P.S. (2 page)

Oh, those lovely pauses! What with three solid minutes for commercials, a musical signature, the announcer’s introduction, integrating a summary of yesterday’s tortuousness—and the pauses—it came to no more than eight minutes of script. And don’t forget the soundman. A door opens. Thirty seconds.

There was such care taken: every word, every syllable, the manner in which the heroine said, “Oh?” or the hero said, “Oh?”

I never said, “Oh?” I always said, “Oh, yeah?” Nothing was left to chance. Humanity’s fate hung in the balance. Naturally, the performers were not inclined to an ad hoc approach. An ad-lib was sacrilege. Improvisation was
lèse majesté
. But life being real and earnest, as Ma, Mary, Kitty,
Girl Alone
, and Betty and Bob could well attest, an untoward event would occasionally occur.

Was it ’39 that a terrible snowstorm hit our city? The cast of
Ma Perkins
was waiting for the scripts. The messenger, it appears, was lost somewhere in the drifts of Wacker Drive. No scripts. Time to go on the air. Let’s improvise, suggested the director. Ma and her son, John, are plodding through a snowstorm. The wind is howling. Says John, at one point in time, “Ma, walk behind me. I’ll break wind for you.” Glory be! It is a memory that blesses and burns.

As for the directors, they were a singular lot. The mark of the master was mastery of the stopwatch. If we got off on time, to the precise second—and the words were spoken and the pauses taken—all else was of small consequence. Anxiously peering into the control room, we saw thumb meet index finger. There were smiles all around. All was well. Another triumphal day. We were Olivier, Edwin Booth, Eleonora Duse. Troupers, all. Artists, all.

One such
regis
(for it was a ballet of words) I shall never forget. He had the appearance of Albert Einstein. I have since met Bertrand Russell, J. Bronowski, Buckminster Fuller, and Erich Fromm, but none of them compared to this one in intellectual bearing. He always sat, chin in hand, in the manner of Rodin’s
Thinker
. He was the most impressive-looking man I had ever encountered.

During one audition, he advised, after considerable thought: “Give me Humphrey Bogart.” I had just seen Bogey
as Duke Mantee in
The Petrified Forest
. I let a cigarette dangle from my lower lip and muttered, hardly opening my mouth, “Get in dere, you guys.” He shook his head: “Give me Humphrey Bogart as he was ten years ago.” I said, precisely as before, “Get in dere, you guys.” He smiled, nodded. “That’s it. You got it.”

On another occasion, Einstein’s look-alike said, “Give me Jimmy Cagney.” I jabbed my elbow forward sharply and said, trying out my tenor, “Get in dere, you guys.” He was content. At still another time, he suggested, “Give me Eddie Robinson.” (Eddie! Well, well. He once said to another performer, “Give me Jack Barrymore.”) I was confused: “You mean Edward G. Robinson?” He replied, somewhat snappishly, “Give me him.” I pulled out a dime cigar and commanded in my finest nasal, “Get in dere, you guys.” He smiled. I was in.

There were times when dialects were called for. Foreign. Especially bad guys. I had an all-purpose dialect, known as Continental. It was guaranteed to baffle, indeed destroy, Henry Higgins. It more often than not was acceptable because it sounded so un-American. Once I slipped into something that sounded Swedish to him. I was supposed to be a middle-European assassin. He stalked impatiently the length of the studio. “That’s Swedish. I want something foreign.” I was stuck.

“How about Mediterranean?” I tentatively suggested. “They’re loaded with assassins.” He paused; he studied me. “Hmm. Give it to me.” I did my usual Continental. He beamed. “Marvelous. You got it.” It
was
marvelous: a threeweek job. And I never got to assassinate anybody. Somebody got me. Even now, I remember my last words, as I faded away from the mike, collapsing on the studio floor: “Fugivva me, Mudder of Ooaaawwow!” Thus I died.

“I want Levantine.” It was another director. Could it have been
Captain Midnight
or
Little Orphan Annie
? I think it was Daddy Warbucks who was having trouble with a smuggling ring somewhere in the Middle East. Or
was
it Captain Midnight? (Oh, Jim Ameche’s pear-shaped tones! They were more pear-shaped than his brother, Don’s.) I stared dumbly toward the control room. “Levantine?” He pressed his finger testily, it seemed to me, on the talk-back button. “Yes, of course. Something from the Levant.” The only such one I had heard of was Oscar. I did my Continental. He nodded. That, I’m delighted to say, was a four-week job.

