Monday Joe Carlin kept away from the world of radio. Sonny Baker was
shooting at the Larry Logan part he had expected to play and at the Dick
Davis part he had been playing—and he was licked. Licked by a little bug
that had invaded his throat. His voice was still a whisper. To-day,
either at Vic Wylie’s office or at Tony Vaux’s office, he’d have felt
like a Pop Bartell, wistfully hoping for a miracle. Old Pop,
pathetically youthful and gallant, at least had something to give a
microphone. He, with his voice gone, would have absolutely nothing. He
wouldn’t even have a front.
And so Joe Carlin, who up to last week had been an actor in the bright
world of radio, raked the yard and tried not to think that to-day Tony
Vaux was scheduled to sponsor-audition the _Bush-League Larry_ show and
that this morning Vic Wylie had held another dress of the _Sue Davis
Against the World_ show at FKIP. Toward noon the telephone rang inside
the house. His hands gripped the rake. Tony had said he’d call if— A
minute passed. Joe began to rake again.
He gave up trying not to think. Why should Tony have shied away from his
offer to come in to-day unless the Everts-Hall Agency producer had known
Sonny was on his way? Vic Wylie, brooding over a platter, must have
vetoed a suggestion that Mrs. Munson’s Baltimore nephew step into the
_Sue Davis_ cast. But Vic had not known that Sonny was back in town. Joe
was sure of that.
He raked slowly. If you took your time, raking could kill the crawling
hours of fate. Thinking built up facts, and facts fitted together like
bricks in a wall. Ambrose Carver still had Mrs. Munson’s ear. Sonny had
not been a glittering success on the coast, else he would not have
returned for a part in a show paying twenty-five dollars a week. Playing
small time on the coast, Sonny would not have accumulated money for a
return journey across a continent. Somebody had paid for his railroad
ticket. Amby? Joe couldn’t imagine the dapper little agent buying
anybody’s ticket. Then it must have been Mrs. Munson, still piqued
because of the failure of her nephew.
Joe put the rake away. Every leaf was garnered and burned, and raking
had become a fiction. When he came into the house, his mother was
upstairs. He dialed the radio, brought in FKIP, and left the station on.
By and by Vic Wylie’s four o’clock show went on and went off. A watch
company gave a spot announcement of the time, and a commentator gave
five minutes of news flashes from around the world. A quartet sang.
They’d be off in ten minutes. They were off.
A voice broke into the silence of the room.
“To-day Munson brings you a story from the pen of Curt Lake, _Sue Davis
Against the World_—” The Munson plug followed—a Monday, Tuesday, and
Wednesday sale of coats on the third floor. Then came that momentary
pause that always comes between the commercial plug and the show itself.
Joe’s mouth was dry. He had heard no sound on the stairs, yet he knew
his mother sat behind him.
“And now,” came an announcer’s crisp voice, “what has become of Dick
Davis? Six days ago, with slender family finances almost exhausted, he
left home to get to Fairfield as best he could, taking with him his only
possession of possible value, an album containing a modest collection of
stamps. For six days Sue Davis has anxiously awaited her son’s return.
Is he all right? Has he reached Fairchild? Have the stamps which he has
been patiently soaking from discarded envelops for several years any
real value? Perhaps we are to learn, for the scene is the small office
of Landis, the Stamp Man. The door opens and a boy enters. Listen.”
Voices came out of the speaker, and the first voice was boyish, and
troubled and hesitant:
Are you Mr. Landis?
Hello, son. Yes; I’m Mr. Landis. Close the door, please. You
look as though you’ve been traveling.
I have. I’m Dick Davis. I come from Maple Grove.
That’s a good piece back in the mountains, isn’t it?
Yes, sir. I—I thought—Do you buy stamps?
Something that was like ice prickled and crawled on Joe’s scalp. A
miracle was happening. Vic Wylie had prepared him for the miracle, and
yet he had not expected so stupendous a miracle. One of the voices
coming out the speaker was his. Not his exactly—but his.
Frozen, he listened. Curt Lake had written a good script. A show that
was dying on its feet was suddenly alive and glowing. The story unfolded
with a wealth of sympathetic feeling—a boy’s suspense as pages of the
album were turned, the sudden finding of some stamps of value, an offer
at last of thirty-five dollars. With the business completed, the stamp
man was ready to relax, and grow mellow, and talk shop. But the boy, a
fortune in his pocket, was on fire to be away. His voice throbbed
through the speaker:
I can’t stay, Mr. Landis. Maybe I’ll come back some day and we
can have a long talk. I can’t talk now. I—I want to get home.
It was the curtain line—a good curtain line. A curtain line for a good
show. Joe’s hand, leaden, turned off the radio.
“Who was it?” Kate Carlin asked.
“Sonny.”
“Sure?”
“A little of his own voice came through.”
“How did Vic Wylie do it?”
“Platters. He must have had Sonny listening to platters of the show for
hours. Any good actor can mimic a voice if he hears it often enough and
practises an imitation.”
“Do you think he played the part well?”
The admission was hard to make. “Yes.”
The woman stood up abruptly. “I like you better.”
“You’re swell,” Joe whispered huskily. Was his reading better or was his
mother voicing blind Carlin loyalty? Munson would like Sonny, but how
about Vic Wylie? How about Tony Vaux? If the _Larry_ show had not been
auditioned to-day for the He people, if something had gone sour and put
the audition off, his voice might be right for the postponed audition.
At least, he wouldn’t have to rake a yard and let Sonny walk off with
the plum.
He reached for the telephone. “Joe Carlin, Tony,” he whispered.
Tony boomed jovially. “Hello, Joe. How are you? Glad to hear from you.
You’re beginning to sound like yourself.”
Tony, Joe thought with cynical understanding, was putting on his “Howdy,
folks” act. To-day it seemed like the artificial sweetness on a doctor’s
bitter pill. “Did you audition to-day?”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t have you, Joe.” Tony sounded as though his heart
was torn. “If there was a chance to postpone— But you know how it is,
Joe. When a sponsor’s ripe on the tree, that’s the day you have to pick
him. We couldn’t get the spot we wanted at FKIP.”
So the show had been sold!
“We’ll go on at FFOM. I surely wanted you, Joe. Not that Sonny didn’t
give me a good show. Smooth as oil. But ... well, you seem to work
better with Pop Bartell. If anything turns up—”
“Sure,” said Joe.
Kate Carlin was back in the room.
“I’ve lost that show, too,” Joe said.
“Oh!” The word held distress.
“Something’s bound to turn up; shows keep coming along.” But Joe didn’t
try to tell himself that if you were good enough for Wylie, you were
good enough for any of them. He had been good enough for Wylie—and he
was out. And shows didn’t keep coming along this late in the season.
Tom Carlin came home an hour earlier than usual. Coming down the stairs,
Joe heard low-voiced talk in the kitchen. Conversation died away with
his appearance.
“Didn’t the show seem to have more body to-day?” his father asked.
