“I never discuss my patients. But if you have any doubts perhaps you should go to another doctor. There are several good men I could recommend.”
“No, Archie baby, you’re my man. See you at seven.”
Robin sat across the desk from Dr. Gold. The whole idea struck him as ridiculous. He never opened up to anyone—how could he tell this placid-looking stranger what was bugging him?
Dr. Gold recognized the silence and smiled. “Sometimes it’s easier to talk about intimate things with someone you don’t know. That’s why bartenders are the recipients of so many confidences. In a way the psychiatrist and the bartender have a great deal in common. We remain in our spot; you only have to see us when you want to. You don’t run into us in your day-to-day living.”
Robin laughed. “You’ve made your point. Okay—it’s as simple as this. There’s a girl.” He paused. “I can’t get her out of my mind—but I don’t dig her. That’s what’s so crazy.”
“When you say you don’t dig her—do you mean you dislike her?”
“No, I do like her. I like her a lot. But I can’t make it with her in bed.”
“Have you ever tried?”
Robin shrugged. “Seems when I was pissy-eyed drunk I went after her on two separate occasions, and judging from her reactions, I was pretty good.”
“Then what makes you say you can’t make it with her?”
Robin lit a cigarette and exhaled thoughtfully. “Well, the first time it happened I woke up the following morning and she was gone. I couldn’t even recall her face—or her name. I just knew that she was a brunette with big tits. And something disturbed me when I thought about it that morning. I couldn’t remember a thing, yet I sensed I had done something or said something I shouldn’t have. Then to compound the felony, I run into the lady two years later and have absolutely no recollection that we had ever met. She was making it with a buddy of mine. I thought she was beautiful, good company, and she was with him. Which was fine with me, because, like I said, she wasn’t my type. We double-dated a few nights—then I went off for some fishing, alone. On my last night there, I went out with them. It started out as a great evening, only I got roaring drunk. My buddy passed out and I wound up with the lady. I have no recollection of being with her—except that I woke up the following morning in her bed. And I must have made it with her pretty good because there she was making breakfast and chirping little mating calls.”
“What was your feeling about her?” Dr. Gold asked.
Robin shuddered. “Fright. It was almost like waking up and finding you were with a boy, or a child—someone you shouldn’t have gone to bed with. And because I did like her, I leveled with her.” He ground out the cigarette. “I was rough. I told her how I felt. She was so damn beautiful, yet when I thought of sex with her I felt this sudden revulsion, and I knew I couldn’t make it.”
“Revulsion for her?”
“No. Revulsion about sex—as if doing it with her would be dirty, incestuous. Yet I like her. Maybe I like her more than any girl I’ve met. But I can’t feel a physical drive for her.”
“And you want to go to bed with her, or—let me put it this way: you would like to have this hangup, as you put it, removed so that you can fulfill a relationship with her.”
“Wrong again. I don’t care if I never see her again. But I don’t like dark areas in my brain. This girl is beautiful—why should I feel this way? And it’s happened before, just in a few isolated cases, but always with a brunette. Only they were never quite the caliber of this girl and fortunately I never saw them again. This thing with Maggie—it was an accident. I just happened to get roaring drunk.”
“Just happened? Were you drinking an unusual drink? Something you were unaccustomed to?”
“No, vodka. That’s what I always stick with.”
“Were you aware that you were ordering too many drinks?”
“I guess I was.”
“Let’s go back to the first time with this girl. Two years ago. Were you very drunk when you met her?”
“No, but I was drinking.”
“And then you purposely proceeded to get drunk?”
“Purposely?”
Dr. Gold smiled. “It would seem that way. I wouldn’t say you were the kind of a man who is caught off guard.”
Robin looked thoughtful. “You mean that subconsciously I wanted this girl and intentionally got drunk so I could make it with her?” When Dr. Gold didn’t answer, Robin shook his head. “Doesn’t add up—because I don’t dig this type of girl. Why would I want to make it with her? Drunk or sober, she’s not my type.”
