Labor Day saw the end of radio’s coma. Overnight Stations FKIP, FFOM,
and FWWO stirred with new life; overnight the unofficial players’ club
that had lounged away the summer in Vic Wylie’s outer office disbanded.
Where there had been a great deal of brightness and gaiety, there was
now only the strictly business-like ring of the telephone and the steady
clatter of Miss Robb’s typewriter.
And so Joe Carlin started on the rounds at last. There was an
unaccustomed buoyancy to his stride, a lilting sway to his shoulders.
Amby Carver had unconsciously given him that. If Vic would kill a Wylie
Productions show rather than release him as a co-lead, he must be good.
Very good. Better than he had thought. Better than Wylie had ever
admitted.
Hot with anticipation and expectation, he swung into the tide of show
people making the rounds. Flowing from studio to studio through the
crowds of Royal Street, the tide was somehow brightly set apart. It
eddied into the broadcasting company buildings vivid with a color all
its own; talkative and animated, it swirled up in the elevators. Talk
was all around Joe, endless and continuous—the feverish talk of show
business. FWWO was auditioning for a commentator to do a night broadcast
of local news. FFOM wasn’t due to think about casting until to-morrow.
One of the night clubs was canvassing the talent bureaus of the radio
stations for a blues singer. A girl announced breathlessly that she had
worked up a show for the little tots—FFOM wanted to hear it. A man said:
“A good kid show keeps you in the chips. Uncle Don’s been running a long
time on WOR.” A tide of show business patter carried Joe to the office
of John Dennis, FKIP’s casting director.
Dennis’ small office, crowded, sounded like a happy-go-lucky, madcap
picnic. Joe, stranded in the hall’s overflow, was much wiser than he had
been last June. This was the bread-and-butter hunt, restlessly anxious
beneath the brightly vivacious surface of the tide. What did you do when
you got in to Dennis, ask point-blank if he had a part for you? He
should have asked Archie Munn. He hadn’t seen Stella or Lucille.
Apparently when show business hunted radio’s bread and butter, it hunted
alone.
Listening, Joe discovered that nobody was asking about parts. The
pattern became plain. You made light-talk and kept up a front. You
showed yourself, day after day, so that casting directors wouldn’t
forget you. A gale of laughter swept out of the room. A woman came into
the hall and John Dennis’ voice followed her: “To-morrow at four, Babe.”
Joe had it. You walked in and cracked a gag. You might not have a dime
in your pocket but you made sure the gag was good. If they wanted you,
they gave you the nod.
A voice behind him said: “Dennis thought the _I Want Work_ show was a
sure five-a-week. Yesterday they were glad to sell it for Tuesdays and
Fridays.”
Another voice said: “Bit parts. A lot of us will get a piece of that.”
Joe Carlin’s feet itched to go into a Fancy Dan Carlin step. He was in
at last. He’d have a bit in the first show. Hadn’t he been one of the
cast that had cut the platter for Dennis? If you were good, you could
make even a bit part stand out.
By ones and by twos actors and actresses left John Dennis’
bread-and-butter shrine and made room for one or two waiting in the
hall. Joe noticed how the unworried, smiling mask went on at once, how
they stepped across the threshold with an entrance line to catch the
casting director’s attention. The lines must have been good, for
laughter was hearty and continuous.
Joe got in at last. He couldn’t think up a gag—not a good gag.
“Hello, Joe.” Fat John Dennis was cordial. “Have a good summer?”
“Swell,” said Joe. He waited to be told to report for the _I Want Work_
show. Somebody else came in with a bright entrance, and there was more
laughter. The circle of interest that had formed around Joe shifted to
the newcomer. The bantering talk was full of allusions to happenings in
radio last season. That had been before his time; he didn’t understand
the allusions. He felt isolated, one of the crowd but not a part of it.
An actress included him in a sally and he laughed with the others
without knowing what it was that caused the laughter. He decided to get
out before he began to look like a clown.
“Guess I’ll be pushing along.” He took his time getting to the door.
