The Bell Tower

by Walter Blum

  They clinked glasses.

  “And here’s to your freedom,” Adam said. “Next time around, it’ll be my turn to buy the drinks.” They both almost drained their glasses before Larry waved to Adam to stop, saying that he had one more toast. Adam realized this would require a refill, but it was Larry’s turn to toast, and you couldn’t deny him.

  “To radio.”

  “Radio.”

  “The old lady may be dying, but there’s still a whole bunch of her left.”

  They drained their glasses, and just as Adam feared, Larry called the waiter over and despite his protests, ordered still another round. The bar was getting a little fuzzy around the edges. Adam hated being out of control. This was one of those moments that made him especially uncomfortable. This was why he avoided alcohol whenever he could.

  “What makes you think radio is dying?” he asked.

  “Oh, come on, Adam. You know as well as I do that radio has no future. Ten years from now people will have to visit a museum if they want to see what a radio even looks like. As for us—sooner or later, we’re both going to have to move on. I hear Baines is thinking of selling the station—I know, it’s just a rumor, but rumors have a way of becoming true. Why do you think he’s put off making repairs to the building? The place is a shoddy mess. The control board looks terrible and the transmitter is always having little breakdowns.”

  “I’ve noticed that.”

  “What we really need is a new transmitter—maybe boost the power at the same time—but transmitters are expensive and the FCC doesn’t hand out power boosts just like that. So Hunter’s holding off. He’s getting on in life, as you may have noticed. It wouldn’t surprise me if he decides that when the next buyer comes along, he’ll take the money and run.”

  Adam shrugged. “I could live with it,” he said.

  “You’d work for a different owner?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “What if the new owners turned out to be Top-40? That’s the wave of the future in radio, Adam. They move in and the next thing you know the station turns into a bunch of robots. You get a playlist every day, and that’s all you’re allowed to put on the turntable. Your show is tightly scripted—one ad-lib and you’re out the door. That laid-back, easy-going style you and I have gotten used to isn’t part of the mixture. It’s all up-beat, fast-paced, one commercial after another, segue one top tune into the next and if you don’t like what you’re told to play, forget it.”

  “I don’t believe WCAN will ever turn into anything like that.”

  “Believe it. This thing is on the way, and someday, it’ll be the end of us. But you don’t have to stay where you are. Everybody these days is getting into television. Why don’t you give it a try?”

  Adam squirmed. “I like radio,” he said.

  “Don’t you think I do, too? But time marches on, as they used to say in the old newsreels. You remember newsreels? They were such a big thing when we were growing up, and now they’re just a memory. Television did that. Television has marked radio for extinction too, and only the brash and the aggressive will save it, but you and I won’t be around to see what happens.”

  “Well, I’ll drink to a new and better radio,” Adam said, but he wasn’t convinced that such a creature was sitting anywhere on the horizon.

  “OK. Second the motion. And as long as we’re making toasts, how about one more?”

  “You’ve already had your toast.”

  “I’m entitled.”

  “OK.”

  “To happiness and guilt and all the other stupidities that besiege our misbegotten little world,” said Larry. “To the genie, may he climb back in his bottle and take a good long snooze. To black people, who will someday be able to sit down at this bar and order a drink and act like visible men, not puffs of smoke. To everything we should have and don’t want, to all the Romeos and Juliets and Heloises and Abelards who make it sound so enticing, and trick us into thinking we want what we can’t have.”

  “Which all comes down to one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To love.”

  “A fruitless quest,” Larry said, “but I’ll drink to that.”

  12

  It always enthralled him, this tower he inhabited. This private place where he could sit, night after night, charming the air waves, while out there thousands of souls listened, people you would never know but who knew you, or thought they did, people who dined on the pictures that were prepared in your head, people who thought they knew what you looked like, who thought they knew what you were doing at any moment, who rode the waves with you, basked on the beach in the nighttime sun, followed the master of the Bell Tower wherever he went, let you pilot the flight when the tower took off, let you choose the evening’s menu and send it spinning over the clouds toward a meeting with the moon.

  But now there was something more to it. Now it went beyond microphones and turntables and flying towers. Now the reality was ecstasy and warmth and flesh come alive in the consummation of love. The reality was having someone with you for dinner, for a show, for sharing aloud a passage in a book or an item in the newspaper. It was knowing that whenever you rolled over in bed, the most beautiful body in the world was there waiting to be touched and fondled and kissed. No one knew about that. He could hardly believe it was happening himself.

  Someday, of course, he would get used to it. Someday, maybe forty or fifty years from now when all this had become second nature, it would be possible to think clearly about what was going on.

  But that was a long way off.

  Away from the microphone a whole new way of life was waiting, and for that he should be grateful. The loneliness was gone, and so were the grits for breakfast. Meals were a blessing. Susan seemed to have been possessed from birth with a talent in the kitchen that exceeded all others. No more long tirades from Mrs. Warren, either, whose house and room on the first floor he had vacated before the wedding. No more walking down dark streets, his eye straying to the dark houses with their shaded windows, wondering what went on behind him. Now his was the shaded window, the darkened bedroom where at night wonders transpired beyond his wildest dreams.

