Thank You and Good Night

by Ray Succre

  “Two episodes. Give us two more episodes. If the numbers don’t go up once the episodes air, then we’re done. Fine. Just give us two episodes.”

  “Oh, I’d love to. I really would. That’s no bullshit, Asher. This is my job, too, you know. Thing is, I have nothing to give, and like I said, I’m out, too.” Emery’s fists grew white and his stomach ached. He breathed hard through his nostrils, smoke trailing up his arm from the cigarette.

  “You son of a bitch, I stood on that stage in front of that crowd like an ass, thanking the whole goddamn world for the success of this show,” Emery rattled.

  “Squash that, Asher. We got enough problems without you calling anybody names. I know you went up there. And I know-”

  “TWO FUCKING EMMYS,” Emery shouted.

  “Don’t you yell at me,” Bernie countered, somehow calm, “This ain’t me. I’m with you. That was a feat-and-a-half, and you should be proud of those awards. I am. When you stepped down off that stage, I had half a mind to run over and kiss you. This trouble ain’t me. You understand?”

  There was difficulty with standing still, and so Emery gave in to his anger’s want for motion. He began pacing, rubbing his face and moving, stopping at times to take in the now silly and weak figure before him: A man in charge who had no say. At that moment, Emery’s mother was in a hospital in Miami, being seen to by her sister and a weekend visit from William. The stroke had rendered her unconscious. Emery’s place was there, with his mother, perhaps attempting to rouse her, or at the least help his brother cope with the tragedy that was occurring. Instead, he had stayed to meet with Dozier, to keep at it because the show needed him, working the marrow from his bones with every line-change, every season two script rewrite. He had forgone something otherworldly and achingly important for his job, a terrible compromise that had weighed against the true, lifelong responsibility to his mother and brother, and now, as if a trick of the gods or simple wanweird, he discovered he had stayed around only to be fired.

  “Bernie, where the hell are we supposed to go?” Jamison asked.

  “People love the goddamn show!” Emery shouted. Dozier opened his mouth but nothing came out at first. He re-thought his statement with care. After a moment, he gave a small nod and put his hands up defensively, speaking at a slow pace.

  “Emery, it’s like this: People you’ve talked to love the show. I’ve heard ‘em too. And they do, they love it dearly. But… there are a lot of other people out there, people we don’t really know, and it seems they don’t like the show as much as certain other shows.”

  “That’s not true. They read the reviews. They see the awards. They know what they want to watch,” Emery replied.

  “Yes, they do that. I agree with you. But they also read the negative reviews. And they see the awards the other networks get. And they know they want to watch more than one show at a time and they can’t. During our time-slot, viewers have more than The Other Side. They have Tom Dawson’s comedy/variety show over on NBC, and they’ve got Bennie Mink on ABC. They want to watch all three, and they can’t, so they pick one show to watch in that time-slot, each week, and for them, that’s what’s on television at eight p.m. on a Friday night. If they want speculation, they wait until 9:30 when Hitchcock comes on. In the percentage, we’re just not the show that Friday night wants most. That’s all this is.”

  “You’re not good for anything,” Emery repeated, “Nothing at all. Starting things that you can’t finish; look at you. How many of your shows have been cancelled over the years, Bernie? Have you hit a dozen, yet?”

  “That’s it. Get if off your chest, Asher. Keep it comin’,” Dozier said, feigning boredom.

  “My mother is dying in a hospital right now. In Miami. She’s dying, Bernie. You know why I’m not there? With my mother? Because I’m goddamn dedicated to this show. What a slap in the face this is. Bernie, you’re a petty, toothless alligator. You’re hands aren’t tied; I think you’re just too weak to do anything.”

  There was a silence then, one in which Dozier seemed offhand and willing to take these stabs. Jamison was having trouble with Emery’s insults, however. This sort of tactic in argument was often uncalled-for and cheap.

  “I didn’t know about your mother. I’m truly sorry,” Dozier said then.

  “Fuck you. You’re an impotent cod,” Emery said, looking away.

