Death Kit (25 page)

Which turns out to be quite near, so Diddy finds he's the first to have arrived. Quarter to nine. The Channel 10 executive who'd been at the company lunch today greets him, asking Diddy if he'd prefer to wait in the reception area and watch TV, or come in and observe what's happening in the studios at this very moment.

“I'll come in,” says Diddy. “Where can I put this?” The panda. No explanation.

“On the receptionist's desk?” replies the producer doubtfully. “Okay? She's gone home for the night.”

Diddy wonders if he's about to be asked where he got the panda, or why he's carrying it. Puts down his prize. Then follows the man through a pair of swinging doors. “Silence.” Down a corridor, to what Diddy's guide refers to as “our Studio A.” At one end of a very large room, whose ceiling is two floors high and crisscrossed with lighting equipment, the local community theatre is taping their biggest success last spring,
Long Day's Journey into Night,
for NET; to be shown locally next month, says the man. Diddy peers through the huge window. Hard to get a good view of the actors or even of the set, because the cameramen are continually rolling their black machines in and out for close-ups. And since he's on the other side of a glass wall, Diddy is experiencing the play only as a soundless pantomime. Nevertheless, having seen the play on Broadway as well as the movie, he recognizes the passage the actors are performing. Remembering not only the sense of the scene, but even some of the lines. The play had moved Diddy greatly; and this scene in particular. The talented younger son, a portrait of the playwright himself, finally indicts his debauched older brother; confronts him with the failure of his life. With love, with compassion, with loathing. But that's almost simple, compared to the impasse between Diddy and his brother. Is it Diddy who should reproach Paul? Or Paul, Diddy?

On to our Studio B. A much smaller room. “We're taping part of the eleven o'clock news. Most of that goes out live, except for where we use some newsreel footage. They're timing that now.” Is it the same man?

Yes. There in the spacious soundproofed cube, seated behind his desk, a map of the world at his left, a screen on his right, is the bland creature whose every word Diddy had strained to hear only four evenings ago. Last Sunday night that face was a blurred image on the glassy surface of the picture tube, its features built up out of tiny lines. (Now) it is the man's own face, his flesh, which Diddy sees. Glass does intervene. As a large rectangular wall that separates them, keeping Diddy outside and the newscaster inside; but at least it isn't the glass itself which renders the face.

“Is it possible to hear what he's saying?” Diddy whispers to the producer at his side.

Certainly. The man presses a red button next to the entrance to the studio.

Yes, there's the unctuous, denatured voice. For all the naturalness of the sound, Diddy might as well be watching the television in his room at the Rushland, lying on his bed. But maybe the quality of the sound reproduction in the corridor isn't to blame. Remember, this is the voice belonging to the man who reads the news who had no news, no information. Did he tonight? Not tonight, either. Just more about the unspeakable war, the one in which territory doesn't change hands and the sole measure of each victory is how many small-boned yellow bodies, with flesh charred by napalm or shattered by metal, huddle and sprawl on the ground after the battle. Waiting to be counted. The newscaster deploys the usual senseless numbers; repeats the well-worn gruesome tautologies of self-righteousness. With a broadly serious set to his face. Lies, but terrible smiling lies.

The producer has excused himself, and left Diddy lingering alone outside the viewing window of Studio B. Diddy presses his face against the glass; listening. If Diddy were given to tirades, he could deliver one (now). The words burning his throat. But against whom would it be aimed? There are so many targets for his revulsion, not least of which is himself. Diddy the Self-Denouncer. But he is scarcely the only thing that's wrong in this world.

The newscaster has stood up, and is jabbing a pointer against the map behind his desk.

There's no end to Diddy's rage; little economy in it, either. How can one slake the rage for self-correction? Provoked by the lies and inanities being disseminated by the newscaster, Diddy will once more try to embark on the endless mission of correcting his feelings.

The newscaster has some words to add to a still photograph, projected on a screen to his left, which shows an American soldier interrogating a kneeling, blindfolded, teenage enemy prisoner of war. But Diddy isn't listening any more.

