Ричард Деминг - Manhunt. Volume 3, Number 1, January, 1955

“And just what is it you’re trying to do now, Cynthia?” I asked.

“I’m trying to push Rocketeers up into the respectable bracket.”

“My writing has been called a lot of things,” I said coldly, “but it’s never been called unrespectable.”

“Your writing is fine,” Cynthia said.

“But...”

“Yes, but.”

“But it isn’t respectable.” I grinned sourly, picked up the script, and then stood up. “You’ll excuse me, Cynthia. I’m going out to get very unrespectably drunk. Then I’m moving over to the Captain Jet show. They want science-fiction, and that’s what I’ve been writing for the past five years.”

“You’re behaving like an adolescent,” Cynthia said.

“Am I? Then it’s the influence of Rocketeers. Look, Cynthia, let’s get this straight. I don’t mind submitting story ideas, and I don’t mind submitting outlines, and I don’t even mind submitting step by step treatments. I’ve listened to you and Perry and Mark, and I’ve even taken occasional tips from some of the cameramen. But when you suddenly decide the product I’ve been turning out all along isn’t good enough for a lousy juvenile show, it’s time to hop into my own little rocket ship and go where I’ll be appreciated. It’s as simple as all that.”

“And you still don’t understand,” she said sadly.

“I understand one thing, Cynthia, and that is the side upon which my daily bread is buttered.”

“Sit down,” she said suddenly, “sit down, Jon.”

“There’s no sense prolonging...”

“Oh, for God’s sake, sit down!”

I sat down reluctantly, sullenly handing her the script when she reached over the desk for it.

“Shall we discuss this like intelligent adults?” she asked. I didn’t answer. “All right, here’s what’s wrong. In the first place, the science is all wet. I know you’ve been writing just this kind of science for a long time now — but we can’t have it that way anymore. It has to be accurate, and it has to be based upon known facts.”

“Cynthia...”

“You’ve got, for example, Cadet Holmes sucking in great gobs of oxygen on Mars. Now hell, Jon, spectroscopic tests of Mars have never revealed oxygen in the atmosphere of that planet. That means any oxygen there would be in a quantity less...”

“... than one-thousandth of that in the Earth’s atmosphere. Cynthia, you’re not telling me anything new.”

“Then why is Cadet Holmes breathing oxygen?”

“He’s breathing oxygen in this week’s sequence, too. Why the sudden complaint?”

“I’ve had that changed,” Cynthia said. “But why do you continue counter to scientific knowledge?”

“Why are there Martians, Cynthia? Do you object to the goddamned Martians?”

“Well, no. Extra-terrestrial beings are good for the show. They...”

“Well, go ask your high-priced science expert if Martians are likely to be found on Mars. Look. Martians come into the sequence two weeks from now. They breathe, and that’s impossible. So I have Holmes breathing in the current sequence, and he has to continue breathing.”

“I told you I’ve already changed that.”

“Then why the hell bring it up?”

“Because there are more important things wrong with the script. For example, you’ve got this Martian disease that shows all the symptoms of food poisoning. For God’s sake, Jon, International Foods is our sponsor.”

“Shove our sponsor,” I said.

“All right, do that, if you’re not interested in getting paid for what you write. But don’t forget the mothers who watch the show, too. And don’t forget that the biggest problem they have with their kids is feeding.”

“Do you know the limerick starting, ‘A woman who triplets begat’?”

“No. So you throw in food poisoning, a delightful excuse for every kid who doesn’t feel like eating Poppsies.”

“ Poppsies , shmoppsies. Are you running a TV show or a luncheonette?”

“Here’s another thing,” Cynthia said. “You’ve got The Marauder’s mind captured by the Martians, and they force him to do dastardly things. The kids don’t know his mind is captured until the end of the sequence. All they see is their good old friend Marauder behaving like a bastard. So all these months we strive to build a father image, and you come along and wreck the whole thing in a week.”

“Why don’t you get Sigmund Freud to write your show?” I said. “He knows all about father images. Me, I’m just an underpaid writer.”

“Jon...”

“Jon me not, Cynthia.” I stood up, took the script from her desk, and stuffed it into my briefcase. “We sang a duet, doll, but the show closed.”

“You’re walking out then?”

“Aye. That I am. I’ve destroyed too many father images.”

“Jon...”

“Honey, you’ve got the nicest legs at Bradley and Brooks. You’re a pretty enough creature, and sometimes I love you to pieces. But I turned to writing after I got rid of Ulcer Number One, and I don’t want to start on Number Two — not while I’m only twenty-nine. So off I am to Captain Jet , where the legs and faces may not be as pretty, but where I won’t have to worry about the number of doom rays I use, or the Oedipus complexes of my lizard-like Venusians.”

“What about the current sequence?” Cynthia asked.

“I’ll stick it through. I’m going down to the studio now in fact. Jonny on the spot, they call me. Always willing to help.”

Cynthia Finch did not look happy when I left her, but I did not much give a damn about her state of mind. When someone tried to take an acknowledged hack show and shove it up into the Studio One bracket, it was time for me to fold my tent. And my typewriter. I started down the large, open-door-flanked corridor of Bradley and Brooks, the advertising outfit that was handling Rocketeers and a half-dozen other radio and TV shows for International Foods.

I passed 32b unconsciously, and I whirled abruptly when the voice hissed, “Hey, you!”

Andrea Mann stood in the open doorway to 32b, leaning against the doorjamb like the stereotyped picture of a Panamanian beauty. She narrowed her eyes in exaggeration and said, “Want a date, mister?”

“What’ll it cost?” I asked, smiling at her playacting.

“The best in New York,” she said, and she wiggled her hips a little. Andrea was a small blonde who proved the adage about good things coming in small packages. “Won’t cost you much more than a dinner and movie.”

“That’s too expensive. See you, Andy.”

“Hey, rat,” she said, dropping the loose girl pose. “Weren’t you even going to stop and say hello?”

“Hello,” I said.

Andy came out of the doorway, and grabbed my arm, yanking me back into her office. “It’s a good thing I love you,” she said.

“It’s a good thing somebody loves me,” I told her.

“Trouble with the Lord High Executioner?” She moved her head towards Cynthia’s office down the hallway.

“No more trouble,” I answered. “Finished, done, over with. I am now, as they say in Variety, at liberty.”

“You quit!” Andy burst.

“I did.”

“You didn’t!”

“But I did, I did.”

“But why,” she said, distressed. “Jon, you didn’t really.”

“Father images running rampant,” I said cryptically. “I really did tender my resignation, Andy doll, and how about that dinner and movie this evening?”

“Can you afford it?” she asked, smiling.

“I’ll hock my typewriter.”

“I was kidding about...”

“Yes or no? I’m due at the studio.”

“Yes. But you said you’d quit?”