TWO O’CLOCK, EASTERN WARTIME

by John Dunning

  Eli looked up, obviously surprised. “It’s a colored show. They play it Sunday mornings.”

  “I was wondering if you listen to it.”

  Eli nodded. “Sometimes I work on it.”

  “Really? What do you do?”

  “I sing the theme song. And whatever else comes up. My uncle started that show. He’s been doing it eight years now.”

  Jordan could see the questions in Eli’s eyes. “Well,” he said, “I’ve been told I’m going to write it, starting next week.”

  Another surprise. “That’ll be news to Waldo. That’s my uncle, Waldo Brown.”

  “You mean he doesn’t know about it?”

  “He didn’t say anything to me when I talked to him last night. I can’t imagine something like that and he wouldn’t even tell me about it.”

  “Who writes it now?”

  “Waldo does. What writing there is. A lot of it’s just talking.”

  Jordan gave an apologetic shrug. “I’m sorry I’m so ignorant, it’s just that they’ve got it tucked away on the schedule and there was never any call for me to listen.”

  Eli nodded. “We tell tales about the black race. What you might call oral folklore. I sing ‘The Freedom Song’ and Waldo sketches out some notes, and we just take it from there. It goes pretty fast.”

  “I think they’re going to expand it,” Jordan said, surprising him yet again.

  Eastman came bursting through the door with a bleary grin, a look that said, Don’t say a word till I get my heart beating. He poured himself some coffee, sipped, sighed, and stood staring at nothing. Eli wrung out his mop and disappeared into the utility room. A moment later Stallworth arrived with a bag of doughnuts. “Hello, Jordan. Good morning, Grover,” he sang as he reached for a mug. Eastman looked up sourly. “They should pass a law against people like him. Nobody should be that goddamn cheerful before nine o’clock. Gimme one of those doughnuts.”

  “Absolutely. Here, Jordan, you look like you need some fortification.”

  “Don’t mind if I do. What happened, you boys mix up your days?”

  “We’re double-teaming it today,” Eastman said.

  “Who’s Uncle Wally?”

  “We both are. Which will be interesting as hell if we both happen to talk at the same time.”

  “You can have the first hour,” Stallworth said. “I’ll do some other stuff. I’m gonna put on some blackface around seven fifteen. Don’t worry, Jordan, it’s an old script, you don’t have to write a thing.”

  “What’s the idea?”

  “Don’t ask me. The man says be here, here I be.”

  “It is strange, though,” Eastman said. “They’ve never asked us to do it together. Something’s in the wind.”

  Stallworth grinned. “Maybe they’re gonna let one of us go. Better be on your best this morning, Grover, somebody’s out there listening.”

  “Laugh if you want to, but something’s up. Lotsa changes all of a sudden. I hear you’re gonna write the colored thing, Jordan. That’s kind of a comedown, isn’t it?”

  “From continuity? I wouldn’t say so.”

  “By the way,” Stallworth said, “where’s Eli this morning?”

  “Back here,” Eli said from the utility room. “You need something?”

  “Just wondering how you’d like to be on the rahddio today, kid.”

  Eli came out looking wary. “Doing what?”

  “Whatever the script calls for, that’s what. Pull up a chair. I’ll give you a table reading right here and now—your first big radio audition. If you work out, I’ll pay you myself—three dollars out of my own pocket.”

  “Do I get to see it first?”

  “Look, either you want to be on the air or you don’t. Don’t do me any goddamn favors, Eli. If you want to work in radio you’ve got to be able to do everything. Even Ira Frederick Aldridge had to start somewhere.”

  “Yessir . . . I just can’t do . . . you know . . . Hamhocks and Butterbeans. I can’t do colored talk.”

  “Just forget it, then. Craziest damn thing I ever heard, a colored man who can’t do colored talk.”

  “He doesn’t talk colored talk, Tate,” Jordan said. “He doesn’t talk anything like what you do on that Hamhocks and Butterbeans.”

  “Now, don’t you start looking down your damn nose at Hamhocks and Butterbeans. Everybody likes those skits. You should see the mail I get, and lots of it from colored people too. Hell, I don’t need any help, I can play Hamhocks, Butterbeans, and their cousin Marcus. I’ve done it a hundred times before.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’ve got it settled. Now I can go to work.”

