Q & A

by M. Allen Cunningham

  … I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

  I believe that truth and justice are fundamental to an enduring social order.

  I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man’s word should be as good as his bond; that character—not wealth or power or position—is of supreme worth. …

  Thirty minutes later, on the thirteenth floor of the NBC building, Kenyon Saint Claire sits next to James Denning at a polished conference table, the pen poised in his hand, the dummy contract laid open before him, and both men smile and smile. Across the table, the phalanx of photographers goes to work.

  SIDNEY

  May the 6th and here he is at 667 Madison Ave., waiting politely in the carpeted lobby outside Greenmarch’s office while Greenmarch wraps up some other business. Ten minutes, fifteen—and not a sound yet from Greenmarch behind those doors, not so much as a sorry to keep you waiting, Sid, but I’ll be just a few more minutes. Which, Sidney being expected and all, having an appointment and all, it’s not as if he’s come barging in here—well, it puts a bad taste in a fella’s mouth, how could it not?

  “Denise, honey, could I have a glass of water?”

  “Sure, Mister Winfeld,” says the secretary, stepping away from her typewriter to fetch it. And she brings it with a little paper napkin but no comment such as he’ll be with you very soon, I’m sure, no such thing, nothing at all, so he tells her again, says, “I did make an appointment. I’m in his book for today.” To this she returns a small noise, hard to interpret, and sits herself down again.

  Sidney gulps half the glassful—lukewarm and tastes of galvanized piping.

  Some days he’s dying, Sidney’s sure of it, dying quick of some condition with hardly any symptoms at all. Started in the gut, that so-called ulcer which hasn’t got worse but not better either—and he’s no hypochondriac. This is the stuff he’s talked over to no end with the shrink. Worries like his, they’d sicken just anybody, even the shrink said so. Would level most fellas, in fact. But now look at him getting started—hey don’t start down that road that road leads no place and you know it. After all, it’s not the worries that bring him back to this office, it’s the simple fact of certain guarantees having been made, a man’s pledge, Ray Greenmarch himself back in February saying come see me in May, Sid—it’s not as if Sidney’s here unannounced or uninvited or showing up just to gush out his worries. No, he’s in the man’s book which when you’re in the book you deserve the respect—

  But now the office door bursts open.

  “Sid. There you are. Have you been waiting awfully long?”

  And Sidney’s on his feet and pumping Greenmarch’s hand—a cold and curiously soft hand, the padding of the palm gives way under your clasp, just sinks like a partly deflated balloon and almost no grip at all in Ray’s shake. Have they never shook hands before now? It’s possible they haven’t, it’s just possible, which would explain an awful lot.

  “It’s been a frantic afternoon, Sid—this and that, he and she, them and us. But come in, come in, sit yourself down, I’ve got a few minutes before they rope me back again.”

  The door clicks shut behind them.

  Greenmarch glides to his desk and sits. “You must be finished with your studies, Sid.”

  “That’s right, Ray. I figured you’d remember. Today in fact. As of today I’m graduated.”

  “Congratulations! And how’s your wife?”

  “Fine, fine, and you remember—”

  “I remember she’s expecting. And when’s the tike arrive?”

  “Oh, middle of September.”

  “That’s swell, Sid. I’m sure you’re both very happy on that note.”

  “We sure are, Ray.”

  “Good. Well…”

  Sidney sits ready now, upright and listening, all ears. It ain’t for him to broach the subject himself, it’s May the 6th after all and they both know damn well what brings him in. So he levels his eyes across the desk at Greenmarch—at Ray—and waits.

  Greenmarch runs a hand down his tie, leans forward and plants his forearms across the desktop.

  “Well, Sid, as I say, things have been frantic around here, and we may as well get down to business, shall we?”

  “Yep.”

  “Which is to say, Sid, that Mint and Greenmarch has—only very recently—brokered some deals with NBC. These were major growth opportunities for this office, you understand—”

  “That’s good news. That’s great, Ray. Congratulations.”

  “You see, though, Sid, that the upshot in your particular case, I’m afraid, is an abstention of dealings with regard to quiz show and panel show programming. That’s to say, I’m afraid, that those opportunities we’d discussed prior, you and I, I’m afraid it’s now out of my hands.”

  “Out of your hands?”

  “Mm. My hands are tied, in other words.”

  “The deal’s off, you’re telling me.”

  “Those particular properties, Sid, the panel and/or quiz programs we’d discussed, they’re no longer our property, you see.”

  “You sold the shows.”

  “We were given the chance to capitalize on these productions and in the interest of growth we no longer hold creative stake—”

  “Tell me in fucking English, Ray. Tell me what you did.”

  “Look, Sid, it’s business, all right? There was a buyer—”

  “It’s fucking monkey business, Ray. Why don’t you tell me that?”

  “Sid, I can appreciate you’re disappointed—”

  But Sidney’s on his feet already and moving, his back to Raymond Greenmarch, his hands already outstretched to fling open the office doors—and though Greenmarch back there at his desk is saying something to the effect of I’d be more than happy to put you in touch with our liaison at the network, already Sidney’s body is wheeling through the corridor, charging onto the elevator, dropping like a meteorite to the street—already the crush of the sidewalk surrounds him, already he’s moving through the people, the people down here on the ground, and already he knows those promise-breakers upstairs are in for it, those TV guys jerking their levers day and night thinking they make the world go round, one way or another they’re in for it.