“Glad to have seen you again,” said John Dennis. Not a word about the
show.
An FKIP loudspeaker, scratchy and metallic, tin-panned the harmony of a
quartet as Joe went toward the elevators; his shoulders swayed. The
first moment of disappointment had passed. The voice in the hall, he
told himself, had been one of those things; the _I Want Work_ platter
was still a turkey. Long before this every producer, every casting
director, every station must have heard the story of how Vic Wylie had
ridden along with him. If the _I Want Work_ show had sold, he’d have had
a part. He couldn’t miss. He carried Wylie’s stamp of approval and Wylie
was tops as a picker. If he was good enough for Wylie, he was good
enough for any of them. He watched a dial that announced the descent of
the elevator. The elevator stopped, and Amby Carver stepped out.
At sight of Joe Carlin the agent’s eyes blinked. Then the cane made a
flourish. “Joe, you’re just the man I’m looking for. I’m getting a
couple of parts lined up—”
“Doesn’t Mrs. Munson’s nephew want them?” Joe asked. He pushed back his
hat.
“Joe,” little Amby said earnestly, “you got me wrong. All wrong. Look!
Sure I was after a job with Munson. Why not? Do you know when I tried to
bring the nephew in? After I read the script. If you want to click with
an afternoon show it’s got to have yum-yum. Is there any love in this
Sue Davis show? Amby Carver’s asking you. I told Munson the script was
stinko. Does your agent want you in a stinko show that ruins your
reputation? So I try to get the nephew in. I tell Munson the show is
such a stinko only a good actor like his nephew can save it. That leaves
me in the middle. If the show flops, hadn’t I warned him? Even his
nephew couldn’t save it. If it gets orchids, his nephew did save it.
Either way, Amby Carver’s in right.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this at the start?” Joe asked.
“Look! You expect me to call you at Wylie’s? That’s out. I’m off Vic.”
“I have a telephone at home.”
“The last time,” Amby said with heat, “somebody calls that it’s that
Carver person. Am I supposed to like that? I’m your agent. I’ve been
hustling for you. I—”
“You tried to get Sonny Baker back from the coast,” Joe drawled.
Amby pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his face. “I want to tell you
about that.”
Joe said: “Don’t bother.”
Amby’s eyes studied the boy obliquely. The handkerchief touched the
microscopic mustache delicately, and his voice was soft. “I wouldn’t
swallow everything I’m told, Joe; Vic’s picked lemons before. Some day
when you find Sonny Baker in your hair, don’t come weeping and wailing
to me. You’ve asked for it.”
The next elevator carried down a well-pleased-with-himself Joe Carlin.
Amby Carver now knew he couldn’t be pushed around. Let the agent bring
Sonny Baker back—Sonny was no longer anything to worry about. When you
were good enough for sneering, insulting Wylie, you were good enough for
any of them.
The tide of show people through Royal Street had thinned. Old Pop
Bartell swung past, very straight and very gallant. With FFOM not
concerning itself with the casting problem until to-morrow, the entrance
to the FFOM Building was almost deserted. Joe went on to FWWO. He had,
he reflected, been inside this station only once, the day Amby had
arranged for him to audition. It had been his worst audition.
FWWO, one of the smaller stations of the city, didn’t have the crowd
that had besieged FKIP. Joe found three show people in the office of
Gillis, the casting director. They drifted out.
“Hello,” said Gillis. “Glad to see you again. Your name is—let me see
now—Lawton?”
“Carlin,” said Joe. “Joe Carlin.”
“Carlin. Of course. What was your last show with us, Carlin?”
Joe explained that he had auditioned last June.
“That’s right; that’s right. I remember now.” But the director’s
vagueness made it plain he didn’t remember at all. “Have a pleasant
summer?”
Joe made his exit. Stella Joyce was coming through the hall.
“Any calls, Joe?”
“Nothing,” he said wryly, and nodded back toward the office. “They
didn’t remember me.” That wouldn’t last. “Did you hear the talk that
FKIP had sold the _I Want Work_ show?”
“They have sold it.”