My most formidable challenge came during the several auditions of a projected nighttime half-hour drama,
Martin of the Mist
. It was based (Heaven help us all!) on the theme of
The Flying Dutchman
. Horlicks malted milk was interested in sponsoring it at one time. Later, General Mills appeared excited. And, still later, a cigarette company wanted to run it up the flagpole. There were, I believe, four different auditions. Each time, we had a new skipper, a new Martin. John Hodiak was the first. He went to Hollywood. MacDonald Carey was the second. He went to Hollywood. I forget who the third and fourth were. They, too, went west. But, in all instances, I was the Polynesian bo’sun. Einstein’s look-alike directed all the versions. For some reason, he felt I was the perfect Polynesian.

The opening lines were mine. “Ma-a-arr-te-e-e-ennn of de Me-e-e-est!” It was repeated about five times. “
Sing
it,” Einstein said. “Be mellifluous. Remember, you’re from the islands! A child of nature!
Sing
it!” I sang it, thinking all the while of Cio-Cio-San in
Madame Butterfly
. It helped. “Now run around the studio as you sing it.” I looked dumbly toward the control room. It was NBC’s hugest studio, the size of a small racetrack. It was here that Joseph Gallicchio and the whole
symphony orchestra played. In fact, they supplied the musical background. “Run around the
whole
studio?” I mumbled, thinking of Jesse Owens and Paavo Nurmi.
They
never sang while they ran. “Don’t you understand?” Einstein was testy again. “You’re calling out from a distance. A mist. This is a ghost ship.” Oh, I got it.

I ran around the studio, singing out “Ma-a-arr-te-e-e-ennn of de Me-e-e-est.” Five times. By the time I reached the mike, I was Phidippides at the end of the marathon. I carried no torch, but I didn’t collapse. I was breathing rather laboriously, I must admit. The musicians honored me with a
tusch
. Even now, my heart leaps as I hear the violin bows tapping the music stands.

But Einstein had another leap of the imagination. “Take your shoes off.” I looked dumbly toward the control room. “Don’t you understand?” He was testy again. “You’re Polynesian. They don’t wear shoes.” Oh, I got it. “May I keep my socks on?” There was a touch of desperation to my voice. I wasn’t sure I had showered that morning; I was worried about athlete’s foot; and I was certainly athletic at that moment. I waited. So did the whole symphony orchestra. Came the order: “Bare feet. Polynesians don’t wear socks. We want to hear the slap-slap-slap of your feet on the deck.” To this day, I am confused. How could the slap-slap-slap of my feet be heard a hundred yards away from the microphone? Slowly, I took off my socks. It was okay; I had taken a shower that morning.

It’s better with your shoes off. I was saying that to myself, thinking of the Stanislavsky technique. A touch of realism couldn’t hurt. It’s better with your shoes off. I thought of Beatrice Lillie, too, as she sang “I’m a geisha girl.” Her refrain was: “It’s better with your shoes off.” Thus reflecting, it
helped. Once more, I sang out as I ran, a child of nature. When again I reached the mike, I was expecting a standing ovation from the orchestra. Nothing. A fine thing. They stand up for Solti, for Gilels, for Horowitz, for Piatigorsky. Was my performance any less virtuoso? Oh, well.

Polynesians. Levantines. Mediterraneans. Smugglers, assassins, children of nature. Glory moments. But none of these experiences matches the perverse delight of playing the
American
gangster. Even now, as in a mist, I hear my voice, “Get in dere, you guys.” I am Bogey, Cagney, Little Caesar. But it’s small consolation. I am not Clark Gable. Though that silk dressing gown has long since been taken away by the sanitation man, I think of Norma Shearer. And how I missed her something terrible. Oh, well. I did scare the daylights out of Ma Perkins.