Evidently there was to be no telling him the show had been bad. He was
grateful for that. What good was family loyalty that blindly deceived
itself?
There was no talk of _Sue Davis_ at the evening meal. Tom Carlin felt
through his pockets.
“Care to walk to the corner, Joe? I’m out of tobacco.”
Joe thought: “He wants to talk to me alone.”
“You told Mother something would turn up,” his father said as soon as
they reached the street. “I’ve been trying to figure out if you really
meant that. Men usually try to shield the women at home from their
business worries. Was what happened to-day a situation that turns up
habitually in radio or was it serious?”
Joe did not hesitate. “It was serious.”
“Munson didn’t want you originally and has resented you. Is that what
you mean?”
Joe nodded.
“Do you think you’re out of the show permanently?”
“I don’t know. I might never have had the part if Sonny Baker had been
in town last month.” He had never before talked to his father so freely
and so easily, man to man, without restraint.
The owner of the neighborhood store greeted them. “Glad to hear you back
on the air, Joe. You acted good—better than I ever heard you before.
Nothing like a little vacation.”
“Nothing,” Tom Carlin said dryly.
Joe winced.
Walking home, Tom Carlin said: “That hurt, Joe, didn’t it? I was working
at your age in a country store for two dollars a week. There was another
merchant in town with a more imposing store, and I expected to go to
work for him the next month for two-fifty a week. In those days a great
many persons bought bean coffee and ground it at home. A customer came
in for a coffee-mill. I took a heavy mill down from the shelf and
dropped it. It smashed, and the handle flew up and knocked off the
customer’s hat. He left in a rage. My employer fired me. The other
merchant decided he didn’t want a clumsy lout for a clerk. I was out of
the job I was holding and out of the job I had expected to hold. I
thought it might help if I told you.”
It seemed incredible that the man who owned one of the brightest stores
in the city should have lost two jobs in one day. Two jobs—two parts.
“It does help,” Joe said.
Suddenly he knew that to-morrow he’d go downtown. Downtown was his world
with or without a voice, with or without a part. But he wouldn’t go
downtown with a swaggering, theatrical front. Front was a fake.
Moving through the mid-morning traffic of narrow Royal Street, Joe heard
the familiar blare of FKIP’s speaker, broadcasting a tune that, having
leaped into the Hit Parade, would be murdered by radio bands before the
week was out. FKIP piled on the program in its usual pattern of gaudy
layers. One brassy layer that went out into the street, a tinny,
metallic layer for the hall, a softer layer for the elevator. Joe
sighed. It was raucous and overdone, but he’d missed it. The operator
started to close the door, craned his neck to look out into the hall,
and held the door open. Stella Joyce stepped into the car.
“Joe!” Her hands went out to him impulsively. “Say something.”
Joe spoke a few words from an old _Sue Davis_ script: “Mother, you must
listen—”
“Your voice is stronger.”
“A little.” He had noticed the change that morning. Six days too late!
He said: “You had a good show yesterday.”
“You should have been around last night,” said Stella, and cast up her
eyes. “Sonny had his teeth in the part and decided to do a little ad
libbing. You’ve seen Vic in his production rages, but have you ever seen
him in one of his subtle moods? He’s an artist. For one hour he had
Sonny on a page of script following each line the way a child reads and
stammers through a primer. He made Sonny spell every word; then he made
him read every word very slowly. ‘So you can actually read,’ Vic said
with an air of surprise. ‘I was beginning to have my doubts. Now let me
hear you read the part the way it was written.’ After that Sonny read
the part—the way Curt Lake wrote it.”
Joe’s lips twitched. The elevator let them out into the reception-room
and they sat together on one of the blue leather settees.
“I don’t think Vic’s troubles with Sonny are over,” Stella said
thoughtfully. “Sonny’s had a touch of the coast; he may have picked up
some of the Hollywood technic. When you get in a jam, yell for your
agent.”
Joe couldn’t picture little, dapper Amby Carver bearding Vic Wylie.
“Does Sonny make a steady practice of ad libbing?”
“It’s his specialty.”
“But doesn’t that ball up the cues?”
“Sonny’s only interested in building up his own part and stealing the
show. He’s clever. Very often he gets away with it.”
“He was in _City Boy_ last season. What happened there?”
“Ask the cast that played with him.”
“You mean he’s permitted to mangle the lines? Who produced that show?”
Stella said: “Tony Vaux.” She stood up. “Coming in?”
Joe hesitated. “I’m not in the cast now. Wylie may not want—”
“Don’t be foolish,” the actress said and took his arm.
Walking into Studio B was like coming home after a long absence. Bert
Farr, reading the radio department of the _Journal_, tossed the paper
away. “We are now cursed,” he said gloomily, “with a genius in the
cast.” He might be out of the show, Joe thought, but these people were
his friends.
Beside him Stella said in sharp undertone, “I thought so.”
Amby Carver and the tall, pale youth Joe had seen talking to Archie Munn
outside the FKIP building were in the studio.
“Vic around yet?” Amby asked briskly.
“No.” Bert Farr was short.
Little Amby Carver had steered a client into a sponsored show; little
Amby was beginning to count himself a somebody in show business. The
rebuff left him unruffled. He saw Joe and instantly the cane waggled
with pointed carelessness.
“Hello, Joe. Throat better? Too bad you weren’t around yesterday; I
might have been able to throw something your way. Why not drop in some
morning? I can’t promise to do anything for you, but there may be a
part.”
Joe’s neck burned. Amby’s front of superiority and condescension was
something he couldn’t take. He asked flatly: “Are you still in the same
rat-hole?”
Bert Farr chuckled.
Amby flushed. His hand touched the tracing of mustache. “Sour, Joe?” he
asked softly. “Does that get you anything? Sonny, this is Joe Carlin.”
“Who?” Sonny asked languidly.
“Carlin? You remember. Joe Carlin.”
“Oh!” Sonny held out a hand that was limp and moist. “Didn’t they try
you out in my part?”
My part! “No,” said Joe. “I played it.” He didn’t like this Sonny Baker.
“Really?” Sonny’s drawl was insolent.
“Sonny!” Amby chided in sly malice. “Is that nice? I ask you. Must you
forget Joe’s only a high-school amateur?”
Joe remembered the day he had found Amby out and had scorned him, and
how Wylie had said: “Kid, he’ll never forgive you.” But he was too
young, too raw and inexperienced, to cope with this acid baiting.
A light switched on in the control-room. The hollow eyes of Vic Wylie
stared out at them.
“This is a rehearsal,” the producer snapped through the two-way mike.
“Those not connected with the show will leave the studio.”
Joe walked toward the door.
“Not you, kid.”
Fire ran through Joe. If he was still connected with the show ... Sonny
Baker, languidly amused, was watching him.
“Look here, Wylie,” dapper Ambrose Carver cried angrily, “if you think—”
The light in the control-room snapped off. Vic Wylie came out to the
studio, hollow-eyed and tired.
