The Troubled Air (4 page)

“That’s blackmail, you know,” Archer said, “in a very plain form.”

“They don’t call it that,” O’Neill said. “They say they don’t wish to hurt the sponsor or the industry with bad publicity unless they’re forced to. Anyway, the editor once worked for Hutt and he did it as an act of friendship.”

“Who appointed them to the job of referee in this game?” Archer asked. “Why don’t they mind their own business?”

“People have a right to fight against Communism,” O’Neill said patiently. “In any profession. Maybe they’re fanatic about it, but it’s the temper of the time and maybe you can’t blame them too much.”

“Did you see the letter?” Archer asked.

“Yes.”

“What sort of connections did they say our people had?”

“All of them are mixed up with the usual list of fellow-traveler organizations,” O’Neill said in a low, guarded voice. “You know. The Attorney-General’s list of subversive societies and committees and some California group’s separate little honor roll. Plus some that the magazine has given the red star on its own hook.”

“They could be wrong, you know,” Archer said. “They’ve had to apologize before this.”

“I know,” said O’Neill. “But they’ve been right an awful lot of the time, too. And they’re awfully strong. They’ve wrecked two or three programs already. And I don’t know whether you know this or not, but they’ve been responsible for getting about twenty-people quietly dropped from jobs throughout the business in the last year or so. Some pretty big people, too.”

“Has anybody said that University Town is Communistic?” Archer asked. “The program itself?”

“Not yet.” O’Neill lit a cigarette. He did not look as solid and as staunchly entrenched as he had earlier in the evening. “There’ve been a few letters. Cranks, I suppose. Too many stories about poor people, not enough religious feeling in some of the episodes …”

“Oh, God, Emmet.”

“I’m just telling you what we’ve already gotten,” O’Neill said. “But if the story comes out …” He shrugged. “They’ll need six extra mail carriers for the letters. And they’ll say everything. From telling us we buy our time with money direct from the Kremlin to accusing us of selling atomic secrets to the Russians.”

“What a business we’re in!” Archer said.

“Well, we’re in it.” O’Neill grinned palely. “So far.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“I think,” O’Neill said slowly, “that we’ve been a little close to the edge a couple of times. That Barbante’s such an irreverent bastard, and he makes fun of everything and who knows what little tricks and hints he slips in without our catching him?”

“Now, Emmet …”

“Now, Clement.” O’Neill imitated Archer’s tone, harshly. “You don’t know. You’re protected. You work at home, you come into the studio once a week and you pull out and nobody bothers you. I sit there eight hours a day and I get it all thrown at me.”

“From now on,” Archer said coldly, “do me a favor. Stop protecting me. Let me know what’s happening.”

“Anything you say.” O’Neill suddenly looked weary and he dug his fingers into his eyes. “But don’t think you’re going to be any happier when I do.”

“Listen,” Archer said, “do you think we have the right to fire people from their jobs even if they
are
comrades?”

O’Neill took a deep breath. “We have a right to fire any unpopular actor,” he said flatly.

“Unpopularity,” Archer murmured. “New grounds for capital punishment.”

“What do you want me to say to that?”

“Nothing,” Archer said. “Not a thing.”

“Don’t make me the heavy here,” O’Neill said. “I’m paid to sell a sponsor’s product. If I deliberately hurt the business, I’m out on my ear in a week. If the American people decide they don’t want to listen to a certain actor, all I can do is go along with them.”

“The American people,” Archer said. “Who knows who they are and what they want? Do we take the word of one little magazine on the subject?”

“This year, Clement,” O’Neill said, “I guess we do.”

“And we take their word that whoever they call a Communist is a Communist?”

“The sponsor says we do,” O’Neill said. “This year.”

“The sponsor is willing to see the program crippled? This year?”

“I suppose he is.”

“And, later on,” Archer continued, “if somebody says I’m a Red or you’re a fellow-traveler, or Barbante, the sponsor will fire all of us, too?”

“I guess so.”

“What do you feel about that?”

“It’s a tough world, Brother,” O’Neill said. “So put your money in the bank.”

“And the people we fire won’t get any other jobs, either, will they?”

“Probably not,” O’Neill said.

“Conceivably, they’ll starve to death.”

“Conceivably,” O’Neill nodded. His eyes were glazed now and he answered stubbornly and automatically.

