TWO O’CLOCK, EASTERN WARTIME

by John Dunning

  ( ( ( 16 ) ) )

  EVEN in the dark he knew at once who it was. Harford didn’t offer his hand or introduce himself. “I see you’ve been waiting,” he said by way of a greeting. “Where is the janitor?”

  “I’m sure he was here. I ran late today.”

  “I’d think he would wait. Wouldn’t you expect him to wait for you?”

  “Not if he wants to get his own work done.”

  Harford opened the door and held it, allowing Jordan to pass through ahead of him. “Well,” he said as they walked hollowly across the lobby, “we’ll have no more of that. I’ll have a key delivered to you before the day is out. It’s absurd for you to stand outside waiting for a janitor to let you in.”

  Still no greeting: just the uneasy silence as they went into the kitchen. Harford went to the coffeepot and looked around for the mugs, but none had been washed yet; the sink was still piled with last night’s clutter. “We seem to be in some disarray this morning,” he said.

  “He’s always got them washed and stacked by now,” Jordan said. “He’s running late because of me. Here—I’ll wash out a couple.”

  But Harford waved him back and washed two cups himself. He handed Jordan a steaming cup, threw one leg over the table, and they looked at each other for the first time in the full light.

  He was older than he looked from a distance. His face was lined and his wavy black hair had tufts of gray on the sides. He was certainly no less than fifty. Jordan wished he could see the eyes. Harford must sleep in those damned glasses.

  He looked at the clock: it was five forty-two.

  “Uncle Wally isn’t coming in today,” Harford said. “He’s sick.”

  “What about Eastman?”

  “I don’t think you’re following what I’m telling you. It’s not Mr. Stallworth who’s sick. Uncle Wally is sick. Capisce?”

  The Italian word washed over him and yes, he understood at once. He said, “O-kay,” and couldn’t keep the singsong question mark out of his voice. “So what about the show? Everything I’ve written is geared for that character.”

  “There won’t be any script today. You can use it tomorrow. Just change the headlines and that ought to give you a pretty soft day.”

  He nodded slowly, like a man trying to be agreeable with a boss who has suddenly begun talking irrationally. “Then what are we going to do?”

  “Talk.”

  “Who?”

  “Us. You. Me. Miss Teasdale will be joining us, as soon as she can provide for her children. I’m afraid I woke her rather rudely. Maybe Mr. Kain will join us. And there may be a few surprises.”

  Jordan groped with all the potential disasters of such a grouping. “What about Miss Nicholas? We could get her and Brinker in.”

  “I don’t want air people. We know what they can do. I’ve got a new idea I want to try—just a bunch of ordinary schlemiels sitting around on the beach, talking about the affairs of the day. Better yet, talking about what they know, and how that relates to what’s going on in the world.”

  They looked at each other. “We’re just going to chat?”

  Harford nodded.

  “For two hours.”

  “Maybe we’ll throw in some music now and then. But no prearranged skits, no Hamhocks, no Butterbeans. If I hear that insipid nonsense one more time I may strangle Mr. Stallworth with my own hands.”

  The door opened: it was Eli, dragging his mop bucket. When he saw Harford, he stopped and blinked.

  “Good morning, Mr. Kain.”

  “Morning, sir.”

  “Have a cup of coffee. Here, I’ll get you a cup.”

  Eli looked at Jordan with wary eyes as Harford turned to the sink and washed out another cup. Jordan shrugged and tried to look easy.

  “Thank you, sir.” Eli took the cup as Harford passed it.

  “Sit down, Mr. Kain. Over here, please. At the table.”

  Eli sat across from Jordan and tried not to look at anyone.

  “We’re going to have some fun this morning,” Harford said. “I understand you’re studying acting, Mr. Kain.”

  “Yessir.”

  “How far along are you?”

  “Oh, I got a ways to go yet. But I work at it.”

  Harford looked up at the clock. “I’m going upstairs now and put us on the air. You gentlemen sit here and finish your coffee. Think about whatever makes your juices flow. Then mosey on up around five after six.”

  They looked at each other as Harford’s footsteps faded down the hall.

