Stanley Elkin - The Dick Gibson Show

“I was at this party — my husband was there; we often run into each other; well, we know the same people and they know we still see each other; it’s no big deal — and it was getting a little rough and I thought maybe it was time to go. Well, when I left my friend’s house I could hear that gadget on my car. I don’t know why I hadn’t heard it when I’d parked; maybe I had. It was a kind of whining, not a buzz. It was like the sound of an animal in a trap, or like a child when it’s sick, or — you’ll laugh — like my own whimpering. Only I don’t whimper, never. This just sounded like whimpering would if I did. I’m not being dramatic — I was fascinated. When I got in and turned the key the noise stopped. Well, I know this sounds silly, but I thought, My God, maybe I’ve killed it. I suppose I was a little high. Sometimes I drink too much.

“You know what I did when I thought I’d killed it? I turned off the motor to hear it again. Some people from the party found me there. They thought I was too drunk to drive or something. Well, I couldn’t just sit there all night, and these people meant well, but of course I couldn’t tell them what I’d been up to, so I pretended that I was too drunk, and I let them take me home in their car. When I got there I ducked in and asked the baby-sitter if she could stay for another thirty minutes, and called a cab and went back for my car.

“You know I never stopped hearing it? When I got back it was the same as in my head. Maybe I have a sort of perfect pitch for machines.

“I got in my car. There were still some people at the party and I didn’t want them to find me when they left, so I started the engine and of course the sound stopped at once. I remembered that if the door wasn’t shut properly the gadget was supposed to whine then too, so I opened my door just enough to disengage the lock, and the sound came back. Whenever I made a left turn and the door swung free the whine rose to a howl. I went out of my way to turn corners to hear it howl, to punish it.

“It was crazy. I couldn’t get home. My left turns pushed me in circles, taking me places I’d never been. I realized that if I was to leave the door open I had to stay in good neighborhoods. The only one I could think of was my own, so I kept circling my own block. When I passed my house I could see the baby-sitter looking out the window for me. Maybe she heard the sound. Driving the car must have charged the battery and it seemed to scream, to sing like a siren. Maybe she even recognized the car, but I couldn’t stop.

“By now I was low on gas. I found a station that was open all night, and the attendant asked me to turn off the engine while he checked under the hood. I pulled the key out of the ignition and shut the door tight. I still heard it in my head, but it wasn’t the same, it wasn’t as real; my pitch was imperfect finally. I have all the major credit cards, but I was impatient. I gave him cash and told him to keep the change. When I got back to my neighborhood the sitter’s father was looking out my window. She lives next door and he must have come over to take her place. I knew I had to go in. I gave him the money for his daughter, three dollars more than she was supposed to get. He was angry at first that I’d kept her out so late, but then he … well, sort of looked at me. I’ve known the man years; we’re friends. It was the hour; the lateness of the hour excited him. A woman coming home alone at four-thirty in the morning was thrilling to him. A woman giving him money out of her purse worked him up. God knows where he thought I’d been or what I’d been doing. He tried to kiss me, touch my breasts. ‘Oh, Ingrid,’ he said. He forced me down on the couch. ‘Please, Jack,’ I said. ‘Come on, Ingrid, what’s the difference? You’re one hell of an attractive woman.’ I know what he thought. Years we’d known each other, and he’d never made a pass. Not during my lousy marriage, not during my divorce, not once when he saw me going out with men or my ex spent the night at the house. The lateness of the hour, that excited him. Taking money from me for his daughter, the three dollars extra I gave because I’d inconvenienced her and which he thought was hush money.

“‘I’ve been driving,’ I told him. ‘Jack, I left the party hours ago. I’ve been out driving by myself. Let me up, Jack. Jack, let me up.’ I think I embarrassed him; I think I hurt his feelings.

“I put the car in the garage, left the key in the ignition and opened the windows. Maybe I heard it in my room, maybe it was only the whining in my head.

“I can’t sleep without it. It has to be on. I use up batteries.”

Then Ingrid said something which Dick couldn’t quite make out. “I think we have a bad connection,” he said.

“I said it’s not an animal in a trap, not a baby crying.”

“Have it disconnected. You don’t need it.”

“I need it. It’s what—” The last word was lost.

“What was that?”

“I said it’s what mourns. I need it. It’s what says that everything isn’t okay. It’s my gadget for grief.”

“Get rid of it,” Dick said.

“Who would keen, who would cry?”

“Look, this connection is very bad. I can hardly hear you. There’s some sort of interference.”

“That—”

“What did you say?”

“That’s it. What you hear. I had a phone put in my car. I’m in a lover’s lane I know. The doors are locked and the engine’s off and the key’s in the ignition. Listen.”

She must have put the phone up to the noise, because suddenly it became louder. Or perhaps she had opened the door and was swinging it back and forth on its hinge, for the sound would rise to a howl and then suddenly grow softer.

Dick Gibson listened to the queer yowl of the device, then heard the woman’s voice again. She seemed to be crooning a sort of encouragement to it. He strained to make out the words.

“You tell ’em,” she was saying. “Tell him when he comes in. You tell him, sweetie, I st-st-stutter.”

“Hello.”

“Hello, Henry.” It was Henry Harper.

“What? Who? Oh, yeah.”

“Isn’t this Henry Harper?”

“You don’t think I’d be fool enough to give my right name, do you? Yes, I’m the boy you know as Henry Harper.”

“Henry Harper isn’t your name?”

“No it isn’t, and it’s a darn good thing I never told you what it really is. I had a lucky hunch when I called that first time and decided I’d better not be entirely open with you.”

“Well, I don’t know how to respond to something like that, Henry. You put me at a terrible disadvantage. You’re free to misrepresent yourself as much as you please, and there’s nothing I can do about it except cut you off the air. I don’t like to do that to any caller, Henry. … You see? I called you Henry. I must sound pretty foolish if that isn’t who you are.” Dick was genuinely upset. “I suppose all the rest of it, your being rich and nine years old and all alone in an enormous mansion, that’s all misrepresentation too.”

“Of course not. It’s an evidence of their truth that I couldn’t give my name out over the air.”

“I see,” Dick said coolly.

“I’m afraid you don’t at all. Do you know something? There are a whale of a lot of nosy parkers who listen to this program. If you look me up in the supplement to the Directory you’ll see I gave a P.O. box number instead of an address. That was another precaution, of course.”

“A precaution against what?”

“Why, against interference with my way of life. Look, I’m an immensely wealthy orphan. There’s the estate itself and three-quarters of a million dollars cold cash in my piggy banks, and I stand to come into a good deal more than that when I achieve my majority. Don’t you know these things represent enormous temptations to wicked and unscrupulous persons? My age makes me extremely vulnerable to vultures, and my status in the eyes of the authorities trebles that vulnerability.”