  Upstairs in his cubicle the new day began, and almost at once he was fully absorbed. The cubicle had a strong motivational effect on him. It had become his place of work.

  He never wasted time, he never stalled. Rolling the paper into his machine was an immediate reflex, drawing him straight into whatever the job was. For once Barnet left him alone, and his words came easy, and the stuff he wrote was breezy and quick.

  He worked until eleven; then, as he often did, he walked on the beach and let the sun clear his head. He’d be back by one, to help Carmody get a leg up on the afternoon and early evening.

  Sometimes he walked past Holly’s house, but for now he stood on the boardwalk and thought about this strange world he’d come to: he pondered what to do, but there were only the same two choices and she had given him nothing, not a glimmer of an opening for that other choice. But in this void one good thing had happened: he believed he was reclaiming his growth as a writer.

  Last week his papers had arrived at general delivery, bounced across the country from Nevada to Pennsylvania and now here. The package had been broken apart and retied. It was still a good omen, he told himself. This morning as he arose from his bed he had jotted a few notes for his novel; then, opening his papers, he had found his race-tracker story still fresh and alive, waiting to be finished.

  He was on better terms with his new name. He had a driver’s license now in the name Jordan Ten Eyck. He needed a solid identity; he had no idea how long this might last. On his good days he still believed Holly would come to him: that at least she would give him some sign. Perhaps this would be a good day. He climbed down from the boardwalk and walked south along the beach.

  ( ( ( 7 ) ) )

  HE walked the beach barefoot, his pants rolled almost to the knees, sleeves rolled to the elbow, shirt open to the belt, and a wide-brim straw hat casting his face in shadow.

  He knew Holly often slept till noon. He had made this walk many times, and usually her curtains would be drawn. If he went down to the lighthouse and back she might be up when he returned. Sometimes her doors were open and the rich smells of her cooking would waft along the beach.

  Today he walked on the high soft sand, on a course that would bring him within a few feet of her door. A sudden premonition drew him on, and as he came around the trees her doors were open. He was close enough to hear the gush of her coffee perking and look straight into her kitchen. She flashed past and went out of sight; then, as if she’d been gripped by the same electric hunch, she returned to the doorway and stood watching him through the railing. Her face as always gave away nothing but in the suddenness of the moment, she paled.

  Talk to her, he thought; for Christ’s sake, say something.

  But from somewhere in the room another voice spoke. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  A man’s voice.

  Whoever he was, she didn’t look back at him. Her eyes stayed fixed on Jordan’s, and the moment stretched until she herself broke it. She glanced away toward the beach, a sign for him to keep moving. He touched his hat, nodded the polite morning greeting of a stranger, and moved on.

  ( ( ( 8 ) ) )

  SHE had recognized him. She was not sick, there was no amnesia, she had known him. His first reaction was elation but this diminished throughout the day. Was it really as he had perceived it? . . . Had she dropped her
guard just long enough for that energy between them to connect? A ten-second encounter. Was that enough?

  Carmody had the kiddie hour done by the time he returned, and was working on the two late-afternoon quarter hours that were locally sponsored and performed. At five thirty they’d rejoin the network for a pair of thriller serials, and there was nothing but straight continuity from then on. Jordan settled in his cubicle and tried to work on tomorrow’s Uncle Wally, but his concentration was shot. The afternoon went badly, and at three o’clock Barnet returned and had him do it all again.

  His spirits were low as he walked home to his rooming house. What had happened at noon seemed years away, its significance lost in trivia. He heated some canned food on a hot plate and this was his supper. The food made him suddenly tired; there had been too many bad nights, and now he had to force himself to stay awake until he could see what would happen at ten o’clock. He tried to read but this only increased his weariness. He tried listening to the radio, but Harford offered a paltry menu on Wednesday nights, and in a while he dozed, roused himself with a start, and finally went out to walk the beach again.

  At quarter to ten he came into the square and sat on the bench by the phone booth. The telephone rang a few minutes later; an operator said, “Please deposit forty cents,” and he heard coins dropping in a pay phone on the other end. “Go ahead, sir.”

