by John Dunning
“A good friend’ll do that.”
“We became very good friends the last year or so. That’s why I don’t understand any of this. I still can’t believe he walked out of here without telling me anything.”
“And yet he did.”
“And apparently did the same thing to you.” Stoner took a deep breath. “I was thinking about him just this morning. I thought, He’s got to be dead. Why else would he not call or even drop a postcard?”
“Shame, maybe. If he’d gone back to drinking. But you never know about people. Maybe he’ll show up here yet.”
“Somehow I don’t think so. I’ve got the damnedest feeling none of us is ever going to see him again.”
Suddenly Jordan thought of that half-charred newspaper clipping from Holly’s house, and he said, “Maybe because it’s like that other one.”
Stoner turned and looked at him.
“Kendall told me about a man named March Flack. A radio actor who disappeared years ago. I assumed that was here.”
“It was here. But that’s been so long ago, how could that have anything to do with it? Jesus! March Flack?”
“What happened to him?”
“Nobody knows. He just dropped off the face of the earth.”
“Did you know him?”
“Sure, everybody did. You couldn’t be in this town and not know March. One of those bigger-than-life boys.”
“And nobody ever—”
“Nobody ever found out anything. March did a broadcast one night and left the station late, to walk home. Nobody’s seen him since. His wife’s still here, living in the same house on the beach. Still waiting for March to come tell her where he’s been the last six years.”
Jordan didn’t say anything and after a while Stoner made a little gesture and they got out of the truck. They climbed into the bed and wrestled the two barrels back to the tailgate. “I got ’em,” Jordan said, and he pushed them off, scattering hundreds of little acetate pieces across the pit. He jerked the barrels free and tossed them, empty, back on the truck.
He asked to be dropped at his hotel. There, in his room, he stripped off his sweat-soaked shirt and sat on his bed. Across the darkening dunes the station glowed with lights and life. Here I am, he thought, not at all sure where he was.
He got out some fresh clothes and took a shower and made ready for the evening. But suddenly he remembered the newspaper story. He got the soggy clips from his pocket and flattened them against the table, and there before him was the story of Harford, from the Regina Beachcomber, dated April 23, 1942.
( ( ( 10 ) ))
BEACH RADIO STATION OBSERVES 20TH YEAR
WHAR turns 20 this year, a fact that puts it in the same historicalballpark as those pioneering beacons of the New York air, WOR,WEAF and WJZ.
But the station’s history is like no other. Its technical excellence,nationally renowned, lets it play in New York “just like a local station,” said a staffer requesting anonymity, in an interview.
“We’ve got an incredible directional tower, a location on thewater that takes us straight up the Narrows into the city. On a strongnight they can hear us in Maine, and as far south as Wilmington. Andwe’re going broke.”
Hardly a man among us can boast of hearing that first broadcast,Sept. 15, 1922. It was founded as experimental station XJ12 by inventor Frank Dressler, its average day then just two hours long. News,chats and phonograph records were aired over the lunchtime.
In the fall of 1925, Dressler sold his station and all its equipmentto erstwhile industrialist Loren Harford, who installed it at its present site, on Beachfront Boulevard north of town. In 1927 he assumedthe current call letters and established a hookup to the Blue Network of the fledgling National Broadcasting Company. In 1937 hemoved most of the station’s business functions to a new office complex closer to town.
Rumors abound that Harford, heir to an aluminum businessbased in Richmond, Va., has squandered much of his family fortunein a lifelong infatuation with radio. “To pursue it at the level of hisambition requires a deep purse,” says George Rawlins, aRadio Guidereporter who wrote of Harford’s adventures in the early thirties.
“We’re talking network capability, and that means a staff of up to85 employees. If you add a studio orchestra, the weekly payroll couldgo well over 100.”
Adding to Harford’s problem is his naturally reclusive nature.“He’s got no sense of public relations,” said Rawlins. “The pieces Iwrote had to be compiled mostly from hearsay, and few of hisemployees want to be quoted by name.”