“And, even if we grant that Communists should not work on radio,” Archer went on evenly, “still, we do not permit the people who are accused to defend themselves?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t occur to you that that’s a little bit on the filthy side, does it?”

“It occurs to me,” said O’Neill. “A lot of things occur to me.” O’Neill played with his glass. “I get paid $18,000 a year because I have such a fertile mind. Next year, they put my name on the door.”

“If there’s still a door.”

O’Neill nodded agreeably. “If there’s still a door.”

“Now, as for the question of technique,” Archer said, pleased with the fact that he was doing this so calmly. “What am I supposed to say to the five people? Do I say, You’re Communists, or, We think you’re Communists, or, The editor of a throwaway magazine is of the opinion you’re Communists, kindly leave and starve in another section of the city?”

“That’s up to you,” O’Neill said. “I suggest it would save trouble to do it as quietly as possible.”

“Quietly.” Archer nodded reasonably. “Be so good as to walk, not run, to the nearest exit when you discover your throat is cut. Something along that order? Maybe Mimeograph will run off a form.”

“It was felt,” O’Neill returned to his earlier oratorical style, “that the best way would be merely to say nothing. None of them has a contract. We don’t have to tell them anything.”

“I see.” Archer pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Do you suggest that that’s the way I do it to Vic Herres, for example? Is that what you would do with your friend Herres, Emmet?”

The plum surge of blood showed in O’Neill’s face again. “Please, Clement,” he said, “what do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know about you, Emmet,” said Archer, feeling his hands trembling, “but I can’t do it this way. Maybe I can’t do it any way, but this is out. So I’ll quit now, and you find somebody else who knows how to handle these things better.”

“You can’t quit,” O’Neill said. “Your contract runs another sixteen weeks.”

“Mr. Clement Archer,” said Archer, “the not very eminent radio director and producer, was last seen entering a private nursing home, suffering from a nervous breakdown due to overwork. Before he went in, he issued a statement regretting his inability to fulfill his obligations due to reasons of health. He was assured by his lawyers that this was sufficient legal justification for laying down his contractual burdens.”

O’Neill listened unhappily. “All right,” he said, “what do you want? Within reason.”

Archer thought for a moment. “First of all,” he said, “I want time. You sprang this on me without warning and you can’t expect me to make up my mind in fifteen minutes. Is that within reason?”

“How much time do you want?”

Archer considered. “Two weeks, anyway.”

“You won’t help Herres in two weeks,” O’Neill said.

“Maybe not.” Archer smiled. “But maybe I’ll help myself. I’m a slow thinker, and if I was smarter I wouldn’t be in radio, but in two weeks there’s a chance I can get one or two things settled, anyway. For one thing, I might even find out whether these people
are
Communists or not.”

“How’ll you do that?”

“In a very novel way. I’ll ask them.”

O’Neill laughed harshly. “Do you think they’ll tell you?”

“Who knows? Maybe they will,” Archer said. “The world is full of people with a sickly leaning toward the truth.”

“What if Frances Motherwell tells you she’s not a Communist?”

Archer considered for a moment. “I won’t believe her,” he said quietly.

“What if Vic Herres says he’s not a Communist?”

“I’ll believe him.”

“Because he’s your friend.”

“Because he’s my friend,” Archer said.

“Then what’ll you do?” O’Neill demanded. “After the two weeks are up?”

“I’ll tell you then.” Archer noticed that his hands had stopped trembling.

“All right,” O’Neill said. “You have two weeks. I don’t know what I’ll say to Hutt, but I’ll stall him off.”

“Thanks, Emmet,” Archer said, feeling pleased with O’Neill.

“Yeah,” O’Neill said. “I’ll probably be on my ass by next Friday. Here …” He reached into his pocket and took out a folded piece of paper. It was a galley sheet. “Maybe you’d like to read this.” He put it on the table in front of Archer.

Archer opened it and glanced down at it. It was the article from the magazine. It looked badly printed and harmless on the flimsy paper.

“Do you mind if I read it?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” O’Neill said. He waved to the bartender for two more whiskies.

“Of all the programs on the air at this time,” Archer read, “one of the most flagrant and cynical offenders against loyal and patriotic Americans is University Town, sponsored by the Sandler Drug Company, produced by the Hutt and Bookstaver Agency, and directed by Clement Archer.”

