by Walter Blum
He had just pulled Blue Tango off the shelf when Seeley opened the door and leaned in. “Oh, I forgot—you had a phone call from Max Goldman.”
Adam could feel the back of his neck tingle. “What did he want?”
“I don’t know. He just said for you to phone him at his office.”
“Typical.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. I’ll call him.”
“Do you need the number, Adam?”
“I know the number,” he said grimly.
How clever, how considerate. What a good, kind man Max Goldman was, always looking out for his son-in-law’s best interests, always there to fill a need, to solve a problem. The stacks of records on the table were beginning to mount up, each representing a different day, each with a different theme behind it and before long he found himself counting, not records, but sticks of furniture—a sofa here, a bedroom suite there, a clock for the living room mantel—each a gift from Max Goldman, a token of love from the old man’s storehouse of wedding donations.
He wanted to scream with anger, but instead he grabbed for the phone that sat on the table, knocking one of the record stacks to the floor in his haste. The receptionist at MG Enterprises answered his call and passed him on to Goldman’s secretary, who informed him that Max was out of the office but would be back in about an hour and had left word that if Adam called, there was some free time available on the calendar for later in the morning, and they could get together then, if it suited his convenience.
They arranged to meet shortly before noon.
22
Three days later, he moved out.
So that he could walk to his new job, he took a furnished apartment downtown, two blocks from the Mishniak Building, where MG Enterprises was headquarters. The apartment was spartan but sufficed for his needs. It had a bed, a dresser, a desk and chair and an end table beside the bed. A framed lithograph of a wheat field hung over the bed, the only attempt at decoration. There was an adjoining bathroom and a shower but no bath; a lamp and a radio that worked sporadically. The single window was streaked with dirt and looked out on a courtyard in back. A battered air-conditioner sat in the open frame. He flipped the switch the day he moved in, but it made so much noise, clanking and whirring and giving off such hideous wheezes that he had to turn it off.
The nights were the most difficult. Once the tower was closed, the only voices available were those filtering through the tissue-thin walls of his room. He started going for long walks, but soon gave that up when his route took him past the Jefferson Davis Hotel, and he found himself looking to see if the red Ferrari was parked out front, which was the last thing he wanted to know. If she was with Bernard—or anyone, for that matter—there wasn’t much he could do about it. If she wanted to be her own woman, that was her prerogative now. She could even stay home and entertain if she liked, although he tried not to dwell on it. The thought of some man in his bed in his bedroom in his house, making love to his wife, was almost more than he could bear.
One morning he awoke to a pounding rainstorm, sheets of water battering his window, rattling the air conditioner. He had slept poorly the night before and got out of bed with the makings of an insidious cold. To make matters worse, he had left his raincoat back at the house. Most of the downtown buildings hung canvas canopies for the benefit of customers who could dash in and out of the raindrops, but it was too early for them to be opened. He ran all the way and arrived at work drenched to the skin.
Despite the hour and the weather, there was a guest waiting. Adam escorted him into the inner office and spent the next several minutes drying off with a fistful of paper towels brought to him by his secretary, a shapely, curly-haired young woman named Francine, while Larry gave the office a meticulous inspection and Francine went off to put the water on for coffee.
“I hear you’ve signed up with a station in Texas,” Adam said.
“I got lucky,” Larry said without conviction. “They’re giving me more money, and I get to put on a country music show every morning, just as I did at WCAN.”
“Sounds all right to me,” Adam said.
Larry stared at him with mock scorn. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.” Francine brought in the coffee on a tray and Adam inquired if he wanted cream or sugar. “No, black is fine,” he replied, leaning back in his chair. He gestured at the small but comfortably furnished office that Adam now called home. There was a long silence while each waited for the other to respond.
“All right,” Larry finally said, waving his hand at the office. “Explain this.”
Adam shrugged. “Max made me an offer. I needed a job. That’s all there is to it.”
Larry stared at him incredulously. “You really think you can go to work for your father-in-law?”
Adam smiled to himself. Larry couldn’t possibly know what was going on, and yet he’d found the truth without realizing it. Best, though, not to reveal too much.
“Why not?” Adam shrugged again.
Larry shook his head. “I don’t know, Adam. I think you’re out of your mind, but it’s your life and your decision to make. I suppose you spend your time in meetings and reading financial reports, which you don’t understand, and dictating letters you could probably write yourself.”
“There are worse things in life.”
“I’m sure there are. They pay you well?”
“Better than what I was getting at WCAN.”
“Well, you’re probably doing the right thing. There’s certainly no future in radio, not with people like Ted Sauer taking over.” A hint of exasperation crept into his voice. “Anyway, before long everyone will be watching television and that will be the end of radio. You have to move with the times.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Does Susan go along with this?”
Adam turned away. “We haven’t discussed it.” He took a deep breath. “Susan and I are…well, we’re not living together.”
Larry’s face fell. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to…I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, should I? I remember you told me once that getting a divorce is like sitting shivah for a marriage—that’s the ritual for someone who’s passed away, isn’t it?” Adam nodded. “Well, now it’s your turn. Now I’m holding your hand, and you’re the one who’s listening.”