“Where’s your spot in this show. Carver?”
“I’m Sonny’s agent.”
“That doesn’t mean a thing to me. I’m not dealing with agents on this
show.”
“You’ll deal with me,” Amby sputtered.
“Out of the way.” Wylie moved the microphone. It didn’t need moving, but
moving it gave him the opportunity to brush the agent aside.
Amby was pushed back on his heels. “You can’t do this to me. You can’t
hound Sonny. He’s an artist. He’s too big to be told he’s a Vic Wylie
rubber stamp. He’s no high-school—”
Wylie swung about with a snarl. “Get out.”
The impact of the two words jolted the little agent as though they were
blows.
The scrap of ridiculous mustache quivered. “Now, now, Vic—”
“Get out. If I have to tell you again, you’ll take your star out with
you.”
Amby Carver cleared his throat. Whatever he meant to say died under the
producer’s glare.
“This is no time to upset the cast,” Amby said pompously. “I’ll take
this up with you later.” The usually jaunty cane trailed as he made his
exit with an attempt at frigid dignity. Sonny languidly polished the
nails of one hand against the palm of the other and hummed.
Wylie said: “Five minutes to clear out the bad smell.”
Joe thought: “Vic wants the tension to ease before he puts on the
dress.” The sound-effects engineer superintended the arrival of a
sound-effect door, and the boy wondered if Wylie would blow up because
the property was late. The cast said very little. Sonny, still humming,
opened and closed the portable door several times.
“Why don’t you buy yourself a rattle?” the engineer asked.
Sonny gave him a slant-eyed glance, opened and closed the door again,
ran his hands into his trouser pockets, and unconcernedly strolled to
the control-room and back.
The five minutes were up. Instead of directing the dress from the
control-room, Wylie straddled a chair and motioned for the cast to
begin. Bert Farr handed Joe a script.
The show opened with a lonely, worried Sue Davis still awaiting the
return of her son. Then came a knock on the door and the appearance of
Israel Tice, the local skinflint who wanted to get his hands on this
piece of mountain property that would some day have value. Tice, played
by Bert Farr, knew of Sue’s desperate necessity. He renewed his offer
for the property, reluctantly edging up the price. Sue, for the first
time, wavered. Their credit at the general store was stopped, and there
seemed so little hope that Dick’s trip to sell his stamps would be
successful.
An absorbed Joe Carlin followed the script:
Tice: I ain’t seen your boy, Dick, lately.
Sue: No.
Tice: Been away-like?
Sue: For a while.
Tice: You ain’t communicative, widder, are you? He ain’t trying
to raise some money?
Sue (alarmed): Who told you that?
Tice (with satisfaction): Reckon I don’t need telling. It ain’t
fitting for a boy to be out of school because his mother’s
stubborn ’bout a piece of wuthless land. Suppose something’s
gone and happened to Dick?
Sue: Please!
Tice: Widder, with some money handy there’d be no call for Dick
to be away. You think of that for a while. Then you do some
thinking on this paper—
Sound—Crinkle of paper
Sue: What is that?
Tice: A paper, all legal, to sell for one thousand dollars. You
put your name down here—
Sue: No. I won’t.
Tice: And this other paper, widder, is a check for one hundred
dollars for down payment. Cash money. Cash money so a boy stays
home where he belongs. One hundred dollars right in your hand
and no call to be fretting about where a boy is and what
mischief’s a-brewing. You think on it hard and I’ll be back in
an hour.
Sound—Footsteps crossing floor and door closing
Sue: What shall I do? What shall I do?
Dick (off mike): Mother!
Sue (overjoyed): It’s Dick. He’s home.
Dick (coming on mike): Mother, wait—
Sound—Door bursts open
Dick (full mike): Wait until you hear—What’s that paper?
Sue: Mr. Tice left it—
Dick: Tice? What’s that other paper? A check from Tice? You
didn’t—Oh!
Sound—Door closes
Curtain
Motionless, silent, Vic Wylie had sat through the dress. He lifted his
head.
“No. You’re expecting a bomb-shell and all you get is a bubble. The
curtain’s a phony.”
The studio was silent.
What was it, Joe wondered, that left that sensation of hollowness? There
should have been drama. Sue’s distress, Dick’s return—and a door closed.
That was all—a door closed. He brought his hands together with a clap.
“Got something, kid?” Wylie’s eyes, despite their weariness, burned.
“What happens?” Joe asked. “A door shuts. You don’t know whether Dick’s
simply shut the door or whether he’s walked out. It’s just a sound. The
show’s too human for that. It must end on a human note. The door’s an
anti-climax. Dick says: ‘A check from Tice? You didn’t—’ That’s where
the door should close, slowly, as though all the pep’s been knocked out
of him. Then he says that one word. ‘Oh!’ Isn’t that your curtain?”
Once before, on the day he had suggested a change in Pop Bartell’s
reading in the _Bush-League Larry_ show, the producer had studied him
with that strange intentness.
“I should have seen it, kid. Tired. We’ll see how it goes. Got your
script marked? Stella. Take it from ‘Mr. Tice left.’”
They read again:
Sue: Mr. Tice left it—
Dick: Tice? What’s that other paper? A check? A check from Tice?
You didn’t—
Sound—Door closes
Dick: Oh!
“That does it,” Vic Wylie said at last. “The real McCoy. It stands.” He
picked up his brief-case and left them.
Sonny draped a top-coat across his arm. “First an actor and now a
producer. You should try script-writing, Carlin.” He sauntered toward
the door.
“He makes me furious,” Stella snapped. Joe had never before seen her
ruffled.
“In the movies,” Bert Farr said, “they tried to hog the camera. On the
stage they have a trick of spoiling another actor’s big scenes by moving
about and distracting the audience. How long will Vic put up with him?”
Stella looked at Joe. “I want to be around the day Vic lets down his
hair.”
Clear understanding came to Joe. Stella had suspected that Amby, flushed
with a new importance, would not be able to resist the temptation to
impress that importance on Vic Wylie; Stella had urged him into the
studio so that Wylie would make a fresh mental comparison.
“Thanks, Stella,” he said.
Stella gave a faint smile. “Not that Vic needed the lesson,” she said.
A new Joe Carlin walked out of FKIP, the old high-spirited lilt back in
his stride. Amby Carver sputtered angrily in Royal Street and Sonny
Baker listened with languid amusement. Joe’s dislike of Sonny increased.
Amby had brought Sonny back from the coast and had put him in a part;
the actor should at least have remembered that. But Sonny, Joe saw in a
flash of wisdom, would be a taker and never a giver, egotistical and
selfish, and contemptuous even of his friends.
One thought ran happily through the boy’s mind: Vic, ousting Amby as
having nothing to do with the show, had told him to stay. Sonny taking
liberties with script, and Amby trying to get tough! His voice couldn’t
have begun to come back at a better time. All his worries of the past
week had been unnecessary worries. Well, he’d be smart. He’d stay away
and, along toward the end of the week, call Vic and tell him he was all
right. After that, he might have another few days to wait. Waiting, when
you waited in sick uncertainty, was hard; but those last few days of
waiting would be comparatively easy. He’d be on his way back.
