The Troubled Air

by Irwin Shaw

  “Will you for Christ’s sake stop talking about funerals?” O’Neill shouted.

  “Freedom of speech, press, religion, and lamentation,” Barbante said stubbornly. “The Barbante bill of rights. No death without mourners. For the new Atlantic Charter.”

  “What’re you going to do?” Archer asked, hoping to lead Barbante into more reasonable fields.

  “I’m glad you asked that question, Mr. Archer.” Barbante smiled theatrically, like a lecturer. “I’m retiring to California to take up two projects that have long been dear to me. I’m going back to my father’s ranch and I’m going to get married and write a book entitled The Dialectics of Atheism.” He nodded, smiling insanely.

  “Well,” O’Neill said heavily to Archer, “you see what I’ve been getting since nine o’clock this morning.”

  “I wrote a letter to the Times last night,” Barbante said, “outlining my main points. A trial balloon. You might be interested in the opening sentence, O’Neill—‘The time has come to consider the abolition of religion before it abolishes us.’ ”

  O’Neill put his head in his hands and groaned. “That’s great,” he said. “That’s all we need now. We’ll all be lynched.”

  “Don’t worry,” Archer said curtly, wondering how he could get Barbante out of the room. “He didn’t write anything. He’s kidding.”

  “Oh, no, I’m not.” Barbante smiled like a lunatic child. “I wrote it. Four pages. Closely reasoned, as they say in legal circles.”

  “When that comes out,” O’Neill said, looking up, “you won’t have to quit. You’ll be busy running.”

  “Don’t be silly, Emmet,” Archer said testily. “Even if he wrote it, nobody’ll print it.”

  “Maybe I’ll have it privately printed,” Barbante said dreamily, “and dropped over Radio City from an airplane. A new use for airpower. The attack of reason. Don’t be alarmed, O’Neill. It’s nor Communist propaganda. The Communists’re the worst of all, because in this day and age they’re the most religious of all. Faith—faith is the most destructive element because it can’t permit dissent or deviation. So the Communists kill the non-Communists or the almost Communists or the doubtful Communists, just the way the Jews killed the Christians and the Christians killed the Jews, and the Catholics killed the Protestants and the Protestants killed the Catholics, and the Crusaders killed the Mohammedans and the Mohammedans killed the Hindus. And right here in this country—the Puritans cut the ears off Quakers and nailed them to the church doors. Faith in a god or faith in a state or a system of government frightens me and if you had any sense it would frighten you, because one way or another you will be asked to die for it, either fighting against it or defending it. The only way out, the only way we have a chance to survive, is not to believe in anything. Not in god or our ideas or our people or our anything. The important thing is not to feel too strongly about anything, not have any belief that can be insulted or endangered or that has to be defended.”

  “Oh, God,” O’Neill said, “do I have to listen to this?”

  “I’m sorry,” Barbante said mildly. “I thought Clement asked me what I intended to do from now on.”

  “Dom,” Archer asked gently, “when was the last time you had any sleep?”

  Barbante smiled weakly. Then he put his hand over his eyes. “Three, four days ago,” he said in a whisper. “I don’t know. You think I’m a little crazy, don’t you, Clem?” he asked slyly.

  “Maybe a little.” Archer nodded.

  “You’re right.” Barbante chuckled weirdly. “I think you’re absolutely right. And if I stayed in this town, in this sinkhole, they’d cart me away in a strait jacket and they’d be giving me the electric-shock treatment morning, noon and night.” Suddenly he was pleading with Archer. “I have to quit. You see that, don’t you, Clem? I can’t go through three more days like this again, can I? A man has to be sure he’s got something left, something besides the gold cigarette cases and the nice fat check every Friday. How about you, Clem?” Barbante moved away from the window toward Archer. He didn’t walk steadily. He stood close to Archer, short, dull-eyed, creased, smelling stale and liquorish and unperfumed. “What’ve you got left, Clem? Take stock. Take that good old half-century inventory, Clem. What’ve you got on the shelves this year, Clem, besides foot-powder and penicillin, Clem?”

  “You said you were going to get married,” Archer said. He didn’t want to talk about himself this morning. “Who’s the lady?”

