The Troubled Air (44 page)

“What?” Archer asked, puzzled. “Did he?”

“It’s my fault,” O’Neill said. O’Neill looked stubborn and frightened, sitting behind his desk. “Hutt told me to pass the word around that he didn’t want anybody from the program to be seen at the funeral.”

Archer took his eyes off Barbante and stared at O’Neill. “But you went yourself,” Archer said, feeling that there was a misunderstanding here that would never be unraveled.

“So I did.” O’Neill sounded defensive.

“I didn’t hear you tell anyone to stay away from the funeral.”

“Didn’t you?” O’Neill asked flatly. “That’s queer. Because I never did say it.”

“Insubordination,” Barbante said. “There will be a court-martial of trusted lieutenants in the morning for the crime of affection for the dead.”

Archer began to understand and pity O’Neill and like him more than he had ever liked him before. “What the hell,” Archer said to Barbante, “you’re not going to quit because Hutt shot off his mouth a little, are you? You went, it’s over, Pokorny’s buried, at there’s nothing Hutt or anybody else can do about it.”

“Oh, yes, I’m going to quit,” Barbante said in a curious sing-song Archer suddenly realized that the man was drunk. “My golden type writer is withdrawn from the service.”

“It’s breach of contract, Dom,” O’Neill said warningly. “And don’t think Hutt won’t use it against you. He’ll keep you from working anywhere else in radio, or maybe anywhere else in anything.”

“I had a vision among the handbowls,” Barbante said. “I suddenly saw that I couldn’t live if I couldn’t go to funerals of my choice, if that’s the only way you can sell liniment and foot powder the days, I’m not interested any more.”

“In a way,” O’Neill said pleadingly, “you can’t blame Hutt. He splitting a gut trying to save the program and it’s marked lousy in every paper in town this morning with all our pictures and Pokorny being called the Red composer of University Town and juicy excerpts from that bastard’s funeral oration in black type getting a big play from the hyenas. If I had known we were going to get a performance like that, I don’t think I would’ve gone, either.”

“Emmet,” Barbante said gently, “don’t lie. Please—you did a nice thing—don’t piss on it now.”

“I’m not lying,” O’Neill shouted. “I mean it. I went to say goodbye to a poor slob who’d had some bad breaks. I didn’t think I was going to May Day at the Kremlin.”

“Save it,” Barbante said, “for your interview with Hurt. You’ll need every alibi you can lay your hands on.”

“Oh, shut up,” O’Neill said. “I’m tired of you.”

“Cut it out,” Archer said authoritatively. “We’re not going to get anywhere by yelling at each other. Dom,” he said, “I don’t want you to quit. We’re tottering as it is. There’s nobody else who can write this program at the moment and by the time we work in a new man, even if we can find one, we’ll be off the air. You’ll be responsible for putting fifty people out of work.”

“Sorry, Clem,” Barbante said. “Every man for himself from here on in. Maybe next week there’ll be another funeral I’d want to attend that Hutt didn’t approve of. Maybe you’ll die, or my father, or Joe Stalin, and I’d get the itch to go even if Hutt thought it was bad for drugs.”

“Will you for Christ’s sake stop talking about funerals?” O’Neill shouted.

“Freedom of speech, press, religion, and lamentation,” Barbante said stubbornly. “The Barbante bill of rights. No death without mourners. For the new Atlantic Charter.”

“What’re you going to do?” Archer asked, hoping to lead Barbante into more reasonable fields.

“I’m glad you asked that question, Mr. Archer.” Barbante smiled theatrically, like a lecturer. “I’m retiring to California to take up two projects that have long been dear to me. I’m going back to my father’s ranch and I’m going to get married and write a book entitled
The Dialectics of Atheism.”
He nodded, smiling insanely.

“Well,” O’Neill said heavily to Archer, “you see what I’ve been getting since nine o’clock this morning.”

“I wrote a letter to the
Times
last night,” Barbante said, “outlining my main points. A trial balloon. You might be interested in the opening sentence, O’Neill—‘The time has come to consider the abolition of religion before it abolishes us.’ ”

O’Neill put his head in his hands and groaned. “That’s great,” he said. “That’s all we need now. We’ll all be lynched.”

“Don’t worry,” Archer said curtly, wondering how he could get Barbante out of the room. “He didn’t write anything. He’s kidding.”

“Oh, no, I’m not.” Barbante smiled like a lunatic child. “I wrote it. Four pages. Closely reasoned, as they say in legal circles.”

“When that comes out,” O’Neill said, looking up, “you won’t have to quit. You’ll be busy running.”

“Don’t be silly, Emmet,” Archer said testily. “Even if he wrote it, nobody’ll print it.”