The heady pulse of show business once more throbbed in his blood.
Sentiment took him back to the restaurant off Royal Street where Vic had
once rehearsed him across a table. He had hoped to have the table to
himself, but a girl sat where Wylie had sat. Disappointed, he walked
past the table. Then the girl turned her head and he recognized Miss
Robb.
Vic Wylie’s stenographer said in a rush of words: “When did you get back
in circulation, Joe? Were you at FKIP? Did you hear Lucille Borden goes
on the air next Monday? The show’s a comedy—_Never Tell a Woman_. I
didn’t know she could play comedy. Did you?”
The girl was plainly flustered. Was she afraid he’d begin to ask her
questions about the _Sue Davis_ show, about Sonny Baker, about the
rehearsals? He had, Joe reflected, learned all he needed to know this
morning.
Miss Robb rattled on: “I saw a movie last night, Joe. _Guns Along the
Rio._”
Joe’s mind was elsewhere. “That’s an old picture, isn’t it?”
“Not so very old. Two or three months ago Cecil de Mille gave it on the
air. I thought I’d like to see the picture if it ever was revived. Last
night I discovered it was showing at a neighborhood playhouse. What’s
the matter, Joe?”
His inattention was gone. “You mean you heard a short radio version and
then wanted to see the complete picture?”
“Why, yes. I suppose what I heard whetted my appetite for more. Is that
so strange?”
“I suppose not,” Joe said slowly. “Does it happen often?”
“To me? It’s happened several times. It’s happened to my sister. It’s
happened to people I know. You do think it’s strange, don’t you?”
“Strange isn’t the word,” said Joe. He shook off a hovering waitress.
“No dessert; I’m in a hurry.” Miss Robb’s face showed relief as he stood
up to go. He shook that off, too. Strangeness lay in the fact that this
had been in front of him all the time and that he hadn’t seen it.
Royal Street swallowed him and hurried him along with the crowd. Thomas
Carlin Presents To-day’s Book! He’d always felt there was a way for his
father to put on a broadcast and sell books. The movies did a selling
stunt every day. COMING ATTRACTIONS, and then half a dozen shots from
next week’s picture. The trick was to dramatize a scene from a book and
make people want to read the whole book. Vic probably wouldn’t use him
until next Monday’s show. He had almost a whole week.
The Thomas Carlin store was busy with men and women from the tall office
buildings, shopping during the lunch hour. One of the clerks raised a
cupped hand to his lips and Joe shook his head. No; he wasn’t back on
the air. His father was out.
“I want a book,” he said eagerly to Mr. Fairchild, his father’s
assistant. “I don’t care whether it’s an old book or a new book, but it
must be a good book with lots of action.”
“The jitterbug influence,” Mr. Fairchild smiled.
Joe’s hands made an impatient gesture. “Life. Something you can feel.
The McCoy.” Vic Wylie might have been speaking.
“Something—dramatic?” the man asked with a shrewd glance.
Joe went blank. He didn’t want to say anything about this until he saw
how it worked out. Mr. Fairchild took a book down from a shelf; the
telephone rang, and he had to go to the office. Joe made his escape,
winking at the clerks as he passed out toward the street.
The next three days were busy days. He was making a show. A book to read
and one particular scene to be picked for dramatization. What scene?
Chapter Eight offered a scene tense and climactic. But the action called
for four characters. Four were too many—a twenty-dollar cast. There was
a scene in Chapter Two between the lead and the heavy. Was it strong
enough? He walked the floor of his room, reading the passage aloud.
Perhaps that run in Chapter Nine with three characters.... Sometimes his
brain grew bewildered. He thought of Curt Lake sweating, and swearing,
and knocking out a new script under pressure the day his throat had gone
bad.
There were interruptions—lunch, the _Sue Davis_ broadcast, the family
dinner in the evening. But even as he described Sonny Baker or told of
Amby Carver’s rout, his mind was upstairs with the book. It would have
to be the scene from Chapter Two.
He worked behind the closed door of his room and rattled a portable
typewriter. He knew the mechanics of writing script, and the dialogue of
the scene was before him on the printed pages. The first two sheets of
script spun out of the typewriter. Then Joe ran into a passage in the
book that analyzed the thought passing through a character’s mind. How
did you get a character’s thoughts into a script? Radio had to be
dialogue. He wrote, and tore up what he had written, and wrote again. He
gave up in despair and fooled with a cross-word puzzle. He pushed that
aside and went back to writing. Nothing would jell. He tried talking the
scene aloud.
Kate Carlin cried: “Joe, are you all right?”
Sure, he was all right. He was swell. Curt Lake could have
script-writing—he wanted no part of such a headache. Why couldn’t he
find the words? It shouldn’t be so hard to express a thought. Just about
two sentences. Inspiration came to him from whatever void it is that
gives birth to inspiration. He went back to the typewriter.
Thursday night he finished the script in an exultation of authorship.
Nine pages—that’s how long a Curt Lake script ran for a fifteen-minute
show. Now he had to have a signature that would mark the start of every
program, and he had to have an opening plug and a closing plug.
A rough idea for a distinctive signature came Friday morning. He put it
down:
Voice: I am ink, and paper, and the thoughts of men.
Sound—Faint rumble of printing press
Voice: I am the printed word.
Sound (full mike)—Rumble of printing press
Voice: I am BOOKS.
Sound—Press rumble fades to—
Announcer: Thomas Carlin presents to-day’s book—
Absorbed, he worked on the plugs. He came to the close:
Life breathes in the printed word.
Read books and live with life.
He told himself that he had something.
In imagination he heard an announcer’s voice speaking the lines into a
mike. Boy, those lines were good. He had something there. The
fascination of creation warmed him. This was show business; this was
radio. But it was also something else he did not suspect.
It was _Thomas Carlin Presents_.
He read over what he had written. He read it over a second time and a
frown pinched his forehead. The plugs didn’t seem to have all the zip he
had thought was there. The feeling grew on him that he hadn’t quite
caught the boat. Probably, with a little tinkering here and there.... He
put the script in a small upper drawer of his desk where he kept razor
blades, cuff links, tie clasps, odds and ends. He wouldn’t hand his
father this show until he had licked it into shape. It had to be right.
If the plugs proved too much for him, if he couldn’t make them right,
he’d take them to Vic.
Instantly his thoughts were back with the _Sue Davis_ show. This was
Friday, about time for Vic to give the word. On the chance that he might
catch the producer he called his office.
“He’s not here, Joe,” Miss Robb said.
“Tell him my voice is all right, will you?”
“Why—yes. I’ll tell him, Joe.”
Joe thought: “The call ought to come to-morrow.”
There was no call the next day. And the telephone bell was silent all
through the long, dragging hours of Sunday.
