Melancholy Baby

18

I had coffee and a cinnamon bun with George Markham in a Starbucks on Main Street in Andover.

“Have you been able to persuade my daughter to stop this madness?” George said.

“I’ve not tried,” I said.

“Well, you should,” George said. “You’re too good-looking to waste your time chasing phantoms.”

How charming.

“Tell me about your radio career,” I said.

He smiled modestly and shrugged.

“It was nothing much,” he said. “I just got some lucky breaks along the way.”

“Tell me about it. I’m fascinated with radio,” I said.

“I was on Armed Forces Radio in ’Nam,” he said, “and managed, when I got out, to segue right into a job in New York. WNEW. I worked with William B. Williams there, if you know who he is.”

“A legend,” I said.

“In Chicago, I got to work with Milt Rosenberg at WGN.”

“Wow,” I said. “Mostly announcing?”

He nodded.

“And a lot of producing,” he said. “I did some on-air fill-in for the hosts when they were on vacation or out with a cold or something. Later I went on to do network. Not as glamorous maybe as it once was in, you know, the heyday. But it paid good, and there was much less local programming politics, you know?”

“Oh,” I said, “I can imagine. Do you miss radio?”

“No,” he said, “not really. It was fun. But I’m happy now, managing my affairs, spending time with my wife. That was then. This is now.”

“I was in Quad Cities last week,” I said.

George looked at me blankly.

“They remember you fondly out there,” I said.

“Quad Cities?”

“Yep. Talked with Millie at WMOL. Quad City Sound.”

“Millie?”

“Yep. Said you were very handy with the women.”

“I’ve never been to Quad Cities in my life.”

“You were there in the early eighties. Same time Lolly Drake was starting out.”

“Lolly Drake?” he said. “The syndicated talk-show broad?”

He was still sort of round-shouldered. But away from his wife, the furtive-nerd persona faded fast.

“Yes,” I said. “They still talk about her out there.”

“I don’t know anything about it or her or out there,” George said. “I simply do not know what you are talking about.”

I took his picture out of my purse and held it up.

“Is this you?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

“That’s what Millie said.” I smiled at him. “She said you hadn’t gotten better looking in twenty years.”

“The hell with her,” George said, looking at the picture.

Then he looked at me.

“The hell with you too,” he said, and stood and walked out of Starbucks.

I thought when I had him cornered, that he was supposed to crack under my relentless pressure and confess. Instead he told me to go to hell, and stuck me with the check.

Maybe I should try rubbing my thumbs together.