  “Might as well relax, Eli. No more mopping for a while.”

  “What’s going on? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  Jordan told him what Harford had said and they sat and sipped the coffee.

  Ten minutes later they entered the small staircase concealed off the wings of Studio B and climbed to the second-floor hallway. They emerged into a world of glass, facing east over the dunes to the distant sea. The sun was just breaking and a bank of fluffy pink clouds made the morning spectacular. Music flowed down the hall, and as they approached the studio they could see Harford sitting in the slot of a triangular table behind the glass. To Harford’s left was a spinning turntable with a transcription disc, the source of the music coming over the air. The music was soft and lilting: the march from The Nutcracker. Another record was cued and ready on Harford’s right.

  He motioned them in: Eli to the chair on his right, Jordan to the left. “Put your earphones on when we start. They’ll give you a sense of presence on the air.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Jordan said. “I’m sure Eli will be great, but I can’t imagine what I’ll say on this thing.”

  Harford smiled and held up his hand for quiet. “We’re almost on.” Then, to Jordan, he said, “The current wisdom in radio is that people won’t listen to classical music in the morning. Do you believe that?”

  “I have a hard time believing any kind of so-called current wisdom.”

  “Good, so do I. We could talk for a few minutes about that. Pop culture, the national character, and why at least two generations must die before their own times can be honestly assessed. Is Dashiell Hammett more important than Dick Tracy, and will either be remembered with Dickens and Poe? What about you, Mr. Kain? What do you think of classics in the morning?”

  “People might not sit still for Night on Bald Mountain. What you’ve got on sounds pretty good . . . sir.”

  “Let’s dispense with the ‘sir’ business for now. Can we do that?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Good. Don’t forget. We’re just three fellows sitting on the beach trying to figure out how the world turns. For the purposes of this little clambake—and let’s hope it’s not that—I will be called Gavin. A good Celtic name. Mr. Kain, you will be Roger. Originally from the Old High German, I believe. But it sounds Anglo-Saxon enough, in modern times.”

  He took off the glasses and they saw why he wore them. His face was startling: one eye dark brown, the other almost yellow. He looked slightly mortified, as if he’d just passed some test he’d been dreading.

  He looked at Dulaney and said, “You we will call . . . Jack.”

  They met each other now, as if for the first time, across a broadcasting table, and for a moment Dulaney could only think, He knows me.

  The music ended, the moment passed, and Harford—without breaking the eye contact—potted up the second turntable. The room was filled with the sounds of the sea: waves breaking on the beach and the cawing of seagulls. Harford opened his microphone, the red light flashed ON THE AIR, and he began to talk. “Good morning. You are listening to WHAR in Regina Beach, New Jersey. Correct eastern wartime is six ten. My name is Gavin, and this is Thursday, the eleventh of June. I’ll be here on the beach until eight o’clock. We’ll have news and views and straight talk from people just like you. No experts, no warmed-over vaudeville acts this morning. Just you, me, and whoever happens to come by. Perhaps that man in the distance, just starting up the boar
dwalk . . .”

  He potted himself out and brought up the sound effect. Suddenly the gulls were louder than the surf, giving a good impression of ebb and flow. “You’re the man on the boardwalk, Jack. You’ll probably stop and enjoy the breeze, giving us time for a little news. Think about what you’d like to say. Maybe I’ll ask a question or two. And you, Mr. Kain . . .”

  “Yessir.”

  “Not ‘sir,’ not today. Just be yourself and there’s no possible way you can be bad. Forget color, forget where you are. There is no color in radio, only when someone like Mr. Stallworth brings false colors into it. We’ll have none of that this morning, Roger. Today you are not a colored man and we are not white. I do not own this radio station and you do not mop floors at my pleasure. Do you know how to read, Roger?”

  “Sure,” Eli said. “I read just fine.”

  “I don’t mean that literally, so don’t take offense. Do you know how to sight-read? Have they covered radio in any of those classes you’ve been taking?”

  “It’s been pretty basic so far. I do understand the concept, but I don’t think they take radio seriously.”

