“What do I have to do, and who to?” Dirty Gerty said, snatching the money from his hand and stuffing it into her upper undergarment.
Birdwell Richards, whose little nap on the way from the Plaza to the studio had restored at least part of his faculties, now made his contribution.
“Certainly, my dear fellow, you’re not going to give this physiognomously fantastic female with the sepsinously strident voice all that money?”
“You’re drunk, Birdwell,” O’Mulligan replied. “That’s the trouble with you Welsh. One or two lousy quarts and you’re blotto! Of course I am. She’s going to sing for us on Tarzan’s talk show. What did you say your name was, you lilting Irish lassie?”
“Sing for us?” Birdwell Richards said. “I suppose that would be the lesser of the two evils.”
Dirty Gerty Rumplemayer, whose formal education had ended the day Daddy Dear had carried her and three of the neighbor lady’s cats to Central Park, did not know what “physiognomously fantastic” meant and hadn’t the foggiest idea what “sepsinously* strident” implied, but she liked the sound of the latter.
(* Sepsin: n. A ptomaine causing septic poison; hence, adj. sepsi- nously = poisonously.)
“Strydent,” she said. “Whatever-he-said Strydent.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Didn’t you remember what you said?” Dirty Gerty demanded of Birdwell Richards.
“Scher-tainly, I remember,” Birdwell replied. “You’re not accusing me of being drunk, are you?”
“My name,” Dirty Gerty Rumplemayer said, “is Shur-lee Strydent!”
“Now that that’s settled,” O’Mulligan said, “come along! The show must go on!”
Shur-lee Strydent’s career might have died, as they say, aborning, right there had not Mr. Merd Johnson insisted, when signing his renewal contract, that he be provided with a key to the executive elevator, for certainly the staunch security force would not have allowed them on one of the other elevators.
But he had the key, and they rose to the fortieth floor of the building, emerging backstage on the set of the “Merd Johnson and His Guests” show. Somewhat confused as to the time (he had both dozed awhile on the chandelier and then been unconscious for about fifteen minutes after being struck on the head with the spittoon), he somehow got the idea that he had arrived just in time before the program went on the air. It had, in fact, been on the air, and thus into 12,098,677 homes nationwide and in Canada, for about ten minutes.
A commercial had just ended, and Don Rhotten, in his familiar dulcet tones, was in the process of introducing the next act, Madame Hermione and Her Delightful Dobermans, when Merd Johnson sort of lurched out on the stage.
“What the hell’s going on here?” he said. (An alert technician in the control room skillfully bleeped out the “hell,” so what the audience heard was “What the bleep’s going on here?” They were thus free to choose any adjective from “heck” down in the scatological lexicon.)
“Why, hello there, Merd,” Don Rhotten said. “We didn’t think you were going to make it.”
“What the bleep are you talking about, mush mouth? And who the bleep turned you loose from the bleeping newsroom?”
There is a standard emergency procedure for situations like this. A tape recording of laughter is kept in readiness. When emergency button number one is pushed, the folks out there in TV land are provided with gales of hysterical laughter, cleverly letting them know that what has happened is not only on the schedule, but fantastically funny, even if they themselves are not quite bright enough to get the point.
When Merd Johnson heard the hysterical laughter, it began to dawn on him that something was amiss. He looked out over the footlights and saw the audience. At that point one of Madame Hermione’s Delightful Dobermans mistook his trousers leg for a fire hydrant, a sight which genuinely and without subterfuge delighted the audience. They began to laugh and shriek, nearly as loudly as the tape of canned laughter.
Merd Johnson looked down at his leg.
“Get those bleeping dogs off my set!” he screamed. He grabbed the microphone from Don Rhotten, and, swinging it wildly around his head, chased Mr. Rhotten from the stage. “I’ll kill you, you show-stealing bleep!”
At that point, Happy Hal Harrington, his commercial reader, foil, and professional Irishman sensed that something was wrong. He turned his normally dour and saturnine looks into the look of jolly merriment that was his stock in trade and took the microphone away from Merd.
