by Howard Fast
For forty-eight hours thereafter, Shirley was an object of concentration for newspaper writers, magazine feature writers and television interviewers; but Cynthia felt that the high spot of the whole business was the interview with Gabe Pressman of the National Broadcasting Company, which was held in Mr. Gerald Bushwick’s office.
It was Mr. Bushwick himself who volunteered the use of his office, and he understandably agreed to participate in the interview if it was necessary. Shirley, upset and bewildered by the whole thing, wore her black knit, a very plain dress which, Cynthia held, did something for her figure but nothing in particular for her face and hair.
When all the apparatus for the interview had been set up in Mr. Bushwick’s office, which required a good part of the morning, Mr. Bushwick, Mr. Pressman, Shirley and the technicians foregathered there.
“We do this very simply and off the cuff, Shirley,” Mr. Pressman said to her. “I will call you Shirley. You will call me Gabe. That’s simply a matter of the form we use. Since Mr. Bushwick is a little older than either of us, we’ll call him Mr. Bushwick. I ask the questions. You answer them. Don’t worry about anything. Are you ready?”
“I guess so,” Shirley nodded.
“All right. Now, Shirley, how does it feel to inherit a quarter of a million dollars?”
“I’m still numb,” Shirley replied. “The only thing I can really feel is a sense of sorrow about the death of Mr. Stillman. I liked him.”
“Did you expect the inheritance, Shirley?”
“No—not at all.”
“What are you going to do with the money?”
“I can’t do anything about what they call the principal—I mean the money itself, because that has to be held in trust for the next ten years. But I have an income from it, which is more money than I ever dreamed I would have.”
“How does it feel to be the richest employee of Bushwick Brothers, Shirley?”
“I don’t know, Gabe. I don’t feel anything about it.”
“Will you go on working here, Shirley?”
“I hope so, Gabe.”
“Why? You’re rich enough to stop.”
“I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I stopped, Gabe. I always worked.”
And turning to Mr. Bushwick, “What about you, Mr. Bushwick? How do you feel about this?”
“I’ll tell you, Gabe. We are glad that Shirley came into this money. But we are not impressed by the money. We are impressed by the character of one of our employees—by the courage this girl displayed. That’s what impresses us.”
Shirley spent that evening at Cynthia’s apartment, not only to escape the reporters, but because Cynthia’s twenty-one-inch screen was more impressive than Shirley’s seventeen-inch screen, and because the image was always clearer at Cynthia’s place.
“How about that,” Cynthia said when Mr. Bushwick spoke his piece. “You know something. I’m almost sorry for Mr. Morrow.”
“I was feeling the same thing,” Shirley agreed.
“It doesn’t even help to say that he brought it on himself.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Well—kee, sirrah, sirrah—”
“What?”
“You know, what will be will be, like the French say.”
Mr. Bushwick’s thoughts were traveling somewhat in the same channels, as he watched the interview on his twenty-nine-inch color combination TV-high-fi. “A fine interview,” he remarked to one of his brothers.
“It’s worth its weight in gold,” said the second brother.
“You can’t afford to misjudge people,” said the third Bushwick brother.
“Certainly not.”
“Mr. Morrow,” the second Bushwick brother said, “well, let us face it. Mr. Morrow misjudges people.”
“Mr. Bergan?” asked the third Bushwick brother without enthusiasm.
“Do you happen to know what this broadcast is worth?” Mr. Bushwick demanded. “I am not just speaking of the dollars-and-cents value. I am talking about deeper things.”
“But Mr. Bergan?” the third Bushwick brother asked again, his enthusiasm in no way increased.
“Spiritual values,” the second Bushwick brother observed firmly. “We are talking about spiritual values in an age that has lost touch with spiritual values—and believe me, it is no easy matter to make an identification between plastics and spiritual values. This girl has made the identification for us.”
“How?”
“As plain as the nose on your face. Furthermore, suppose she marries Bergan?”
“I have noticed nothing hopeful there. Still—the TV time alone is worth ten thousand dollars. Not to mention the good will. I will speak to Mr. Morrow tomorrow.”
The following morning, going through the papers that had accumulated on his desk, Mr. Bushwick found Mr. Morrow’s memo. He read it thoughtfully, brooded over it for a while and then called for Mr. Morrow.