  Barbante looked sly and amused. He put his finger beside his nose and squinted craftily. “Haven’t decided yet. Circling over the field. Observing the candidates, lying in bed having their breakfasts now, twitching their long, pretty, unsuspecting legs. Got to get something that fits the terrain. California type that can survive in a dry country. Careful choice necessary for experiment in godless monogamy. We’re introducing Brahma bulls. From India. Can live on dew and sagebrush, and even so, an extra hundred pounds of meat in one year. Circling, circling …” Barbante waved his hand, his fingers pointing down, in a round, insane gesture. “Circling over the pretty little bedrooms.”

  “The hell with it,” O’Neill said. “I’m going to tell Hutt we don’t want Barbante any more. He’s had it.”

  “Barbante’s had it,” the writer chanted, moving back toward the window. “Excellent phrase. Descriptive. Slang from World War Number Fourteen. In which we fought. Except me. Except Clem. Except good old Yogi Clem.” He winked intimately at Archer. “Secret, Clem. Secret between you, me, and anybody with the price of a nickel newspaper.”

  “I’m sorry, Clem,” O’Neill said soberly. “That sonofabitch Roberts …”

  “Forget it,” Archer said curtly, feeling, This is the first time. I have to get used to it. I have to practice not showing anything.

  “Don’t worry, Clem,” Barbante said, “the scientists’re at work. Machines to do the work of a thousand men. A thousand scriptwriters. Probably one in the patent office right now. Call up International Business Machines and they probably can deliver one this afternoon. Plug it into the wall and watch the lights blink on and off and take out the next ten copies of University Town two minutes later. Perfect. Untouched by human hand. No trouble with the mechanism that a screw-driver can’t fix. Machine guaranteed: to believe in God, not stay up late at night, not have any political opinions, not get on any blacklists, never want to go to anybody’s funeral.”

  “Oh, God,” O’Neill said, “we’re back on that again.”

  The door opened and Hurt came in without knocking. He looked fresh, as though he had just had a cold shower, and his suit was wonderfully pressed. Whenever Hutt came into a room, Archer realized, you always were struck by the thought that here was a man who was at least ten years older than he looked.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” Hutt said. O’Neill stood up and Hutt waved graciously at him to sit down. “It’s good of you to arrive so promptly.” He smiled, gently at Barbante and Archer as he seated himself on the edge of O’Neill’s desk.

  His ears have stopped peeling, Archer noticed.

  “The well-pressed tycoon,” Barbante said. “Tell me, Mr. Hutt, who is your tailor?”

  Hutt glanced sharply at Barbante, then at O’Neill. O’Neill shook his head. “Not a chance,” O’Neill said.

  “Have you talked to him, Archer?” Hutt asked.

  Archer nodded. “I’m afraid O’Neill’s right.”

  “Barbante’s had it,” the writer said. “We took a vote.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to think it over for another day,” Hutt said, his voice friendly. “Calmly.”

  “Haven’t got the time to think anything over calmly,” said. Barbante. “I’m busy circling.” He chuckled.

  Hutt looked puzzled for a moment, then, shrugged, and turned to O’Neill and Archer. “How many scripts ahead are we?” He asked.

  “Two,” said Archer.

  “Posthumous Productions, Incorporated,” said Barbante gravely. “Additional dialogue by depa
rted writer.”

  “Perhaps,” Hutt said easily, still friendly, to Barbante, “you’d like to go back to your place and rest, Dom. You look all done in.”

  Barbante shook his head stubbornly. “I like it here. I’m interested in the grownups’ conversation.”

  Hutt examined Barbante coldly, his pale blue eyes taking in the untidy hair, the rumpled, suit stained with cigarette ash, the purplish beard on the pale chin. Then he turned his back on Barbante. “Archer,” he said mildly, “there seems to have been some confusion about my instructions yesterday about the funeral.”

  “There wasn’t any confusion, Lloyd,” O’Neill said in a low voice. “I didn’t tell him.”

  Hutt nodded agreeably. “Not your confusion, then, Archer. O’Neill’s confusion. You’ve seen the papers, I suppose.”

  “Yes,” Archer said.