  A moment of dead air. “Dulaney?”

  He said nothing.

  “Goddammit, don’t play games with me. Is this Jack Dulaney?”

  “My name is Jordan.”

  The man laughed. “Go ahead, stick to that cock-and-bull story. Don’t you know who I am?”

  Yes. Peter’s German inflection was stronger than his dead cousin’s had been, but he would have figured it out anyway.

  “You’re early, Dulaney. You must be nervous. Have you been sitting there all evening, waiting for me to call?”

  “I can’t help being curious.”

  “I’ll bet you are. Do you have any idea what you’re doing here?”

  “Not much of one. No.”

  “Maybe I’ll tell you. Would you be interested in that?”

  “I’m sure I would.”

  “Good.” There was a pause, then he said, “Good,” again. His breath was clear at a distance of forty cents. “I need some money.”

  Dulaney knew he wasn’t being told this as a point of small talk. He tried to remember how much he had in the bank back home.

  “I’ve got to get out of the country,” Schroeder said. “Do you think you could help me do that?”

  “I could put my hands on a few hundred but it would take some time.”

  “How much time?”

  “I don’t know. My money’s in a bank in South Carolina. There’s bound to be some red tape, getting it here and cashed. A week at least. Maybe ten days.”

  He didn’t like it, Dulaney could tell by the silence. At last he said, “Okay, I’ve got things to do also. It’s not easy getting passage anywhere in this goddamn war.”

  Suddenly, off in the dark, an air raid siren began wailing. At once lights flickered off and people began milling about.

  “What’s that noise?”

  “Just an air raid warning.”

  Schroeder laughed. “You crazy bastards. You Americans are silly, you know that? Do you really think Germany is going to drop bombs on you?”

  “I guess some of us do.”

  “Stupid. No wonder you’re losing the war with all the stupid people you got. Germany will get you in other ways, not with planes across the Atlantic.”

  He breathed. In. Out. Dulaney pictured Nordic nostrils flaring.

  “What do I get for my money?” he dared to ask.

  “Only everything you came for. How much is that worth?”

  “More than I’ve got.”

  “I thought so. Then you’ll be hearing from me, sometime next week. What’s your extension at work?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Unlucky number. Makes it easy to remember. When are you there?”

  Dulaney told him but he didn’t hang up quite yet. He said one more thing, which Dulaney would remember many times in the days to come. “I’m going to tell you everything, Dulaney. I’ve thought about it and now I’m going to do it. So you get that money and in the meantime you walk very carefully. That’s a piece of advice I give you for free. Don’t make waves. Then, when I’ve told you what I’m going to tell you, you grab that girl and get out of here. Kidnap her if you’ve got to, because I’ll tell you something, we are all in danger—you, me, that girl—we’re all in trouble. Are you hearing me now?”

  “I hear you.”

  “Good. Good boy, Dulaney.”

  The phone went dead.

  Beyond the square the whole town was dark. He saw people, dusky shapes pressing close around the phone box, shadows filling the square. The siren had faded but now it came again. He pushed through the crowd to the boardwalk, where people swarmed facing the black sea, waiting for something to happen.

  Somewhere close a woman spoke, saying how deep the night was since they’d begun blacking out the lighthouse. “It must be a convoy going out,” she said, and in the lull Dulaney realized she’d been talking to him. He felt her nudge close, seeking his body heat on a warm June night filled with phantoms. “I heard they’re going to black us out if there’s any shipping coming or going. The lighthouse is shut down for the duration. But I guess we’re not even supposed to say that, are we?”

  “It’s okay,” Dulaney said. “I won’t tell Adolf.”

  “If I don’t talk to someone, I think I’ll go crazy.”

  He let her snuggle into his arm, the kind of detached intimacy that could happen only in wartime. “This is so damn spooky,” she said, this woman he would never know.

  “We’re losing everything,” she said. “The whole world’s gone mad.”

  She was shivering violently now. “Please . . . do you mind?”

  He put an arm over her shoulder and she huddled gratefully, this woman whose face he would never see.