IT IS NIGHTTIME. I am standing outside Dreamland. I am waiting for my brother. It is a ballroom on the West Side of Chicago. Here, black jazz bands play: Lottie Hightower and her men, one night; Charlie Cooke and his friends, another. I am impatiently shuffling my feet, though I do like the sounds I hear wafting through the open windows.

It is not to be confused with the Dreamland Cafe. That’s on the city’s South Side. Joe Oliver, up from New Orleans, played there a few years ago. He has since moved to Lincoln Gardens, where Johnny Dodds, his brother Baby, and a feisty little woman of a piano player, Lil Hardin, have joined him. His young disciple, Louis Armstrong, has been outblowing Joe and has just been called out East by Fletcher Henderson. A girl who picked up my brother took him to this place a few months ago. He said it was really something.

Here at the ballroom young white men and young women come to dance rather than to listen. Preferably on a dime. To sock. In short, to rub bellies together and, thus, excite one another. Always, toward the end of the night, comes the slow blues for which everybody is waiting.

 

My daddy looks at the clock

And the clock strikes out

Oh daddy, takes it out

Before it gets too late.

 

It is a place where young people who work all week as shoe dogs, secretaries, shipping clerks, and telephone operators—even nurses—come to dance, make dates, and, they hope, make love. My brother, a popular shoe dog at the Boston Store, usually does very well here. He is a natural-born dancer, tells funny stories, and has a way with the girls. He is seventeen.

It is 1924. I remember the year quite well. Fighting Bob La Follette ran for president. There were two other candidates, one of whom won. It made no difference which. It might have made a considerable difference had Bob won. That’s why he didn’t have a ghost of a chance. He did poll five million votes, and that was something—he being neither a Republican nor a Democrat. Nineteen twenty-four. And where have all the flowers gone?

Oh, I shocked and grievously disappointed Miss Henrietta Boone. She was my seventh-grade teacher at McLaren. I was her favorite. I sat in the front row, not merely because I was short. “Louis,” she purred (not Louis as in the Sun King; she pronounced it as in Lewis Stone, the Prisoner of Zenda), “are you for Calvin Coolidge or John W. Davis?” Innocently—or was I damnably perverse even then?—I piped, “Fightin’ Bob La Follette.” She was startled, poor dear. Her wig went slightly askew. I could see the terrible hurt in her eyes. Why have I upset such gentle hearts? Why couldn’t I have been my cute little button self and said the right thing: “Keep
Cool with Coolidge”? It didn’t take much to make her day. I failed her.

In the autumn of 1960, at the reunion of the University of Chicago Law School, class of ’34, a straw vote was taken. Kennedy versus Nixon. The luncheon at the Loop Club wasn’t bad. The drinks were OK. A nice fat feeling of self-satisfaction all around. Those attending were lawyers who, from appearances, had done not too badly. Slight paunches and jowls closely shaven. The vote was something like: Nixon, 45; Kennedy, 41; Fighting Bob La Follette, 1. A few uncertain laughs. That was all. Several of my fellow alumni looked toward me. They smiled benignly. He’s a card, that one. I smiled, too. Charlie Chaplin.

I realize Bob has been dead many years. And yet it is a vote I was too young to cast in 1924. I did tell one luncheon companion, of raised eyebrows, that Bob La Follette, dead, had more blood to him than the two young make-out artists, who were more machine than human. His eyebrows shot up even higher. He turned to another to discuss real estate. I went for another drink. The bar was closed. Oh, the Midway, the Midway, where burning Veblen loved and sang . . .

Miss Boone did forgive me. On inaugural morning, the following March, she allowed me to listen on the school’s crystal set as President Coolidge took the oath of office on the front porch of his Vermont home. It was difficult to make out what he said. Perhaps it was because I had only one earphone; the other was being used by Dorothy, another favorite of Miss Boone. Perhaps he had nothing to say.

I could easily make out what Burton K. Wheeler said. During
the previous fall, the Montana senator, Fighting Bob’s running mate, spoke at Ashland Auditorium. It was only two blocks from my mother’s rooming house. (Two years later, she sold it and leased a men’s hotel near the Loop.) And one block from Dreamland. My father arose from his sickbed and took me there. He liked Bob La Follette. My mother sniffed. She liked only sure winners. Wheeler was damning the malefactors of great wealth, loud and raspy and clear.