“You don’t have to hold my hand,” Adam said quietly. “It hasn’t come to that yet.”
“I hope not. Anyway, keep in mind that if you need a shoulder to cry on, I’ll always be there.” He stopped abruptly with the realization of what he had just said. “Well, I’ll be here for a little while. After that, you can get me on the phone.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Middle of the month.” He pulled out a pocket spiral notebook and a pencil and wrote something on a page. “My number in Texas.” He handed the sheet to Adam. “I don’t have a place to stay yet, but that’s the number for the station, and I’ll let you know as soon as I’m settled.”
Adam walked him to the elevator. “Oh, by the way,” Larry said. “Seeley is organizing a little going-away party for the people at the station. Eight o’clock Saturday night at her place, since she seems to have more room than anyone else. Potluck, but you don’t have to bring anything if you don’t want to. You’ll come?”
“I’ll try.”
“Everyone will be there. Try to make it. Chances are none of us will ever see each other again.”
“I’ll come,” Adam murmured.
They embraced, in that gingerly fashion men affect. Adam escorted Larry to the elevator and pushed the button. A door opened and closed. He could hear the sound it made as the latch clicked shut, far away. Not the slippery, sliding sound of an elevator door but something much more ominous, more final. He went back to his office, walked over to the window and looked down, feeling more alone than ever before.
Below, the pavement glistened wetly as a feeble sun emerged. People passed by, the tops of their heads like little mushr
ooms, umbrellas now unfurled. It occurred to him that if he opened the window and leaned over, he could see the ornate, arched entrance to the building through which he had passed that first day, not so long ago, trying, if reluctantly, to believe that he was doing the right thing.
He knew what Larry must think of him. This job, and all that went with it, had come about because of Susan. Well, maybe he was right. He had sold out, exchanged what few ideals remained to him for a weekly paycheck and a life devoid of scrounging; he’d made his bed in the boudoir of the enemy. He could never again look at himself in the mirror without thinking of how he’d lost the respect of those who meant the most to him. If only they knew the price he had paid—his marriage mortgaged, his happiness, everything he held dear put up for bids because he had to protect the woman he loved from the anger, the scorn, the retribution of a society blind to everything but its own self-importance.
And it wasn’t his doing. He’d stumbled into this web Max Goldman had woven for him, and as long as he loved her, as long as there was the slightest shred of affection left in him, there was no way he could release himself from its sticky threads.
He walked back to his desk and sat down, feeling tired and defeated, aware that he was only trying to justify his own actions, and not doing a very good job of it. Dropping Larry’s half empty Styrofoam coffee cup in the wastepaper basket, he sat down at the desk, chose a folder from the in-basket and leafed through its contents. It all seemed so pointless, just another prospectus for an investment he was being asked to assess, as though he had any idea what it all meant. It shocked him to think that millions of dollars could be riding on the advice he gave.
***
They all came. Larry arrived with Julie on his arm, her hair a mass of ringlets sinuously hung. Wally brought his wife Narisse, a short, mousy woman with a tendency to ramble on at the wrong moments. The O’Neills, Sam and Amy, had managed to find a sitter for the kids but were due home before midnight. Brian Hathaway, the young announcer who worked with an alter ego named Squeaky—he had barely settled into his job as morning man when the rug was pulled out from under him—popped in a little later. Even Dominic Bardini had been invited, the standby engineer who took over when the antenna blew, that night darkness descended in a rush and all the imps of hell came out to feast.
Adam thought of the conversation he’d had with Larry that day in the Palm Room at the Jefferson Davis Hotel. Larry had laughed at his rather naive observation that there were no Negroes present in the dining area, given the lingering presence of Jim Crow in the South in those days. But then his expression changed and he made a startling prediction—that things were changing, that nothing ever stayed the same, that someday even in this part of the world, blacks would be standing elbow to elbow with whites at bars and parties and not just as servants.
Well, things do change. Look at all of us, dug in, firmly entrenched in our little world, Adam thought. And now we’re being scattered like pollen on a summer wind. Separated by force over which none of us have any control. Who would have thought it could happen? And so quickly.
It was impossible not to notice how subdued the general mood was, how hushed the voices. People wandered aimlessly through the big old house on Magnolia Street, bumping up against the china cats and crystal goblets and replicas of English country scenes on the walls, filling the silver ashtrays with the remains of cigarettes, leaving their drinks on the polished top of the big old Brunswick console radio, where the glasses would form water rings that found a permanent home in the wood.
The absence of strong drink didn’t help, either, for Seeley kept her house stringently non-alcohol. “Fruit punch,” she would announce, emerging hopefully from the kitchen with a tray of glasses. “Please, folks, try the fruit punch,” she would urge, and managed the second time around to win a few converts to the cause.
