Q & A

by M. Allen Cunningham

  “A car will take you over afterward.”

  Following their production meeting, Kenyon is scheduled for a photo shoot with Mrs. Dearborn at the NBC building.

  “OK. Will you come along?”

  “I hadn’t planned on it.”

  “But will you?” He turns to her. “Am I permitted to ask?”

  “I’ll see,” says Ernestine. She squeezes his arm, a look of mild worry in her eyes. “Go on in.”

  Lacky is at his desk, craned forward over another copy of Time open before him. He doesn’t look up. “Come in, Kenny.”

  “I just saw Ernestine’s copy. I don’t remember taking that picture.”

  “It’s a file photo. These headphones, they’re superimposed, see?”

  “Don’t tell me what it says, OK, Sam?”

  Lacky glances up. “It’s all good though, you don’t need to worry.”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “It’s great fucking publicity, that’s all any of us need to know. Jesus, are you all right?”

  “Surprised, is all.” He’s still holding the water glass. He keeps one hand underneath it, his fingers so slick with sweat.

  “Listen, like I keep telling you, make the best of this, Kenny. Enjoy it!”

  “Excuse me, Sam, but what do you know about it? Did they ever put your face on the cover of Time Magazine?”

  “Never been so lucky, no. Do you need a smoke, Kenny?”

  “No, no. My stomach…I’m sorry to lash out.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’m sure it’s a shock. Let’s take a few minutes, why don’t we, just a few minutes to, you know, catch our breath.”

  “OK.”

  Lacky folds the magazine, leans to drop it in a side drawer, and trundles the drawer home. Click. He lays his head back, clasps his hands over his stomach. “Buddy, listen, this is the final lap, OK? This is it. One more show and you’re done. Done with the isolation booth, photo shoots, these meetings. It’s all behind you after that, OK? You’ve got your gig at NBC. You’ll have your winnings. A new kind of life. Hm?”

  “Yeah,” says Kenyon, sipping from the glass. “Yeah, I see that. And I realize I’m terribly lucky. I do. You just wonder—I wonder, anyway—how much louder it all could get. How to turn the volume down.”

  “Maybe you need a getaway, Kenny—you know, once your run is over here. Someplace nice, somewhere sunny. Treat yourself.”

  Kenyon unbuttons his coat, slips it over the chairback.

  “You need some more water,” says Lacky, “before we start?”

  They run through the cards, the point sequencing, the mechanics of his loss to Mrs. Dearborn, and Kenyon feels better and better by the minute.

  The final lap, he tells himself. The final lap.

  The car awaits him downstairs, sent over by NBC. Lacky will come along to direct the photographers. Ernestine can’t leave her desk, but she hands Kenyon a letter, an invitation from the New England Broadcasters Association. Kenyon gives it a glance before tucking it away. It appears they’d like him to speak at their upcoming conference in Boston—a few remarks from a well-respected television personality and educator.

  It’s a ten-minute ride through midtown to West 50th, then up the elevator to the 6th floor. Mr. Greenmarch meets them in the hall, leads them through the studio doors, calling out and clapping. “OK people, our champ has landed. Let’s make this quick.” The Klieg lights blaze. In the off-camera dark amid photographers and various production crew stands Mrs. Dearborn.

  “You two know each other by now,” says Lacky.

  “Of course,” says Kenyon. “You’re the woman who knows everything. You are positively terrifying.” Mrs. Dearborn smiles warmly as she takes his hand. He sees anew that she’s a beautiful woman, quite glamorous, like a more wholesome Lauren Bacall.

  She says, “And you look very familiar. I think I saw you this morning on a magazine cover.”

  “Oh goodness,” says Kenyon. “Don’t believe that for a second. It’s all pretend.”

  “Oh?”

  “I never even took that picture.”

  “Well, there’s one cat you won’t get back in its bag.”

  In her face now, suddenly, he sees a fellow passenger. Just like him, she must know everything of what’s ahead. “And now for more pretend,” says Kenyon. “Shall we?”