  “Well, perhaps we’ll make them sit up and take notice. Roger will read the news. Coming up.”

  Eli took his notes, pulled his earphones tight, and waited for the red light. His heart must be going a mile a minute, Dulaney thought. Then he was on, with no more time to think.

  What a surprise. He is good. His voice ripples with character and intelligence, and he packs it with an authority that he certainly can’t be feeling at this particular moment. He must know what a handicap he faces, how impossible this is. Harford can talk all day about radio being color-blind, but see if he can name even one working news broadcaster anywhere who is black. So where is it leading, what’s he trying to prove?

  Pieces of news force their way through a crowded mind. Again the RAF takes the war deep into Germany. More than one thousand bombers scorched Essen last night, just three days after the same bunch turned Cologne into a hellish graveyard of ashes. How do you like it now, Schicklgruber? Jews are said to be dancing in the streets at reports from Germany but there is also a chilling, dark side to the war. An underground socialist newspaper tells of mass murder by gas at Chelmno. Rommel steps up his campaign in the African desert. In Russia, the Germans are obliterating the last standing buildings at Sevastopol, and the people fight in the rubble where their city once was.

  At the end of the news the studio was quiet and the war was suddenly remote. Dulaney watched Harford and wondered again what his game was. It seems impossible but I think he knows me. That Jack business didn’t just pop up by chance. Can’t shake it, that awful feeling that he knows everything about me.

  ( ( ( 17 ) ))

  NOW the broadcast began to unfold. As Gavin, Harford pretended to follow the progress of this lonely-looking man up the boardwalk, speculating as to his nature and his outlook on life. His musings had an almost poetic flow, a rhythm of thought rather than words, and the fact that he spun this out without a script seemed remarkable. Suddenly Roger was on again. “I hear you’re an avid follower of the doings on and off Broadway,” Gavin said. “What have you seen lately that’s worth talking about?” Roger immediately recalled Harlem Cavalcade, which unfortunately had closed almost as soon as it had opened at the Ritz. They talked about this, and Gavin had some thoughts about Harlem in general, how some of the most exciting music of the day was coming out of the clubs north of 110th Street.

  There hadn’t been much else to crow about in musical theater. On the legit side they had Steinbeck’s play, taken from his book The Moon Is Down. Roger found this truly daring for wartime consumption but Gavin considered it tripe. Not that the idea of giving the Nazis a human side wasn’t defensible, but Steinbeck had taken it too far. The decency of his one German officer reflected too favorably on the Reich as a whole, making it seem less evil than it was, and this was especially true in view of atrocities that were only now coming to light.

  Without warning Jack arrived. “Here’s the man we’ve been hoping to talk to,” Gavin said, and he was on. He was surprised at the ease with which he took to the air, and for two or three minutes he and Gavin engaged in pure improvisation, just building his character. Jack was a longshoreman down for the holiday. “A shirtsleeve philosopher,” Gavin said with a bit of happy mischief in his voice. “Perhaps you can settle the matter of John Steinbeck’s most recent work.” Jack hadn’t seen the play but he had liked the book a lot. “It takes courage to do what Steinbeck did in wartime. I know there are men of conscience in the German army—don’t ask me to prove that, but the odds against it would be too great for me to believe. And I know those men are just as distraught over Hitler as we are.”

  Gavin gave up with a sigh. “So Steinbeck wins, two to one. Let’s get personal now. Do you mind if I ask you some personal questions?” Dulaney felt the first tweaking hint of an on-the-air trap and his answer was cautious. “That all depends on what the questions are and how personal they get.” Gavin laughed and asked him to try this: “Are you currently in love?” Of course, Jack said, following Gavin’s lighthearted lead. He was young and free, the days were long and warm, how could he not be in love? Gavin said, “Tell us the name of the woman you love,” and suddenly the name Gloria was in his head. He had never known anyone with that name and he hoped this fiction would be his ticket out of here. “I ought to plead the Fifth,” he said, “but her name is Gloria and I’m supposed to be meeting her up the beach just about now.” This worked well: Gavin said, “Godspeed, Jack, and thanks for talking to us.”