“What is your type?”
“Slim, golden, clean hard-bodied girls. I like the smell of gold hair. Maggie is sultry—like a jungle cat.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
He shrugged. “Hung on girls, sure. But I’ve always been able to walk away from it. Know something, Archie. Everyone is not heterosexual or homosexual. There are people who are just plain sexual. They dig the bed scene, but don’t necessarily fall in love. Take Amanda: she was great. I thought we had a marvelous relationship. Yet from what Jerry told me, I hurt her very badly. But I was never aware of it. I only cut out toward the end when she tried to swallow me. And even then I was only cooling it—but I had no idea that all along I’d been hurting her.”
“You really never knew?”
“That’s right. If I took off to tape a show in Europe and didn’t write, I figured she knew the score—that I was coming back, and it would be to her. And when I did come back, I couldn’t wait to get into the feathers with her. It was great.”
“Yet you are conscious that you have hurt this other girl, Maggie.”
Robin nodded. “Yes.”
“Why would you be unaware that you were hurting Amanda, whom you really desired, yet be so painfully aware of this girl you don’t care about?”
“That’s why I’m here, Archie. You tell me.”
“What did your mother look like?”
“Oh Christ, let’s not go into the Freudian jazz. I had a healthy happy childhood. Kitty is blond, nice, clean—” He stopped.
“And your father?”
“He was a hell of an outgoing guy. Strong, all muscles. I have a nice kid sister. Everything was shipshape in my childhood. We’re only wasting time there.”
“All right … father, mother, sister. All healthy relationships. Let’s locate the dark stranger. Was it a nurse? A schoolteacher?”
“My first teacher was a hunchback. That was kindergarten. My nurse—well, I must have had one, but I can’t recall. There were servants—a chauffeur took me to school. There was a nurse when Lisa was born—a gray-haired job.”
“Was there any rivalry between you and your sister?”
“Hell, no. I was her big brother. I was protective of her. She looked like a tiny Kitty: blond, white and clean.”
“Do you resemble Kitty?”
Robin frowned. “I have her blue eyes, but my hair is dark like my father’s, although now it’s turning gray pretty fast.”
“Let’s go back to before Lisa was born. What is the first memory you have?”
“Kindergarten.”
“Before that.”
“None.”
“You must be able to recall something. Everyone remembers one small incident in early childhood. A pet, a playmate, happiness, disaster.”
Robin shook his head. Dr. Gold pursued: “A conversation, a prayer?”
Robin snapped his fingers. “Yes—one thing. Maybe it was a conversation, but it was just a line and I can’t remember who said it: ‘Men don’t cry. If you cry you’re not a man, you’re a baby.’ For some reason it stuck with me. I believed it. I believed that if I didn’t cry I could have anything I wanted. Whoever said it must have made an impression on me because I never cried after that.”
“You’ve never cried?”
“Not that I can recall.” Robin smiled. “Oh, I’ll go to a corny movie and get a lump in my thr
oat. But in my own personal life”—he shook his head—“never.”
Dr. Gold looked at his watch. “It’s five to eight. Would you care to make an appointment for next Monday? My fee is thirty-five dollars an hour.”
Robin’s expression was one of disbelief. “You must be some kind of a nut. I’ve been here almost an hour, to discuss a girl that I have some hangup about. We’ve solved nothing—and you want me to come back.”
“Robin, it’s not natural to be unable to recall anything in your childhood.”
“Five years old is not exactly middle-aged.”
“No, but you should be able to recollect some incident that occurred before, unless—”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you are intentionally blocking it out.”
Robin leaned across the desk. “Archie, I swear to God, I have not blocked out anything. Maybe I have a lousy memory—or did it ever occur to you that perhaps nothing ever happened that was worth recalling?”
Archie shook his head. “Very often when something traumatic happens, the brain automatically builds amnesia as scar tissue.”