  Days, of course, were circumscribed by his schedule at the station. Mornings, they did their shopping. Despite all the china and silverware and toasters and luggage that had poured in as wedding gifts, there were still essentials that had to be bought if their little apartment was to be made livable. Susan was put in charge of the checkbook and kept watch over the little economies that Adam demanded, monitoring the bargains she happened to see advertised. Her father insisted on footing the bill for big items like a refrigerator, a TV and furniture for the living room.

  Afternoons were ideal for making love. They would move from room to room, doing it in a different place each time. Susan had been fitted for a diaphragm, but they both agreed that when the time was right she would leave it off and let a child come as it would. There might even be two, but that was a long way off.

  Few things about her escaped his notice. He liked to watch as she put deodorant under her arms. He enjoyed the way she fastened a pair of earrings and daubed her eyes with mascara like a queen waving goodbye to her subjects. He liked to sit on the bed in the morning and watch her get dressed, spying as she hooked her bra into place over those perfectly shaped breasts, seeing the flesh slipped into its holder. Of course, after a while she came to realize that he was spying, but instead of covering up as some girls might do, she would lean back and let him fondle her, squeeze her, touch her, enjoying the sensations his probing fingers created.

  Once a week they treated themselves to a movie, or a basketball game at the local college, which was rapidly becoming a sports powerhouse in this part of the state. When a Chinese restaurant opened on the south side of town, they rushed off to try out the chow mein. They did the laundry together in the basement of their apartment building; Adam sorting socks while Susan stuffed the machine’s mouth like a giant suckling pig.


  Only the smallest of clouds hovered on the horizon. Susan’s health could sometimes be a cause of concern. There were frequent little illnesses, colds and flu, and a flurry of migraine headaches which descended from nowhere, preceded by a strange aura of lights and whirring noises that could last as long as five or six hours.

  When that happened Susan would take to her bed and Adam made a point of pampering her, bringing breakfast on a tray with a rose beside the orange juice, doing the housecleaning and tiptoeing into the bedroom at night so as not to wake her up. He knew that was the treatment she had received for years from her father, what she had gotten used to. He tried not to let it annoy him, assuming that, as she got older and more accustomed to being a married woman, these little quirks would evaporate.

  Others disappeared from the earthly paradise. People like Gwen and Larry and Bernard Silverman, drifted away. In their place stood Max, ready to fill in whenever his largesse was required.

  One day in early December there was a phone call at the station. “Mrs. Conlon called,” said Goldman in a booming, jovial mood.

  “Who?”

  Max snorted with impatience. “Mrs. Conlon, the real estate lady. Don’t you remember? Big tall woman with a laugh like Man o’ War. Well, she’s found the perfect house for you two, and it’s in the Huntington section, which is just where you said you wanted to live.”

  Adam bristled. Who said he wanted to live in the Huntington section? He didn’t like the way Max assumed he had to act on their behalf. There was always this intrusion into their lives, not arrogant but annoying in a subtle way.

  “You might have let me know,” he said

  “I am letting you know,” Max replied. “She called me and I’m telling you, and as soon as you and Susan have a free moment, I want you to go over there and take a look. It’s under fifty thousand.”

  “Dollars?”

  “No, kopeks,” Max said.

  “Fifty thousand dollars…for a house?” Adam was shocked. The average middle-class dwelling place ran twelve or thirteen thousand, tops, which made this an outrageous luxury. But Max was unfazed.

  “Let’s not talk price, my boy,” Max purred. “It’s the kind of place the two of you will be spending the rest of your lives in. Lots of room for expansion, and perfect for raising children. Three bedrooms, a big yard in back, an attached garage. You know, Adam, that Chevy of yours is beginning to look a little beat up. One of these days…”

  “But won’t we have to take a mortgage?” Adam interrupted.

  “Is that so terrible?”

  “And I’ll have to make a down payment. I don’t have anything like that in the bank.”

  “Why don’t you worry about that later?” Max said. “The money will be there when you need it. First, I want you to make sure the house itself will work out.”

  To his surprise, Susan reacted with a casual lack of concern, as though Max’s offer was the most natural thing in the world. She said he’d already told her about the house, and she didn’t understand what the fuss was about. Of course, he knew she was lying, but he said nothing. Larry would tell him that the best strategy was to leave small lies lying where they were. This time, though, it irritated him and he said so to Susan.

  “You’re just jealous,” she teased.

  “Jealous of whom?”

  “My father. You know he can do things for us that you can’t, and it sticks in your throat. I have a good mind to tell him.”

  “I’m not jealous.”

  “You are so. If you weren’t jealous, why would you be so angry?”

  “I’m not angry.”

  “You’ve got that look.”

  “It’s just that we haven’t even seen the house, and you’re all ready to take it. How do you know it’s suitable for us?”

  Of course it was suitable. How could it be otherwise? The following morning, bright and early, they drove over to Fairhaven Street, which was located in the southern part of town. Max had parked his Cadillac against the curb and was waiting for them as they pulled up. Even from a distance, without seeing the address, he was able to identify the white clapboard house from others on the block. He shouldn’t have been surprised, and yet despite the familiarity of the scene, he felt a cold chill down his back.