Joe went numb. He said slowly: “Dennis didn’t call me.”
“I saw the script, Joe; the part’s out.” Stella’s bird-like voice
fluttered. “Weren’t you the boy who was pleading for a job for his
father? The father’s working.”
Joe drew a breath and the shock passed. He might have guessed it was
something like that. When you were good enough for Wylie, you were good
enough for any of them.
Still hot with anticipation and expectation he came down to Royal
Street. Where now? Tony Vaux? He’d already auditioned the Larry Logan
part in the show the Everts-Hall Agency was trying to build for the He
people; when Tony wanted more, he’d call. Vic Wylie? Vic, producing an
early afternoon show over FFOM and a later show over FKIP, would be at
one of the stations in an agony of rehearsal. And yet it was to Wylie’s
office that the boy found himself irresistibly drawn.
Miss Robb typed in a deserted room. Somebody coughed in the inner room
and Joe looked in the door. Archie Munn sat at a portable typewriter
surrounded by newspapers.
“You are witnessing,” the actor announced gravely, “the finish of one
who might have been a brilliant news commentator.” He took a page of
script from the typewriter and tore it in half. “FWWO’s filled the spot.
One of the _Journal’s_ reporters. It’s not bad publicity for the
_Journal_ and FWWO gets a free news broadcast.” He looked at his watch.
“Well, somebody was thoughtful enough to die. I get a funeral to-night.”
Joe stared.
“Pall-bearer,” Archie said, matter-of-factly. “You have to own a tux.
Three dollars for an afternoon funeral service and five dollars for an
evening service.”
Joe was profoundly shocked. Why, Archie was one of local radio’s stars.
He said uncertainly, “You mean—you have to?”
The actor tapped a cigarette against the desk. “Stella gets two nights a
week as a waitress in an all-night restaurant. Lucille thought she was
all set to go into a night club as a cigarette girl. The club folded
up.” A match flamed and touched the cigarette. “I don’t have to do it,
Joe. I love funerals. Didn’t you know?”
In two sentences Archie had painted a picture. Once Joe would have said
lightly: “That’s show business.” Now he couldn’t be flippant. He knew it
_was_ show business—their show business. Rehearsals for hours, cutting
platters that probably never sold, perhaps playing a rôle in a
sustaining show day after day! And nobody paid you a dollar. Going
hungry, perhaps; washing out your single shirt, as Pop Bartell did, and
hanging it to dry while you slept. You dug up a job so that you could
eat, but it had to be a skimpy, part-time job that permitted you to keep
body and soul together, and you lavished that body and soul on radio.
You lived on a sustaining hope, a feverish, burning hope, that some day
all the mean, petty economies of small time would be behind you and
you’d know the glory of the fame of big time.
Joe said doggedly: “It won’t be that way with me.” In Wylie’s book, he
had top billing. If he was good enough for Wylie, he was good enough for
any of them. Time would do it. He had made the rounds to-day and had
found nothing. But to-morrow....
To-morrow became another yesterday, and then another yesterday. A week
passed. And still he had nothing. Once John Dennis said an automatic
“Have a good summer?” as though forgetting this was not his first visit.
That was the day the sway of Joe’s shoulders lost easy naturalness and
became front. The bread-and-butter tide had dwindled. Those no longer
making the rounds were working. Perhaps not getting any money, but at
least rehearsing and auditioning. Archie Munn had caught on with a
sponsored Sunday show. Soon the commercials would all be cast. After
that there would be only occasional bits in shows like _I Want Work_, or
the sustaining shows, originating in the studios, that paid only in
experience. And actors and actresses that the producers had thus far
discarded would still make the rounds, and smile a smile that was
becoming fixed and mechanical, and pray for a chance at even these
starvation crumbs.
In show business, Joe told himself, you had to get the breaks. The
breaks hadn’t yet come. They would. Either Wylie had judgment or he
hadn’t. The boy was sure he had. He believed in Wylie. And yet, to-day
when he reached the building that housed Vic Wylie Productions, he could
not go in. With the red-headed, dynamic producer present the office was
magnetized; with Wylie absent, the place was only four barren walls. He
couldn’t stand barrenness—too many other things were barren. Undecided,
he kept walking and approached his father’s store. He thought with
surprise, “I always seem to end up here when show business gets tough.”