Premonition whispered, and the long knife of radio uncertainty touched
him once more. Vic might be tied up. He knew this wasn’t so. The Monday
show had to be rehearsed Sunday afternoon or Sunday night. When had Vic
ever been so busy that a show went neglected? Perhaps he should have
spent the week downtown and not have buried himself in a dramatization.
But this wasn’t a case where he had to visit a station and keep himself
fresh in a casting director’s memory. This was a Wylie show.
Monday morning the telephone rang. He was halfway down the stairs before
his mother could call: “For you, Joe.”
Stella’s voice fluttered. “Lu’s show goes on at four. Are you picking it
up?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Joe told her. His heart was lead.
“None of us will be able to hear it. Her show goes off fifteen minutes
before we go on.”
“Leave it to me,” said Joe, and hung up.
“Was that Mr. Wylie’s office?” Kate Carlin asked.
“No; Stella Joyce. She asked me to listen to Lucille Borden.” He was
silent. “I’ll pick it up at Vic’s.” Now that he was ready to resume his
part, he couldn’t haunt Studio B. But Stella would want a report on
Lucille. He’d have a legitimate reason for waiting until the cast came
in from rehearsal. If Vic had anything to tell him, Vic could tell him
then.
An afternoon romance serial was coming to the inner room when he reached
Wylie’s office.
“That’s the station,” Miss Robb said. “Miss Borden’s show is next.”
Joe sat in Vic Wylie’s chair. Presently a mellow gong announced the
station and the interval between programs. The click of Miss Robb’s
typewriter ceased.
Lucille Borden’s voice, clipped, a little hard with a familiar hardness,
went through him. The voice seemed strangely enriched with a new, deeper
quality. It was impish, provocative, casually gay, and touched with
unexpected moments of tears and of laughter. Joe found himself
chuckling. Abruptly Lu put a yearning tenderness into a passage that
caught his breath. And then his head was back and he was laughing as she
gave drawling drollery to another line.
Lucille Borden’s premier was over. Joe knew she had scored a smash hit.
Miss Robb dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.
“I can’t help it, Joe. She was so wonderful.”
Joe had to clear his throat of emotion. “She was great.” He was thinking
of the day he had hurried to a Munson hosiery counter to tell a defeated
actress that her chance had come, and of the way her hands had gripped
the counter. The ups and downs of show business!
At 4:30 he tuned in the _Sue Davis_ show. Any program coming on after
Lucille’s triumph would have seemed flat; Lucille had fired him. He was
nervous and restless, eager to return to the cast. He roamed out to Miss
Robb’s desk.
“I’ll be glad,” he said, “to get back on the air.”
The girl, typing faster, did not answer.
“Vic may give me the word to-day,” he added.
Miss Robb slipped a letter from the carriage of the machine and carried
a carbon to the file. The cabinet drawer held hundreds of yellow
carbons. She placed the copy in its alphabetical compartment and did not
speak.
Joe went back to Wylie’s chair. The inner room throbbed with
memories—memories of his first days with Vic, of the hard grind of
rehearsals, of the thrill of his first days on the air. When would he go
back? Why hadn’t he played in to-day’s show?
Miss Robb, wearing her hat and coat, appeared in the doorway. “If you’re
staying, Joe, I won’t put the catch on the door.”
“They’ll want to hear about Lucille,” said Joe.
The girl drew on her gloves. “Show business is tough,” she said
impulsively, and was gone.
Daylight faded. Had she been trying to tell him something? Joe thought
of the crowded carbons in the filing cabinet. Sonny Baker playing fast
and loose with a script, little Amby Carver fussing impotently in Studio
B—these happenings were more or less public. And he had thought them
important. The real story might lie in letters locked away in the file.
Letters that Wylie had received; letters he had written. Office secrets.
But Miss Robb knew those secrets. He remembered her agitation the day he
had met her at the restaurant, and to-day she had blurted out that show
business was tough. Nobody had to tell him that. He knew it.
The inner room darkened and he turned on a light. Did Miss Robb know why
he hadn’t gone back to the cast? Wylie had had knowledge since Friday
that he had recovered.
The door from the hall opened and closed. Sonny Baker strolled into the
inner room.
“Around again, Carlin?” he asked. His eyes reflected a sleepy, mocking
amusement. He picked up a magazine and lolled on the settee.
Stella Joyce and Bert Farr came in together.
“Tell me everything,” Stella said eagerly.
Joe’s description of Lucille was a rhapsody. Stella wrote a telegram of
congratulation. She read them the telegram and the list of
signatures—Vic Wylie, Stella Joyce, Bert Farr, Joe Carlin.
“Miss Robb will want to be in that,” said Joe. “Why not Archie Munn?
What’s become of him? I haven’t seen him in two weeks.”
Stella said slowly: “You knew he was offered a selling job? He took it.
He had to. He couldn’t live on bit parts and a few funerals.”
“He’ll be back,” Joe predicted.
“I’m not so sure,” Stella said slowly. “There’s a limit.” She held the
telegram and looked toward the settee. “Want your name on this, Sonny?”
One of Sonny’s eyebrows lifted blandly. “I didn’t hear the performance.”
“Why don’t you get wise to yourself?” Stella snapped. “Lu was always
good.”
“Not bad,” Sonny murmured languidly, and returned to the magazine.
A door slammed, and Vic Wylie was upon them. The producer’s hat was
dented, his top-coat collar was half up and half down, the brief-case,
closed by a single strap and gaping at one end, swung past his knee. He
dumped the brief-case on the desk.
“You gave me a lousy show to-day,” he snarled at the cast. “Dish-water!
Hello, kid. How was she?”
“I never heard anything better,” said Joe. He spoke slowly and
distinctly so that Wylie could get the full, strong timbre of his voice.
Of course, Vic couldn’t very well talk up in front of Sonny. But he
could say: “Come out here a minute, kid,” and tell him where he stood.
Wylie’s tired face cracked into a smile. “A grand gal, Lu; one of the
best. Give her a part that fits her and she’s tops. What did she do with
the comedy shots?”
“She put them over beautifully.”
“I always figured she’d be tops on smooth comedy.” Wylie opened the
brief-case. “Let’s get going.” He distributed to-morrow’s show—a script
to Stella, a script to Bert, a script to Sonny....
Joe walked out.
He was bitter. Archie Munn had advised him in the early days to stick to
Vic, had said that Vic took care of his people. Well, he’d called
himself one of Vic Wylie’s people. He’d auditioned the _Sue Davis_ show;
he’d originated the Dick Davis role. Vic had told him he was still in
the show. He pushed through the crowd standing in the street outside
FKIP and was deaf to the news broadcast coming from the speaker. Had
Wylie kept him in Studio B as a piece of scenery, a prop threat to Sonny
Baker that Sonny had better be good? Was that what Miss Robb knew and
was afraid she might reveal? He said in growing bitterness: “Show
business!”
He ate a belated, warmed-over dinner in the Carlin kitchen. His father
sat across the table.