Robin walked toward the door. He turned to the doctor. “Look I lived in a nice big house, with two nice parents and a pretty little sister. No skeletons in my closet. Maybe that’s the bit. Maybe things went too smooth, maybe kindergarten was the first jolt I got—the hunchback teacher—maybe that’s why my memory starts there.”
“Who told you a man doesn’t cry?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it before kindergarten?”
“It had to be, because I didn’t cry in kindergarten when the other kids did. They were all scared of the teacher—the poor bitch.”
“Then who said it?”
“Archie, I don’t know. But whoever it was, I bless them. I don’t like to see men cry. I don’t even like to see women or babies cry.”
“Robin, I’d like to try you on hypnosis.”
“Are you crazy? Look, Doc, I was in the war and got shot up a bit. I can think of a hell of a lot of things I went through that could have loosened some screws, but I came through in one piece. I came here to get one specific question answered. You come up zero. Okay. Be a sport and admit it. Don’t try to make good by digging back into my childhood to see if a nurse belted me when I was two or three for messing up my toys. Maybe she did and maybe she had black hair and green eyes and big tits—okay?”
“You know where to find me if you decide to try it my way,” Dr. Gold said.
Robin grinned. “Thanks, but I think it’s easier and less expensive to duck if I run into a green-eyed brunette.” He closed the door and walked into the night. Dr. Gold stared at the notes he had made, and put them in a folder. He would not destroy them: Robin Stone would return.
Robin glanced at the February Nielsens. The news department was finally giving the other networks real competition. This week it was second in its time period. In Depth was still in the top twenty-five. He had given Andy a shot at it last week and it had gone well. He studied the presentation of the saucer project—the research staff had come up with some exciting new angles. It would make a hell of a show.
He met with Danton Miller the following day and explained his intention of easing out of In Depth and letting Andy take over permanently the following season. Oddly enough, Dan raised no objections.
“Giving up acting?” he said with a smile. “Your adoring public won’t like that.”
“I intend to do a news special once a month,” Robin explained. “Take some subject that no one will touch. Dig into it, lay it bare. This could be the first.” He handed Dan the saucer presentation. Dan read it carefully.
“Sounds like a Sunday afternoon project—it might grab the kids,” Dan said. “But it’s not a nighttime show.”
“I think it is. Why not try one shot in May or June in prime time, when the big shows are having reruns? That should be an honest test.”
“If you like, I’ll slate it for a Sunday afternoon, April or May. But not at night.”
“I don’t want Sunday afternoon,” Robin said. “You know damn well it would get no rating. The baseball games would kill it. I’m looking for sponsor interest for the fall.”
Dan smiled. “If you want to line up a staff and put this science-fiction crap on tape, that’s up to you. But it has no place in my network planning.”
Robin reached over and picked up the phone. Dan’s secretary came on. “Would you call Mr. Gregory Austin. Tell him Robin Stone and Danton Miller would like to see him at his earliest convenience.”
Dan’s face drained of color. He recovered quickly and forced a smile. “That was a bad move,” he said easily. “You just went over my head.”
“But not behind your back.” For a moment their eyes locked in silence. When the phone rang it seemed unnaturally loud. Dan reached for it. The secretary announced that Mr. Austin could see them immediately.
Robin stood up. “Coming, chum?”
Dan’s eyes narrowed. “Seems like I have no choice.” Then he smiled. “I’m curious to see Gregory’s reaction to your Buck Rogers drama. He’ll realize I’ve vetoed it—and Gregory doesn’t like having his time wasted to act as referee. That’s why I’m president of Network Television. My decision on matters like this is final. But I think I’ll let you dig your own grave.”
Dan sat back as Robin outlined the saucer project to Gregory. When he had finished, Gregory turned to Dan. “I gather you’re against it.”
Dan smiled and held his fingers together pyramid style. “Robin would like to do a show like this next season. One a month—in prime time.”
Gregory looked at Robin questioningly. “A saucer show every month?”
