The Dick Gibson Show

by Elkin, Stanley

  Ordinarily he had to shush his guests who, suddenly relaxed, chattered nervously during these commercial breaks, annoying to him as if they drowned out the strains of some favorite song. Now he began to panic as the commercials came toward their end. Hurriedly he opened the key on his mike and spoke to his engineer. “Put up another commercial. Give me some time here.” He looked at Behr-Bleibtreau. If his panelists wouldn’t talk he’d be alone with him. He was getting scared.

  Then Vendler came in with the sandwiches.

  “Vendler,” Dick said, “where’ve you been? We’re all starving.”

  From time to time Dick had attempted to put Vendler on the air, but the man wasn’t interested. The popular late-night television shows all had their Max Asners and Mrs. Millers and pet bartenders, even their favorite barbers and regular cab drivers: fans who never missed a night, who out of some inexplicable urgency were always in the studio audience and were never surprised when they were called on. But Dick had never been able to draw this man out. Probably he did not even listen to the show. He was content merely to wait around until Dick mentioned his delicatessen and then would pick up the empty lazy susan from the previous night and depart.

  This time Vendler wouldn’t get away so easy. Dick pulled a chair up for Vendler and sat him down in it. Grabbing Bernie’s microphone, he put it in front of the man, gave him one of his own sandwiches and took one himself. Quickly he removed it from the wax paper envelope and took a great bite, pantomiming monumental chewing, holding it up in front of him and waving it about like a man eating on the run. Though he hadn’t said a word, it was as though he was speaking to them with his mouth full. He spun the lazy susan as if it were a roulette wheel and pointed to it with his sandwich hand inviting everyone in the studio to partake. No one made a move except for Jerry, his engineer, who came out of the control booth, grabbed some sandwiches and coffee and rushed back into the booth.

  They were on the air.

  DICK GIBSON: [In a split second balancing these factors: he was no longer alone with Behr-Bleibtreau. Vendler was with him. A laconic man but a presence from the outside, one of the best he could have right now. Yes. Vendler from Vendler’s 24-Hour Kosher-Style Delicatessen, with the smell of lox on his fingers, a suggestion of the briny deeps of pickle jars, his hands red from frankfurter dyes, dark bits of pastrami herb on his white shirt, a vaguely kosher-style lint. A man refulgent with the fluorescent light from his massive delicatessen cases, a solid fellow, full as salami casing, smooth as the formica tabletops he rubbed with damp rags. A generous man with cardboard placards for the Sisterhood Lecture Series using up the precious space in his windows, with slotted collection cans all along the top of his white cases, for Leukemia, Heart Fund, obscure agencies in Israel. A man with a bread-slicing machine, with the butt ends of corned beefs and bloody, delicious ropes about roasts, with sliced lox spread out on oily paper like cards in a card trick. Such a bright, glowing guy! And he wouldn’t be tainted by what had gone on that night. Yes! It was Vendler he would use against Behr-Bleibtreau.

  But his habit was to leave right after his name was mentioned. So here was Dick’s problem: Should he guarantee the man’s staying on by never mentioning his name, or should he risk it and even throw in the plug? Vendler was in the chair, the mike in front of him. He had never been this close to being on the air before; he might even like it. If Dick was skillful enough, he might even forget they were talking on the radio after the first five minutes. Subjects, subjects, he needed subjects.

  Subjects? He had a ready-made one: It was a family joke among those who listened to the program regularly that Dick’s engineer had a voracious appetite. Indeed, it was Jerry—whom the audience never heard—who was the center of the feast. His appetite was the only legend attached to the show, its single myth. (Why was that?) He got fan mail, requests for pictures, recipes, actual cakes, diets, pennies to weigh himself. Dick sometimes read Jerry’s mail over the air or repeated certain comments he had made about the food. The audience pictured the engineer chewing his way through the night as he turned his various dials. It was as good for the program as Jack Benny’s feud with Fred Allen, Phil Harris’s drinking, Don Wilson’s weight, Crosby’s sport shirts, Jessel’s girls. It neither added to nor detracted from the legend that his engineer’s appetite was real, that the man was a pig and, further, a cheap pig who ate this much every night only because it was free. So there was his subject: Vendler meets Jerry, the King of Breakfast confronts the Emperor of Freeloaders.

