It was a beautiful night. The hotels seemed capable of storing energy, and now mysteriously reflected their whiteness. He drove a new convertible, the top down, like a well-paid private detective in movies, and as he drove, privileged at red lights which he stopped for or ignored according to some delicate discretionary sense of his own, he had a notion of coast, a feel of margin. Behind him lay the long drought of his inland life, his singleness (here raised to bachelordom; there were many bachelors in this place) and apprenticeship, which of late he had begun to grudge, resentful of it as of a detour. He played the radio low as he drove slowly along the attenuated strip of twenty- and twenty-five-story hotels like eccentric figures in geometry with their ramps looping like doorman’s braid and their cantilevered balconies that shoved out from the shoulders of the buildings like the epaulets of drum majors—and the buildings themselves, amok parabolas of frosting or the ribbed pockets of gadgets for slicing hard-boiled eggs. Sandcastles! And beyond the great wall of hotels that traced the soft veer of the strand, the sea itself, the fishy Atlantic, a new element. It was this—all that water—that now joined the air, fire and clay of his life, and seemed to make it whole. Here he lived, here, behind the deep water, exactly at sea level, where his voice with nothing to stop it might climb miles, a straight, clear trajectory of sound, spraying old Heaviside’s umbrella of ionosphere, deep as stars, sharp as night. He loved his luck, but it made him nervous. It might turn out to be merely temporary, like a spell of good weather. (Was that why he loved Florida, because the weather was more constant here and he took it as a sign of other, deeper constants?)
He drove up the ramp outside the main entrance to the Deauville and turned his car over to Geraldine, Nick the night man’s girl friend.
“How are you, Geraldine?”
“Not so hotsy, not so totsy. Wisht I was back in ’bama on the farm. Nick and me tuned in the show tonight on a Lincoln Continental while we necked. Turned on the air conditioning and it give me the swollen glands.”
He went inside and picked up his key from the night manager.
“Hi Dick.”
“’Lo Rick.”
“Seen Nick?”
“Nick’s chick.”
“That hick?”
“She’s sick.”
He wasn’t sleepy and went past his suite to Carol’s room, a few doors down. Carol was one of the entertainers in the lounge.
He rapped their signal. “Carol?”
“What is it? Who’s there?”
“Dick, honey. I’m a little nudgy tonight. Okay if I come in for a few minutes and talk?”
He heard someone ask who the hell was out there at this time of night. “Dick, I can’t,” Carol said from behind the door. “Not tonight.”
She must have let one of the guests pick her up, something that happened only when she was very blue. She was married, but her husband had abandoned her and her two children. Now the kids lived with her folks in Michigan; he guessed she missed them pretty bad. Sometimes she used his shoulder to cry on, though he would have preferred her to call up and tell him about it on the air.
“See you tomorrow, Carol,” he said. He leaned closer to the door. “You didn’t remember our signal,” he whispered.
There was soft music playing behind the door of Sheila’s room. Sheila was the dance instructor at the hotel, but occasionally she picked up extra money by dealing for the house in private games around Miami. He rapped their signal and when Sheila opened the door he saw that she was still in her Gwen Verdonish skin-tight clothes—musical-comedy red bell-bottoms that went up and around her body like a scuba diver’s rubber suit. She probably had a dozen such outfits. Something about her wiry, dancer’s body struck him as vicious, but he liked her very much.
He asked if he could come in. “My God,” she said, “you too? Everyone’s making a play for the help tonight. I saw Carol bring a tourist up earlier, and what’s-his-name, the swim pro, Finder, has some minky old bag from Cleveland with him. I guess that other one, Mrs. Loew, must have checked out today.”
“Finder’s keepers.”
“Finder’s keepers. Ha ha. These corridors are snug with sin, I do declare. Must be the moon. Whassamatter, Dicky?”
“I want to learn Rhumba.”
“You’re too old to learn Rhumba. Whassamatter, Dicky? Got the heebie jeebies?”
He loved show folk. They were just as worldly and understanding in person as on stage.