Harford came here soon after the World War, having served as alieutenant in the U.S. Army’s First Division in France. Some say hislove affair with radio began in 1910, when Caruso and others madetheir historic experimental broadcast from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.
“Almost no one heard that broadcast,” said Rawlins. “But formany of us, just the fact that such a thing was possible lit a fire in ourhearts. People born since radio came of age simply can’t imaginewhat it was like when it was all new and just beginning to happen.”
“What Harford really wanted was to buy a New York station,” saidLawrence Bills, Harford’s station manager from 1927 until he joinedthe network in 1936. “Lacking that, he wanted a station that could beheard there.”
Directional radio signals are nothing new, having their roots inthe Marconi trans-Atlantic experiment of 1901. A more modernexample is the 1939 Admiral Byrd series on NBC. Shortwaved fromLittle America to New York via Buenos Aires, it was then beamedsouthward from the powerful WGEO directional tower in Schenectady. In Antarctica, 10,000 miles away, the Byrd party could hear itsown program, instantly and on ordinary radios, as clearly as if thetransmitting tower had been broadcasting from the ice floes half amile away.
“As far as Harford is concerned, his 5,000 watts easily had the cloutof 10,000, especially when you beam it over water with a specific purpose in mind,” said Bills. “We played louder downtown than anyonebut WOR. And WOR had 50,000 watts to our five.”
In 1933, the station began airing an electrifying series of dramaticbroadcasts. These had many times the realism usually encounteredon the air. They were also controversial, putting Harford in thecrosshairs of the newly created Federal Communications Commission.
“He nearly lost his license to broadcast,” remembers Warren Nelson, then radio critic for the New YorkTimes.“My understandingwas that he was one vote shy of becoming history. You can’t foolaround with the federal government and expect to stay on the air.”
But what about the philosophy of a free radio? Wasn’t that one ofthe cornerstones of radio law, adopted in the twenties in response torunaway technology?
“Believe what you want,” says Nelson, “but radio in the UnitedStates has never been free. The idea of freedom has been set downbecause it looks good on paper, but in real life the F.C.C. has powersthat scare radio people to death. The commission always holds thetrump card, which may be played at its discretion every three years,whenever a station’s license comes up for renewal.”
Any station may be called into question and asked to prove that ithas operated “in the public interest.” Challenges to a station’slicense may be filed by anyone—listeners, rival broadcasters, or bymembers of the commission itself.
“The term ‘in the public interest’ means whatever the F.C.C.decides it means,” said Nelson.
“You can’t have anarchy on the air,” says Rawlins in the F.C.C.’sdefense. “But I can certainly understand how a man of Harford’sambitions would find arbitrary regulations intolerable. In thehands of a timid commission, the term ‘in the public interest’ canonly lead to bland, unexciting radio.”
Specifically, Harford was charged with undermining nationalmorals by airing dramas with bold adult themes. “We’re not talkingabout dirty radio,” said Nelson. “But that’s what some peoplethought, in a medium known most of all for its purity.”
Harford came under fire for two weekly shows, an anthology airedunder
the title “Soundstage,” and a half-hour continuing drama,“Home from the War.”
“‘Soundstage’ adapted short stories by gifted but unsung writers,”said Nelson. “I remember one piece that had prostitution as its central theme. You can imagine how that played.”
But it was “Home from the War” that drew the most wrath. Theserial was denounced by church leaders, leagues for decency and bymany members of Congress, who later admitted they had neverheard the show. Bills, who directed, remembered it well.
“The hero was a veteran of the World War who had seen so muchsavagery that he had lost his faith in God. We had him come rightout and say this in the first episode, and I felt the shock waves all theway up in the booth when the actor got to those lines. This just isn’tdone in American radio—not unless you’re giving them a dyed-in-the-wool all-American villain.
“But this guy was our hero. And slowly over that first month webuilt his character till you couldn’t help but love him. That’s whatthey never forgave us for. We made them love an atheist.