The display in the immaculate cases down the center of the room had been
changed once more. Black lettering on a card said simply: SCHOOL DAYS.
The cases held fountain pens, typewriters, leather brief-cases,
book-ends, and desk sets. Joe thought: “Dad certainly is up to the
minute.” But it was toward the book department that he went at once.
Mr. Fairchild was taking some books from the shelves and placing them on
the reduced-price table. “Joe,” he said, “don’t ask me if we’re selling
any books. The subject is painful.”
The jackets of books made exciting, vivid splashes of color along the
shelves. Titles paraded in rows, quickening, challenging, and
mysterious. Books and radio again began to tumble about in Joe’s mind as
they had tumbled before. Thomas Carlin Presents To-day’s Book.... But
his father had said that the cost of a once-a-week would be prohibitive.
And yet, if there was a way to tell people about a grand book.... But
how could you tell them so that they’d want to read the book?
The door of his father’s office was closed. Shadows moved upon the
glass.
“Who’s in with Dad, Mr. Fairchild?”
“We’re carrying a new typewriter. An official of the company’s down to
talk advertising appropriation with your father.”
“If we advertise the typewriter, the company’ll pay part of the cost.”
“It’s their typewriter, isn’t it?”
Joe stared at the shelves. Books and radio were doing another tumble
through his mind. His breath quickened.
Clerks covered the cases with dusters at the closing hour and came back
to the rear.
“Are you on the air, Joe?”
“What program? I keep tuning, but I don’t get you.”
“What happens in radio, Joe?”
Sitting on a table in the book department Joe described rehearsals,
sponsor auditions, the cutting of a platter. He told them about Vic
Wylie and Tony Vaux. But he did not tell them that this was all small
time and that show people in small time radio had to piece out their
incomes as pallbearers, and as night-shift waitresses, and as cigarette
girls in night clubs.
The advertising discussion in his father’s office ended. Tom Carlin came
upon a rapt group in the book department.
“Trying to lure my boys into radio, Joe?” he asked dryly.
One of the men laughed. “It sounds exciting, Mr. Carlin, but I prefer my
own job.”
Whatever Tom Carlin started to say was bitten back. Father and son left
to get the car.
“Dad, you said a show would cost too much....”
Tom Carlin laughed. “When you get your teeth in, you hang on, don’t
you?”
“How much would it cost?”
“I don’t know. I learned what radio time would cost. I stopped right
there.”
“Suppose you plugged a book. Would the publisher go in with you? It’s
their book.”
“Assume,” his father said at last, “that I wrote to a publisher. He’d
want to know what kind of show. Well, what kind?”
Joe had no answer.
After supper he turned on the radio. He swung from station to station,
recognizing the cast of every local show. The old hunger was on him. How
close had he come to getting any of these parts, or had he been
considered at all?
“Joe,” his mother said gently, “you look done in.”
Not done in, he told himself; discouraged. He couldn’t shake off a sense
of shock. Archie Munn picking up a few stray dollars as a pallbearer!
The telephone rang.
“Joe,” Tony Vaux said jovially, “I’m calling you and Pop in for a
reading. The He people are warming up. Early. About nine-thirty.”
Joe was no longer discouraged. “An audition,” he called back over his
shoulder.
The bell rang again.
This time Lucille Borden’s voice sang over the telephone. “Joe, I’m
rushed; only a minute. N.B.C.’s called me to New York for a committee
audition. Wish me luck.”
Joe didn’t know what a committee audition was. But whatever it was, it
was good. The people Wylie picked were beginning to get the breaks. They
were going places.
The morning brought one of those dark days of lowering skies and gray
gloom. Pop Bartell was already at the Everts-Hall Agency, his one shirt
spotless.
“Hear about Lucille?” Tony Vaux boomed. “The first local artist to get a
committee audition in three years.”