  KENYON

  May 6th, 6:00 p.m., Kenyon Saint Claire stands on the steps of the house on Prince Street. He’s been here a few minutes already, watching through the tender leaves of the plane trees the coming and going of people along the sidewalks. He told the agent, Halverson, six o’clock, and Ernestine quarter after. He checks his watch: 6:03. But here comes Halverson now, the heels of his Florsheims clapping.

  “Am I late? She isn’t here yet, is she?” Halverson mounts the steps in two strides—two at a time, breathing heavily. His coat hangs open, the bulk of his belly pushed out as he digs in his trouser pocket for the keys. “Good God, wouldn’t that have been awful.” A ring of beaded sweat has just started to dampen his collar, where the gray shadow of whiskers sprouts. “Let’s get in and get a window open. I’m sure it’s stuffy in there.”

  “Thanks for doing this, Don.”

  “My pleasure. Does she have any idea?”

  “I don’t know how she would.”

  Halverson winks. “Go get her, kid.”

  The vaulted great room is very warm, having taken the sun through the high windows all day. Halverson hurries to open the terrace doors. Kenyon tries a switch and the old Tiffany fixture glitters overhead. There’s a decorative oval molding of laurel leaves up there. The space feels even vaster than when he first saw it, but still not overly grand, and he’s glad for that. The room’s paneled woodwork all washed in pristine white, the mottled parquet that crackles with every step. It was the conceivable elegance of the place that pleased him from the start. It isn’t a showpiece. It can be lived in. Bef
ore he’d even seen the bedrooms, what won him over were the hidden compartments in these walls. Halverson had run a hand down the seams of the paneling, opening each in turn along the entire length of the room. Each compartment was nearly as tall as Kenyon and lined with shelves. As if the house had been built expressly to enfold and protect a private library of the kind he’s always wanted but never had the space for.

  “Any minute now,” says Halverson, eyebrows up. “Better make myself scarce. Good luck, my boy.” He lumbers off down the hall, to wait in a back bedroom.

  Kenyon breathes deep, checks his watch again, checks himself.

  When Ernestine approaches along the sidewalk under the plane trees, she finds him standing in the open door.

  “Come up,” he says.

  “Have you already started? You didn’t say six, did you? I was sure it was six-fifteen.”

  “No, no, you’re right on time.”

  He takes her hand and leads her through the entry into the pure white spaciousness of the great room.

  “Kenyon, what on earth…” She’s turning about, disoriented in the windowlight and the sparkling Tiffany glass. He’d told her dinner at the Fadimans, that was all. “What on earth?”

  “The Fadimans aren’t expecting us,” he says. “I’m sorry to deceive you. But I wanted to bring you here. It’s Kip who first told me about this, actually. His house is down the block. I came last week, and the minute I stepped through this door I felt certain. I could just picture … Anyway, I’m buying it, Ernestine.”

  “Oh! Are you?”

  “Yes. As a home for us.”

  “Us?”

  “I hope you’ll live here with me. I hope you’ll marry me and we’ll make this our home. Will you?”

  He watches as something inside her stops. She falls very still. She breathes out a small breath.

  “I haven’t bought a ring,” he says, and turns up his hands. “I thought…this instead.”

  “This is yours?” she says, almost in disbelief.

  “It will be,” he says. “Ours.”

  They stand there a minute, looking at one another.

  “Would you like to see the rooms?” says Kenyon.

  She only nods, seeming to hold back her words, then sweeps forward and takes him by his sides, and he sees her eyes are glittering, wet.

  “But first, yes,” she says. “And not only because of this. Yes. Yes.”

  AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS

  “Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you, you’re supposed to clap right there, right there is where you clap! That’s right. Jeez!”

  “Boys and girls, whoever has the Magic Red Crayon, I want you to come on up to the Magic Window right now…”

  “The line between performer and performance is long gone.”

  “This almost perfect man, this almost perfect gentleman, is in this play never the gentleman or the man that he is, paradoxically enough.”

  “You’ve gotta tell ’em to clap! Hey, watch the applause sign! Thank you.”

  “We understand that he was that man.”

  “And now, with a complete grasp of the English language, I explain to you the game.”

  “We all sense that somehow, without budging ourselves, we are living more life per second.”

  “This may be the most important answer you will ever have to give. You have twenty seconds, so think clearly and write fast.”

  “The goal is usually to make only enough sense to permit the senses to take over.”

  “If you were to meet a mesmerist, would he be a memory expert, a hypnotist, or a religious fanatic?”

  “Now what I want you to do is take your Magic Red Crayon and put it right up against my finger. Would you do that? Right here. OK? You ready to follow me now?”

  “Will you repeat the question, please?”

  “Time’s a little tired these days. Time needs a minute.”

  “A memory expert, a hypnotist, or a religious fanatic?”