“Water or soda?” the bartender asked, standing beside Archer’s chair. Archer folded the galley automatically.

“Soda,” he said. He watched the bubbly water fill the glass. The bartender went away and Archer opened the galley again. He read hazily, not being able to focus very well without his glasses and too lazy to take them out for half a column of print.

The article was written in the aggrieved prophetic style with which people air their views on Communism in the newspapers. There were some pugnacious metaphoric generalities about the necessity of clearing the American air of the termites who inveigled their way into the middle of the American home and then charges that Stanley Atlas, Frances Motherwell, Alice Weller, Manfred Pokorny and Victor Herres were either Communists or sympathizers. It offered some twenty organizations on the Attorney-General’s list in which the actors were alleged to hold membership, lumping them all together and making it sound as though all the people who were accused were equally culpable. Pokorny, according to the article, was soon to be brought before the Immigration authorities, with a view toward deportation. The article closed with a blunt hint that if the sponsors of the program did not take action, appropriate steps would be instituted by the American people.

Archer sighed when he finished the article. Except for the names, it was so familiar, and by now, so boring. He was always surprised at the freshness and vigor with which the crusaders of the press could stir up the old names and the old charges. Even if a man felt that they were true and he was serving his country nobly by repeating them, it took a special imperviousness to boredom to roar them over and over again like that. Power, he glimpsed dimly, is finally in the hands of those who find a geometrically increasing pleasure in repetition. The equivalent among saints would be a man who merely said, “God, God, God,” ten thousand times a day. I am probably a weakling, he thought, because I demand novelty.

“Dandy, isn’t it?” O’Neill asked. He had been staring at Archer’s face as he read, studying it for hints of what Archer was feeling.

“Delicious prose style these fellows have perfected,” Archer said. “Can I keep it so I can study it?”

“Sure,” O’Neill said. “But burn it when you’re through with it.”

“You’re jittery, Emmet,” Archer said. “Maybe you ought to join Alcoholics Anonymous.”

“Yeah,” said O’Neill. “I’m jittery all right. And I don’t join anything.”

“Thanks,” Archer said, “for the two weeks. I hope it doesn’t cost you your job.”

“Who knows?” O’Neill stared at him sourly. “You marked me lousy tonight, didn’t you?”

Archer hesitated. “A little, maybe. Around the edges.”

“It’s always nice to have honest friends.” O’Neill let his breath out in a long, sighing sound. He looked truculent and embarrassed, like a boy who has just been taken out of a football game by the coach for allowing himself to be blocked out of a play. “Honest friends,” he said ramblingly, “in this day and age …” He put his head in his hands.

Archer stood up. “I’m going home,” he said. “I’ve had enough fun for one night. Can I give you a lift?”

“No,” Emmet said, still with his head in his hands. “I’m going to stay here and drink. I’m having a fight with my wife and I’m waiting for her to fall asleep.” He picked up his head. “Sometimes,” he said unsmilingly, “I wish I was back in the Marines. On Guam.”

“Good night,” Archer said. He patted O’Neill’s shoulder lightly. Archer went out. O’Neill, sitting alone in the dark and empty restaurant, ordered a double Scotch.

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER ARCHER OPENED THE DOOR OF HIS HOUSE.
He saw that there were lights on upstairs and he knew that Kitty was awake.

“Kitty,” he called from the hallway, closing the door behind him. “Kitty, I’m home.”

“Clement.” Kitty’s voice floated softly down the stairwell. Even in merely calling his name, there was the private tone of pleasure and welcome with which she always greeted him. “I’m in bed, darling.”

“Do you want anything?” he asked, throwing his coat and hat over a chair in the hall. “Before I come up?”

“Well …” He could picture her sitting in bed, pursing her mouth, slowly making up her mind. “Well … There’re some fresh cookies in the jar. And a glass of milk. Half a glass.”

“On the way up,” Archer said. He went through the living room to the kitchen. There were some freesias in a bowl, a tropical, summer scent, and the maid had fixed the room before she had left for the night and all the cushions were crisp and perfect on the couch and chairs. The room was a pleasant hodgepodge of furniture styles, with some early American tables and Victorian chairs in bright silk upholstery and you could tell that an interior decorator had never been allowed past the front door. Home, Archer thought comfortably, home. He could feel himself relaxing, forgetting O’Neill, forgetting the program, forgetting the folded galley sheet in his pocket.