Adam drank about half his before the tartness of it got the better of him. It felt strange, being the only one to have come alone, although the subject was never mentioned. He hadn’t planned to stay long, but seeing the others with their lost expressions and knowing this was the last time they’d all be together, in one room, he sensed a kind of historical finality to the moment. For almost a week now his spirits had hovered on the bottom rung. He needed something to prick him out of his lethargy, a quick shock, a dash of cold water in the face.
The main topic of conversation, of course, was the question of what would happen to the station as soon as it officially changed hands and the new order took over. Everyone tried to talk around it, but the question was impossible to ignore. Young Hathaway was the first to bring it up. “I hear they’re planning to play rock and roll,” he said.
“Oh, my! I hope not,” Seeley said in mild alarm.
“If it’s on the play list, they’ll have to program it,” Larry said.
“What’s rock and roll?” asked Sam, whose booth at the ballpark isolated him from all but the most obvious musical trends.
“You know, rhythm and blues, that sort of thing.”
Sam wrinkled his nose. “Don’t like it,” he said.
“You don’t have to like it,” Hathaway retorted. “As Larry said, whatever’s on the play list, that’s what they’ll program. They have to. That’s the way format stations work.”
Standing against the wall, her hands clenching and unclenching, Seeley listened to the random conversations with a heavy heart. She was beginning to have second thoughts about having called this party. Originally, she had intended to stretch a large, white crepe-paper banner from wall to wall overhead, celebrating the occasion. But what would it say? “WELCOME HOME”? Hardly. “FAREWELL, WCAN”? Not exactly accurate. The station wasn’t going anywhere. It was the staff that was blowing in the wind, and yet they were really just gypsies, weren’t they, moths that migrated from tree to tree and ocean to ocean as the seasons waxed and waned.
Mr. Baines liked to characterize them as a family, but they weren’t that, either. Just a group of strangers brought temporarily together by circumstance. Seeley, who inherited this house from her mother, had lived in Canelius all her life. She would be staying on—the new owners saw no reason why she couldn’t perform the same duties regardless of the sounds that came out of her radio. But for the others, who had never enjoyed anything even vaguely permanent, it was little more than rainbows and smoke.
“You’re not leaving town?” Seeley asked as they stood in the doorway, watching the crowd bubble and disintegrate and reform.
“Not yet,” Adam said.
“Everything’s all right at home?”
“Everything’s fine.”
His answer failed to convince her, but before she could probe deeper he had strolled into the kitchen. Meanwhile, in the next room, Wally was sounding off about the new owners. To no one’s surprise, he seemed to think the new ownership was the best thing that could happen to WCAN. “I hear they’re selling off the equipment and buying all new stuff,” he said, straightening his bow tie, which always seemed to tilt crookedly at the most unpropitious moment. “Can you imagine, all these years with that crummy control board and God knows what else, and now…”
“The station sounded just as good,” Larry pointed out. “No one knew the control board was that dirty.”
“It made my skin crawl,” said Wally.
“I didn’t know you were so fastidious.”
“Did you ever see the finger marks on that board?”
“Well, you did your share,” Larry said. “We all did our share. Anyway, I don’t think any of this is going to matter five years from now—or a hundred, do you?”
“I don’t plan to live that long,” Wally said.
“How many of us, do you think, will be around five years from now?” Brian Hathaway chimed in.
Sam turned away. He was the only one besides Seeley who could actually count on a job at the new WCAN. The new owners wanted him to continue doing the Hawks’ play-by-play, mixed in with a little basketball and whatever high-school foot
ball might come up. Most everyone had long since given up trying to explain Sam O’Neill’s popularity. The flat voice, the humorless delivery were apparently all part of his charm, or so Adam thought, since he too enjoyed Sam’s company despite his obvious limitations as a sportscaster.
“I hear you landed a nice job,” Sam said to Adam, who had visited the kitchen briefly and emerged with an apple in his hand. “Working for your father-in-law? What’s that like?”
“Takes getting used to,” Adam said.
“Good salary?”
“It pays the mortgage,” Adam said, and winced. Almost every answer to every question these days reminded him of Susan but, then, he still hadn’t had enough time to resign himself to her absence. You put iodine on a cut, he thought, and it’s going to burn for a while and the wound will throb no matter what distractions you search for. He took a bite out of the apple and waited to swallow before adding: “Better than what I was getting at the station.”
“If you’re ever in the mood for a baseball game, stop by the announce booth. There’s always plenty of room.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.”
“And be sure to bring—” He stopped, aware that there was no way he could adequately complete the sentence. It was like playing fill-in-the-blank, with no name available to finish the form. Caught in an awkward moment, he glanced toward the center of the room, where Wally was unraveling a long story about how he had landed a job as an account executive at a Chicago advertising agency, which was just one step from the big time in New York, and how the path to power was only a heartbeat removed. He had reached into his pocket to show everyone the check he’d been sent to cover his first month’s expenses, and instead pulled out a pair of keys on a chain.
“Well, how about that!” he whooped. Wally was in a giddy mood. He glanced quickly at the keychain. “Back door and front door. Now I can sneak into the station some night and help myself to a bundle of records. Or maybe a spare tape recorder, if there’s one lying around.”