Finally appearing to get control of his laughter, he said, “Well, old pal, what have you got for us tonight?”
Merd Johnson had regained some control of himself by then.
“Hi there, Happy Hal,” he said. “That was certainly fun, wasn’t it? How about a big round of applause for my dear, dear friend, America’s most beloved young television news anchorperson, Don Rhotten?”
“That’s pronounced Row-ten, Merd,” Happy Hal corrected him.
“Not by me it isn’t,” Merd Johnson said.
“Tell us all about this superstar-status surprise guest you’ve promised the folks, Merd,” Happy Hal said.
“Oh, sure,” Merd said, looking just a little confused. “The superstar-status surprise guest. Ladies and gentlemen ...” he began but he got no further.
Dirty Gerty Rumplemayer marched up to the microphone, sent Happy Hal and Merd flying with deft movements of her well-upholstered hips, and blew a kiss at the audience.
“Hi, there,” she cooed. “I’m Shur-lee Strydent and I’m here to make you adore me!” It had come to her, in something akin to divine revelation, that this was what she had been waiting for all her life—the chance to be adored.
There was no detectable response to this at all from the audience, but the folks out there in TV land never knew this, for an alert technician in the control room pushed emergency button number two, which activated tape number two—enthusiastic applause (with whistles and shouts).
“Thank you so much,” Shur-lee Strydent cooed. “You’re so kind to little me. Now if the nice boys in the band will be so good as to back me up, I will try to make you happy with my first selection, that old favorite ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.’ ”
As Miss Strydent sang her first number, Sean O’Casey O’Mulligan and Birdwell Richards, arm in arm, marched onto the set and slumped into chairs. O’Mulligan raised his head and stared in rapt fascination in the direction of Miss Strydent. A tear ran down his cheeks.
When she had finished, he got to his feet and marched over to her.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, kissing her wetly on the forehead, “isn’t she wonderful?”
Emergency button number two was pushed to encourage the audience.
“For my encore,” Shur-lee announced, “I will do ‘Oh, How We Danced on the Night We Were Wed.’ ”
Mr. O’Casey O’Mulligan made it back to his seat and went to sleep. Fortunately, he chose to do so holding his head up with his hand, which permitted Happy Hal Harrington to comment that it wasn’t often one was privileged to see an actor of that stature and that experience overcome by emotion. He then thrust the microphone in the face of Birdwell Richards.
“And what do you think of our new superstar, Birdwell Richards?”
Mr. Richards had recovered sufficiently to be in desperate need of something to drink. But trouper to the core, he pulled himself together and enunciated, with perfect clarity and impeccable diction the following opinion:
“I can truthfully tell you, whoever you are, that I have never in my life heard someone sing who produced that reaction in me.” He thereupon jumped out of his seat and ran off stage, where he threw up into a fire bucket.
The folks at home didn’t see this, of course, which allowed Happy Hal to observe that Merd Johnson and ABS had again scored a big one for the good folks in TV land —a singer so unique that she had rendered the two finest actors in the world emotionally exhausted.
“Thank you so much, Happy Ha
l,” Shur-lee Strydent said, snatching the microphone out of his hand. “And for my final number ... always leave them wanting more, I always say ... I will do that beloved old religious melody, ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ ”
By the time she concluded that number, the audience had been sufficiently conditioned (some cynics might say brainwashed) to make unnecessary the use of emergency button number two. They applauded (with whistles and cheers) of their own free will.
And a star was born.
The question was what to do with her.
At an emergency conference convened the very next morning in the rather ornate boardroom of the ABS chairman of the board, the chairman himself was waiting, tapping his perfectly manicured fingernails impatiently on the high polished oak table as his staff came into the room, genuflected, and took their seats.