“Not the heebie jeebies, no. Say,” he said, “I have an idea. Why don’t we make love?”
“Well, come on in,” she said. “I do declare.”
He sat down on the side of her bed.
“You never tried to put the make on me,” she said. “What’s up?”
“To find out if you will is why. To see if you’re as worldly and understanding as you are on stage.”
“Whassamatter, Dicky?”
“Yes or no.”
“Well, yes then. Heck, yes.”
Taking her hand, he brought her down beside him on the bed and gave her a kiss. Then he tried to undress her, but he had trouble with her skin-tight clothes.
“Hey, what the hell are you doing? Hey! What are you doing?”
“I think I tore it. Send me the bill.”
“It’s a costume, dummy. It doesn’t work like regular clothes. The bell bottoms go up over my head. You take it off like a sweater. Don’t you know anything about dancing girls?”
She took the bottoms of the strange pants and rolled them up her long legs as if pulling on stockings, maneuvering her body intricately as they rose astonishingly above her hips where they unsnapped at the crotch like a baby’s pajamas. She was naked underneath. Dick gasped and gazed in wonder. “Send me the bill. I want to pay it.”
They made love and smoked. Dick offered her a light from his matchbook, but was disappointed to see that she had plenty of Deauville matchbooks of her own. Then they drank Sheila’s scotch, which he stirred with the cavalier-topped swizzle stick. The FM played “Lara’s Theme” from Dr. Zhivago and Dick saw through a chink in the drapes that there was a full moon. Naked, he got out of bed and opened the curtains. Sliding back the glass doors, he stepped out on the balcony. Below him the illuminated swimming pool glowed like an enormous turquoise; beyond it the narrow, perfect lawn of beach meshed with the dark Atlantic, the uneven, concentric tops of the waves seen from above like the curved rows of an amphitheater.
He sat in a wrought iron and rubber chaise longue and crossed his arms on his chest. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw that Sheila was watching him from the bed. “Come on out,” he said. “This is swell.”
“Do you know what your ass looks like pressing through those rubber straps? Like a zebra’s.”
“Come on out,” he said. “The sun will be coming up in a little bit. It’s going to be terrific.”
Reluctantly she got up and put on a dressing gown. She brought Dick’s underwear out and sat in a chaise next to his. “Here,” she said, “put this on.”
“Why? I’m comfortable.”
“How old are you, Dicky?”
“Pushing fifty. Why?”
“You’re not in the first bloom of youth is all.”
“Oh. Aesthetic reasons. Okay.” He took the underwear and pulled it on. “Is my body really that bad?”
“Pushing fifty’s pushing fifty. But actually, if you want to know, you surprised me tonight.”
“Not bad for an old man?”
“Not bad for an old man.”
He leaned over and kissed her. “Hey,” he said, “how come you were still up?”
“Oh,” she said, “like you. I had the blues.”
“Not like me,” he said. “I’m terrific. Say, look at those palm trees over on the Nautilus’s patio. That’s really beautiful. I never noticed them before. You can’t see them from my angle. They must be Royal Hawaiians or something.”
“I guess.”
“Gee,” Dick said, “the palms, the beach, the s
ea, the moon and stars and air. It’s really terrific, isn’t it? Listen to what they’re playing on the FM. That’s ‘Mood Indigo.’”
“I guess.”
“That’s one of my favorite songs, ‘Mood Indigo.’”
“I used to do a kind of a ballet thing to ‘Stardust.’”
“Did you? I bet it was beautiful.”
“It was corny.”
“Well, sure it was corny. Hell, yes, it was corny. But what could be cornier than this, any of this? Listen,” he said, becoming excited, “once, long before I ever pushed fifty, during the war, I had this idea about what my life would be like. It was going to be special, really something. I mean really something. Do you know what I mean?”
“Do I ever,” Sheila said. “I grew up thinking I was going to be another Chita Rivera and have the dancing lead on Broadway. I thought I’d be on Hollywood Palace one week and introduced from Ed Sullivan’s audience the next.”