“Maybe I’ll have it privately printed,” Barbante said dreamily, “and dropped over Radio City from an airplane. A new use for airpower. The attack of reason. Don’t be alarmed, O’Neill. It’s nor Communist propaganda. The Communists’re the worst of all, because in this day and age they’re the most religious of all. Faith—faith is the most destructive element because it can’t permit dissent or deviation. So the Communists kill the non-Communists or the almost Communists or the doubtful Communists, just the way the Jews killed the Christians and the Christians killed the Jews, and the Catholics killed the Protestants and the Protestants killed the Catholics, and the Crusaders killed the Mohammedans and the Mohammedans killed the Hindus. And right here in this country—the Puritans cut the ears off Quakers and nailed them to the church doors. Faith in a god or faith in a state or a system of government frightens me and if you had any sense it would frighten you, because one way or another you will be asked to die for it, either fighting against it or defending it. The only way out, the only way we have a chance to survive, is not to believe in anything. Not in god or our ideas or our people or our anything. The important thing is not to feel too strongly about anything, not have any belief that can be insulted or endangered or that has to be defended.”

“Oh, God,” O’Neill said, “do I have to listen to this?”

“I’m sorry,” Barbante said mildly. “I thought Clement asked me what I intended to do from now on.”

“Dom,” Archer asked gently, “when was the last time you had any sleep?”

Barbante smiled weakly. Then he put his hand over his eyes. “Three, four days ago,” he said in a whisper. “I don’t know. You think I’m a little crazy, don’t you, Clem?” he asked slyly.

“Maybe a little.” Archer nodded.

“You’re right.” Barbante chuckled weirdly. “I think you’re absolutely right. And if I stayed in this town, in this sinkhole, they’d cart me away in a strait jacket and they’d be giving me the electric-shock treatment morning, noon and night.” Suddenly he was pleading with Archer. “I have to quit. You see that, don’t you, Clem? I can’t go through three more days like this again, can I? A man has to be sure he’s got something left, something besides the gold cigarette cases and the nice fat check every Friday. How about you, Clem?” Barbante moved away from the window toward Archer. He didn’t walk steadily. He stood close to Archer, short, dull-eyed, creased, smelling stale and liquorish and unperfumed. “What’ve you got left, Clem? Take stock. Take that good old half-century inventory, Clem. What’ve you got on the shelves this year, Clem, besides foot-powder and penicillin, Clem?”

“You said you were going to get married,” Archer said. He didn’t want to talk about himself this morning. “Who’s the lady?”

Barbante looked sly and amused. He put his finger beside his nose and squinted craftily. “Haven’t decided yet. Circling over the field. Observing the candidates, lying in bed having their breakfasts now, twitching their long, pretty, unsuspecting legs. Got to get something that fits the terrain. California type that can survive in a dry country. Careful choice necessary for experiment in godless monogamy. We’re introducing Brahma bulls. From India. Can live on dew and sagebrush, and even so, an extra hundred pounds of meat in one year. Circling, circling …” Barbante waved his hand, his fingers pointing down, in a round, insane gesture. “Circling over the pretty little bedrooms.”

“The hell with it,” O’Neill said. “I’m going to tell Hutt we don’t want Barbante any more. He’s had it.”

“Barbante’s had it,” the writer chanted, moving back toward the window. “Excellent phrase. Descriptive. Slang from World War Number Fourteen. In which we fought. Except me. Except Clem. Except good old Yogi Clem.” He winked intimately at Archer. “Secret, Clem. Secret between you, me, and anybody with the price of a nickel newspaper.”

“I’m sorry, Clem,” O’Neill said soberly. “That sonofabitch Roberts …”

“Forget it,” Archer said curtly, feeling, This is the first time. I have to get used to it. I have to practice not showing anything.

“Don’t worry, Clem,” Barbante said, “the scientists’re at work. Machines to do the work of a thousand men. A thousand scriptwriters. Probably one in the patent office right now. Call up International Business Machines and they probably can deliver one this afternoon. Plug it into the wall and watch the lights blink on and off and take out the next ten copies of University Town two minutes later. Perfect. Untouched by human hand. No trouble with the mechanism that a screw-driver can’t fix. Machine guaranteed: to believe in God, not stay up late at night, not have any political opinions, not get on any blacklists, never want to go to anybody’s funeral.”

“Oh, God,” O’Neill said, “we’re back on that again.”

The door opened and Hurt came in without knocking. He looked fresh, as though he had just had a cold shower, and his suit was wonderfully pressed. Whenever Hutt came into a room, Archer realized, you always were struck by the thought that here was a man who was at least ten years older than he looked.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Hutt said. O’Neill stood up and Hutt waved graciously at him to sit down. “It’s good of you to arrive so promptly.” He smiled, gently at Barbante and Archer as he seated himself on the edge of O’Neill’s desk.