  All this in that split second between the red illumination of the On the Air sign and Dick’s opening his mouth to speak. And then this: Because my character is my mind. Bernie’s is his obsession, Pepper’s her generosity. Jack’s his meanness, Jerry’s his freeloader’s appetite. God knows what Behr-Bleibtreau’s is, maybe his mystery, but mine’s my mind, what I think and nothing else. And this: He was a character as other people were amoral.]

  Vendler is with us, ladies and gentlemen.

  [Surprised because he felt no resistance when he reached out to hold the man in place. Then, realizing that it was because he had not yet mentioned the delicatessen, that the one required the other, that he’d clicked only one tumbler in the lock, he gives the plug to get the resistance over with at once.]

  Of Vendler’s 24-Hour Kosher-Style Delicatessen.

  [And there was a shiver, thinner even than the faint, indecisive shift of the body that signals someone’s intention to rise from a table after a meal has been eaten. So Vendler had a character too, or at least habits. But he was still fixed by Dick’s stiff, outstretched arm.]

  Just exactly what is kosher style, Arthur? Some of our listeners might not know.

  ARTHUR VENDLER: Chopped liver. Lox—that’s smoked salmon. Kosher pertains to the dietary laws.

  DICK GIBSON: [Not bad, actually, for a man who didn’t know this was going to happen to him. His voice a little loud, though; probably raised because he’s uncertain about the equipment— look at the way he bends down and brings his mouth right up to the microphone. I have no character; I am what I think. And what I say on the radio. What I think and what I say. My voice.]

  ARTHUR VENDLER: Very few people keep kosher any more. You have to be a fanatic. Even most rabbis don’t keep kosher except on the high holidays. It’s a style. Kosher style is a style. It’s not actually kosher, just the kind of things people like to eat. I don’t know if I can explain it. Rye bread, herring, smoked white fish. If you’ve ever been to the mountains, they serve it in the mountains. I guess the best way I can put it is New York style. What you get in your New York delicatessens.

  DICK GIBSON: Well, it’s delicious. Look at Jerry, will you? That’s called Jerry-Style 24-Hour Eating. How would you like a guy like that for a steady customer?

  [How’s Behr-Bleibtreau taking all this?]

  Wouldn’t he run up a tab? Maybe he doesn’t swallow, what do you think?

  [’Tain’t funny, McGee. Get into this, Vendler, please. Help me out.]

  He eats for a whole town.

  [Behr-Bleibtreau is frowning. He shifts in his chair and looks toward the control booth. What is this? What’s he doing? He points his finger at Jerry. Jerry puts down his sandwich. He puts down the cream soda. My God, he spits out what’s in his mouth! He pushes the food away from him. There goes that subject.] How’s business, Vendler?

  ARTHUR VENDLER: Business is good. I can’t complain.

  DICK GIBSON: You can’t complain, eh?

  ARTHUR VENDLER: No.

  DICK GIBSON: No, eh?

  ARTHUR VENDLER: No.

  DICK GIBSON: Well, that’s good that business is good.

  ARTHUR VENDLER: Yes.

  DICK GIBSON: [Getting mad at him: there is no reason for grown men to clam up before a microphone. He imagines Vendler in his delicatessen, kibitzing the customers, his mouth going a mile a minute as he slices meat at the machine, the authority of the merchant on him. What was there to fear from a microphone? He spent too much time re
assuring his guests, talking them down from where they were treed in their shyness. Damn their timidity, their deference. Then, when they finally did speak out—just look at Jack and Pepper and Bernie—they went around with a hangover from their words.]

  Yes, eh?

  ARTHUR VENDLER: (nervously) Sure.