“See Wylie to-day, Joe?”
Joe nodded. “I don’t know any more than I did yesterday. Sonny’s playing
the show to-morrow.”
“Have you any plans?”
“No, sir.” But Joe did have plans. He’d lay siege to casting directors’
offices until he found a part. Did Vic think radio began and ended in
the office of Vic Wylie Productions? When Vic wanted him again, Vic
could send for him.
Next day Joe Carlin once more started to make the rounds.
He told himself: “I’ve been in a successful show; they know me now.” But
making the rounds didn’t have the hopeful outlook it had worn last
night. The bread-and-butter hunt depressed him. He had been all through
this before; he was back where he had started.
Now that he was at liberty, no actor, beginning to look a little seedy,
led him into a quiet nook to negotiate a small loan. None of the show
people mentioned the _Sue Davis_ show. Nothing else had changed. There
was the same sharp anxiety that showed itself only in off-guard moments,
the same glib talk of fat parts about to turn up, the same business of
having a bright gag ready for casting directors, the same sham front
that fooled nobody. Lucille Borden had carried a front while living on
coffee and rolls. But Stella Joyce had said there was a limit.
He made the rounds thinking about Archie Munn, who had at last reached
his limit. He made the rounds from FKIP to FFOM to FWWO. Casting
directors were brightly glib. “Hello, Carlin; how are you?” or “Hello,
Joe; how’s the boy?” Nothing more; nothing about parts. Casting
directors’ routine hadn’t changed, either. You might make the rounds for
weeks and for months. Playing a part in a successful show was something
that had happened yesterday. Hadn’t Archie played in successful shows?
Friday added another to the growing list of fruitless days. Gossip was a
thread running through the stations. Practically all the September
programs were renewing their radio time, and that meant few new shows
and few new parts. Joe, coming out of FFOM, met Pop Bartell. Pop was a
gilded lily—new suit, new coat, new hat, new shoes. Show business always
dresses when it is in the money.
“Joe,” the veteran announced impressively, “I owe you two dollars, and
an apology for not having discharged my obligation earlier, and a round
of dinners.” He made the paying of the debt a ceremony. “Are you
following Lucille Borden? Join me in a cup of coffee. I am familiar with
a coffee house that does very little business at this hour. We can pick
it up there. I highly recommend the cheese cake.”
The raftered ceiling of the coffee house was dark and smoky, the paneled
walls were lined with sporting prints, the tables were bare wood,
scarred and grooved. In the dim light thrown by the Dutch lamps Pop
Bartell seemed to have torn ten years from what the world calls age.
Lucille’s performance held Joe spellbound.
“Brilliant,” Pop said softly, “truly brilliant. A remarkable
characterization. I salute her. Have you heard my show, Joe?”
[Illustration: Lucille’s performance held Joe spellbound. “Brilliant,”
Pop said softly. “I salute her.”]
Joe flushed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bartell.”
“I understand.” A hand patted the boy’s shoulder. “From the experiences
of thirty years of wisdom, permit me to cull you wisdom. When the bad
breaks come, never lose your front.”
“You never lost yours, Mr. Bartell.”
“Had I lost that, Joe,” the old man said gravely, “I’d have lost
everything. Are you remaining for the _Sue Davis_ show?” Slim and
straight, he strode toward the street. And in that moment Joe Carlin
knew why front, for all its hollowness and sham, meant so much to show
people. It was the hard stiffener when an actor’s precarious world was
shaken; it was sanctuary and armor.
He ordered more coffee. “Will you please get FKIP?”
To-day the _Sue Davis_ show rose to tense drama. The money Dick Davis
brought home after selling his stamps was almost gone; without warning,
tight-fisted Israel Tice offered $500 more for the widow’s property than
he had offered before. Sue was weary of fighting a battle that seemed
endless. Why not sell, she asked her son, and be done with heartache?
Why not find peace? Dick wanted to hold the property, but he saw how the
struggle was aging his mother and consented. She was to agree to the
terms when Tice stopped in that evening. Dick, who did not want to be
present at the meeting, went off into the mountains to search for wild
grapes. He came upon a picnic party; departing, they left behind a
newspaper published that morning at the State capital. The paper carried
the story of a new super-highway and a map. The map showed the highway
following the line of the unimproved county road that passed his
mother’s home. Their dream of a tea-room would be realized. But Tice
must have seen the story that morning; Tice knew what the mountain might
not know until to-morrow. Dick had to get home before his mother signed
the agreement to sell. Running down the mountainside, crashing through
thickets, he reached the house as she lifted the pen. He stuck the
newspaper under Israel Tice’s nose, and a thwarted skinflint departed.
It was hokum. Joe knew it for hokum. But it was good hokum, and it had
built up a terrific suspense. The kind of suspense a Curt Lake script
could give a show. Or had it been Sonny Baker’s acting?
Next day Joe walked Royal Street. Saturday was a poor day to make the
rounds, but when you were desperate for a part every day counted. FKIP’s
John Dennis sat in a deserted casting office staring at the ceiling.
“Come in, Joe. You’re just the man I’ve been thinking about. If I call
you in to audition a show that will go on at 4:15, will you be
available?”
Joe understood. Dennis wanted to know if he was out of the _Sue Davis_
program that went on at 4:30.
“What show?” he asked.
“Were reviving _Mr. America_. There’s a new part being written in that
should fit you like a glove. We put the show on last March and had three
sponsor nibbles before it went off in June. This time we think we’ll
sell it.”
Joe remembered _Mr. America_. A five-a-week sustaining. Front demanded
that he tell Gillis he was uncertain, that he might decide not to return
to the _Sue Davis_ cast. Dennis would probably know he was lying, but
that was the way front was played. He cast front aside.
“I don’t know, Mr. Dennis. Right this minute, I’m in the dark. I’ll let
you know.”
“I’ll have to know by Wednesday. Unless there’s a switch, we’ll start to
audition Thursday and cut the platter Saturday.”
“I’ll know definitely by Wednesday,” said Joe. He had vowed Vic would
have to send for him. All that was changed. He’d have to go to Vic for a
showdown.
Waiting for the elevator, unconsciously listening to an FKIP
loudspeaker, Joe felt that the future held a grim, mirthless humor. If
he went on the _Mr. America_ program, he’d still be in radio. He’d still
be on a five-a-week. Both shows would come out of the same station,
fifteen minutes apart. But the _Sue Davis_ sponsored show had been
paying him twenty-five dollars a week, while the unsponsored _Mr.
America_ would pay him only in experience. Show business!
John Dennis’ secretary came running along the corridor. “Mr. Carlin! I
wasn’t sure I could catch you. Mr. Wylie’s office called. You’re wanted
over there.”
Vic Wylie had sent for him at last!
“Will you phone back and tell them I’ll be there within an hour?” He’d
been waiting for more than a week. Let Vic wait an hour.
He ate a sandwich at Munson’s, killed time, and finally walked into Vic
Wylie Productions.