  “We’ve gotten thirty-seven telephone calls already,” Hutt said, without heat, “from church groups, veterans’ organizations, patriotic individuals, demanding that O’Neill and you and Barbante and Levy and Brewer be dropped from the program immediately.”

  “Advertise me,” Barbante said. “In the interests of better public relations. Announce that Barbante has patriotically and individually dropped himself.”

  Hutt ignored him. “What’s more,” Hutt said, “calls have been coming into the sponsor’s office, and even to his home, although he has an unlisted number. I don’t mind telling you gentlemen that Mr. Sandler is getting rather restive, to put it as mildly as I know how.” Hutt smiled, a businesslike, boards-meeting smile.

  “Church groups,” Barbante mumbled. “Cut the Quakers’ ears, off and nail them to the bronze doors.”

  Hutt glanced at Barbante puzzledly. “What’s he talking about?”

  O’Neill shrugged. “He’s off on a private tear. He can’t explain it and I’m sure I can’t. We could’ve saved ourselves a lot of grief if we’d sent him to a psychiatrist for the, last two years and charged it up to entertainment.”

  “I was born and brought up a Roman Catholic, gentlemen,” Barbante said”, “and I played third base for the Church of the Good Shepherd until they found a boy who could hit curve-ball pitching.”

  “I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you gentlemen,” Hutt addressed O’Neill and Archer again, “that the sponsor is seriously considering dropping the program entirely. I must say, too, in his defense, that I can’t really blame him.”

  There was quiet in the room while nobody blamed the sponsor.

  “I won’t disguise the fact that we’re hanging by a thin thread,” Hutt said. There’s a man, Archer thought irreverently, who will tackle any cliché head-on, asking and giving no quarter. “There’s a good possibility that unless we take things in hand immediately,” Hutt went on, “that the option on the program will not be taken up when the time comes next month. I won’t deny that I’m worried,” Hutt said confidently, “but I don’t think we’re beaten yet.” He smiled around the room, putting them all graciously on the same team. “If we work together, we can salvage the program and perhaps even come out better than we ever were. First, I’ve arranged a press conference up here this afternoon at three o’clock, and I want everybody who is connected with the program—and that means everybody—actors, musicians, engineers, sound men—to be here and answer any questions any reporter asks, answer candidly and with perfect frankness. I’ve already sent telegrams to all the people who work on the program, even bit-part actors who perhaps only appear two or three times a year for us. I’ve invited Connors, the editor of Blueprint, who’s coming as a personal favor to me, and he’s indicated that he is going to ask a certain number of our people directly whether they are Communists or not. You’re one of them, Archer,” Hutt said, smiling deprecatingly, as though it was a childish joke that he was reporting. “It seems,” Hutt said softly, “that the word has gone round that you were fighting our little private cleansing operation and they’ve been looking into your background rather intensively.” Hutt shook his head sadly. “Connors was good enough to show me what they’ve picked up. I must say, Archer,” Hutt said tolerantly, “you seemed to have signed your name to a grotesque list of things.”

  “Like what?” Archer asked stonily.

  Hutt looked surprised. “Do I have to tell you?”

  “I’m afraid you do,” Archer said. “My memory is failing me.”

  “It goes all the way back to the time you were teaching in college. But really, now,” Hutt laughed softly, “I don’t have to tell you.”

  “What did I do in college?” Archer asked. “I really want to know.”

  “Well, for one thing …” Hutt shrugged, as though half good-naturedly giving into Archer’s whim. “You were one of the founders of a chapter of some college instructors’ union. And then you were chairman at a meeting called together by the American Student Union to hear a Communist candidate for office in 1935.”

  1935, Archer thought desperately, trying to reach back into his memory, what did I do in 1935? He remembered nothing.

  “The American Student Union, as you know, of course,” Hutt said, “is on the Attorney-General’s list of subversive organizations.”

  “I don’t know of course,” Archer said. “And I’m damn sure it wasn’t on any list in 1935. The list didn’t come out till 1947.”