  The hour ended with a visit from the man who ran the bowling alley, an enormous fellow named Albert Hocking who had a natural gift for gab and charm that could be cut with a knife. Roger’s second stint with the news did not go as well as the first: he had had time now to think about it and let himself get nervous. But Harford seemed untroubled by a few blown words. At the end of it he reached over and shook Eli’s hand. “Good work, Roger, thanks for coming in. Your future is bright.” And Eli nodded and left the room, looking back over his shoulder just before he disappeared into the stairwell.

  Music began the second hour. Harford looked at Dulaney and said, “What did you think of his reading?”

  “Exceptional, especially considering the pressure he was under.”

  Harford seemed to be listening to his music. Then he said, “Pressure is part of this business. But you’re right, he could be good.”

  Dulaney cleared his throat. He had never been able to let sleeping dogs lie and now he said, “Of course, that business about him having a future in radio is pretty doubtful.”

  “Is it? Who can say? Perhaps we’re heading into a more enlightened day, once we get this war behind us. At least we can control what happens here, no? Actually, this may open up new careers for both of you. Miss Hart is down at the switchboard taking calls. If you’d like to know how you’re coming across, I’m sure she’ll tell you.”

  Dulaney shrugged and Harford leaned close, the chair straining at its hinge. The studio was absolutely silent—Harford had turned off the studio speakers and the only sign that music was still playing was the needle bouncing on the meter. “My advice is, don’t ask,” Harford said, and he leaned back in that same tomblike silence, rocking slightly. “Don’t ever ask, not in your writing nor in anything else that you do from the heart. People will pull you down to their lowest tribal levels if you let them. Public opinion may keep you on the air, but it’s hardly a reliable measure of what’s good or bad about your show. And critics are just an extension of public opinion. Most of them are just glorified newspapermen, with no idea what goes into a novel or a play. Even when they praise you it’s always for the wrong things. Here, our piece is ending. Maybe we’ll find Jack strolling back up the beach with his girlfriend, if Miss Teasdale will get here and help us.”

  At the last second he changed his mind and brought up more music: Beethoven’s Minuet in G, a piano without orchestra
riding on the continuing surf effect. They listened for almost a minute, then Harford said the thing that shocked him all the way to the floor.

  “Did you ever know a man named Carnahan?”

  He groped for an answer, staring at his feet while Ludwig trilled above his head. At last he forced his eyes up and met Harford squarely—the small headshake, the quizzical look, and then, too late, his answer. “Don’t think I’ve heard the name. Should I have?”

  “I don’t know,” Harford said. “I just thought you might have.”

  Beethoven went out, Schubert came in, with a full orchestra and no sound effects. At that moment Livia arrived. She appeared beyond the window and Harford snapped to attention, grabbed up his glasses, and spun around in his chair, smacking his coffee cup to the floor. On went the glasses, his mask to the world. So he was sensitive about his eye, perhaps even vulnerable. He was nervous around women and maybe fearful. But none of that mattered in the enormity of what had just happened.

  Livia came in, looking uneasy. Harford’s chivalry leaped out at her—he was on his feet, holding a chair, apologizing elaborately for calling her so early. He sat and tried to explain. “I had this idea, it came to me just last night. A brand-new kind of morning show built around talk. Then I had a hunch that I had discovered something, that this is going to be the daytime radio of the future. It’s cheap and fast, and a good host—certainly not me, but someone who knows how to do it—will be able to move it along without any kind of script. Have you been listening, Miss Teasdale? Do you know what we’ve been doing?”

  “Yessir. But, Mr. Harford—”

  He held up his hand. “I want you to be Jack’s girlfriend, Gloria.”

  She was horrified, and tried to protest. She was no actress, she was deathly afraid of the microphone, of making a fool of herself. She was suddenly breathless—“Oh, sir, I can’t!”— but he motioned her to get on her earphones. Schubert was tooting his finale, the air was ready to be filled, and when he said, “Come now, do me this service,” his gentle tone offered no escape. She looked at Jordan with doleful eyes.