“Then we took on real political issues, like the Bonus March in1932. That whole bonus fiasco was a disgrace to this country and tothe men who fought for it. It was an embarrassment to our government and it should’ve been. Here we had Herbert Hoover dining onpheasant with a Marine honor guard standing at attention, and outside thousands of vets and their children were starving.”
“They had this actor who could do General MacArthur to a T,”says Nelson. “They didn’t even change the names! When Hooversends MacArthur out to roust the vets and burn their shantytown,you just lived it. I wrote a column about that show. I couldn’t believewhat I was hearing.”
Says Bills: “I think the only reason Harford survived that incidentwas that Roosevelt was in by then and the makeup of the commission had changed. Even then it was close, but Harford thrived onthat kind of excitement. Let them dare try to take his license! Thatwas a fight he was ready to take all the way through the courts.”
This kind of legal fight is seldom seen in radio. As Waldo Abbottnotes: “The industry has adopted the attitude of peace at any price,”and no one wants to tackle the F.C.C.
Harford hated the “peace at any price” doctrine. “I worked for theman nine years,” says Bills, “and I still can’t say I knew him. I doknow he was a radio animal. He believed that radio was the mostpowerful instrument for social change that we would ever have inhis lifetime.
“He couldn’t sit on a story because of someone else’s politics.That wasn’t in his makeup. If the story struck him as true, he wasgoing to air it come hell or high water.”
This era of daring and high creativity ended abruptly in 1936,when Harford’s wife, actress Jocelyn James, died of encephalitis inthe prime of her life.
“That’s when the guts went out of this place,” said one Harfordstaffer who shall remain nameless. “We’ve been going through themotions ever since.”
“She was wonderful,” said Bills. “We used her on everything andshe could do anything. She could play little girls, old ladies, just anynationality or ethnic group.
“She was the atheist’s wife in ‘Home from the War,’ and part of thereason why people came to love the hero was because they loved herso much.”
Not much is known of her life with Harford. Apparently theywere lifelong sweethearts, having shared the Richmond childhoodand an early vision of what radio could do.
“They were just getting started when that awful thing happenedto her,” said Bills. “She wanted to start an actors’ colony out at theirestate on the mainland. Harford had an old-timey village built outthere in the woods so her friends could come down from the city andbe on the air and have a place to stay for as long as they wanted.
“It was a great idea. But it all ended when she died.”
On the eve of its 20th birthday, the station is still on the air. But it’sbeen a long time since its glory days.
( ( ( 11 ) ) )
JORDAN arrived at the station at ten o’clock and found the party in full swing. The clearing was mobbed with people, the tables and grills obliterated in a crush of bodies. He was handed a beer by a man in an apron and he stood at the corner of the building watching the people and the lights twinkling off in the woods. He recognized only a few faces from the afternoon: those who had come and gone and come again, in tweeds now rather than jeans.
He was surprised by the number of young men. Many were in uniform, perhaps on a final fling before shipping out Monday for the great adventure. How many would be dead in a year? He listened to the crowd and was saddened by the swagger. It was too easy to talk at parties, to add your voice to the weight of public opinion, to take your pride in the other man’s risk and bandy words like “glory.” He had eaten only lightly since dawn but there was still much food to be had. Another hot dog, an ear of corn basted with butter, sprinkled with salt, and handed to him, steaming from the fire, on heavy brown paper. He stood apart, drinking his beer, eating his corn, watching the passing parade.
Rue appeared out of the crowd. “Well, there you are. I was beginning to think you’d left us.”
“Not a chance. I can’t remember when I’ve had this much fun.”
She smiled somewhat scornfully. “My dear, you haven’t seen any fun yet. How’d you like to help a lady in distress?”
“Doing what?”
“A gentleman wouldn’t ask. Do you want to help, or not?”
“Sure, I think. I’d probably be honored.”
She grabbed his arm and pushed through the crowd toward the trees by the creek. They broke through a wall of smoke and came to the volleyball net, staked out in the sand, with just enough light from the south parking lot to reveal the shapes of people around it and make a game of some kind possible. “I have found us a player,” she announced to the crowd. “The good guys are back in the hunt.”