“I expect Mr. Wylie back in a few minutes,” Miss Robb said.
So he hadn’t kept Wylie waiting. The inner room still held memories.
Memories softened him. Why wrap himself in cold aloofness and let Vic
see he was sore? Vic would tell him to come back to the cast for the
Monday show and he’d go on from there, forgetting how tough the last
week had been, giving everything he had.
Wylie arrived without the usual accompaniment of fury and bustle. He
closed the door and placed the brief-case upon the desk with what, for
him, might pass for gentleness. He went around to his chair and, for a
moment, seemed to give himself up to contemplation of some thought far
away. He was gaunt and disheveled, apparently a little more tired than
usual. He hadn’t shaved.
“Kid,” he said heavily, “I’m not up to the light touch. I can’t spar
around with this. I’ve got to give it to you fast and quick. You’re
out.”
The blood drained out of Joe. Never again to play Dick Davis.... He
found his voice. “I’m out for good?”
“That’s the ticket.”
“Why?” This was some sort of wild dream or some mad joke. Only—Vic
didn’t joke about things like this.
“You heard yesterday’s show? Yesterday wrote the answer. I like you—”
Joe’s lips moved. “You can skip that.”
“All right; you shouldn’t have to be told. I’ve been holding off. Amby
Carver’s been telling things to Munson, Munson’s been riding
Everts-Hall, Everts-Hall’s been putting pressure on me. I got it three
ways; some of it was downstage, some from the prompter’s book, and some
from the wings. I didn’t want Sonny unless he became a must. If he
starts out again to put himself up in lights, he can ruin the show. If
he gets under my skin and I blow my top, I ruin the show. I told you
once I don’t run a friendship club. I might have an idea that cutting
your throat would be tops as a way to enjoy an afternoon, but if you
give me a show, I’ll toss the knife out the window. Yesterday Sonny gave
me a show. He’s a must.”
“He had a script.”
“A stage has scenery, but it’s only an empty stage until the scenery’s
set.”
Disappointment made Joe hoarse. “What did Sonny Baker do that I couldn’t
have done with the same script?”
“Kid,” Wylie said with weary regret, “he can act.”
Joe Carlin was stiff and numb with shock. Was Wylie telling him at this
late date that he was a flop? After auditioning him for weeks, fighting
for him when Mrs. Munson wanted the Dick Davis part for a nephew, giving
him the part when the show finally went on the air? Suddenly he was
white with anger. Wylie had either fooled him at the beginning or was
fooling him now. Either way, he had been betrayed.
“You told me I was tops.”
The producer’s hands made a weary sign. “I expected you to throw that at
me, kid. I had a show coming up; I wanted a Dick Davis; I knew exactly
how Dick Davis should sound. I couldn’t find a Dick Davis. Then I heard
you auditioning at FKIP. You were my Dick Davis. For that part, your
voice made you tops. You were tops until Sonny came along. When Mr. John
Public turns on the radio all he gets is voices. Voices must build up
the scene, the characters, the atmosphere in his imagination. The show
doesn’t have the help of stage settings, lights, costumes, and make-up.
You’ve got a million dollar radio voice, but that lets you out. You
can’t do much with it. You feel, but you can’t give. It took me weeks to
get you to give me one word, ‘Mother,’ the way I wanted it.”
Joe’s breath made a sound in his throat.
“You’re good, kid, but you’re not good enough. There’ll always be
somebody better. That’s the curse of small-time radio. Thousands of kids
working in radio all over the country, wild with ambition and dreaming
of the pot of gold. They’re good, but not good enough. You’ve got to be
better than good. Archie Munn was good; he’s out of radio. Stella’s
good; she’s working as a part-time waitress. Lucille Borden was good,
and she was selling stockings when she got the breaks. A part came up
made to order for her just when she auditioned, or she’d still be
selling stockings. Where will you be ten years from now? Exactly where
you are to-day. You know small-time radio; do you want that all your
life? Your voice gets you a couple of fat parts one season, and next
season you get bits. Year after year you make the rounds. By and by John
Public gets tired of your voice, or a new voice comes along. Then where
are you? Television’s only around the corner. John Public’s going to see
the setting, the action, and characters in costume; radio actors will
really have to act. What will you do then? If you had dynamite on the
ball I’d tell you to stick it out if you starved. You haven’t got it,
kid, and there’s no percentage in starving for what you haven’t got. I
knew a long time ago you didn’t have the stuff, but you were the best
Dick Davis I could get. I told you when Mrs. Munson’s nephew auditioned
you’d have been out had he been hot. I’ve never lied to you, kid. If
you’d played forty weeks in the _Sue Davis_ show you’d be hooked for
life. The bug would bite so deeply there’d be no cure. But you were only
on the air a few weeks—that shouldn’t be fatal. You can make your exit
while there’s still time.”
The indictment struck Joe with a paralyzing shock. He didn’t want to
believe. He couldn’t believe that this was true.
“I’m not getting out, Vic. I’m writing New York for an audition.”
The producer brooded. “That’s up to you.”
“A producer told Ezra Stone—”
“I know. A producer told him to go home and forget acting. That gets a
big play. But you don’t hear a word about the hundreds of times
producers tell the same thing to kids and are right. It’s a waste of
time to try to give the low-down to a stage-struck kid. Doesn’t he want
to act? He doesn’t know the difference between wanting to act and being
able to act.” The producer’s hand went up and ran through his hair; the
arms fell heavily. “Kid, what have I got to say to make you believe me?”
The sunken eyes burned.
Joe felt the first thin edge of doubt. He fought it off wildly. “Why
should you care what I believe?”
“Kid, do you have to ask that?”
A lump, quick and unbidden, formed in the boy’s throat. “I—I know you
think....”
“Think?” Vic Wylie cried harshly. “I don’t have to think about show
business; I know. Tough? There isn’t any game in the world that’s
tougher. I’ve seen it around the country: stage-struck kids working in
crummy night clubs or picking up a few dollars from movie houses that
run Saturday vaudeville. I’ve seen it at Hollywood: movie-crazy kids
storming the Central Casting Bureau because they’ve won a two-bit beauty
contest or have a straight nose. But at least, if you work at Hollywood,
you get paid. There’s no such thing at Hollywood as a sustaining movie.
Hollywood doesn’t fatten itself on gratis talent. Radio’s just a little
tougher than any other part of show business. Don’t you know it? Don’t
you use your eyes?”
Joe thought of bread-and-butter hunters making the rounds.
Wylie’s sunken cheeks were pale with intensity. “What do you think
you’re going to do in New York—show me up for a mug? I’ll tell you
what’ll happen in New York, kid. Maybe you’ll audition and a producer’ll
say: ‘Ah, a voice of great promise.’ Maybe you’ll go back for a
committee audition. Maybe the committee hears a voice of great promise.
Then what? Do you think you’ll snatch a part like picking an oyster from
a shell? You’ll be competing with the people who are tops. Who are you?
