Subjects? He had a ready-made one: It was a family joke among those who listened to the program regularly that Dick’s engineer had a voracious appetite. Indeed, it was Jerry — whom the audience never heard — who was the center of the feast. His appetite was the only legend attached to the show, its single myth. (Why was that?) He got fan mail, requests for pictures, recipes, actual cakes, diets, pennies to weigh himself. Dick sometimes read Jerry’s mail over the air or repeated certain comments he had made about the food. The audience pictured the engineer chewing his way through the night as he turned his various dials. It was as good for the program as Jack Benny’s feud with Fred Allen, Phil Harris’s drinking, Don Wilson’s weight, Crosby’s sport shirts, Jessel’s girls. It neither added to nor detracted from the legend that his engineer’s appetite was real, that the man was a pig and, further, a cheap pig who ate this much every night only because it was free. So there was his subject: Vendler meets Jerry, the King of Breakfast confronts the Emperor of Freeloaders.
All this in that split second between the red illumination of the On the Air sign and Dick’s opening his mouth to speak. And then this: Because my character is my mind. Bernie’s is his obsession, Pepper’s her generosity. Jack’s his meanness, Jerry’s his freeloader’s appetite. God knows what Behr-Bleibtreau’s is, maybe his mystery, but mine’s my mind, what I think and nothing else. And this: He was a character as other people were amoral.]
Vendler is with us, ladies and gentlemen.
[Surprised because he felt no resistance when he reached out to hold the man in place. Then, realizing that it was because he had not yet mentioned the delicatessen, that the one required the other, that he’d clicked only one tumbler in the lock, he gives the plug to get the resistance over with at once.]
Of Vendler’s 24-Hour Kosher-Style Delicatessen.
[And there was a shiver, thinner even than the faint, indecisive shift of the body that signals someone’s intention to rise from a table after a meal has been eaten. So Vendler had a character too, or at least habits. But he was still fixed by Dick’s stiff, outstretched arm.]
Just exactly what is kosher style, Arthur? Some of our listeners might not know.
ARTHUR VENDLER: Chopped liver. Lox — that’s smoked salmon. Kosher pertains to the dietary laws.
DICK GIBSON: [Not bad, actually, for a man who didn’t know this was going to happen to him. His voice a little loud, though; probably raised because he’s uncertain about the equipment— look at the way he bends down and brings his mouth right up to the microphone. I have no character; I am what I think. And what I say on the radio. What I think and what I say. My voice.]
ARTHUR VENDLER: Very few people keep kosher any more. You have to be a fanatic. Even most rabbis don’t keep kosher except on the high holidays. It’s a style. Kosher style is a style. It’s not actually kosher, just the kind of things people like to eat. I don’t know if I can explain it. Rye bread, herring, smoked white fish. If you’ve ever been to the mountains, they serve it in the mountains. I guess the best way I can put it is New York style. What you get in your New York delicatessens.
DICK GIBSON: Well, it’s delicious. Look at Jerry, will you? That’s called Jerry-Style 24-Hour Eating. How would you like a guy like that for a steady customer?
[How’s Behr-Bleibtreau taking all this?]
Wouldn’t he run up a tab? Maybe he doesn’t swallow, what do you think?
[’Tain’t funny, McGee. Get into this, Vendler, please. Help me out.]
He eats for a whole town.
[Behr-Bleibtreau is frowning. He shifts in his chair and looks toward the control booth. What is this? What’s he doing? He points his finger at Jerry. Jerry puts down his sandwich. He puts down the cream soda. My God, he spits out what’s in his mouth! He pushes the food away from him. There goes that subject.] How’s business, Vendler?
ARTHUR VENDLER: Business is good. I can’t complain.
DICK GIBSON: You can’t complain, eh?
ARTHUR VENDLER: No.
DICK GIBSON: No, eh?
ARTHUR VENDLER: No.
DICK GIBSON: Well, that’s good that business is good.
ARTHUR VENDLER: Yes.
DICK GIBSON: [Getting mad at him: there is no reason for grown men to clam up before a microphone. He imagines Vendler in his delicatessen, kibitzing the customers, his mouth going a mile a minute as he slices meat at the machine, the authority of the merchant on him. What was there to fear from a microphone? He spent too much time reassuring his guests, talking them down from where they were treed in their shyness. Damn their timidity, their deference. Then, when they finally did speak out — just look at Jack and Pepper and Bernie — they went around with a hangover from their words.]
Yes, eh?
ARTHUR VENDLER: (nervously) Sure.
DICK GIBSON: You know what I’m thinking?
ARTHUR VENDLER: What’s that?
DICK GIBSON: [Terrific — a regular Mr. Show Business, this Vendler.]
It must cost you twenty-five to thirty dollars a week to make up these trays for us. That’s four weeks a month, twelve months a year. You’d be better off taking a regular spot on the show, buying time and letting us do a commercial for you. You’d be surprised how low the rates are this time of night.
[Mad at Jerry too, now.]
Of course Jerry might quit if you didn’t bring the sandwiches around, but maybe not. He seems to have lost his appetite anyway. Think it over. Of course you might be doing something on the tax angle. I didn’t think of that aspect of it.
ARTHUR VENDLER: Listen, I don’t—
DICK GIBSON: Sure. What do I know about it?
ARTHUR VENDLER: I’ve got to be getting back.
DICK GIBSON: Haban Nagila, kid.
ARTHUR VENDLER: Where’s my lazy susan?
DICK GIBSON: Lying down.
[Vendler leaves the studio. Dick Gibson thinks, I am cutting my losses, and stares at Mel Son—this is air-time, this is while they are on the air, no one is saying anything, their silence is being sent out over the ether—and scowls Behr-Bleibtreauly. He has some hope. Mel’s uneasy. His eyes dart angrily. His behavior isn’t the withdrawal of the others, but seems, rather, an effort to keep control of himself. Perhaps Mel is Jewish; maybe he resents the way Dick has treated Vendler. But the man won’t talk. Dick gives him every opportunity. Well, Mel, tell, he thinks. But it’s hopeless. Perhaps three minutes have gone by since they came back on the air. And then he thinks — the guests in the studio. He announces their names, making up one for those he has forgotten or never knew. Then he makes up other names and gives their place of business. Then he thinks: the telegrams.]
We should be getting some telegrams about now.
[He looks at Jerry.]
No? Nothing in yet? Well, the lines are open. If anyone has a question for Professor Behr-Bleibtreau, send us a telegram at WHCN, Hartford, Connecticut. I’ll accept collect wires. Please keep your messages under ten words. Ask the Professor. Or, if you have questions for one of the panel members—Mr. Son, for example—we’ll entertain those as well. Or perhaps you don’t have a question at all. Maybe you just want to make a comment. Make it at our expense.
[Interrogatives. Declaratives. Let’s see, that leaves exclamatives.]
Just tell the operator you want to send a collect wire to me, Dick Gibson — that’s D-i-c-k G-i-b-s-o-n — care of WHCN — W- H-C-N — Hartford — H-a-r-t-f-o-r-d — Connecticut — C-o-n- n-e-c- t-i-c-u-t. Or, if you’d rather abbreviate it, C-o-n-n. Talk it over with the Western Union operator; see what she says.