  “Okay, Em. Let’s calm it down, here. That’s too much,” Jamison said.

  Thoughts of his mother had overwhelmed Emery the previous week. He had flown out at first knowledge of the stroke, seen Susa in the hospital. She had been weak and thin. In only the year-and-a-half since she had helped him pack for the move to Hollywood, her body had changed much. Had she not been eating? Her voice over the phone had been the same, so usual, so motherly, and accepted. The idea that any morning now might be the one in which she did not wake passed through his thoughts as if flung by a sporadic, always-present trebuchet. Here he was in an office being canned. There she was, across the country, struggling to stay alive. In a dream. In a bed. Forget The Other Side, forget the awards, Susa had seen every episode of his life, and now she was unconscious in a Florida hospital bed.

  Bernie Dozier seemed calm, but Jamison knew better. This relaxed, better-luck-next-time appearance was an act. Jamison had several times in the past seen the manner by which Dozier blew his top. It followed mildness. Insult. Sometimes, it was a threat that brought Bernie up, and sometimes, the right insult at the right time. Emery was unaware of this facet of Bernie Dozier, and Jamison did not want the trait to show itself, not to someone as then-aggravated as Emery Asher. That was trouble, and far more than the usual sort.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Jamison said, reverting the conversation carefully.

  “What question?” Dozier returned, surfacing from thoughts of Emery’s insult and the situation of the writer’s mother.

  “What are we supposed to do now?”

  “How should I know?” Dozier replied, “I’m sure you’ll produce somewhere, but I don’t know where. You’re a resource. You find a pocket to pool in. You figure it out for yourself. That’s all. Come on, you know the way. And Emery, pal, you can write anything. You’ll have new work lined up before the word even gets out the show’s been cancelled. You’ll probably have offers by the end of the week.”

  “Don’t you try and handle me, Bernie. This show is not going to be cancelled,” Emery reinforced.

  “It’s already done.”

  “Who do I talk to?”

  “The wind.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Emery said, “I’ve learned a few things over the years, so what son of a bitch do I punch in the mouth to get this production back on track?” Jamison said nothing. His experience in television steered him in a particular way, whether in success or setback. This manner of him was one of quiet, followed by forceful planning and swift action. In the moment, however, he preferred to stand, hear, gauge, and say little. Sol Jamison was a hard-ass, but only when it was needed.

  “All right. Fine. You want to punch somebody?” Dozier offered, “Okay. It’s you. Tomorrow morning, you go ahead and look in the mirror. That’s the guy. The asshole you can blame. And you should have punched him a year ago. And you didn’t. Voila.”

  This was as if the talk before a bout. Emery moved forward but Sol grabbed him and held him back. Dozier got to his feet quickly, a look of alarm on his face. Emery had frightened him a moment, and to the soldier and boxer still in Emery, this felt quite good.

  “No, no. Come on now, ease back,” Sol muttered, holding the writer back.

  “You’re good for nothing, Bernie. NOTHING,” Emery said, face red and hands balled.

  “Ease back,” Sol repeated. Emery shook his head before yanking his arm from Sol’s grip and exiting the room. He muttered a thing neither of the two men could hear, and then slammed the door behind him. Sol stood in the emptiness of the room, the tinge of violence having abated and the room suffering from the stil
lness of obvious thought.

  “He’s just angry.”

  “Of course he is,” Dozier said.

  “When do we tell the crew? Christ, and how?”

  “Sooner the better. But not today. And tell Asher that. Not today. Let everybody have fun on the fourth and be with their families. Enjoy the holiday. Sorry to ruin yours, but I wouldn’t have told the two of you if it weren’t for how it’s coming down the pipe. Had to do it,” Dozier explained.

  “Tomorrow, then?”

  “So, yeah. Tomorrow. But don’t send everybody my way. Please, Sol. Send ‘em to their agents and unions. Let ‘em piss in the mail, not in my ear. Hell, send ‘em to Asher. I’ll write up an explanation and mail it out Monday. Network logo, all that.”

  “I really thought this show was going somewhere, Bernie. I didn’t at first, that’s true, but it grew on me. A lot. This is a good show.”