“But your life is special,” Dick Gibson said. “It is. You’re here. Excuse me, but you’re here with me. My life is exceptional too. I mean, what I thought back then was that it would be touched by cliché. Look, look, the sun’s coming up! I can hear the seagulls screeching! It’s dawn. … That it would be as it is in myth. That maybe I might even have to suffer more than ordinary men. Well, I was prepared. If that’s what it costs, that’s what it costs. Sure. Absolutely. Pay life the two dollars and let’s get going! … That I would even have enemies. Well, face it, who has enemies? Is there a nemesis in the house? People are too wrapped up in themselves to have it in for the other guy. But anyway, that’s what I thought. That was my thinking about it, that I’d have enemies like Dorothy had the Witch of the West … Look, look, the sun is like a soft red ball. The wind’s coming up. You can hear it stir the palms … That I’d have this goal, you see, but that I’d be thwarted at every turn. I’ve always been in radio. I thought maybe my sponsors would give me trouble, or my station manager. Or the network VP’s. Or, God yes, I admit it, the public. That somehow they’d see to it I couldn’t get said what needed to be said. That I’d be kicked and I’d be canned, tied to the railroad tracks, tossed off cliffs, shot at, winged, busted, caught in traps, shipwrecked, man overboard and the river dragged. But that I’d always bounce back, you understand; I’d always bounce back and live in high places where the glory is and the tall corn grows. That my birthdays would be like third-act curtains in a play. I didn’t remember any of this until tonight. That’s funny, that I’d forget about it when it was all I wanted, all I’ve been waiting for …”
“Whassamatter, Dicky?”
“Nothing. Nothingsamatter. Nothingsamatter. Nothing! Listen, they’re playing ‘I Get Along Without You Very Well.’ You want to go steady?”
“Shh,” she said, “don’t shout so.”
“Was I shouting? Was I really shouting? Well, I’m sorry,” he said. He looked hard at the sunrise. “I thought it would be trite,“ he said. “I thought it would be trite and magnificent.”
“You’re a funny guy.”
“Ha ha.”
“Poor Dick.”
“Boo hoo.”
“It’s late. Why don’t we go inside?”
“I’m all right. It’s beginning to happen. I was waiting for it to start and it’s starting. I should have come to Florida years ago. It’s beginning. I can feel it. This is it, I think. I think maybe this is it.”
4
“I have a call on the Florida line. Hello. Night Letters.”
“Hello? Hello?” A kid’s voice.
“Turn your radio down, sonny.”
“All right.” A pause. Dead air. He had stopped trying to fill up the time it took for a caller to turn his radio down. What did his listeners care what the temperature was in Miami? As for the time, they’d been up all night too. They knew the time—none better.
“Hello?”
“I’m here, sonny. Up kind of late tonight.”
“Yes.”
“No school tomorrow?”
“There’s school.”
“Where you calling from, sonny?”
“Jacksonville.”
“Want to ask me a riddle?” When kids called they usually had jokes to tell or riddles to ask. A good sport, Dick gave up even when he knew the answer.
“Naw.”
“Naw, eh? Well what’s on your mind? What’s the temperature up in Jacksonville?”
“I don’t know. I’m not outside.”
“I’ll bet you’re not. Where you calling from? Is there a phone in your room?”
“Yes.”
“Do your parents know you’re using it at this hour? I’ll bet when they put that phone in they told you that having your own extension was a privilege and not a right. What do you think they’d say if they knew you were using it to call a radio station at a quarter of two in the morning? You think they’d approve of that?”
“No. But they’re dead.”
“Oh. … Well gee, son, I’m sorry to hear that. That doesn’t change the principle, though. It’s still kind of late for a youngster to be up. Youngsters need sleep … Are they both dead?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m sorry, son. What did you want to talk about? Do you want to give me your name?”
“Henry Harper.”
“What did you want to talk about, Henry?”
“How do I join a Listening Post and get your Night Letter Directory? Is there a certain age you have to be?”
“How old are you, Henry?”
“I’m nine.”
“I don’t think we have anyone your age in any of our Listening Posts.”
“Oh.”
