DICK: Then how do you know they were from Mars?
HERMAN BECKENDIENST: Well, I seen their license plates.
And when Dick leaned over and hugged the farmer, the man had been more startled by Dick’s embrace than by the approach of the Martian saucer itself. He could have hugged all of them — all the zealots and crusaders and saints to obsession, as well as the reasonable ones, the juristic Bernie Perks. Ah, God, would there were an auditorium to hold them all, to always be there with them, to keep them forever talking.
He received the signal from his engineer. “A minute to air time, people,” he said. They all stopped chatting and looked at him. A couple of the panelists coughed. Behr-Bleibtreau smiled. Dick rubbed the skin along his throat, and watched for Jerry — there was something vaguely athletic about the gesture, his engineer’s arm up like an official’s with a gun above runners — to throw his finger at him. “Thirty seconds,” he said on his own. “All right, be ready.”
In his head he knew the exact instant that Jerry would signal, and was already talking before the finger came down the full arc of his engineer’s arm.
DICK: Good midnight. I’m Dick Gibson. Till dawn us do part. Forgive the glibness, please. I’ve been in radio practically since it was invented, but I’ve never been comfortable about introductions. There’s just no appropriate style. UNH UNH UNH, DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL! You see? I don’t know you, you don’t know me. We’re strangers. One of us has to make a beginning. Why don’t I just give you the lineup? My colleagues and comrades tonight are Professor Jack Patterson, Pepper Steep of the Pepper Steep Charm School, Bernard Perk of the corner drugstore, and Mel Son of Amherst.
JACK: Mel, son of Amherst. (laughter)
MEL: Jack patter, son. (laughter)
DICK: Come on, you guys. I haven’t introduced our Special Guest. Who is—
BERNIE: Boy, with jokes like that I’d give up.
DICK: … the noted psychologist, Edmond Behr-Bleibtreau. Dr. Behr-Bleibtreau is an author who has written extensively on the problem of Will — not as a philosopher but as someone pragmatically concerned with the problems of people.
JACK: That’d be like Will’s will.
DICK: If my panel will restrain itself long enough for me to get through this introduction, we can find out about it from the guest himself. Oh. Dr. Behr-Bleibtreau, one of the things we do on this show is to invite the audience to send in telegrams to the station. We accept about half a dozen collect wires a night, so I have to ask those people who won’t be paying for them to keep their messages within a ten-word limit. Later on we’ll discuss their comments on the air.
Dick gave his listeners his cable code; then, displeased with his voice — he thought it too high-pitched tonight — and to calm down his panel, he talked some more about the program’s format. He watched Behr-Bleibtreau for signs of irritation, but the man merely smiled and seemed to follow everything that was said with great attention. Sometimes a guest tried to make an alliance with Dick against the panel, but Behr-Bleibtreau seemed perfectly at ease, more so even than the people in the theater seats.
Still distrustful of the panel’s mood, Dick made some further summary statements about Behr-Bleibtreau’s work, for though it was true that he had not read Behr-Bleibtreau’s books he had the public person’s superficial grounding in all things; he could have gone on for fifteen minutes or so giving his creditable layman’s presentation of the psychologist’s position. He knew, however, that he was boring his listeners. (The thing about me, he thought even while still speaking, is that I have no humor. And that’s because I like being where I am and doing what I do. Why, then, am I so unhappy?) He knew he had to bring his speech to an end, but he saw Jack Patterson’s lips pursing for a joke. (They were skitterish tonight; he didn’t know why.) Anything was better than this, however, and he addressed himself directly to Behr-Bleibtreau, making it seem at the last moment as if his remarks had all been part of a dialogue.
DICK: … by which I take it you mean the mind. Every day in every way I get better and better. That sort of thing.
BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: Yes. But not so piecemeal. I would take the element of time out of it. We are too patient.
JACK PATTERSON: I’m surprised to hear you say that, Dr. Behr- Bleibtreau. As patient as you were during Dick’s program notes. As positively benign as the guest of honor at a banquet.
BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: I’m not in favor of rudeness, Mr. Patterson.
JACK PATTERSON: I think I must call you on that, Dr. Behr-Bleibtreau. I don’t wish to be stuffy, but I’m as much Ph.D. as you are, and if I’m going to address you as Doctor, I think I deserve the same courtesy.
BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: And shall our druggist friend here insist on being called Doc?
BERNIE PERK: Hey, wait a minute, I’m out of this.
JACK PATTERSON: That was meant for me, Bernie.
PEPPER STEEP: Oh good. Two Doctors and a Doc.
MEL SON: And a Dick.
Dick broke in to introduce a commercial. As Jerry put on the loop in the control booth Dick asked, “What’s wrong with you people? Come on, Jack, stop being so damned snotty. You’ve been horsing around since the program went on the air. Be professional, for God’s sake.” He looked apologetically at Behr-Bleibtreau. (Guests had walked out. It was not unheard of.) “We’re going on again now, and I’m going to try to draw you out, Edmond, about some of your ideas. All right everybody. Here we go.”
DICK: I’d like to get down to something a bit more specific, sir.
BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: Yes.
DICK: What troubles me is the role of determinism in all this. You don’t seem to leave any room for it.
BEHR-BLEIBTREAU: I prefer to use the word “determination.” It’s—
JACK PATTERSON: Oh, please.
DICK: Jack, let the man finish his sentence, will you? I don’t know how this hostility built up, but I want to tell you I think you’re sabotaging the program.
JACK PATTERSON: Do you want me to leave?
DICK: No, of course not. I just want you to calm down a little — that goes for all of you — and give Dr. Behr-Bleibtreau a chance to explain himself.
JACK PATTERSON: Because all you have to do is say the word and I’ll get the hell out of here.
BERNIE PERK: Come on. Jack. Dick isn’t saying anything like that.
MEL SON: Of course not.
PEPPER STEEP: And they say women are temperamental.
JACK PATTERSON: Don’t give me any of that cant, you.
PEPPER STEEP: Well, I beg your pardon, I’m sure.
JACK PATTERSON: Big charm school operator. Charming.
BERNIE PERK: Please, everybody.
JACK PATTERSON: Because that’s how the hostility built up. Cant. Cant and crud. I think this is Jack Patterson’s farewell appearance on these shows. Either you get the goofs who think all the world has to do is sit around listening to how they were carved out of wood by elves in the forest, or quick-buck artists like the Dr. Behr-Bleibtreau here who make their pile out of positive thinking or some other such claptrap. Nothing real happens. You’ve got the extremists on the one hand and the self-taught, gift-from-the- sea people on the other. I’m thirty-eight years old. I’m a Ph.D. from Harvard. Harvard! And all I am is an Associate Professor at Hartford Community College. Oh, God.
DICK: Ladies and gentlemen — a commercial.