“We seem to have a teensy-weensy little problem, gentlemen,” he began. “We last night presented to our audience a ... a person ... ABS identified as a superstar. How this came to be, I don’t yet know, but you may take my word for it, heads will roll.* But since ABS said she was a superstar, a superstar she is, for ABS never lies. The fact that in my long and distinguished career I have never seen an uglier woman or heard a more painfully sour voice is, as we say, not relevant. The question before us, which is why I asked you here for the benefit of your wise counsel, is what the hell do we do with her? I will now entertain suggestions.”
(* He was as good as his word. Before the day was over, the “Merd Johnson and His Guests” show was cancelled, and a memorandum personally signed by the chairman of the board went out to all departments and all network-owned Stations that the names of Sean O’Casey O’Mulligan and Birdwell Richards were never to be broadcast over his airwaves unless absolutely necessary, and if it was necessary, they were to be mispronounced.)
There was a long silence in the room, as the senior executive staff looked thoughtful and wondered how they could avoid offering an opinion. Then, shockingly, the gold telephone placed before the chairman began to glow.* Eyes widened, for it was common knowledge that in all the world, only six people (the president of the United States, the chairman’s wife, and his girlfriend among them) had that unlisted number.
(* Bells, of course, were not permitted to disturb the tranquility of the boardroom.)
The chairman himself was visibly surprised to see it start to glow. He stared at it in disbelief for a full thirty seconds before reaching for it.
“Hello,” he said.
Normally, the voice of the calling party would not have been audible to anyone but the chairman, a good deal of engineering effort having been devoted to the notion that the chairman’s telephone calls, on the gold phone, should be absolutely private. But this voice, which had the timbre of a piece of chalk being scraped along a slate blackboard, got through all the filters and other technical barriers without losing more than one-half a decibel. It was clearly audible throughout the boardroom.
“Clarence, baby,” the piercing voice began. “I don’t mind telling you I cried. In fact, that’s what I called to tell you, Clarence, baby—I cried. Can you imagine that?” With visible effort, the chairman retained control of his voice and even managed to fix a rough caricature of a smile on his face.
“You are referring, I gather, Wesley, to Shur-lee Strydent?” No one in the room was surprised to see demonstrated that Wesley St. James was one of the privileged six to have access to the gold telephone. Fully 45 percent of the ABS advertising revenue came to the network from sponsors of the various daytime dramas (or soap operas) created and produced by Wesley St. James at the Wesley St. James Studios in Hollywood, California. Another 15 percent of ABS advertising revenues came from sponsors of the newest innovative wrinkle in the TV game, the Wesley St. James-ABS evening dramas (nighttime soap operas, very loosely based—the same titles were used—on great American novels).
“Who else?” Wesley St. James himself said.
“I cried a little too, Wesley,” the chairman said. “As a matter of fact, we’re having a little meeting right now to discuss how to deal with Shur-lee Strydent.”
“It seems to me that the least you could do in the face of such talent is refer to her as Ms. Shur-lee Strydent,” Wesley St. James said, somewhat snappishly.
“You say you cried, Wesley?”
“I started to sniffle when she sang ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen,’ ” Wesley St. James said. “Halfway through ‘Oh, How We Danced,’ the tears were running unashamedly down my cheeks, and when she sang, ‘Jesus Loves Me,’ I wept openly,” Wesley St. James said. “Right there in my own living room. I got my popcorn soggy, that’s how hard I cried.”
“I cried, too, Wesley,” the chairman said. This was true, but his tears were not shed for the same reasons.
“I’ve got to have her!” Wesley St. James said.
“Exactly how do you mean that, Wesley?” the chairman asked.
“You’re a filthy-minded old man, Clarence,” Wesley St. James said. “How can you even think of s-e-x in connection with that angel-voiced lady? That angel-faced lady?”
“Forgive me, Wesley,” the chairman said. “What exactly do you have in mind?”
“How much do you want for her contract?”
“I’m sure something can be worked out,” the chairman said smoothly, “between us, as friends and fellow gentlemen.”