  “I know. I’ve been pushing to re-run it off season, but it doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen, either. Being good isn’t enough to call shots out here, these days.”

  “Yeah, that much I do know. Damn it. I liked this production.”

  “I’m sorry, Sol. That’s how it is.”

  “Then that’s how it is. Let’s uh, maybe keep an eye on your car for a second, huh?” Both men approached the window and glanced down at the parking lot.

  “Think he’ll do somethin’?” Dozier asked.

  “Maybe. That man’s ego is like wet dynamite.”

  In the distance, there was a crack of ignited powder and an explosive report. This was an early detonation before nightfall, and harbinger of Independence Day. Emery exited the building and the world felt to be swiveling. As he approached the Roadster, he spied Bernie Dozier’s sedan, only a few spots away. How nice it would be to drag a rock across the paint... Emery sighed as he reached his car. How could he tell Beth the show was cancelled? After moving her across the country and leaving her behind in a house each day? After she had spent the lion’s share of the past year without him most days and nights? How could he tell her that sacrifice was for a couple of paychecks and a fade to black? Slumping behind the wheel of his car in front of the offices, Emery sighed and let his forehead rest on the wheel.

  There was another burst of sound up the street, someone lighting off a firework, probably to the bemusement of a child or two. Emery’s trunk was loaded with such poppers, flyers, and cracklers. He leaned back in the driver’s seat and slowly keyed the ignition. Tomorrow, he thought, Tomorrow, I’ll fly to Miami to see William and mother again. All of us. We’ll all go. Have our fun tonight, and then fly out tomorrow.

  In the office above, there was an awkward pause. Jamison and Bernie were within proximity of one another, watching through the window as Emery pulled out of the parking lot. A small drop of rain struck the window. Shortly after, there was another. Neither men moved or spoke. They had worked on projects in the past. They knew their version of the score and could both read it well enough. Something was off, however. Sol had not left the office, as Emery had, and this bothered Bernie. It seemed Sol Jamison had something else to say, but wasn’t saying it. The air was awkward. A few moments passed before Bernie spoke with a light tone.

  “How uh, how are the kids?”

  Sol extinguished whatever thoughts had kept him in the office then. His face twisted into a cold ghost before exhaling hard. He exited the room. The door did not slam, but was close to it. That was that. The cancellation had happened and the news would now spread throughout the crew. The upsetting portion of the cancellation was complete, but the hard work of it had only just begun. There was a moment wherein Bernie Dozier, having returned to his desk, set his tired face in his hands, but this moment was short and he regained his composure. He sat up. His eyes trailed the floor as he nibbled at his lower lip, lost in though in his hollow office. Slowly, he reached into his desk and extracted a pint of scotch. He uncorked the bottle and had a pull, still staring at the door. Then the bottle was corked again and placed back into the desk. He groaned, clutching his stomach just above the kidneys. .

  “Christ,” he mumbled, pain from his ulcer spiraling into his thoughts. The ulcer did not enjoy scotch. Lately, he had made some ground in keeping these two apart. He hunched over his desk for a moment and then made his way to his feet, breathing heavy until adjusting to the ulcer’s clamor.

  “Good for nothing?” he repeated, annoyed.

  Near the door, he gained his hat and coat, donned them with a frown. It was beginning to rain out but his car was near, and untouched by the angry writer. After a moment, he wriggled his wrists to get his sleeve-ends feeling right, and then reached over, turning the doorknob.

  “Fuck you, I’m good for lots of things,” he muttered, hitting the light switch and exiting his office for the night.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Eddie Dodder had a charged overhand right that could shove your jaw up through your eyes, and he had used it to great effect. Emery’s nineteen-year-old frame swiveled and the cold crept over him. There were eons of waiting in line, a queue long as humanity itself. He stood there behind all the other soldiers Dodder had knocked comatose, waiting to wake up, but he could not cut in line. He would have to wait in unconsciousness until all the men in front of him woke up, then he would have his turn at consciousness again, and he could return to the real world.