“What is a committee audition?” Joe asked.
“The real thing, Joe. One producer hears your first reading at N.B.C. If
he turns you down, you can’t go back for a year. If he passes you along,
you’re called before a committee of five producers. Usually you’re
called back in a week. Somebody must have slipped on Lu.”
Joe thought with envy: “Five producers; big time.” His heart lifted.
Good luck, Lucille!
Ceiling lights burned in the room, and the misty day, dark and damp,
pressed against the windows. Pop was as slim and straight, as sprightly
and spry, as a stripling. Joe scanned the _Bush-League Larry_ script:
Sound—Train Coming on Mike and Stopping at Station
Conductor (above escaping steam): Ticeville. Here’s where you
get off, young fellow. All a-a-aboard.
Sound—Train Panting Leaves Station. Fade to
Ike: Looking for somebody, stranger?
Larry: I’m looking for Bud Wilson.
Ike: If you’re a salesman trying to sell Bud some baseball
equipment, you’re wasting your time. Bud’s Ticeville team ain’t
been doing so good. When a team in these parts don’t win—
Tony said with a chuckle: “All right, folks. Take me out to the ball
game.” He made sound effects of a sort and Pop Bartell came in on his
cue:
Looking for somebody, stranger?
Joe was surprised by the character richness of the old man’s voice. He
thought: “Pop, this is going to be swell.” He spoke his own line:
I’m looking for Bud Wilson.
Pop was on the mike again:
If you’re a salesman trying to sell Bud some base—ball
e—equipment, you’re waste—you’re wasting your time. Bud’s
Tice—ville team ain’t—been going so good—
All the smooth, rich flow was gone. Pop, stumbling, sounded like a
novice with stage fright. Tony Vaux’s red face had become a mottled red.
“What’s the matter with you, Pop? Can’t you read your lines?”
Pop drew himself up. “I can always read my lines. A slight
indisposition. I assure you I shall be myself directly.”
“Are you sick?”
“Tony!” Joe’s voice was impulsive. “Give him more light.”
Red-faced, Tony looked at the boy and then at the dark day grown darker.
He crossed the room and brought back a standing lamp.
“Try it again.”
Somebody came into the room. Pop’s voice, enriched by forty years of
acting, rolled out the lines once more, gave them a tang and a flavor.
And yet there came to Joe, as the reading went on, a sense of something
missed, of something that did not quite touch. He made his last speech.
Vic Wylie, rumpled and tense, was in the room. Tony Vaux scratched his
chin.
“What do you think of it, Vic?”
Wylie was abrupt. “I never poke a finger in another man’s show. You know
that.”
Tony took a fat cigar from his bulging vest and chewed off the end.
“What’s wrong with it?” He raised plump hands toward Joe and Pop. “Now,
now, folks. I don’t mean it’s a bad show. It’s like one of these salads
that need a pinch more of this or a pinch less of that.” He puffed on
the cigar.
[Illustration: “Now, now, folks,” Tony Vaux said. “I don’t mean it’s a
bad show.”]
Joe began a hesitant: “Perhaps—”
“Again, Joe?” Tony chuckled. “What is it this time?”
“Perhaps Mr. Bartell comes in too fast. He’s supposed to be a retired
old man with no worries except baseball. Sits around in the shade and
enjoys life. Never in a hurry—that’s what I mean. Doesn’t Pop come in
too crisply? You sort of lose the mellow, unhurried old man. If he came
in leisurely, a little drawly....”
Joe knew that Vic Wylie was watching him intently. Had he been too free
with his opinion? Tony rolled the cigar across his lips.
“Give it a go, Pop.”
Joe was amazed at the changed shading, the difference in timing, that
Pop gave his lines. He didn’t have to wonder if this were better. Vic
Wylie would still have struggled for greater perfection; but Tony Vaux,
rocking back and forth on his heels, exuded a bluff, red-faced pleasure.
“Folks,” he said heartily, “that’s a show. If the He people don’t cool
off, we’ll lay them in the aisles.”