Reminded of the behavior of his own country, currently engaged in the cumbersome, drawn-out murder of a small defenseless nation—this being only the latest of the century's roll call of historical atrocities, of crimes that baffle the imagination—Diddy's own agonizing during the last four days over the death of merely one person shrank (now) to humiliating size. Considered as an action performed on this planet and in this decade, what Diddy has done is barely visible. Set Diddy's deed against the scale of reality, and it seems petty and amateurish. And his lacerating remorse little more than presumption, a kind of boastfulness; at best, the foolish endearing weakness of the overcivilized. Diddy the Demonic must learn the diminutive proportions of his misdeeds. By this, Diddy doesn't mean to excuse or to condone his inadvertent slaying of Incardona. Murder remains murder, a sluggish and putrid stain upon the feelings. As a death is still a death.

Dalton Harron is no longer Diddy the Good, if indeed he ever was. That may be conceded. Still, it's right to consider those far more vicious and ample murders being committed, ceaselessly, all over the world. With the assassins scarcely ever suffering the slightest ache of guilt. Why would they? When it's done for one's country, one is cheered for slaying a hundred Incardonas every hour: not only bashing in the skulls of the husbands, who may in some cases be able to defend themselves, but disemboweling the wives and throwing the children out of the window, too. It's the rare spirit, the exceptional murderer, who knows enough to feel guilty anyway—even though he's praised for his deed, and congratulated for doing his job. And the others, like Diddy, who haven't been licensed, who've stayed out of the arenas where killing is the respectable business of the day, have their corresponding, equally gullible role to enact. Diddy, too. Though he should know better.

For the questionable reward of being at peace with his neighbors, Diddy has swallowed the rotten bait. Taken for his own truth the old lies about what makes an act good or bad.

It's not for an act of violence, resulting in a death, that Diddy flogs himself; and would, if he were caught by the law, be executed or at least shut away in prison. It's for not having the relevant job or identity, that of a hero or a professional killer. For not having a cause. For lacking a sanctifying public goal. For only killing, not overkilling.

Diddy, looking through the window at the bland newscaster, is glad to be reminded of the world. His own crime last Sunday appears in a saner perspective. And, which is more important, so does his ordeal of guilt.

Hadn't Diddy the Educated known all this for years? That the extravagant self-punishing moralism of essentially peaceful folk like himself serves no one but the mighty, consecrated killers of entire peoples. Confirming their authority. Making them more secure, more inviolate. Today no one has the right to be innocent about these matters, and Diddy is ashamed of his innocence. Over Incardona, what a waste of agony. Over Hester, what a risk of love.

A squeak of door hinges; enter heavy feet in a parody of tiptoeing across the carpet. James Watkins, Hubert's burly son, approaches. “Hello, Harron. See you got here early.” Diddy shifted his legs mechanically, turned away from the smiling herald of absent-minded genocide on the far side of the large glass pane. Holding out his hand. “Hello, Mr. Watkins.” Out into the reception area. Comensky had arrived, too, and was sprawled on a couch; thumbing through a tattered issue of
Life.
“The others will be along any moment, I guess,” said Watkins, rubbing his dry reddish hands together. An old mannerism.

Diddy took out a cigarette and sat down. “Can I have one, too?” said Comensky. “I'm trying to stop, so I don't buy them any more.” Diddy nodded, held out the pack. “Say, Harron, did you see my latest thing in the
Transactions of the American Microscopical Society?
” Diddy said he hadn't. “Hell, I'm glad I thought to bring a few offprints along with me tonight.” Holding the unlit cigarette in his left hand and matches in his right. Comensky stuck the cigarette in his mouth; began to dig one-handed into his inside jacket pocket. The wrong hand. Didn't Comensky remember he was, as he evidently was, right-handed? Eventually he has to put the matches somewhere, too, before he could pull out an offprint and shove it into Diddy's hand. “Thanks,” said Diddy.

A few minutes later, Reager and Michaelson came through the door. (Now) we were ready, the group complete. Diddy guessed from the high spirits of the latecomers that they had both come from Reager's house; to which Michaelson had been invited for dinner, where he had put away one of those lavish meals with too many sauces, and himself been served up as the evening's morsel for Reager's ever less attractive, still unmarried daughter. They seemed to be talking about Evie as they entered. “Hey, Alex,” Comensky called to Michaelson, “you didn't happen to see my piece in the summer issue of
Transactions,
did you?” Michaelson shook his head. “Wait, I brought you one. Just a minute. Don't go away. I have it here in my pocket.”