His ears have stopped peeling, Archer noticed.

“The well-pressed tycoon,” Barbante said. “Tell me, Mr. Hutt, who is your tailor?”

Hutt glanced sharply at Barbante, then at O’Neill. O’Neill shook his head. “Not a chance,” O’Neill said.

“Have you talked to him, Archer?” Hutt asked.

Archer nodded. “I’m afraid O’Neill’s right.”

“Barbante’s had it,” the writer said. “We took a vote.”

“Perhaps you’d like to think it over for another day,” Hutt said, his voice friendly. “Calmly.”

“Haven’t got the time to think anything over calmly,” said. Barbante. “I’m busy circling.” He chuckled.

Hutt looked puzzled for a moment, then, shrugged, and turned to O’Neill and Archer. “How many scripts ahead are we?” He asked.

“Two,” said Archer.

“Posthumous Productions, Incorporated,” said Barbante gravely. “Additional dialogue by departed writer.”

“Perhaps,” Hutt said easily, still friendly, to Barbante, “you’d like to go back to your place and rest, Dom. You look all done in.”

Barbante shook his head stubbornly. “I like it here. I’m interested in the grownups’ conversation.”

Hutt examined Barbante coldly, his pale blue eyes taking in the untidy hair, the rumpled, suit stained with cigarette ash, the purplish beard on the pale chin. Then he turned his back on Barbante. “Archer,” he said mildly, “there seems to have been some confusion about my instructions yesterday about the funeral.”

“There wasn’t any confusion, Lloyd,” O’Neill said in a low voice. “I didn’t tell him.”

Hutt nodded agreeably. “Not your confusion, then, Archer. O’Neill’s confusion. You’ve seen the papers, I suppose.”

“Yes,” Archer said.

“We’ve gotten thirty-seven telephone calls already,” Hutt said, without heat, “from church groups, veterans’ organizations, patriotic individuals, demanding that O’Neill and you and Barbante and Levy and Brewer be dropped from the program immediately.”

“Advertise me,” Barbante said. “In the interests of better public relations. Announce that Barbante has patriotically and individually dropped himself.”

Hutt ignored him. “What’s more,” Hutt said, “calls have been coming into the sponsor’s office, and even to his home, although he has an unlisted number. I don’t mind telling you gentlemen that Mr. Sandler is getting rather restive, to put it as mildly as I know how.” Hutt smiled, a businesslike, boards-meeting smile.

“Church groups,” Barbante mumbled. “Cut the Quakers’ ears, off and nail them to the bronze doors.”

Hutt glanced at Barbante puzzledly. “What’s he talking about?”

O’Neill shrugged. “He’s off on a private tear. He can’t explain it and I’m sure I can’t. We could’ve saved ourselves a lot of grief if we’d sent him to a psychiatrist for the, last two years and charged it up to entertainment.”

“I was born and brought up a Roman Catholic, gentlemen,” Barbante said”, “and I played third base for the Church of the Good Shepherd until they found a boy who could hit curve-ball pitching.”

“I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you gentlemen,” Hutt addressed O’Neill and Archer again, “that the sponsor is seriously considering dropping the program entirely. I must say, too, in his defense, that I can’t really blame him.”

There was quiet in the room while nobody blamed the sponsor.

“I won’t disguise the fact that we’re hanging by a thin thread,” Hutt said. There’s a man, Archer thought irreverently, who will tackle any cliché head-on, asking and giving no quarter. “There’s a good possibility that unless we take things in hand immediately,” Hutt went on, “that the option on the program will not be taken up when the time comes next month. I won’t deny that I’m worried,” Hutt said confidently, “but I don’t think we’re beaten yet.” He smiled around the room, putting them all graciously on the same team. “If we work together, we can salvage the program and perhaps even come out better than we ever were. First, I’ve arranged a press conference up here this afternoon at three o’clock, and I want everybody who is connected with the program—and that means everybody—actors, musicians, engineers, sound men—to be here and answer any questions any reporter asks, answer candidly and with perfect frankness. I’ve already sent telegrams to all the people who work on the program, even bit-part actors who perhaps only appear two or three times a year for us. I’ve invited Connors, the editor of
Blueprint,
who’s coming as a personal favor to me, and he’s indicated that he is going to ask a certain number of our people directly whether they are Communists or not. You’re one of them, Archer,” Hutt said, smiling deprecatingly, as though it was a childish joke that he was reporting. “It seems,” Hutt said softly, “that the word has gone round that you were fighting our little private cleansing operation and they’ve been looking into your background rather intensively.” Hutt shook his head sadly. “Connors was good enough to show me what they’ve picked up. I must say, Archer,” Hutt said tolerantly, “you seemed to have signed your name to a grotesque list of things.”