He didn’t want to be a player but suddenly he was stuck with it. A warm voice nearby said, “Welcome to the ranks of the damned, Jordan,” and Livia clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, it won’t last long. They’re beating our brains out.”
He was to replace Evie Overdier, a dangerously fat woman who was still breathing hard. His other teammate was Jimmy Brinker, a thin man in his late twenties who wore a baseball cap and had a soft, shy handshake.
Three shadowy men emerged from the crowd across the net. “So, who the hell is this?” said a voice, and Livia made the introductions. “This is Jordan Ten Eyck . . . Jordan, Clay Barnet.” Barnet turned his back and walked away. Off to his left stood Alger Poindexter, and in the right court was another fellow he knew. Peter Schroeder, Livia was saying . . . one of the two Woodsmen, he couldn’t tell which in the poor light.
So now he had a name. Barnet turned and came back to the net, closer now, for a better, second look. He wore a neatly trimmed beard, a man of middle age playing a young man’s game. Schroeder stepped back, just out of the light, and Poindexter stood his ground. Livia drew her team together about ten feet behind the net. “Jordan, you start against Clay at the net. You’re the only one with the reach and we can’t afford to lose another point. Clay’s been humiliating Evie, so if you can just make him eat a little sand I’ll die a happy woman. Have you ever played this game?”
“A long time ago. Don’t expect any miracles.”
What difference did it make? He’d be badly out of practice now, and it was a sandlot game with a dime store net, and lines drawn in the sand. Did it matter who would win? But there was Barnet, a predator stalking the net, and Jordan knew nothing was ever just a game to a man like that.
“They’re ahead twelve-four and they’ve got the ball,” Livia said. “Let’s see if we can make it respectable.”
The game began and Barnet scored immediately, punching the ball past Jordan’s outstretched hands. Poindexter and Barnet did a little war dance, hand-slapping and yelling taunts over the net.
“Thirteen-four,” Barnet said. “Two points to game.”
Barnet served to L
ivia. She tipped it up and Jordan punched it over Barnet’s head, making Poindexter come up fast. The ball dropped between them.
“Goddammit, Alger, I had the son of a bitch!”
Rue laughed and moved over. “No point, our ball.”
She served a sizzling shot that cleared the net by half an inch. Barnet got a fist on it and popped it over Livia’s head into the backcourt. Brinker kept it alive, Rue tipped it, and Jordan slapped it across. Now he was ready. He knew exactly what Clay Barnet would do, what the Barnets of the world always do. How they always go for the throat.
He faked left and doubled back at once as Barnet took the bait and slammed right. He tipped the ball and Livia was there at his shoulder, banging it past Barnet’s hands for the point.
“Hot damn, sucker slam!” Rue cried. “Thirteen-five!”
Her next serve was hard and fast. Barnet attacked the ball, skimming it just over the net. Jordan went headfirst after it, getting under it in the last second and looping it back into play. Brinker made the save and Livia batted it across. Jordan was on his feet, ready now as Barnet sent it whipping into his face. He punched it back, took it again, punched it back: three, four, five times, like warriors in the ring they slugged it out at point-blank range. Barnet wavered and missed, and Rue screamed, “Thirteen-six!” and clapped her hands.
Jordan heard Barnet say, “Son of a bitch,” and when he looked again Barnet was staring into his eyes. He glared back, said, “Are you talking to me?” and now Barnet wilted under this challenge as well. “Your ass is mine, cowboy,” Jordan said in the same tone of voice.
It was ugly now and the crowd was getting into it. People were two deep, shouting and cheering him on. The serve was broken, back and forth, the players rotated, and the Woodsman was flushed out into the light . . . the second Woodsman, Jordan could now see: the one of the bathroom mirror. He danced constantly, as if in the unceasing movement he could put off the moment of recognition that had already occurred. Jordan held him with his eyes. He had two of them on the run now, for reasons that had nothing to do with this silly game.
