The Dick Gibson Show (46 page)

She took the bottoms of the strange pants and rolled them up her long legs as if pulling on stockings, maneuvering her body intricately as they rose astonishingly above her hips where they unsnapped at the crotch like a baby’s pajamas. She was naked underneath. Dick gasped and gazed in wonder. “Send me the bill. I
want
to pay it.”

They made love and smoked. Dick offered her a light from his matchbook, but was disappointed to see that she had plenty of Deauville matchbooks of her own. Then they drank Sheila’s scotch, which he stirred with the cavalier-topped swizzle stick. The FM played “Lara’s Theme” from
Dr. Zhivago
and Dick saw through a chink in the drapes that there
was
a full moon. Naked, he got out of bed and opened the curtains. Sliding back the glass doors, he stepped out on the balcony. Below him the illuminated swimming pool glowed like an enormous turquoise; beyond it the narrow, perfect lawn of beach meshed with the dark Atlantic, the uneven, concentric tops of the waves seen from above like the curved rows of an amphitheater.

He sat in a wrought iron and rubber chaise longue and crossed his arms on his chest. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw that Sheila was watching him from the bed. “Come on out,” he said. “This is swell.”

“Do you know what your ass looks like pressing through those rubber straps? Like a zebra’s.”

“Come on out,” he said. “The sun will be coming up in a little bit. It’s going to be terrific.”

Reluctantly she got up and put on a dressing gown. She brought Dick’s underwear out and sat in a chaise next to his. “Here,” she said, “put this on.”

“Why? I’m comfortable.”

“How old are you, Dicky?”

“Pushing fifty. Why?”

“You’re not in the first bloom of youth is all.”

“Oh. Aesthetic reasons. Okay.” He took the underwear and pulled it on. “Is my body really that bad?”

“Pushing fifty’s pushing fifty. But actually, if you want to know, you surprised me tonight.”

“Not bad for an old man?”

“Not bad for an old man.”

He leaned over and kissed her. “Hey,” he said, “how come you were still up?”

“Oh,” she said, “like you. I had the blues.”

“Not like me,” he said. “I’m terrific. Say, look at those palm trees over on the Nautilus’s patio. That’s really beautiful. I never noticed them before. You can’t see them from my angle. They must be Royal Hawaiians or something.”

“I guess.”

“Gee,” Dick said, “the palms, the beach, the sea, the moon and stars and air. It’s really terrific, isn’t it? Listen to what they’re playing on the FM. That’s ‘Mood Indigo.’”

“I guess.”

“That’s one of my favorite songs, ‘Mood Indigo.’”

“I used to do a kind of a ballet thing to ‘Stardust.’”

“Did you? I bet it was beautiful.”

“It was
corny.”

“Well, sure it was corny. Hell, yes, it was corny. But what could be cornier than this, any of this? Listen,” he said, becoming excited, “once, long before I ever pushed fifty, during the war, I had this idea about what my life would be like. It was going to be special, really
something.
I mean
really
something. Do you know what I mean?”

“Do I ever,” Sheila said. “I grew up thinking I was going to be another Chita Rivera and have the dancing lead on Broadway. I thought I’d be on
Hollywood Palace
one week and introduced from Ed Sullivan’s audience the next.”