  From this perspective everything seemed much bigger, and more expensive than from a flying tower at two thousand feet in the air. But the details were the same. He had pictured a verandah in front, and sure enough there was a verandah, exactly as it had appeared from above. There had been a spreading oak on the lawn, and the oak was part of the package, not to mention the pillars framing the door, the big brass knocker, the vines down the front and the second-floor balcony.

  All you needed to complete the scene was someone kneeling in a bed of flowers below the verandah holding a pair of garden shears. But the flower bed and the shears would come later. Hadn’t he seen it from the air? Shouldn’t he know what to expect? Not that there was anything magic about it. They had driven through the Huntington section more than once, gazing longingly at the houses there, although neither of them seriously believed this was where they would settle down.

  A house, a garden, vines and a spreading oak in front. What more could anyone want in a mundane world like this?

  ***

  In Max’s world, however, there were even greater wonders. Business was booming, and most miraculous of all there was the new shopping center that rose like Venus from the half shell, vast and radiant, so much larger, so different from the pygmy complexes that competed for customers in scattered locations around town.

  Southgate was Max Goldman’s triumph. He had conceived it, fought for it; he had drawn up the first rough plans. He made sure the banks, especially the First Southeastern, kicked in enough money in loans to keep the project going to completion. When money was short, he even took a second mortgage on his own house to pay the bills.

  Southgate was a giant. It was the first big suburban shopping center in this part of the state, and it glittered like a new star in the dark firmament. When finished, it promised everything young married couples could want—boutiques, home services, card shops, a pizzeria and a major department store. It had cost Max a dozen years of his life in worry and struggle.

  Some of the more conservative Canelius businessmen had organized an opposition movement and fought the project tooth and nail. Think of the traffic jams, they contended, when all those people came driving down County Road 44, looking for bargains and God knows what else. And when the customers got there, where would they park? Surely there wasn’t a parking lot big enough for that many cars. What about littering and hot rods and juvenile delinquency, which people were so fired up about these days? Not to mention duplication. Did anyone think there was a need for a second drug store, when Johnson’s had done quite nicely for almost fifty years, thank you very much?

  Surely it was wrong to even think of putting up something of that size—almost a second city—in a field where nothing but tobacco had grown for more than a century.

  Well, the old-timers might sneer, but even as they complained and groused, Max watched the work plow ahead. In mid-January the first shovelful of earth was turned. Allowing for bad weather, labor problems and unexpected delays, the best estimate said the project could be ready for customers in time for the Christmas season a year later. Half a dozen merchants had already signed up for choice spots on the mall. Many were lured there by the presence of a busy, successful department store with headquarters in Atlanta, which would anchor the south end, along with the pharmacy and a discount clothing outlet.

  The opposition continued, but by now Max had the upper hand. They could gripe all they wanted, he told his business friends, but Southgate was a fait accompli. He had hired a professional manager from Charlotte named Parker Goodwell to deflect the efforts of his enemies; Goodwell would also run the operation, steer the ingathering of businesses and oversee the selling of houses in the adjoining tract, for which task he was paid the princel
y sum of $30,000 a year. The new manager knew how to squeeze blood out of a turnip, and he was confident of success.

  “Worth every penny,” Max confided “He’ll make this thing go.”

  He was right. By April 1, the mall was on its way, although only partially paved. A housing tract opened its first show home across the street, and less than a month later every property had been sold, even the larger split-level models. The next to appear was a restaurant specializing in fried chicken and baby-back ribs, and with the advent of more agreeable weather, workmen arrived to begin widening County Road 44.

  More and more, the burgeoning shopping center required Max Goldman to spend time away from the store. As bricks and cement fell into place, the sun that shone brightly on Goldman’s mini-empire rapidly converted doubters into believers. Already a newer version was taking shape at the other end of the state. Located on a 20-acre piece of property just a block from the ocean in the resort community of De Mars, it was even larger than its prototype. Max wanted to call it Southgate East, but wiser heads prevailed and the new center became Washington Square, which had a nice, solid colonial sound to it.

  Other properties came under consideration, one in Baltimore, another in a suburb of Indianapolis. A holding company called MG Enterprises was formed, its ostensible purpose being to consider future investments and run the various operations that were springing up.

  In a spirit of generosity, Max even offered Bernard a job with MG Enterprises, but his offer was turned down. The young man’s heart, it appeared, was in furniture. He liked dealing with customers. His life revolved around kitchenettes, living room suites and three-piece sectional sofas. His judgment might be questionable, but Bernard’s loyalty was something money couldn’t buy. As a reward, Max gave Bernard a substantial raise in salary, and before long he was running the store day-to-day.

  Adam watched the spectacle unfold with bemused fascination. Almost every day, the Canelius Post-Register ran stories about Southgate and MG Enterprises in its business section. What surprised him, though, was that Max managed to get the whole thing off the ground without telling anyone. Neither he nor Susan had the slightest notion of what was under way until Goldman broke the news. A remarkable accomplishment, Adam thought.