood beside his wife in the small hotel, the creak of the second floor wood beneath his feet. He had polished his shoes the night previous, and Beth had ironed his shirt and pants. The little ones were still asleep, but would wake soon for the adventurous day they had been promised.

  The view from the hotel seemed hostile and overbearing. Hollywood. Motion pictures. He found himself staring at a glare on the glass, rather than what was visible beyond it. This town was an entirely new farm where the animals did a different sort of work, and upheld a more customized form of celebrity.

  “Oh honey, your arm is shaking,” Beth said, feeling this in the small of her back.

  “I could really go for a couple of dehydrated martinis, right now.”

  “Should I call our doctor and see if he’ll wire a prescription to one of the pharmacists out here? I’m sure he would,” she offered.

  “No, a visit from Meltown would make me tired. I’m just rambling; need to get my wits in order. I’m fine,” he said, trying to make this truthful.

  FADE OUT

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  CUT TO:

  Coffee. Cups of it. At a small diner loaded with bus-stoppers. Emery was alone and he felt out of place in his suit, but no one seemed to notice him. The coffee was scalding but he managed it down in quick sips. With only his thoughts to accompany him, he pulled from the hot, ceramic rim too often. When emptied, his first cup was refilled, became two cups, and the waitress kept returning. Four cups. He knew better but he had to keep doing something, and the coffee was poured for him relentlessly. He couldn’t just sit there and bide time. The coffee would help, of course. He needed to be alert when he met with Mr. Dozier. He needed to be a salesman, which turned his stomach more than the excess of coffee and the lack of sleep. He had to pass a little time, and then, he would give his hard-practiced pitch for the program. The anthology prospect was never far from his thoughts.

  Beth had taken the kids to the Los Angeles zoo, something in which Emery would have very much liked to take part, but he was in L.A. for business, a thing that was proving more nerve-twisting than he was wont to undertake. He had a small hope the studio would turn him away, decide his ideas foolish, that he could go home and work on what he felt was important. He had gained acceptance as a new sort of playwright, which was a moniker exceedingly rare for a writer in television, and there were angry eyes all over New York that saw him as having attained something they too, deserved, but had not yet been given. Was it any different in Los Angeles? He needed to focus. The pitch.

  Emery enjoyed the promise in writing for television, the energy and little-guy-makes-good sensation of free-lance. The trip to Hollywood was a supreme departure from that. If this deal went through, Emery would be moonlighting again, and have a steady job on an anthology show. The volume of writing this would require necessitated he would hire others to aid him. This was a strange marriage of his labor-writing from radio with his imaginative writing in television. The prior would become an admixture of the latter, and he was not certain this was for the better. The income was undoubtable, however. He had made good money in the past year, more than he would have suspected was plausible for someone of his station, and he could continue earning that money indefinitely, so long as he did not dry out, and so long as people paid for the sort of work he wrote.

  This interview, however, and the show it was gauging, had cash waiting in the lea, much more money than he had ever made. The Other Side would
pay greatly if it was purchased and aired. He would be as if a silly sultan clacking away on his black typewriter and surrounding his family in opportunity and the plushness of a secure life. College some day for Rebecca and Vivian would be possible. A small house for the Ashers could become a fitting house for the Ashers, and his girls would not have to share a room. He might even have a study, if he wanted it, if he made these things occur, if he pitched these luxuries to fruition. Something about the American dream clashed in his thoughts with something about wanting to be liked. One without the other felt empty. He was spinning always.

  Coffee babbling in his belly, he paid his ticket and rode across town to the studio. He could have driven himself, or hailed a taxi, and even the studio had offered to pick him up at the hotel, but this was better. See the arena. Get to know the folks out here, in the event he was to become one of them. The bus churned his insides like a rock tumbler. Coffee sloshing up the sides of his stomach caused him to swallow back often. He had managed so little sleep the previous night. Two full hours, and another that had daubed into sleep across instances, minutes at a time. He had written talking points and committed them to memory. The bus jittered and thumbed over the occasional pothole and he went over his approach in his mind. The troublesome aspect of this interview would be that Emery was pitching something for which he was not known. He was known as a dramatist, but he was pushing for speculation. Emery wondered, quite often, if he was being foolish in straying so far from the milk-bowl. His doubt was a worm in the brain that dug out tunnels within tunnels. It wriggled into his thoughts often: Perhaps he was playing arson with his straw-built career.

  Emery could still free-lance, of course. He could write teleplays and films, and even novels, if he decided to embark down the book path. Provided he could work hard enough, he might be able to wage all of these while still maintaining a weekly show. The intensity of his schedule would perch upon his mind a unique havoc, and would certainly subdue his family, but it was possible. A few years only. Like an ARMY stint. You got in, worked the situation as hard as commanded, and when you got out, the job had been done, you were keen and sharp, with a good paycheck in your hands, and you were ready to open the world for a time. If you survived, of course.