  “What did he get you with?” Emery asked the man ahead of him.

  “Oh, a silly flurry. I just didn’t see it right, was all. Blurred me for a second while he swung that damn anvil.”

  “That’s what got me,” Emery said, “that big, overhand right.”

  “A haymaker.”

  “That’s the one.”

  Of course, Emery waited in line with tolerance and patience, making his way forward until Lieutenant Merrill ushered him beyond the sleepers gate and bade him good luck. The world drifted white and he slowly sat up on the ring floor. Dodder stood in his corner, concerned with the state of Emery’s recent, unconscious activity, which had manifest as sporadic shudders against the floor.

  Time spun. Emery was awake. Eddie Dodder was formidable, and ruled the lightweight roost of the ARMY, but not for long. Emery watched, five months later, as Eddie simply disappeared beneath a two-ton supply crate falling from the Philippine sky on a parachute. The dilemma came from nowhere. They were the demolition men, a walking squad, and wary of all. Then the first crate dropped. There was a cheer from every hungry man. And Eddie Dodder. Then his cheer ended and Eddie disappeared. A horrible noise of cracks and dull snaps. A crate surrounded in dust had appeared where Dodder had stood moments before. It was faster than the time it took for Emery to stop and think of making sound. He pointed at the crate and tried to get the words out. Another soldier did, and all came running. The crate was shoved over after a short while. What they found beneath it would never leave them.

  “Jesus, he never even saw it,” someone muttered.

  Page Girdwood was a little girl, so young, but had a speed that caused her to outrun most adults. She was a good runner, and when she was given the task of taking final orders from the United States to Emery’s squad far off in Manila, she ran so fleet of foot over the waves that the victory wards of Marathon would not have caught her. She was an incarnate of Hermes. The wings that extended from her ankles were plastic trinkets, really, but they got the symbol across. In her purest sense, it could have been said she traveled at the rate of her own beauty. She could be standing in front of you with your orders even before you realized she was there. When she appeared, but ten years-old, before the murderous crate with Emery’s orders, when she helped him to his feet, Emery’s brief squeal of fright abated. He looked at the orders the little girl had brought him. Dodder was gone, and Emery was chosen to be the next man to go. The next to die. His orders said so: By/on 15th, Aug: PFC Asher, Division casualty, to be buried in Cypress Hills National Cemetery, Mount of Victory Plot, by/on Sept. 15th. CoD: Explosion-->Blood Loss.

  E
ach day, someone was lost, and there was a betting pool on which man would be next. Paige Girdwood’s child-like appearance was only a ruse. She was the Angel of Death, and she brought the orders, and she was both sudden and disconsolate. Dodder had not even been listed in this pool, but there he was, a mess of angles and ruptured skin tangled and mashed with the island ground. The vote was in, the money wagered. Emery was next. He had orders to die. It was spiritually official. This would probably come from the Japanese, a military force that no doubt held much ground ahead, on the other side of the large gulleys, or possibly in them. Emery found himself hoping that, if he were next to die, it would be the Japanese that got him, not the suddenness of a dropping crate, or an incorrect detonation, or the slow torture of starvation, his days curled in the grip of fading vitality.

  CUT TO:

  INT. A U.S. MEDICAL SCHOOL SURGERY SUITE - TIME UNKNOWN

  A lowered, circular room, designed for demonstration and lecture. It contains two gurneys and several doctors in surgical gowns. The ceiling is vaulted to allow a second story of surrounding students.

  We see the students gazing down through windows, waiting for the demonstration, a procedure for which they seem prepared to take notes. The doctors are also professors, it seems. The onlookers hold writing pads and jot quickly, glancing down from the second floor, watching the subject, waiting for the procedure to begin. We recognize some of them: Emery’s children, Rebecca and Vivian, are present. So are William Asher, Warren Tult, and Alfred Hitchcock, among many others we may or may not recognize. Beth is not present.

  EMERY ASHER is strapped to one of the gurneys. On the other lays the body of his mother, SUSA. EMERY wakes and struggles against his restraints, nude and in a panic.