“The point is,” he said to Mr. Morrow, “that a man requires a certain special skill for personal relations. I don’t want you to think of this as a demotion, Morrow, but we’re transferring you to Inventory. It needs a keen mind.”
It must be said that Morrow took the whole thing very hard, and even Mr. Bergen felt twinges of regret. In any case, he felt far from boastful as he stopped by Shirley’s desk and informed her that he had been promoted.
“Congratulations,” Shirley said.
“Thanks.”
“It doesn’t seem to make you very happy,” Shirley said.
“What have I got to be happy about?”
“Being the head of the office.”
“Big deal,” Mr. Bergan said glumly. “A week ago, I would have wanted to celebrate. I would have asked you to come to dinner, with me tonight. I would have made a reservation at some place like the Four Seasons maybe. So it would have cost me thirty dollars! The hell with it! You only live once.”
“And now?” Shirley said.
“Now you’re rich.”
“Ask me,” Shirley said.
“Tonight?”
“OK, tonight,” Shirley said. “You only live once.”
A Biography of Howard Fast
Howard Fast (1914–2003), one of the most prolific American writers of the twentieth century, was a bestselling author of more than eighty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays. Fast’s commitment to championing social justice in his writing was rivaled only by his deftness as a storyteller and his lively cinematic style.
Born on November 11, 1914, in New York City, Fast was the son of two immigrants. His mother, Ida, came from a Jewish family in Britain, while his father, Barney, emigrated from the Ukraine, changing his last name to Fast on arrival at Ellis Island. Fast’s mother passed away when he was only eight, and when his father lost steady work in the garment industry, Fast began to take odd jobs to help support the family. One such job was at the New York Public Library, where Fast, surrounded by books, was able to read widely. Among the books that made a mark on him was Jack London’s The Iron Heel, containing prescient warnings against fascism that set his course both as a writer and as an advocate for human rights.
Fast began his writing career early, leaving high school to finish his first novel, Two Valleys (1933). His next novels, including Conceived in Liberty (1939) and Citizen Tom Paine (1943), explored the American Revolution and the progressive values that Fast saw as essential to the American experiment. In 1943 Fast joined the American Communist Party, an alliance that came to define—and often encumber—much of his career. His novels during this period advocated freedom against tyranny, bigotry, and oppression by exploring essential moments in American history, as in The American (1946). During this time Fast also started a family of his own. He married Bette Cohen in 1937 and the couple had two children.
Congressional action against the Communist Party began in 1948, and in 1950, Fast, an outspoken opponent of McCarthyism, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Because he refused to provide
the names of other members of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, Fast was issued a three-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress. While in prison, he was inspired to write Spartacus (1951), his iconic retelling of a slave revolt during the Roman Empire, and did much of his research for the book during his incarceration. Fast’s appearance before Congress also earned him a blacklisting by all major publishers, so he started his own press, Blue Heron, in order to release Spartacus. Other novels published by Blue Heron, including Silas Timberman (1954), directly addressed the persecution of Communists and others during the ongoing Red Scare. Fast continued to associate with the Communist Party until the horrors of Stalin’s purges of dissidents and political enemies came to light in the mid-1950s. He left the Party in 1956.
Fast’s career changed course in 1960, when he began publishing suspense-mysteries under the pseudonym E. V. Cunningham. He published nineteen books as Cunningham, including the seven-book Masao Masuto mystery series. Also, Spartacus was made into a major film in 1960, breaking the Hollywood blacklist once and for all. The success of Spartacus inspired large publishers to pay renewed attention to Fast’s books, and in 1961 he published April Morning, a novel about the battle of Lexington and Concord during the American Revolution. The book became a national bestseller and remains a staple of many literature classes. From 1960 onward Fast produced books at an astonishing pace—almost one book per year—while also contributing to screen adaptations of many of his books. His later works included the autobiography Being Red (1990) and the New York Times bestseller The Immigrants (1977).