“But your life
is
special,” Dick Gibson said. “It
is.
You’re here. Excuse me, but you’re here with me.
My
life is exceptional too. I mean, what I thought back then was that it would be touched by cliché. Look,
look,
the sun’s coming up! I can hear the seagulls screeching! It’s dawn. … That it would be as it is in myth. That maybe I might even have to suffer more than ordinary men. Well, I was prepared. If that’s what it costs, that’s what it costs. Sure. Absolutely. Pay life the two dollars and let’s get going! … That I would even have enemies. Well, face it, who has enemies? Is there a nemesis in the house? People are too wrapped up in themselves to have it in for the other guy. But anyway, that’s what I thought. That was my thinking about it, that I’d have enemies like Dorothy had the Witch of the West … Look,
look,
the sun is like a soft red ball. The wind’s coming up. You can hear it stir the palms … That I’d have this goal, you see, but that I’d be thwarted at every turn. I’ve always been in radio. I thought maybe my sponsors would give me trouble, or my station manager. Or the network VP’s. Or, God yes, I admit it, the
public.
That somehow they’d see to it I couldn’t get said what needed to be said. That I’d be kicked and I’d be canned, tied to the railroad tracks, tossed off cliffs, shot at, winged, busted, caught in traps, shipwrecked, man overboard and the river dragged. But that I’d always bounce back, you understand; I’d always bounce back and live in high places where the glory is and the tall corn grows. That my birthdays would be like third-act curtains in a play. I didn’t remember any of this until tonight. That’s funny, that I’d forget about it when it was all I wanted, all I’ve been waiting for …”

“Whassamatter, Dicky?”

“Nothing. Nothingsamatter. Nothingsamatter.
Nothing!
Listen, they’re playing ‘I Get Along Without You Very Well.’ You want to go steady?”

“Shh,” she said, “don’t shout so.”

“Was I shouting? Was I really shouting? Well, I’m sorry,” he said. He looked hard at the sunrise. “I
thought
it would be trite,“ he said. “I thought it would be trite and magnificent.”

“You’re a funny guy.”

“Ha ha.”

“Poor Dick.”

“Boo hoo.”

“It’s late. Why don’t we go inside?”

“I’m all right. It’s beginning to happen. I was waiting for it to start and it’s starting. I should have come to Florida years ago. It’s beginning. I can feel it. This is it, I think. I think maybe this is it.”

4

“I have a call on the Florida line. Hello. Night Letters.”

“Hello? Hello?” A kid’s voice.

“Turn your radio down, sonny.”

“All right.” A pause. Dead air. He had stopped trying to fill up the time it took for a caller to turn his radio down. What did his listeners care what the temperature was in Miami? As for the time, they’d been up all night too. They knew the time—none better.

“Hello?”

“I’m here, sonny. Up kind of late tonight.”

“Yes.”

“No school tomorrow?”

“There’s school.”

“Where you calling from, sonny?”

“Jacksonville.”

“Want to ask me a riddle?” When kids called they usually had jokes to tell or riddles to ask. A good sport, Dick gave up even when he knew the answer.

“Naw.”

“Naw, eh? Well what’s on your mind? What’s the temperature up in Jacksonville?”

“I don’t know. I’m not outside.”

“I’ll bet you’re not. Where you calling from? Is there a phone in your room?”

“Yes.”

“Do your parents know you’re using it at this hour? I’ll bet when they put that phone in they told you that having your own extension was a privilege and not a right. What do you think they’d say if they knew you were using it to call a radio station at a quarter of two in the morning? You think they’d approve of that?”

“No. But they’re dead.”

“Oh. … Well gee, son, I’m sorry to hear that. That doesn’t change the principle, though. It’s still kind of late for a youngster to be up. Youngsters need sleep … Are they both dead?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m sorry, son. What did you want to talk about? Do you want to give me your name?”

“Henry Harper.”

“What did you want to talk about, Henry?”

“How do I join a Listening Post and get your Night Letter Directory? Is there a certain age you have to be?”

“How old are you, Henry?”

“I’m nine.”

“I don’t think we have anyone your age in any of our Listening Posts.”

“Oh.”

“But in all fairness, Henry, I’m sure there isn’t anything against it in our bylaws. All you do is send your name and address care of this station and write me a little something about yourself for the Night Letter. You write, don’t you?”

“I print.”

“To tell you the truth, Henry, I think you’d be better off in the Cub Scouts.”

“That’s best left up to me, I should think.”

“Just as you say, Henry. Maybe you’d better get some rest now though.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Oh?”

“I would if I could.”