  ( ( ( 9 ) ))

  ON Saturday night he ate with Stoner in a teeming fish house just off the boardwalk. The place was smoky and loud, always crowded, the fish cheap and abundant and unrationed. Every table was occupied, but they pulled themselves into a foursome with Becky Hart and their new director, Maitland. “It’s good to meet you,” Maitland said, shaking his hand. “I’ve seen you in the hall a few times, but either you’ve been on the run or I have.”

  The waitress brought water and almost at once he found himself dodging questions. “Jethro tells me you’re a novelist,” Maitland said, and Becky was immediately on his back. “That’s fantastic, Jordan, what books have you written?” He shrugged. “It was a long time ago and it was just one book.” But she refused to let it go. “You’ve got to let us read it. I’ll bet we can get some radio out of it.” He tried to dodge—“Like I told Kidd, it’s so obscure even I haven’t got one, and the subject’s way too saucy for radio anyway”—but she was not put off. “Now we’re really interested. What’s the title? . . . I’ll call some of the secondhand bookshops in New York and see if they can track it down.”

  He was saved for the moment by the waitress, a nice-looking woman in her forties with a nameplate that said TRUDY. She and Stoner seemed to have an acquaintance of some standing, as he joshed her freely while Maitland glanced over the menu. “Nothing for me but the clam soup tonight,” Maitland said. “I never eat full meals at night anymore—my blood pressure’s too high and the doctor says I must lose forty pounds.”

  “I don’t know what my blood pressure is,” Stoner said. “But I never wanted to live forever anyway, so I’ll just take the usual.”

  “Two sharks and a potato field,” Trudy said, and Stoner faked a slap at her backside.

  Jordan tried to keep the talk away from himself. “She’s got her eye on you, Gus. Her intentions would power the pier in a blackout.”

  Maitland l
aughed but Becky was still watching him. “We were talking about your book. You still haven’t told me the title.”

  “Maybe because I don’t want all my immature ramblings splashed on the radio.”

  “Think of it as opportunity knocking. Rewrite it into a masterpiece for us. How many writers get to rethink old work like that?”

  “Maybe I don’t want to rethink stuff. Right now I’d rather fix Gus up with the girl of his dreams.”

  “Save your energy, kid. Trudy and I have too much fun poking fun.”

  “But there’s a lot more fun to be had.”

  “Jordan’s right, Gus,” Becky said. “Though for the life of me I can’t imagine where he gets all that wisdom. You don’t see him making any time to play with us girls.”

  “I’m too big and ugly,” Jordan said, and Maitland’s laugh boomed across the table. “Gus, on the other hand, could be a real ladies’ man.”

  “You really could, Gus,” Becky said.

  “Get outta here, all of you,” Stoner said. “I like Trudy, but listen, there was just one woman in my life and she’s been gone twenty-four years this fall.”

  A silence fell over the table and Stoner’s eyes, now sad, looked at them one after another. “You all heard about the flu epidemic. My Jeannie died November fourth, nineteen eighteen, at two thirty-two in the morning. She was twenty-four years old.”

  “My daughter died in that,” Maitland said. “That goddamn flu. My wife’s never been the same since that goddamn flu took our Sarah away.”

  “What a world,” Becky said. “Sleeping sickness, flu, polio, war.”

  On that sober note she put away her pen, and their food came.

  Jordan liked Maitland at once. He had a jolly demeanor that was infectious, a robust optimism that the best years of man were straight ahead. Radio was booming and television was still just a theory, a few watery pictures whose transmission range was far from certain. Even if television did someday prove feasible, it would always be a poor second cousin. “Once the novelty wears off it’ll be finished. As far as drama goes, I can’t see the picture boys ever doing what we do. They may think a picture will expand their horizons, but all they’ll do is reduce it to the size of a seven-inch screen. I’m staking what’s left of my career that there’ll always be a market for a good half hour of radio. And listen, the best that radio can do hasn’t even begun yet. Think of it in the Darwinian sense. Radio crawled out of the sea in nineteen twenty, and all this time we’ve been struggling to breathe air, not water. We haven’t even gotten our legs yet, but maybe it’s time we at least begin the struggle to stand.”