  She laughs a little, “I’m afraid so,” and steps with him into the lights.

  They’ve wheeled out the blackboard again. Someone has chalked the sum of Kenyon’s winnings in massive digits—$143,000—and beneath it a huge question mark.

  Cross all your fingers, Kenny, and bite your lip like this. Good.Now look at that money and show us how bad you want it.

  Missus Dearborn, can you give him your best challenger’s smile? A look like,: You’re really in for it pal! Can you try that, honey? There you go, that’s very nice.

  The flashbulbs burst.

  Missus Dearborn, would you stand back here on this chair and pop your head over the blackboard? Careful getting up there now.

  Okie doke, now smile, won’t you?

  Kenny, keep those fingers crossed now…

  Flash, flash, flash.

  For a quarter hour they go on, and then Mrs. Dearborn is asked to report to wardrobe and change for a new round.

  “The black and white dress, please,” says Greenmarch. “And let’s change that board now. Let’s have it say TIED AGAIN.”

  Again, they ham for the cameras.

  Now Kenny, you stand behind her just here and press this kerchief at your forehead like you’re really sweating. Good, now bite your lip. There.

  And Missus Dearborn, look at the words on the board like you’re not afraid in the least. A real challenger’s stare. Very good, OK, both of you hold it just like that…

  Flash, flash, flash…

  Lacky offered to have the car take him home, but Kenyon preferred a walk. Now in the bustle of the streets his own face confronts him at every newsstand. He won’t dare try the subway—not today. To see himself multiplied, to be duplicated and propagated and carried in so many briefcases, under so many arms—the image itself is oppressively authoritative. Against all reason the image renders the actual him, the only him, a simulacrum. The image is the truth, and all things conspire to take you out of yourself.

  In the gray mist he turns up his collar, tugs his scarf snug, and bores forward down the sidewalk, moving fast, eyes kept low. He is jigged up and distracted, but he’s got a yearning this morning, a yearning as clear and sharp as any he’s ever felt. What he yearns for is the old chaotic freedom of this city, the noise and restlessness, the stony indifference, the constant dangers, the lives in teeming masses all around. Until very recently he was lost in all that. Always the caverns of Manhattan called up a special resourcefulness. You had to carry, somewhere inside yourself, an answer to the city’s vast anonymity. You did it by striving — striving for something exact or for something vague and elusive, but striving all the same. But now how different: to know, well beforehand, everything that lies ahead.

  Maybe he does need a break, a getaway, like Lacky said.

  Still walking, he withdraws the broadcasters’ invitation from his inside pocket, unfolds it in the wet. The letters blur and bleed little halos of ink as he reads.

  Coming to the 42nd Street Library he’s decided. He jogs up the steps and through the huge wooden doors. In one corner of the marbled lobby there’s a public telephone. He dials Lacky’s office and within seconds Ernestine picks up.

  “Let’s take a trip,” he says. “Please. I have this invitation and I’d like you to come.”

  “You mean Boston? Are you joking?”

  “Yes. No. In a few weeks.”

  “Are you asking me to elope, Kenyon?”

  “I need to go—to get away. I’ll pay f
or your room.”

  “My room?”

  “Yes. Your own room. No expectations. I need to get away. Won’t you come?”

  Silence.

  “Ernestine?”

  She makes a noise like a sigh, or maybe a small laugh. “You really think you can escape it all? It’s not just in New York, Kenyon.”

  “I know. But you’ll be there. I mean, I want you to be. I want you to be there.”

  6.

  TODAY

  Spring 1957

  AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS

  “To be part of the show,” says Fred Mint to the boys and girls at home, “you must have one of our Winky Dink Kits.”

  “When the clock strikes three in the morning,” says Bob Shepherd, “are you often still wide awake, your nerves on edge, unable to fall asleep?”