  DICK GIBSON: You know what I’m thinking?

  ARTHUR VENDLER: What’s that?

  DICK GIBSON: [Terrific—a regular Mr. Show Business, this Vendler.]

  It must cost you twenty-five to thirty dollars a week to make up these trays for us. That’s four weeks a month, twelve months a year. You’d be better off taking a regular spot on the show, buying time and letting us do a commercial for you. You’d be surprised how low the rates are this time of night.

  [Mad at Jerry too, now.]

  Of course Jerry might quit if you didn’t bring the sandwiches around, but maybe not. He seems to have lost his appetite anyway. Think it over. Of course you might be doing something on the tax angle. I didn’t think of that aspect of it.

  ARTHUR VENDLER: Listen, I don’t—

  DICK GIBSON: Sure. What do I know about it?

  ARTHUR VENDLER: I’ve got to be getting back.

  DICK GIBSON: Haban Nagila, kid.

  ARTHUR VENDLER: Where’s my lazy susan?

  DICK GIBSON: Lying down.

  [Vendler leaves the studio. Dick Gibson thinks, I am cutting my losses, and stares at Mel Son—this is air-time, this is while they are on the air, no one is saying anything, their silence is being sent out over the ether—and scowls Behr-Bleibtreauly. He has some hope. Mel’s uneasy. His eyes dart angrily. His behavior isn’t the withdrawal of the others, but seems, rather, an effort to keep control of himself. Perhaps Mel is Jewish; maybe he resents the way Dick has treated Vendler. But the man won’t talk. Dick gives him every opportunity. Well, Mel, tell, he thinks. But it’s hopeless. Perhaps three minutes have gone by since they came back on the air. And then he thinks—the guests in the studio. He announces their names, making up one for those he has forgotten or never knew. Then he makes up other names and gives their place of business. Then he thinks: the telegrams.]

  We should be getting some telegrams about now.

  [He looks at Jerry.]

  No? Nothing in yet? Well, the lines are open. If anyone has a question for Professor Behr-Bleibtreau, send us a telegram at WHCN, Hartford, Connecticut. I’ll accept collect wires. Please keep your messages under ten words. Ask the Professor. Or, if you have questions for one of the panel members—Mr. Son, for example—we’ll entertain those as well. Or perhaps you don’t have a question at all. Maybe you just want to make a comment. Make it at our expense.

  [Interrogatives. Declaratives. Let’s see, that leaves exclamatives.]

  Just tell the operator you want to send a collect wire to me, Dick Gibson—that’s D-i-c-k G-i-b-s-o-n—care of WHCN—W- H-C-N—Hartford—H-a-r-t-f-o-r-d—Connecticut—C-o-n- n-e-c- t-i-c-u-t. Or, if you’d rather abbreviate it, C-o-n-n. Talk it over with the Western Union operator; see what she says.

  [Okay, that’s another minute. Only a hundred and five to go. Now what?]

  But he knew now what. Behr-Bleibtreau, that’s what. Behr-Bleibtreau knew too. The man still smiled, but Dick sensed that the smile had shifted, amusement no longer but something preceding damage. Perhaps he sensed Dick’s dread and was annoyed that it had not been enough to silence him. (Though in a way he had been silenced; he could think of no more ways to kill time.) Looking at his panel, Dick was suddenly consumed with sympathy for them. The professor had their tongues, and now he was after his. He thought of signing off early, declaring the evening at an end, paying the lost revenues from the remaining commercials out of his own pocket. But then the professor would have his tongue too. Dick, who had no character, wanted to beat him.

  The mistake the others had made was that they had gone too far. He would keep it down. He would ask Behr-Bleibtreau how he liked Hartford, to compare it with other places he had been. Behr-Bleibtreau was waiting to see what he would do. Just keep cool, Dick warned himself, small talk, everything low key and easy, no more drama. Just relax and say—

  DICK GIBSON: (almost shouting) All right, Professor, what the hell’s all this crap about a loaded gun?

