Stanley Elkin - The Dick Gibson Show

They had rented the facilities of WGSV, using the phone company’s carrier line to take the signal back to Miami. This affected the sound quality, but worse was that the station didn’t have the sophisticated phone setup WMIA did, so the program’s mechanics that night were very clumsy. All the incoming calls had to be handled through the receptionist’s switchboard and shunted by extension phone to the studio. Since the station ran an all-night record request show, naturally the girl at the switchboard fell behind and when Dick finished a conversation there was not always another caller on the line. Nor did he have any notion where a call was coming from and found it difficult to recognize his listeners’ voices. The occasion of the picnic and its publicity had reassured many of the old Mail Baggers that the program was being returned to them, inspiring them to call the show again, but it must have been clear to even the least astute that they’d been forgotten. Much air time was wasted in sly maneuvering between Dick and his callers, the caller wanting Dick to say his name and Dick trying to get the caller to do it for him. Though it was a dull program, it was a very hard night’s work for him. It was dull, hard work, but there was something pleasant about it too. It was like the old days, the very old days, before they knew each other too well, and had had to take everything slowly and carefully, offering each other gentle, civilized banalities.

Still, by sign-off, he was exhausted. This may have been one reason he was so unresponsive at the picnic the next morning. He had not actually slept before Friday’s show. From promotional considerations given the Pick-Gainesville in return for free accommodations, many Mail Baggers knew what hotel Dick was at, and at least half a dozen had called the room to invite him for drinks. By the time he told the desk to put no more calls through, he wasn’t sleepy, and he watched television until it was time to go down to the station. Even afterward, tired though he was, he found it difficult to sleep, finally dropping off for two hours before he was awakened for the picnic. Those people who wrote the management afterward to complain of his “distance” either were poor readers of mood or had never been exhausted. After all, he was no chicken, he was pushing fifty. This, at any rate, was what he told the station manager when asked to explain the large amount of critical mail that had poured into the station following the picnic. And if these explanations were not frank, it was not the first time he had not been entirely open with the management about the picnic. Good as they were, his reasons for not wanting the station executives in Gainesville had nothing to do with anything as remote as the program’s “image.”

It was Behr-Bleibtreau. He was convinced that something savage would happen. The man had once tried to strangle him. He hadn’t known his reasons then and he didn’t know them now, and though he felt the Mail Baggers would protect him from violence, he really believed the savagery would take some other form. He needed strength and concentration; the presence of his employers would have been deflective. If he was to put on a show— The Dick Gibson Show —it must be for his poor callers.

At 10 A.M. they entered Gainesville’s Emma Shulding Memorial Park and drove onto the broad expanse of contiguous athletic fields in the open convertible. The motorcycle policeman escorting them turned onto a green outfield and guided them past second base toward home plate. They toured slowly, giving as many of the Mail Baggers as felt like it an opportunity to approach the car. Dick, perched on the back seat, leaned down to shake their hands, scrutinizing their nametags in the few seconds they walked along beside the car, and whispered questions to them about their families. It surprised him that he knew so little about them. A man extended condolences on the death of Mrs. Dormer. It was the first confirmation he’d had of this.

“Then she is dead,” he said sadly.

Bob Orchard drove around behind the screen at home plate and the three of them got out. There was some difficulty with the public- address equipment, so Dick dispatched Bob Orchard to look at it. When his engineer got it working there were a few remarks and announcements by the president of the Cordelle County, Georgia, Listening Post. Then she introduced Bob Orchard and Lawrence Leprese, who both said a few words to the crowd. Leprese did little more than stand before them in the Bermuda shorts and loud sports shirt that Dick Gibson had bought. “How do you like ’em?” he asked. The Mail Baggers laughed and applauded.

Dick was introduced. He told them how glad he was to be there and that it looked like an even bigger turnout than last year’s. It wasn’t— the cop who conducted them across the playing field said later that there couldn’t be more than six or seven hundred people there — but Dick wasn’t trying to con them. He’d been looking for Behr-Bleibtreau, not sure he would recognize him — it had been ten years— studying each face, doubling back over groups he had already considered, losing track, beginning again, like someone trying to count spilled pennies on a rug. It was partly his distracted air that made him seem absent to the people who wrote the station to criticize him. Actually, he had never felt so keen, and though his words may have seemed bland, he experienced a genuine affection for his listeners, his special knowledge feeding his tenderness and making him protective as a statesman, fond as a champion. His ordeal would be theirs as well.

He publicly thanked the wonderful men and women of the Cordelle County, Georgia, Listening Post for the marvelous work they had done — he meant this sincerely, but our words are sometimes flattest when we are most deeply moved — and told the crowd that he would be out to meet as many of them personally as time would permit. Then he walked out to the raised pitcher’s mound, and there he remained for most of the day, choosing the spot not as the malcontents had it because he was showboating but because he wanted always to be within clear view of the crowd. Until lunchtime there were always four or five Mail Baggers around him, but after eating with the Cordelle County chapter, when he returned to the pitcher’s mound few people followed, and those who came up soon walked off. He continued to watch out for Behr-Bleibtreau, of course, and not until he had left the park did he begin to have doubts that it was Behr-Bleibtreau’s voice he had heard that night.

On the whole it was a pleasant day. The food was excellent and plentiful and they had good weather. His enemy never came.

If he failed to participate in the games it wasn’t because he felt superior or was a bad sport, but because he was worn out. After all, he was pushing fifty.

There was time for one more call.

“Night Letters — go ahead please.”

It was a woman, earnest and angry. “Well, thank God,” she said. “I thought the program would be over and done with before I reached you.”

“As a matter of fact, we haven’t much time. What did you want to talk about?”

“Listen, I’m a little flustered. I really didn’t think I was going to get through to you. I’ve never called one of these shows before.”

“I’d like to tell you to take your time, but the old clock on the wall—”

“I’m sorry. Well.” She took a deep breath. “I saw something today which makes me hopping mad. All I have to do is think about it and I can’t see straight.”

“What’s it all about, ma’m?”

“I called the Better Business Bureau and they say there’s nothing they can do about it, and I called the postal authorities and they tell me it has nothing to do with them, so I thought the only thing left was to try to arouse public opinion.”