  “Here we have three young girls who—it looks like they’ve all been shot through the heads by Indians, but actually two of these girls are wearing those trick arrows, you know, that fasten to their heads with the spring hoops in them.”

  “Of course if you don’t have a Winky Dink Kit you can’t have as much fun.”

  “I suggest that you take the Kent carton test and see for yourself just what a difference Kents can make.”

  “Wake up, America! Time to stump the experts! This is the program in which you, the public, turn the tables on the authorities…”

  “Remember, and this is important, Sominex contains no barbiturates, no bromides, no narcotics, and it’s non-habit-forming.”

  “You switch to Kent and smoke one carton—now I don’t mean just a pack or two, but a carton—you’ll find that Kent’s micronite filter gives you high filtration.”

  “Now Helen’s gonna put her Magic Window right up on the screen of the television set. That’s right. Now you do it just the way she does boys and girls, it’s very important.”

  “Remember, we’re not selling the program…we’re selling the audience for the program.”

  “This is a very critical moment. I caution the ladies and gentlemen in the audience not to call out answers.”

  “Finally, ladies & gentlemen, remember that Information, Please is unrehearsed, unprepared, happy-go-lucky, fancy-free, and enough adjectives—we’re off!”

  “We’re here to deliver the audience to the next commercial.”

  “Now boys and girls, you remember the Magic Word?”

  “One girl has a real arrow shoved through her ear—no, shoved through her hairdo. And she is the one we’re looking for…”

  “Now if you don’t have your Winky Dink Kit yet, I’m sure you’ll wanna get one. You must if you wanna have all the fun on this program.”

  “Now you can avoid hunger tantrums, lose weight naturally and fast, with RDX full stomach reducing plan.”

  “Shakespeare—he was so prophetic, he always knew what was gonna happen. Imagine so many years ago saying ‘TV or not TV.’ That is our future, and that’s a pretty bad one I’d say right now.”

  “Now I’m gonna step out of here and I’m gonna count to three and when I say three I want you to say the Magic Word with me, all right?”

  “High filtration to help you keep your smoking moderate.”

  “You can fill your stomach, and fat just seems to melt away.”

  “You know, it takes a mother to know the way to her family’s heart, and here’s what we mean…”

  “When you get your Winky Dink Kit you’ll be able to play along with us instead of just watching.”

  “And now a golden opportunity is yours. Are you shaking or is that me?”

  “To get your Winky Dink Kit for yourselves or your friends, you send fifty cents boys and girls, send fifty cents—got that?—fifty cents with your name and address…”

  “And mothers, after sickness help your child gain strength fast.”

  “She’s just vibrating all over! My goodness, calm down! Calm down! It’s all over now, you’ve got 700 dollars so things get easier from here on in.”

  “Give him Geritol Junior, the ideal tonic for growing children.”

  “Of course it’s very easy to get your Winky Dink Kit boys and girls. All you have to do is send us fifty cents with your name and address. It’s very simple and that’s all there is to it. fifty cents with your name and address.”

  “So, remember friends, for a real night’s sleep, take Sominex as directed for natural-like sleep with 100% safety.”

  “One…two…three. Wink-O!”

  KENYON

  “A way of misrepresenting this book is to say that its hero is mad, is under delusions as to his identity, thinks he is a knight.”

  At the podium under the high red velvet of the proscenium, Maynard Saint Claire is a thin post in a gray suit. Lights glance off his silver hair, the dark stage an abyss behind him. He consults no notes, extemporizing in his seasoned way. But he projects well, his voice deep and clear.

  “No, our hero has merely read the books, the ideal books. And he decides to go forth and act everywhere as if he were a knight. He doesn’t think he is one, but he thinks he can act the part. And the story is of how he acts the part utterly without success.”

  A chuckle moves through the audience now, a surprise to Kenyon—to hear this description of failure charming them so. Sunday evening, 10th of March, night before his final quiz program, Kenyon listens from his place in the second row, Ernestine’s left arm entwined in his right. At their backs, the plush red seats of the Town Hall slope upward, every row filled. Even up in the broad scallop of the balcony there isn’t a single empty seat for the first ten or eleven rows. And the microphones are carrying Dad’s words out over the radio waves right now, live, for how many more listeners at home?

