“I’ve been taking it easy, but I can’t relax. I want to know why you haven’t sold me or my show idea.”
Rickert stopped smiling. He leaned forward and waved the chewed end of his cigar at me. It dripped.
“Listen, son,” he said. “This isn’t Iowa. That package idea of yours—the Television Psychologist—may have sounded pretty good to you when you dreamed it up back there. And I was willing to give it a whirl. I sent out your audition discs to all the network reps. I’ve pitched you. But it’s just no dice.”
My headache was worse. Rickert’s face wavered in and out of focus as I answered him. “All right, drop the show idea. But remember, I’m still an announcer. I had a chance to get on in Des Moines, and I’m willing to start at the bottom here. There must be plenty of openings around town.”
“In manholes, yes.” Rickert lit a fresh cigar. It dripped nicely, too. “Look, sweetheart, here’s some free advice. Maybe you’re not ready for the big time yet. Why don’t you go back home, take that job? You won’t starve. So you’re out a couple of hundred on this deal—so what? Maybe you’ll click later on. Lots of these executives, they listen to the little stations. Who knows, maybe somebody will spot you and—”
“So I’m not ready for the big time yet, eh?” I stood up and tried to keep my balance in the rolling room. “All right, Mr. Rickert. Thanks for the analysis. But it’s a pity you didn’t tell me all this before I spent three hundred bucks with you—and two months of my life.”
“Hold on, now, sweetheart—”
I was holding on, hard. Even though my head was splitting, even though I wanted to kill somebody, I held on. I knew there was no use getting mad. He’d given me the answer. I was washed up.
“No hard feelings, Eddie,” said Rickert. “Go on home and think it over. Maybe something will still break. I’ll let you know.”
“Only if it’s your neck,” I told him. “This I’d love to hear about.” Then I stopped. “I—I really don’t mean that. Sorry, I’m not feeling too good.”
I went out and managed to wobble through the hall, back to the outer office. It was like walking under water, and the glass bricks wavered before my eyes.
The little man with the monocle was still sitting there. I swam past him. He looked up and started to open his mouth. Fat little fish, gulping air in the wavering water.
“Pardon me,” he said. Voice from far away. Sound under water.
I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. I opened the door and emerged upon the sunlit shore of the street.
He padded after me. “Please—” he murmured.
I shook him off. “Go away.” I knew that’s what my voice said, but I couldn’t control it. “Go away. Can’t you see I’m busy? I have to kill somebody.”
Rushing around the corner, rushing into the crowd, I wondered who it was I meant to kill.
All I knew was that it was going to happen soon.
Two
The sunshine swept all around me, and so did the people. These people walking along the Strip were no better or no worse than those in any crowd, but right now I couldn’t stand their faces: those horrid, impersonal wooden masks which everyone wears in public.
I see those masks on people everywhere: walking down the street, waiting on the corner for cars or busses, standing in elevators, eating in restaurants. All of them trying to pretend they’re alone, all of them behaving like toys wound up to walk, ride, stand or eat.
I saw them now, the hideously animated dolls, and as I hurried along I turned my head away. I breathed deeply but I couldn’t stop trembling. What was wrong with me, anyhow?
I knew what was wrong. I had nowhere to go.
Stopping in a doorway, I lit the last cigarette, and when I threw the package away I was tossing Rickert and the photos and the recordings into the gutter. Everything was gone.
And where did I go from here? The cigarette teeter-tottered in my mouth as I searched my pockets. I found crumpled bills and some change. Four dollars and thirty-five cents. I’d better have something to eat, first.
Eat? I never eat on an empty stomach...
The thoughts kept spinning around, bruising my brain. Why had I ever come out here, anyway? I was just a hick, like all the other Iowa farmers who dream of the trip for years, save up for years, finally travel 2000 miles to get here, and then have nothing to do but send a souvenir to the folks back home—a miniature wooden privy with the name of the city stamped on it.
Yes, I was a hick, but I couldn’t go back home. They’d laugh at me. My brother Charlie would laugh at me. I was laughing at myself.
Eddie Haines, the Boy Wonder. The star of the Senior Play. Just a high-school kid who never grew up. I used to think I was pretty good. They all thought so, then. “You ought to be in the movies. Or on the radio. Or television.”
Why not? It sounded great—in high school. And after high school I got this job at the local radio station. Things were looking up. Then came the idea for this Television Psychologist program and I thought I was all set. So I came to Hollywood and went to Rickert and here I was.
Here I was, right now, standing in the bar with half a snootfull. Funny, I wasn’t standing on the street any more. I was in this dark, quiet bar, and I kept telling these things to the bartender, and he said, “Sure, buddy,” and poured me another.
He didn’t care. He was my pal. He knew there was nothing else to do. Nothing else to do when you’re down to four dollars and thirty-five cents and can’t go back.
Then there wasn’t any more money and it was time to go home. Home? That one-room deal on the third floor with the disconnected phone and the mail slit that never had a letter sticking in it? And how much longer would I even have that to go back to?
Well, maybe I wouldn’t need it much longer. The important thing now was to get there, fast. Walk a little. Lurch a little. Up the stairs. Easy to find the key—it was the only thing left in my pocket.
Very close inside and dark. Close and dark, like a tomb. Shut the door, click the light against the night. There.
When the light came on, my headache started up again. Something about monocles crept into my brain, something about them staring at me. Did Charlie wear a monocle, or Rickert, or the bartender? I couldn’t remember. No, it was somebody else. I wanted to figure it out, but there just wasn’t any time left.
I had promised to do something and I must do it in a hurry. I must do it right now, to get rid of the headache. I walked quickly into the bathroom. The reflection in the mirror hit me in the face. I steadied myself and waited for the mirror to go away. It didn’t, but I knew how to make it go away. I pulled back the door of the medicine cabinet and that did it.
The objects on the shelves were unpleasant. I didn’t want to see them, but I was looking for something and couldn’t help but notice. Aspirin, toothpaste, cold tablets, pills, iodine, scissors—I hated all of it. The melancholy of anatomy...
Everything I saw reminded me of the way you have to fight just to keep alive. Fight with yourself, with your body. There’s always something. Like this headache. Or a cold, sinus trouble. Tooth decay. Bad eyes. Bruises, blisters, cuts, burns, aches, pains. An endless round of cleaning, brushing, scrubbing, combing. Cutting of hair and fingernails and toe-nails. Eating, eliminating, resting, sleeping. Fighting all the time and you can’t win.
I reached out and swept everything into the washbowl. Everything except what I wanted. The toothpowder spilled and the iodine splashed, but I didn’t care. I had what I wanted, now, in my hand.
That Charlie, that big brother of mine, was a tough egg. Always ready to hand out some patronizing advice. But one thing he told me I never had forgotten.
“There’s two things a man should always get straight—his whiskey and his razor.”