“But in all fairness, Henry, I’m sure there isn’t anything against it in our bylaws. All you do is send your name and address care of this station and write me a little something about yourself for the Night Letter. You write, don’t you?”
“I print.”
“To tell you the truth, Henry, I think you’d be better off in the Cub Scouts.”
“That’s best left up to me, I should think.”
“Just as you say, Henry. Maybe you’d better get some rest now though.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Oh?”
“I would if I could.”
“Do you want to talk about it, Henry? Do you want to talk about your Mommy and Daddy?”
“They’re dead. I told you that.”
“I see.”
“They died in a freak accident.”
“What grade are you in, Henry? What’s your favorite subject?”
“Third grade. Social Studies. Mother and Father were hobbyists. There’s money. This isn’t an extension.”
“I see.”
“Mother and Father were hobbyists. They’d done everything. They’d gone spelunking in Turkey and all along the Golden Crescent in Iran. They once sailed in a dhow from Dar-es-Salaam in the Indian Ocean all the way round Dondra Head to Columbo. There were motorcycles, of course, and skiing and safaris, and once they were the special guests of the Norwegian whale fisheries on an Antarctic whale hunt. Both of them raced cars and were licensed balloonists. They were fun parents,” Henry said, sighing.
“The freak accident?” Dick Gibson said gently.
“Yes. They’d become interested in sky diving. It happened right here in Jacksonville on the estate. I was there. I was seven. Father jumped first and then Mother. Only something went wrong. Father’s chute opened, but Mother delayed opening hers, and she fell right on top of him at about two thousand feet. She must have killed him instantly, broke his neck. They fell together another few hundred feet or so. Mother tried to open her chute but her lines must have been all fouled with Father’s. She got the reserve pack open, but the chute never bellied properly. She was able to hitchhike the rest of the way down on the buoyancy in Father’s chute, but she had no control over her drift, and they tumbled down over the trees into the private zoo. Since she was all tangled up in Father’s lines, she wasn�
�t able to disentangle herself in time. She spooked the tiger and it killed her. She never had a chance.”
“You saw this?”
“I didn’t see the tiger part,” the boy said. He began to cry.
“Don’t cry, son. Don’t cry, Henry.”
“Yes, sir,” Henry said. “Sorry.”
“Listen, son, why don’t you go into your grandparents’ room and tell them you’re upset?”
“They’re dead. They died in a freak accident.”
“The tiger?”
“No, sir. They were John Ringling North’s guests on the circus train, and they’d gone back to talk to the alligator woman and the midgets and the four-armed boy in the last car when the bridge buckled. Every car made it to the other side but the freaks’.”
“I see. Your uncle, then. Your aunt.”
“They’re dead too. Everybody’s dead,” Henry said.
“Well, who’s home, son? Who’s home, Henry?”
“Nobody’s home. They’re all dead.”
“Well, somebody’s got to be there. Who do you stay with?”
“I live by myself.”
“What about the housekeeper?”
“I fired the housekeeper. She wasn’t thorough.”
“You said you lived on an estate. What about the gardener?”
“The gardener’s dead.”
“Henry, children often have terrific imaginations. Sometimes they like to tease grown-ups.”
“I don’t like to tease grown-ups. I don’t have a terrific imagination. What do you want me to do, swear that everybody is dead? Okay, I swear it. I swear it on my honor.”
“Well what about the legalities?”
“How do you mean?”
“How can you live by yourself? Legally, that is. Don’t the courts have anything to say?”
“Plenty. They have plenty to say. When my parents died I was given over to the custody of my grandfather. But then he and Grandmother died in the freak accident. There were no other relatives. I had an executor and he died, and the man who took over for him, he died too. I guess all the provisions for me just finally ran out. I don’t blame anyone. There’s a curse on me, I think. My guardians are wiped out. There’s a trust fund which I don’t get till I’m twenty-one, but there’s cash. There’s a lot of cash around the house—about three quarters of a million dollars—and I use that to live. I’m all alone here. But I go to school. I never play hooky.”
The Dick Gibson Show Page 33