Joe thought: “That’s always the trouble with show business—the if.” You
had to sell a sponsor while he was hot; next day or next week he began
to wonder if the show was as good as he had thought. That was the
sticker with _Sue Davis Against the World_. Too much time had passed
since the audition. And these two shows were the only hopes he had.
Pop Bartell departed. Joe had a shrewd idea the old actor would have
nothing to do with eye-glasses. Glasses would take from his front of
lingering, gallant youth.
The door closed slowly as Joe followed Pop. Vic Wylie’s rasp of
irritation was audible:
“You’ve heard _One Man’s Family_, Tony? A honey of a script, but what a
cast. Without a cast, what have you? I’m standing pat. Munson’s option
on _Sue Davis_ runs out Monday. Monday I’m throwing the show open.”
The door closed with a soft click and Tony’s reply was lost. But to Joe
the dark day was no longer dark. There was still hope. This was Tuesday.
Six more days to Monday.
Pop Bartell waited outside the building in the street. “Joe, I happen to
find myself in a little difficulty. Momentarily, you understand; only
momentarily. A mere trifle. I expect to be called for a part. Could
you—” The old man coughed. “Only until I’m called for the part, of
course. Do you—” Again the cough. “Do you happen to have a spare
dollar?”
This, Joe thought with a pang, was what a good trouper came to after
forty years. “Make it two dollars, Mr. Bartell.”
“Joe, you place me eternally in your debt. As soon as I’m working—” Pop
Bartell went off through Royal Street, his stride youthful.
Again on Wednesday, Joe made the rounds in vain. There was no word from
Tony Vaux. Thursday was also barren. He counted days. Four more days
left of the Munson option.
Thursday Lucille Borden returned from her N.B.C. audition in New York
looking tired and pale. Make-up could not completely hide her pallor.
“One of the producers liked my work,” she said. “He held me over another
day for a sponsor audition.”
That meant big time. Joe asked eagerly: “Did it go?”
“Infant,” Lucille drawled, “a sponsor audition gives you a beautiful
view of a lot of frozen faces.”
Joe knew. He had had one sponsor audition.
Then it was Friday. The days of hope had dwindled to three. The
searching bread-and-butter hunters had developed a stock question. Joe
heard it on Royal Street and in the elevators. “Anything yet?” And there
was a stock reply that fooled nobody, that was part of the front. “No,
but I’m expecting a part next week.” Pop Bartell expected a part next
week. Joe knew it was all hollow and unreal.
John Dennis was not at his office at FKIP. His secretary said: “Mr.
Dennis has you down for something.”
“I’ll be back,” Joe told her. Perhaps, he thought in growing
disillusionment, Dennis wanted to ask him had he had a good summer. He
went on to FFOM and from there to FWWO.
Gillis said: “Two o’clock to-morrow, Carlin. We have an open spot that
must be filled in a hurry.”
A sustaining show that would pay no salary. And yet Joe walked out going
hot and cold by turns. His first call from a station since the _I Want
Work_ platter. True, one of the smallest stations in the city, but a
call. Now, if there was something at FKIP.... Not wanting to miss Dennis
again he called from a booth in the lower hall.
“Joe,” said John Dennis, “I have a part I want to hear you read.”
Joe’s hand was hot on the receiver. “To-day?”
“To-morrow at two.”
Joe sighed. “I’m auditioning at two to-morrow.” He came out of the
booth. What should he have done, called off the FWWO audition and gone
over to the more important FKIP? Or did you cancel once you’d told a
station you’d be in?
Saturday he was at FWWO at a quarter to two. The Munson time had shrunk
to two days. There were four people in Gillis’ office, three actresses
and an actor. Joe had met them all, on and off, at Wylie’s during the
summer.
The clock moved around to 2:30. Gillis did not appear.
“Is this another FWWO over-ripe tangerine?” a voice asked.
At three o’clock Gillis walked into the office. “Sorry,” he said
gruffly. “I had an idea for a swell show.”
“Is it off, Gil?” one of the actresses asked. Her voice was dead.