“Do you want to talk about it, Henry? Do you want to talk about your Mommy and Daddy?”

“They’re dead. I told you that.”

“I see.”

“They died in a freak accident.”

“What grade are you in, Henry? What’s your favorite subject?”

“Third grade. Social Studies. Mother and Father were hobbyists. There’s money. This isn’t an extension.”

“I see.”

“Mother and Father were hobbyists. They’d done everything. They’d gone spelunking in Turkey and all along the Golden Crescent in Iran. They once sailed in a dhow from Dar-es-Salaam in the Indian Ocean all the way round Dondra Head to Columbo. There were motorcycles, of course, and skiing and safaris, and once they were the special guests of the Norwegian whale fisheries on an Antarctic whale hunt. Both of them raced cars and were licensed balloonists. They were fun parents,” Henry said, sighing.

“The freak accident?” Dick Gibson said gently.

“Yes. They’d become interested in sky diving. It happened right here in Jacksonville on the estate. I was there. I was seven. Father jumped first and then Mother. Only something went wrong. Father’s chute opened, but Mother delayed opening hers, and she fell right on top of him at about two thousand feet. She must have killed him instantly, broke his neck. They fell together another few hundred feet or so. Mother tried to open her chute but her lines must have been all fouled with Father’s. She got the reserve pack open, but the chute never bellied properly. She was able to hitchhike the rest of the way down on the buoyancy in Father’s chute, but she had no control over her drift, and they tumbled down over the trees into the private zoo. Since she was all tangled up in Father’s lines, she wasn’t able to disentangle herself in time. She spooked the tiger and it killed her. She never had a chance.”

“You
saw
this?”

“I didn’t see the tiger part,” the boy said. He began to cry.

“Don’t cry, son. Don’t cry, Henry.”

“Yes, sir,” Henry said. “Sorry.”

“Listen, son, why don’t you go into your grandparents’ room and tell them you’re upset?”

“They’re dead. They died in a freak accident.”

“The tiger?”

“No, sir. They were John Ringling North’s guests on the circus train, and they’d gone back to talk to the alligator woman and the midgets and the four-armed boy in the last car when the bridge buckled. Every car made it to the other side but the freaks’.”

“I see. Your uncle, then. Your aunt.”

“They’re dead too. Everybody’s dead,” Henry said.

“Well, who’s home, son? Who’s home, Henry?”

“Nobody’s home. They’re all dead.”

“Well, somebody’s got to be there. Who do you stay with?”

“I live by myself.”

“What about the housekeeper?”

“I fired the housekeeper. She wasn’t thorough.”

“You said you lived on an estate. What about the gardener?”

“The gardener’s dead.”

“Henry, children often have terrific imaginations. Sometimes they like to tease grown-ups.”

“I don’t like to tease grown-ups. I don’t have a terrific imagination. What do you want me to do, swear that everybody is dead? Okay, I swear it. I swear it on my honor.”

“Well what about the legalities?”

“How do you mean?”

“How can you live by yourself? Legally, that is. Don’t the courts have anything to say?”

“Plenty. They have plenty to say. When my parents died I was given over to the custody of my grandfather. But then he and Grandmother died in the freak accident. There were no other relatives. I had an executor and he died, and the man who took over for him, he died too. I guess all the provisions for me just finally ran out. I don’t blame anyone. There’s a curse on me, I think. My guardians are wiped out. There’s a trust fund which I don’t get till I’m twenty-one, but there’s cash. There’s a lot of cash around the house—about three quarters of a million dollars—and I use that to live. I’m all alone here. But I go to school. I never play hooky.”

“Henry, a boy needs adult guidance. How can you live in a big house all by yourself? What about your meals?”

“I’m all right. I’m fine. I make my own breakfast and the school has a hot lunch program. At night I eat in restaurants. I take taxis to them, or sometimes if I don’t feel like going out I have a cab bring over some chicken from the Colonel.”