Robin laughed. “No, I want to do an hour of television comparable to a Life magazine spread on a subject that’s in the news. Saucers, politics—anything that’s timely or newsworthy. Instead of doing a personality—like our half hour on In Depth—we do a subject, for an hour. An important movie could be filming—we’d go on location, talk with the stars, the director, the author. We could go into the private life of a television personality—take Christie Lane. The public keeps asking what he’s really like—”
The mention of Christie Lane brought a sudden look of concern to Gregory’s eyes. He turned to Dan. “That reminds me, we only have Christie signed for another season. Has anyone done anything about getting him signed to a new long-term contract?”
“We’ve started the negotiations,” Dan said. “He wants to start reruns the end of April so he can pick up all that Vegas money. He’s also booked some fairs. He gets ten thousand a night for them. He’s still doing the shows live, but we’ve been taping them for the rerun bank. And next season he wants to go to tape—he’s secure enough now. There’s no problem there. But Cliff Dome says we’re miles apart in money—in what he’s asking and what we want to give. We’ve agreed to give him a big raise, but he wants to form his own company—split ownership of the show with us. And he wants ownership of his tapes after the first rerun to sell to the independents. Plus many other fringe benefits. It’s not going to be easy—both NBC and CBS are hot on his tail.”
The secretary crept in and announced that Mrs. Austin was calling. Gregory rose. “I’ll take it in the other room.” Both men watched him disappear into the inner office. Dan was the first to break the silence. He leaned across and tapped Robin on the knee. His voice was low. “Listen to me: I hope you’ve learned a lesson. You’ve had a chance to look behind the scenes of network planning. There’s more to it than being an Ivy League reporter. You’ve bored Gregory with your piddling science-fiction show. You’ve taken up my time and his. You are president of News. I am president of Network Television. I work alone—I’m not looking for a partner.”
Robin laughed. “This sounds like a Madison Avenue version of a Chicago gang war: You have the South Side and I take the North Side.”
“I have both sides. You have News, period. And you don’t mix into programming. I�
��m not a newsboy playing part-time actor, part-time executive. This is my life—not a hobby. And no one cuts into it.”
“I have no desire to shoot for any of your marbles. But I am president of News and I have a show that I think should go on. You have to give me the time. If you say no, then I have to—”
“You have to pass! Get it? Pass! The next time I say I don’t want a show—you pass. There are to be no more calls to Gregory Austin!”
Robin’s grin was easy. “Well then, Mr. President, just don’t pass too quickly.”
Gregory Austin returned. “Sorry, gentlemen. I never let personal calls interfere with business, but then Mrs. Austin is my most important business.” His face softened as his thoughts reverted to his wife. Then he cleared his throat, and his expression took on the matters at hand. “I was telling Mrs. Austin your idea about the saucer special. She was intrigued. I never realized that there is a romanticism to space that appeals to women. Go ahead with the saucer project, Dan. Slate it in May in place of one of Christie’s reruns. If it gets a rating, then we’ll talk about a monthly series.” He looked at Dan. “I’ll work with Cliff Dome on the Christie Lane renewal. Anything else on the agenda?”
Dan stood up. “I guess that’s about it.”
Gregory waited until both men reached the door—then almost as an afterthought he said, “Oh, Robin, would you wait one moment. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Dan left and Robin eased himself into a chair. Gregory stared after the closed door and smiled. “Dan’s a good man. An ambitious man. Hell, we all are. That’s why he’s good. I like the idea of you thinking of other projects. Only from here on, if they’re outside the news department, come to me first—and I’ll pass them on to Dan as my idea. It will keep peace in our little family.”
Robin smiled. “I’m still new at network protocol.” He made no move to leave, because he sensed this wasn’t the real reason Gregory had detained him.
“Robin”—Gregory’s manner was suddenly oddly shy—”I know this seems like trivia, and it has nothing to do with the line of duty—but what happened to you on January first?”
The Love Machine Page 30