Without giving the least encouragement to this gift, Michaelson slumped down on the left side of the long couch. Diddy (now) in the middle. Trying to keep clear of Comensky's elbow flailing out to his right. For again, Comensky has to dismiss, temporarily, the useful objects that seem naturally to encumber his hands. A paper cup of water drawn from the cooler in the hallway must be balanced on the narrow armrest of the couch, a copy of the
Courier-Gazette
set down on one knee, a barely smoked cigarette stubbed out in the free-standing metal ashtray next to the couch. Comensky plunges one hand inside his jacket, pulling at something. Almost as if he were, very awkwardly, trying to undress himself. Like a man with an urgent need to piss who discovers his pants have an unfamiliar button fly instead of the usual zipper.

Diddy is amused by Comensky's awkward zeal on his own behalf. The persistence of the born collector. Comensky, yet one more collector to have recently passed before Diddy's view, doesn't collect little objects or trophies. Like postage stamps, or seashells. This time, someone who collects his own ideas; then eagerly gives away, even to those who aren't interested, printed transcriptions of them. The items he purveys aren't the true prize, the original article of value, as is the case with stamp collectors trading real stamps. Or real shells.… More like souvenirs.

We were all sitting (now). The two senior men, Watkins and Reager, have commandeered the comfortable lounge chairs stationed in opposite corners, facing the long couch. On the couch, the three junior men. Michaelson had been handed his offprint and pocketed it. Comensky was looking at the paper again. Diddy, just being. Trying to be.

A very brief wait. Then the producer of “Your Community” enters the reception area through the swinging doors, his arm around the shoulder of the newscaster. “So try to work that in too, will you?”

“Roger,” the newscaster said. “See you in an hour.” And opened the front door.

“See you, Bud.” The door closed behind the newscaster. The producer turns to the five men. “All here?” Beaming. “Good! Let's go into one of the rehearsal rooms, so we can start right away.…”

“I'd rather we began our discussion out here,” said Reager, spacing out his phrases to allow for several puffs on his cigar. “There's someone joining us in a moment. Then we can move inside.” He puffed some more on the cigar, as if to underscore how comfortable he found his chair and to demonstrate his body's unwillingness to move.

Diddy immediately guessed what mood Reager's in. He was going to give the producer a hard time and see how he responded.

How did the man respond? “Certainly, Mr. Reager.” Well, that's that. The producer has lost. Reager, who was full of whims, scorned anyone who yielded to them without at least a token struggle. Which is what the producer had done. Changing his schedule to suit Reager, without so much as a question. Reager must want to fight. Doesn't he know he's already won?

But the producer has an ally. Watkins, who wasn't afraid of bickering and liked giving Reager a run for his money. “Now, Howard, why don't you tell us who's coming?” Watkins held an unlit pipe in his hand.

Reager turned on him coolly. “It's a surprise.”

Who is coming, Diddy wondered? Has Reager added someone to the program without telling anyone else? Some new young man, a rising star of the company, whom he wants to flatter? Or will it just be Reager's beloved Evie, carted along in the unquenchable hope that some day some young man will find her attractive?

Of course, the producer didn't know what was going on. Or how far matters had advanced. Still optimistic or merely insensitive, he was busily organizing our temporary work space. Intending by this shaping of space to assert his own authority. He'd gone out for a moment, then returned with a metal folding chair which he places in the center of the reception area. Then straddled the chair, with both arms hugging the back of the chair to his chest.

“Now.” Looking from face to face. “As I'm sure you know, we want this show to be as informal as possible. ‘Your Community' is a monthly public affairs show, sponsored by the Downtown Merchants Association, and designed to give people in the area served by Channel 10 a better understanding of the free enterprise system, and the problems and responsibilities of American businessmen. Your firm, being one of the oldest and most respected industries in this neck of the woods, is a natural for the show. In fact, I can't understand why we haven't had you folks on before.”