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: Please pass the sandwiches.

  DICK GIBSON: The sandwiches? I’m talking about loaded guns.

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: I’m talking about sandwiches. Is there turkey? Is there dark meat?

  DICK GIBSON: [Grabbing his microphone suddenly. If they saw him his radio audience might think he was an ace reporter, urgent, shirt-sleeved, like someone on the radio in the movies with a scoop.]

  Ladies and gentlemen, you don’t know what’s been going on here tonight! My panelists are unable to speak! This man has something to do with it. It’s a trick. Perhaps they’re hypnotized. I don’t know how he does it, he doesn’t touch them, he swings no pendulum, but something’s happened, something’s up! He’s after me too. (to Behr-Bleibtreau) Is that it?

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: I don’t see the bottle opener. Would you swing the lazy susan around this way, please? Perhaps it’s on your side of the tray. Oh, never mind. Here it is.

  DICK GIBSON: Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t have a bottle opener. He’s not looking for one. There isn’t even any soda in his hand. I don’t know what his game is, but he’s giving you a false picture.

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: No more turkey? I’ll take the corned beef. I’m asking for indigestion, I think, but it looks marvelous.

  DICK GIBSON: Don’t believe him. He’s not asking for indigestion. He’s not eating!

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: The bread’s stale. Where’s the mustard? Would you pass me that plastic knife?

  DICK GIBSON: The bread’s fresh! There’s already mustard on the sandwiches!

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: It’s rather warm in the studio. May I take off my jacket?

  DICK GIBSON: He’s wearing a sweater.

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: Whoops, sorry. That was clumsy of me. I seem to have smeared some ketchup on my glasses while I was getting out of my jacket. Could you hand me one of those paper napkins?

  DICK GIBSON: He’s still in his sweater. He doesn’t wear glasses. The napkins are right in front of him.

  JACK PATTERSON: Here you are. Doctor.

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: Thank you. Professor Patterson.

  DICK GIBSON: Patterson never opened his mouth. Behr-Bleibtreau’s a ventriloquist! What’s going on here? Why are you lying to my listeners?

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: But it’s you who are lying, Mr. Gibson. I must confess I don’t understand what you hope to accomplish.

  DICK GIBSON: What do you want?

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: I want a napkin. I want the mustard. I want the plastic knife.

  DICK GIBSON: What color are the walls in this studio?

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: The walls? Pale yellow, aren’t they?

  DICK GIBSON: They’re white! What color’s my tie?

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: Well, it’s all colors. There’s red and there’s green. It’s a pattern. It’s all colors.

  DICK GIBSON: It’s blue, it’s solid blue! What are you doing? I’ll ask the people in the studio. What color is this tie I’m wearing?

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: All right, there’s no point in that. Leave it alone. All right, I’ll confess. I’ve been having some fun with you.

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: Very clever imitation of my voice, Mr. Gibson. You ought to do this sort of thing professionally—in nightclubs.

  DICK GIBSON: Thank you very much, Doctor.

  DICK GIBSON: You mean you ought to. Ladies and gentlemen, I didn’t imitate him. He imitated me.

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: Look out!

  DICK GIBSON: He also imitated me saying “Ladies and gentlemen, I didn’t imitate him. He imitated me.” I haven’t said anything since I asked the studio audience about the color of my tie.

  DICK GIBSON: He said that too.

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: Look out! He’s got a gun!

 
DICK GIBSON: Oh, ho! That was a mistake, Dr. Behr-Bleibtreau. I think I’ll just sit this one out. I don’t see any gun. If he has one—whoever he may be—he should be making some demands along about now. He should be saying “Hands up! Give me your money and nobody’ll get hurt,” or “Don’t anyone move, I’m taking the woman with me.” People with guns can be very articulate about what they want.

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: What if they’re suicidal?

  DICK GIBSON: What are you talking about? What do you mean?

  BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: What if they intend to kill themselves? What if the gun is still concealed and they intend to shoot themselves?