  “We would not believe a story,” says Maynard Saint Claire, “which told us that a man walked into this decidedly unphilosophical world and made it philosophical.”

  Now, unexpectedly, Kenyon is hearing Dad’s words of two weeks ago.

  The kind of man we think you are.

  Their nighttime walk through the frozen field. In that cold, Dad’s voice a warmth in itself.

  We’ve wondered if it can be good for you, this television business.

  Dad’s saying those words again now, within or behind the words he’s saying onstage.

  Kenyon’s hair bristles. He sits up straight.

  “Sometimes this would-be knight encounters people who decide just for fun to play along a little while with this person who is playing this astonishing role. So in this book we find many persons hoaxing, they think, Don Quixote, by pretending to be the kind of people that he expects to find. I personally do not believe that he’s hoaxed. I think he sees through all those hoaxes. They sadden him a little bit at the spectacle of folly in the world. No, he wants to keep on being—seeming to be, and talking and acting like—a perfect man, an ideal man.”

  Loud and pure, Dad’s words are ribboning out above Kenny’s head, letters actually printed upon the air, perfectly legible, like a banner of words in an ancient manuscript—and Kenyon, attentive reader, knows that the words are meant for him alone.

  Our shows, Lacky had said, are doing something different, doing more for the public. The idea is education. What I mean is we’re showing knowledge to be a desirable thing…

  “He was not hoaxed, this would-be knight,” says Dad, and now Dad’s eyes find Kenyon in his second-row seat, and Kenny is looking into Dad’s face as if they are not in the Town Hall amid a thousand people but alone at the breakfast table with Mom’s blue porcelain creamer between them, or talking in the honored privacy of their shared office, the air dense with smoke.

  Listen, Kenny, Dad is saying. Listen now.

  “No, I think he knew what he was doing all the time. I think he was being a professional actor, an excellent one. And that brings me to my final point about him,
that he is human in the richest sense of that word.”

  I saw you, Lacky had said, and I thought, here’s the real thing, here’s the kind of person we ought to see on our television screens…

  Dad’s glance breaks away and again he’s a man at a podium, a lifelong teacher in a simple suit, unaccustomed to the bright lights but talking simply, forthrightly.

  When will Kenyon learn, if ever, to speak as simply as that? What will it take to make that possible?

  “As all men are actors, all the world’s a stage. And when a father says to his son, ‘Act like a man,’ he’s not asking him to be dishonest. He’s asking him, as a matter of fact, to be honorable in the highest sense of the word. About all we can ever do in this imperfect world is act as if it were perfect. It means we have to talk that way and we have to think that way and we have to move that way. In this respect, Don Quixote remains, I think, the perfect man.”

  Dad pauses, and there is a ringing silence in the hall. Then: “Thank you.” And he steps away from the podium.

  Applause, applause, as Maynard Saint Claire crosses the stage. At the stairs just beyond the light the old man goes slow, gripping the railing, watching his feet the whole way. Kenyon joins in the applause, stung to the quick. Yet as he watches Dad’s hunched back he’s also thinking, admiringly, how the old man lives almost entirely out of his time.

  You’re still at liberty, Dad, he thinks. You’re still free—to be sincere. But today—for the rest of us, these times make it harder than ever. All but impossible.

  And then to his depths, with an anguish that sweeps over him like a wave—even as he knows he cannot disown it—Kenyon mourns his own thought.

  All but impossible.

  Intuitive as she is, Ernestine notices. She’s squeezing his arm, checking him with a searching look.

  Are there tears in his eyes? No, but he’s sure there’s a pall of panic in his face.

  All too often these days, something takes him out of himself.

  How to get back?

  How to get back inside and stay there?

  Q:

  Why impossible?