“I’m sure something can, too,” Wesley St. James said. “Something mutually satisfactory. Not only do I have absolute faith in your honesty, Clarence, even if you are a filthy-minded old man, but I know how deeply it would pain you if I moved my shows over to, say, CBS.”
“I’ll get back to you just as soon as I have a look at her contract, Wesley,” the chairman said.
“Take your time, Clarence,” Wesley St. James said. “Anytime in the next ninety minutes.”
“Ciao, Wesley,” the chairman said. There was only a click as Mr. St. James’s telephone was replaced in its receiver. Wesley St. James was far too busy a man, far too important a man, to have to concern himself with the usual social amenities, such as saying “hello” and “goodbye” when using the telephone.
The chairman hung up the gold telephone. He let his glance sweep the table, establishing momentary eye contact with each of his senior subordinates.
“I trust that proves once and for all that God does love ABS,” he said solemnly, “no matter what some people might say.” He paused, and then went on, “O.K. Let’s get to work. Somebody go find this ugly broad and sign her to an airtight lifetime contract. And make sure it includes a clause that permits us to sell her.”
Chapter Nine
Ms. Shur-lee Strydent arrived in Hollywood, California, the very next evening, by private, chartered jet. She was accompanied by two senior vice-presidents and a hairdresser. The chairman had been, frankly, a little worried that Mr. Wesley St. James had been in the same condition as Mssrs. O’Mulligan, Richards, and Johnson while viewing Ms. Strydent’s television debut and would attempt, once he saw her (and as importantly, heard her) sober, to back out of the gentlemen’s agreement between them for her services.
There was no basis for his concern. Mr. Wesley St. James himself met the aircraft at the Burbank field. Accompanying him were his vice-presidents for public relations, publicity, and artist relations. There was also the Cucamonga Senior High School Fife and Drum Corps and two muscular chaps carrying a large floral arrangement in the shape of a horseshoe. Across the massed tulips was a purple band on which had been placed three- inch-high golden letters spelling out “Welcome to Hollywood!”
As soon as the little jet taxied close, Mr. Wesley St. James bounced out of his Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible and took up a position at the end of a red carpet already in place. Mr. St. James, titan of TV though he unquestionably was, had not been endowed generously by the deity in the build department. He stood just a hair over four feet, eleven inches tall in his elevator Gucci loafers, and weighed about the same as a small-sized jockey—somew
here in the neighborhood of 100 pounds, depending on which of his collection of large golden wristwatches he had chosen for the occasion.
He was attired entirely in recycled denim. He had a denim Dutch boy cap on his rather bony little head, a denim jacket over his tiny little shoulders, and bell-bottom denims hiding his legs and feet. Around his neck, as a pendant, he wore the token of admiration awarded him by the television industry, a solid gold-plated die-struck medallion bearing the likeness of Phineas T. Barnum, with Barnum’s second most famous philosophical declaration, “This Way to the Egress”* spelled out in diamond chips along its circumference. His rather bloodshot eyes were shielded from the glare of the sun and the flash of the photographer’s lights by a set of pink-shaded sunglasses approximately four inches in diameter.
(* Mr. Barnum’s most famous philosophical observation, of course, is, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” However, as the high muckety-mucks of TV are well aware, there is such a thing as too much truth, and for this reason it was decided to emblazon the Barnum medallion with the immortal words with which Mr. Barnum had gotten the suckers out of his museum as quickly as possible.)
Ms. Strydent, who had been lost in thought at this fascinating turn in her life, wondering what surprise would come next and what she could get out of it, suddenly sat upright in her seat as she saw Mr. St. James leap nimbly over the side of the Rolls onto the ground.
“What the bleep is that?” she asked, lapsing for a moment into the quaint and picturesque Staten Island patois she had learned at dear daddy’s knee.
“That, Ms. Strydent,” one of the vice-presidents said, “is Wesley St. James!”
“What the bleep is a Wesley St. James?” she demanded.
Before the question could be answered, the door of the aircraft opened and Mr. St. James bounded inside, looking not at all unlike a two-legged mountain goat.
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