Fast died in 2003 at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Fast on a farm in upstate New York during the summer of 1917. Growing up, Fast often spent the summers in the Catskill Mountains with his aunt and uncle from Hunter, New York. These vacations provided a much-needed escape from the poverty and squalor of the Lower East Side’s Jewish ghetto, as well as the bigotry his family encountered after they eventually relocated to an Irish and Italian neighborhood in upper Manhattan. However, the beauty and tranquility Fast encountered upstate were often marred by the hostility shown toward him by his aunt and uncle. “They treated us the way Oliver Twist was treated in the orphanage,” Fast later recalled. Nevertheless, he “fell in love with the area” and continued to go there until he was in his twenties.
Fast (left) with his older brother, Jerome, in 1935. In his memoir Being Red, Fast wrote that he and his brother “had no childhood.” As a result of their mother’s death in 1923 and their father’s absenteeism, both boys had to fend for themselves early on. At age eleven, alongside his thirteen-year-old brother, Fast began selling copies of a local newspaper called the Bronx Home News. Other odd jobs would follow to make ends meet in violent, Depression-era New York City. Although he resented the hardscrabble nature of his upbringing, Fast acknowledged that the experience helped form a lifelong attachment to his brother. “My brother was like a rock,” he wrote, “and without him I surely would have perished.”
A copy of Fast’s military identification from World War II. During the war Fast worked as a war correspondent in the China-Burma-India theater, writing articles for publications such as PM, Esquire, and Coronet. He also contributed scripts to Voice of America, a radio program developed by Elmer Davis that the United States broadcast throughout occupied Europe.
Here Fast poses for a picture with a fellow inmate at Mill Point prison, where he was sent in 1950 for his refusal to disclose information about other members of the Communist Party. Mill Point was a progressive federal institution made up of a series of army bunkhouses. “Everyone worked at the prison,” said Fast during a 1998 interview, “and while I hate prison, I hate the whole concept of prison, I must say this was the most intelligent and humane prison, probably that existed in America.” Indeed, Fast felt that his three-month stint there served him well as a writer: “I think a writer should see a little bit of prison and a little bit of war. Neither of these things can be properly invented. So that was my prison.”
Fast with his wife Bette and their two children, Jonathan and Rachel, in 1952. The family has a long history of literary achievement. Bette’s father founded the Hudson County News Company. Jonathan Fast would go on to become a successful popular novelist, as would his daughter, Molly, whose mother, Erica Jong, is the author of the groundbreaking feminist novel Fear of Flying. (Photo courtesy of Lotte Jacobi.)
Fast at a bookstand during his campaign for Congress in 1952. He ran on the American Labor Party ticket for the twenty-third congressional district in the Bronx. Although Fast remained a committed leftist his entire life, he looked back on his foray into national politics with a bit of amusement. “I got a disease, which is called ‘candidateitis,’” he told Donald Swaim in a 1990 radio interview. “And this disease takes hold of your mind, and it convinces you that your winning an election is important, very often the most important thing on earth. And it grips you to a point that you’re ready to kill to win that election.” He concluded: “I was soundly defeated, but it was a fascinating experience.”
In 1953, the Soviet Union awarded Fast the International Peace Prize. This photo from the ceremony shows the performer, publisher, and civil rights activist Paul Robeson delivering a speech before presenting Fast (seated, second from left) with the prestigious award. Robeson and Fast came to know each other through their participation in leftist political causes during the 1940s and were friends for many years. Like Fast, Robeson was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era and invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions. This led to Robeson’s work being banned in the United States, a situation that Robeson, unlike Fast, never completely overcame. In a late interview Fast cited Robeson as one of the forgotten heroes of the twentieth century. “Paul,” he said, “was an extraordinary man.” Also shown (from left to right): Essie Robeson, Mrs. Mellisk, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, Rachel Fast, and Bette Fast. (Photo courtesy of Julius Lazarus and the author.)
Howard and Bette Fast in California in 1976. The couple relocated to the West Coast after Fast grew disgruntled over the poor reception of his novel The Hessian. While in California, Fast temporarily gave up writing novels to work as a screenwriter, but, like many novelists before him, found the business disheartening. “In L.A. you work like hell because there is nothing else to do, unless you are cheating on your wife,” he told People after he had moved back East in the 1980s. Of course, Fast, an ardent nature-lover, did enjoy California’s scenic beauty and eventually set many of his novels—including The Immigrant’s Daughter and the bestselling Masao Masuto detective series—in the state.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1964 by Doubleday & Company, Inc.
cover design by Jason Gabbert
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