“Upstairs changed its mind and gave it the hot foot.”
The cast filed out. Joe was torn with helpless resentment and aching
disappointment. His first call. And he had turned down FKIP—for this.
A morbid curiosity sent him to the FKIP Building. Dennis was rehearsing
in Studio B. One look through the glass-walled gallery, and the boy’s
sense of loss grew. Archie Munn was in the cast, and Stella Joyce, and
Lucille Borden. When you had a chance with a cast like that....
Presently the rehearsal was over. Dennis gathered up script and went out
through the empty control-room. Joe walked to the door through which
Archie and the others would come to the gallery.
The door opened before he reached it. Archie Munn hurried through the
gallery, disappeared into the reception-room, and hurried back in a few
moments with a glass of water. Studio B received him.
Mystified, Joe looked in through the glass. Lucille sat in a chair and
Stella stood beside her. Lucille drank the water slowly, looked up at
Stella, and tried to smile. Archie came out into the gallery.
“Anything wrong?” Joe asked.
“Lu said she felt faint.” Preoccupied, the actor took a cigarette from
his pocket, held it unlighted in his hand, and seemed to talk to
himself. “That New York audition took an extra day. She had to go to a
hotel. She was probably down to some loose silver when she got back.”
Joe was still mystified.
“There’s not much nourishment in a roll and a cup of coffee,” Archie
Munn said bitterly.
The sun touched one side of Royal Street, and the Saturday shopping
crowds moved leisurely. Joe, his head bent, moved numbly with the crowd.
Stanch, warm-hearted Lucille Borden! She hadn’t worked since June, and
the night club had gone into bankruptcy, and the _Years of Danger_ show
hadn’t gone back on the air. He bit his lips.
Lights burned behind the glass door that said: VIC WYLIE PRODUCTIONS.
The producer, in the inner room, was at the telephone.
“Miss Robb’s on her way over with an envelop, Arch. Take Lu to a
restaurant. Give her the envelop and send her home in a cab.”
Joe was motionless, silent. Wylie put down the telephone.
“Arch tells me you were there, kid.”
“Yes.”
The producer sat with his head in his hands. “She’s a type,” he said
harshly in the silence. “She hasn’t much range. But give her a type part
she fits and they don’t come any better. You hear that, kid? They don’t
come any better. Look what happens to her. You think that’s rare? You
don’t know the stories small-time radio can tell. Why do they stay in
it? Oh, I know. The big time. It’s a dream; it’s like a drug. Not one in
a thousand ever cracks the big time. I’m sick of watching them trying to
live on crumbs. I’m fed up. But I can’t get out. My father and my mother
were show people; I was born in a theatrical boarding-house. I toddled
across a stage when I was five years old.” His head snapped up fiercely.
“What else do I know?”
The telephone rang.
Joe stumbled out. He bumped into a chair and pushed it aside. His throat
was choked. He was waiting at the elevators when Wylie’s entrance door
swung open.
“Kid, come back here. Come back.”
Joe went back.
Wylie grabbed him by the shoulders. “That was Tony, kid. Munson’s
signed. It’s in the bag and the string’s tied. A thirteen-week try-out.”
Joe had often tried to imagine what this moment would be like. His first
contract; his first show. Now that the moment had come, he could not
rise to what the moment demanded. He was thinking of Lucille.
“We go on the air Monday week. Rehearsals start to-morrow. All day.
We’ll give them a show, kid, that’ll rock the town.”
Gone was the black depression. Wylie’s eyes blazed with excitement. He
began to laugh as though Lucille Borden did not exist.
But Joe knew better. Somebody had once told him that Wylie took care of
his people. Lucille was one of Wylie’s people, and, spontaneously, his
hand had gone into his pocket for her. Another page was filled in the
boy’s book of understanding and experience. Day after day you witnessed
contradictions. You marveled at outbursts of temperament, mercurial and
erratic. You watched an old trouper stride along Royal Street owning the
world because he had two dollars. You soared in the clouds and you
plunged down into the depths. You were in show business.