  “Now, Archer.” Hutt shook his head, mildly reproving. “That’s mere verbal juggling.” He smiled again. “And then you seemed to sign your name to every piece of paper that had the word Spanish on it between the years of 1936 and 1940. Good Lord, man, it looks as though you were trying to win the Spanish war single-handed right in Ohio.” He laughed generously, showing Archer that he understood the immature enthusiasms of youthful history instructors. “And then, it seems you contributed to Russian War Relief in 1942.”

  “I won’t even comment on that,” Archer said. “You’ll probably find fifty senators on the same list.”

  “Conceded,” Hutt said reasonably. “But it sounds unpleasant these days just the same, doesn’t it? And it has been declared subversive.”

  “I guarantee,” Archer said, “not to relieve the Russians in any future wars. Does that make everybody happy?”

  “Actually, Archer,” Hutt said pleasantly, “you happen to be in a quite fortunate position. Through no fault of your own, and at the moment, I’m sure you don’t appreciate it fully …” He chuckled. “But that columnist on that Red sheet who’s been after you the last couple of days has done you a world of good, actually.”

  “What?” Archer asked, bewildered. “What do you mean?”

  “An attack from that quarter is enormously wholesome,” Hutt said sonorously, “and reassures people who have been entertaining serious doubts about your reliability. And some of the phrases he’s used, although they’re the most exaggerated nonsense, like ‘vanguard of Fascism’ and ‘hatchet-man for the imperialist war-mongers’ have the effect of giving you almost a clean bill of health, all by themselves. Almost, I said.” Hutt pointed his finger warningly. “Almost. Of course,” he said sympathetically, “some of the other things must be rather embarrassing and I’m terribly sorry they had to be printed. The absurd bit about the Yogi exercises and the information about your being rejected by the Army.”

  “Loony,” Barbante said at the window. “Cracked as an old jug. Our Clem. On a clear day you can see his brain parting at the seams.”

  Hutt glanced sharply at Barbante, then decided to ignore him. “But then you’ve got to expect vulgarities like that,” Hutt said to Archer, “from gentlemen of that persuasion.”

  Persuasion, Archer thought dazedly. What does he mean by that? Does he mean Roberts’ religion?

  “Still,” Hutt said expansively, “I’m sure that if you answer all the questions put to you this afternoon by the gentlemen of the press, and answer them candidly and frankly, as I said, and as I am sure you can and will, we’ll find that you will be completely rehabilitated in the public mind by the time our next program
goes on the air. And anything I may have said previously to you, in a moment of exasperation—” Hutt waved his large pretty hands magnanimously “—anything to the effect that your usefulness was at an end or any hint that perhaps we would have to come to a parting of the ways, I’m sure both you and I will be able to forgive and forget.”

  He smiled, friendly, dapper, in control, maintaining the perfect, cool, superior, almost cordial relationship of employer and employee.

  “Barbante,” he said, standing up and taking a step toward the writer, speaking in the hushed, sedative tones of a male nurse, “even though for the moment you no longer happen to be associated with us, I think it would be a nice gesture on your part if you would be present at the conference this afternoon, although of course there is no hint of any accusation against you.” He chuckled paternally. “You never seemed to have signed anything at all.”

  “I was too busy,” Barbante said soberly, “following girls down Madison Avenue.”

  Hutt smiled, the male nurse humoring the patient. “Of course you did go to the funeral yesterday,” he said, “and there might be a question or two on that score, but I’m sure there’ll be no real difficulty.”

  Even as involved as he was with his own dazed reactions to Hutt’s speech, Archer knew that Hutt shouldn’t have used the word, “funeral.” From the look on O’Neill’s face Archer recognized that O’Neill was of the same opinion. Archer saw Barbante growing tense. His head rocked a little from side to side and he flicked the Venetian blinds in a rapid, irregular, tinny rhythm. But for the moment, he didn’t reply. Hutt looked at him curiously, frowning slightly, then turned back to Archer. “Oh,” he said, as though he had just remembered, “one more thing. Word has reached me that tonight there is to be a meeting at the St. Regis Hotel, a meeting called and paid for by Communists in radio, television and the theatre, to protest the so-called blacklist. Word has reached me, also, that several people from our program have been invited to attend. Naturally,” he said carelessly, “I expect everyone in this room to leave it severely alone.”