What’ve you done? You become a card—a Joe Carlin card. You’ll go into a
talent file. Do you know how many cards are in the N.B.C. file at WEAF?
The last time I heard, more than two thousand. Many of them are troupers
with years of stage experience, many of them have played big-time radio.
When a producer casts a show, those are the people he picks. He knows
what they’ll give him. Maybe a show comes up and the producer can’t get
the people he wants; they’re tied up in other shows. Then he goes to the
file. Maybe he’s forgotten Joe Carlin—some new cards go into that file
every month. It’s a grab-bag. Figure the chances of the Joe Carlin card
coming out. If you had great talent I’d tell you to stay with it if you
were down to your last pair of socks, if you were mooching your meals
and panhandling your friends. I’d help you. Great talent is rare. Kid,
what makes you think you’ve got it?”
Looking at Wylie, intense and drawn, listening to his impassioned voice,
Joe had to believe. Wylie had spent far more time on him than on any
other member of the cast. That now became significant. Memory leaped at
him with other scenes, all significant. Wylie talking to Tony Vaux about
his voice—only about his voice. Wylie almost frantic because he couldn’t
put something into the word “Mother” that the producer wanted put there.
Wylie slaving over him through the long evening rehearsals. But he had
dreamed a dream, and a dream always dies hard.
“Vic, why did you wait so long to tell me this?”
“Kid, I was on a spot. It didn’t take me long to learn you didn’t have
the spark. You’d never lay them in the aisles. What could I do, toss you
out? You were the best I could get for Dick Davis. Suppose you had no
special training for a business job? Suppose you couldn’t land a job?
Suppose radio was your only chance of nailing a dollar? Yesterday I
began to check on you. You never told me anything about yourself. How
was I to know your father owned that Carlin store on Royal Street?
What’s the matter, doesn’t he want you there?”
“He’d be glad to have me there.”
“Then get wise. That’s where you belong.”
Sometimes, Joe thought wanly, it was hard to be wise. The easy
companionship of show people, light-hearted despite its anxiety, the
feeling that came over him every time he walked into a station, the hush
that settled over a studio as the clock in the control-room crept toward
the opening, the thrill as the show went on the air! He couldn’t give up
all that.
“Vic,” he said, “I’m sorry. I still want show business.”
Wylie sat with his unshaven chin sunk down on his chest. “All right,
kid. I’ve laid it on the line to you and I feel better. If you want show
business, you want it. The acting door’s closed. Try the window.”
“What window?”
Wylie said: “Production.”
Joe was startled. A producer was an obscure figure in the background,
never heard, never seen. A producer was part of show business, but— Oh,
it wasn’t the same thing at all. He began to shake his head.
Wylie was the old Wylie, snarling. “I thought you wanted show business.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t. You want the spotlight and the fan mail. Look, kid.”
Wylie came out of the chair and swung the boy about by the shoulders.
“As a producer, you don’t interpret one part. You interpret all the
parts. You set the tempo. You touch the strings and the cast vibrates.
You take a script and make it live. You make the show, molding it and
shaping it. You’re the show, all of it.”
Joe’s lips parted. Here was Wylie’s strange power to move him, to
galvanize him. Production took on a color of possibility. Hadn’t he been
trying to do something like this with _Thomas Carlin Presents_?
“I’d have to break in, Vic. Where?”
“The Everts-Hall Agency. Tony Vaux. Tony saw you put a finger on what
was wrong with Pop Bartell at a _Bush-League Larry_ audition. You’re a
possibility. You have an instinct. You put your finger on a bad _Sue
Davis_ curtain. Production’s no bed of roses; it’s show business and all
show business is tough. But you have a whole stage to play with. A show
becomes your baby.”
Joe was no longer stiff and numb. A regret that he would never act
lingered, but Wylie had cast a new light on production and had made it
desirable and exhilarating.
“I’ll see Tony this afternoon, Vic.”
“I’ve already talked to him. He’s out of town to-day. You’ll be a
glorified messenger-boy-office-boy-all-around-helper—”
“I haven’t the job yet.”
“Didn’t I say I talked to him? You go in Monday and hang up your hat.”
Vic Wylie went back to his chair, jerked around abruptly, and shot out a
thin, nervous hand as though it were a spear. “Do you know what you’re
going to do, kid? You’re going to school and take a night course.
Dramatics. When summer comes and radio’s dead, you’re taking a leave of
absence. You’re going into summer stock. You’re joining some company
playing in a cowbarn—”
“I thought I was through acting.”
“Did I say anything about acting?” Wiley rasped. “You’re going in as
assistant stage manager. Maybe you’ll get some money and maybe you
won’t. But you’re going to study stage business. You’re going to watch
audiences and find out what makes them laugh and what makes them cry.
You’re going to be a showman. Some day you’ll thank me.”
Joe said slowly: “I’m thanking you now.”
Worming through Royal Street he was feverish with the prospect of new
horizons. A whole stage to play with. You built shows, molding them and
shaping them. The picture grew in his mind, expanded in his excitement.
If he was some day to be a full-fledged producer, it was time he
finished his first show. It would be something to look back upon, a
milestone. All that the plugs needed was more direct strength, the right
touch. He ought to finish the script to-night. To-morrow he’d be able to
show it to his father.
Kate Carlin called from the kitchen. “Aren’t you home early?”
“I smelled apple pie,” Joe said. He watched her take the brown, fragrant
pies from the oven. “I’m through with acting.”
She almost dropped a pie. “Joe!”
“It’s all right. You and Dad never really liked the idea of my acting,
anyway. I’m going into production. I start Monday with the Everts-Hall
Agency.”
She followed him to the stairs. “Why, Joe?”
“Vic Wylie advised it. I was out of the _Sue Davis_ show. He told me I
was good, but that there’d always be somebody better. He said I’d never
make big time. It was hard to take at first, but, well, Vic makes you
believe him. You know he’s shooting straight.”
He went at once to the bureau. He’d wade into those plugs.... He took
the script from the drawer, and hard concentration gathered between his
eyes. He knew exactly how he had left the script and now the pages were
turned about, reversed. The frown deepened.
“Mother, were you looking over some papers in my bureau?”
“I don’t recall any papers. What drawer were they in?”
“The small top drawer on the right.”
“The only drawer I opened was the large middle one. I put away your
laun—Oh! I remember, Joe. Dad ran out of razor blades and went to your
room for a fresh blade.”
“When was that?”
“Tuesday or Wednesday. Are some papers missing?”
“No,” said Joe, swallowing. “They’re here.”
Tuesday or Wednesday—three or four days ago. This wasn’t a finished
script. It took a professional script-writer like Curt Lake to do a
finished script. This show was a sample, an indication of what could be
done. And his father hadn’t thought the script worth discussing.
All the fine fire of eagerness went out of him. Another egg. First he’d
laid an acting egg and now a script egg. He tossed the script back among
the razor blades and tie clasps, and closed the drawer.