  “At critical junctures, ordinary people make choices, even if among a range of choices not of their own making.”

  “To the very end he never did perform the ethical free act of making up his mind.”

  “Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements?”

  “I’m gonna go slowly and draw a line across here, and you come right along with me. OK? That’s fine. We’re gonna have a swell trip.”

  “If we go on as we are, history will take its revenge.”

  “Gosh, that tub was so white it looked new!”

  “In your Frigidaire Cold Pantry there’s a place for all your foods: fresh and frozen, canned, bottled, and wrapped, new-bought and leftover. They’re all right there, and they’re all at your fingertips.”

  “…in a time that is no time and only time and all times, all the time.”

  “Consolation prizes on Tic Tac Dough are the wonderful Polaroid Lan cameras, which develop pictures in one minute.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I think it’s very important to point out right now that all the problems on Juvenile Jury that we present to the children—they are presented for the first time, they are completely spontaneous.”

  “Television begins by being entertaining and ends by becoming authoritative.”

  “You following right along with me, boys and girls? All the way up to the top now. That’s right. Gee, I think you’re doing a fine job.”

  “This is an instance in which the asking of the questions is sufficient.”

  “Everything on this program is completely spontaneous and unrehearsed.”

  “To ask is to break the spell.”

  “What are you gonna do with the $700 after you’ve bought some tranquilizer pills?”

  “Just follow my finger…”

  SIDNEY

  He’s an honest guy, Sidney Winfeld. Nobody’s ever gonna say different. He’s upstanding, a husband and father to be, which never would he go ahead and become a father under deceptive conditions, not of any nature, so it’s time to clear the air, time to tell Bernice their situation. Natural enough he hasn’t done it already, what with May the 6th always on the horizon before now, which he hoped that meeting with Greenmarch might solve his worries and look how that panned out. Well, c’est la vie. He’ll just hafta take a different tack from here forward—he’s sure not gonna suggest to Bernice he’s taking anything lying down. And the fact he is honest, whereas none of the other persons have any interest to be apparently—not the Greenmarch people, not the other contestants—won’t that be what fixes it in the end? Honesty. Who else of any of them is ready to just be honest like Sidney?

  Bernice is squinting into the menu, but Sidney comes right out with it—better not to leave it for later and suffer through dinner with his thoughts, the worries, knowing how she’ll receive it. So he just says it, says how he’s met with Greenmarch and that situation being what it is, now’s the time she oughta know the extent of their financial circumstances, his winnings no longer available and et cetera, et cetera.

  It’s not desperate, sweetie, he’s telling her. We have my savings, it’s not even close to any kind of desperate situation, OK, don’t misunderstand me on that point.

  It’s going on a few weeks now since she started to show. First it was a tightening look in her blouses, then the bulge you only saw in profile, then the riding up of the skirt fronts, and now Sidney and anyone can see the roundness even when she’s facing you. She’s got one hand on the roundness right now, the palm of her hand moving there in little circles while she hears him out.

  But the disappointing nature of Ray’s news, which there won’t be the extra salary we were counting on—now I know it’s a letdown, but in actual fact it has strengthened my resolve, Bernice, these TV people and their shenanigans, doctoring up these shows putting words in everybody’s mouth, making
Kenny Saint Claire into some kind of hero some kind of godsend to America, reneging on their guarantees, it’s time it comes into the open, time they get their comeuppance …

  She’s hearing him out, that hand on her belly, other hand still holding the edge of the menu which she’s sort of let collapse in front of her, and now here comes the waiter with the wine, the white linen napkin, to do his little show of the bottle, the corkscrew, the one pour and then the other, which the wine all served he then sticks around to see if they’re ready to order.

  “Not just yet,” Sidney tells him. “Could we have a few minutes, please.”

  Sidney chose a white napkin kind of place in case Bernice might wanna make a scene and she’d hafta think better of it. But he goes on talking and she doesn’t even try to cut in, she’s hearing him out still, patting her belly still and seems as calm as any business, and he wonders if he wouldn’t rather have a scene—wonders, too, should he have spared this expense? But isn’t that just the point, though? Why should they start tiptoeing around every nice thing? He’s not gonna be that type. He’s a husband and now a father to be and nobody’s gonna push him around or tell him they don’t owe him just basic decent dignity. He made that quiz show, Sidney Winfeld did. Sidney’s the reason Greenmarch could sell—and sell for how many millions? Even Kenyon Saint Shithead, what would he be without Sidney? Sidney who honored his part of the bargain the whole way through, they can’t tell him he didn’t play it up and keep those TVs tuned in all those living rooms.

  I won’t stand for it Bernice is what I’m saying I won’t stand for it you can be sure of that honey. And I have recourse honey I have the recourse of the truth which I’ve already called up and spoke to a reporter at the Journal American…

  He’d walked straight from Greenmarch’s office into a phone booth right there on Madison Ave., stood in the booth telling the whole story into the handset, the reporter going really my goodness please tell again the name and title of this person or that person, and Sidney staring all the time through the booth glass at the building at number 667 and thinking, this time this time this time the story’s gonna stick.