The Mammoth Book of Pulp Action

The First Five in Line Charles Willeford

MEMO: (Confidential)

FROM: Doremus Jessup, Vice-President For programming NBN

TO: Russell Haxby, Director of Creative and Special Programmes

SUBJECT: “The First Five in Line...”

Dear Russ, this is merely an informal memo on the eve of your departure for Miami to wish you Godspeed, and to mention some other assorted shit that has been on my mind.

I’m not, for example, satisfied with the programme title, even though, at the present moment, it seems to fit, in an honest way, with the theme and projected format. The ellipsis following the title implies that others will eventually join the line, and that this experiment is only the beginning of a long line of various titillating programmes to attract more jaded viewers, but I’m still not certain whether the ellipsis is a valid addition or not. Do not waver in your thoughts for a better (exciting?) alternative title. We (the Board and I) are very receptive to a title change, and you should submit periodic alternatives right up until deadline.

The Board is quite excited about the entire concept. In ancient Rome it was possible for theatre-goers to see actual fornication on-stage (including rapes), actual crucifixions and ritual murders (usually with unwilling Xian actors), and it does not seem unlikely to me that in the not so distant future we shall see planned murders on our home screens as well as the unplanned, i.e., Ruby shooting Oswald, the colonel shooting the prisoner in Saigon, the female newscaster’s on-the-air suicide in Sarasota, etc. And NBN may very well start the trend with our innovative “TFFIL...” The design is already apparent, with from 30 to 35 simulated murders per night on the tube, as if every network were preparing the viewers’ minds for the real thing. The latest estimate indicates that the average viewer, by the time he reaches 65, will have seen 400,000 simulated murders and maimings on TV, discounting the murders and maimings he has also seen in movies. I saw the handwriting on the bloody wall as far back as “The Execution of Private Slovik”. The huge audience for this show was predicated on the sure knowledge that Slovik would, indeed, be executed before the end of the programme. Such knowledge was foreshadowed by the revealing title, even for those viewers unfamiliar with Huie’s book. That’s one of the reasons I’m not too happy with “The First Five in Line...” as a title. In line for what? A viewer may very well ask; so keep thinking about an alternative.

But I also agree with you that real TV murders must be led up to gradually, if we are ever to see them at all. To jump right in with them without prolonged and careful audience preparation, even though the actors — victim and killer — were to sign releases, would still not absolve the network from the many legal problems that would surround such programmes, at least initially. When the time is right, we shall have them, of course, and it will always be in keeping for NBN to pioneer in the most dramatic and exciting programming we can provide for our loyal viewers. As a possible title, however, just off the top of my head, for such a show in the distant future, what about “Involuntary Departures”?

But back to “The First Five in Line...” The Board concluded that it must run for the full thirteen (13) weeks, not for just the six (6) weeks you and I had planned. This means, Russell, that you’re going to have to come up with a good many innovative ideas to stretch out the series, and without the watering down of the entertainment values. Suspense, of course, is the key — but then I don’t need to tell you how to do your job. Money is no problem; don’t worry about the money. We will have the sponsors, all right; and it will also mean extra money for the five volunteers, even though they are not to know about any money in advance, which would screw up the statistical nature of the selection, as you know. At any rate, the go-go decision for a full 13 weeks puts us right up in there in the Emmy running for a new series, whereas a six-week mini-series would not. And I think we do have a No. One Emmy idea.

You will have to handle Harry Thead, the station manager of WOOZ, with kid gloves — a last-minute reminder of this requirement. The programme idea was his in the first place, which is why we have to originate from Miami instead of St Louis, even though the latter was a much better location demographically wise. But Harry Thead had no objections to you as the overall creative director, just so long as he could play an active behind-the-scenes part in the production. He wants the series credits, which he needs and you may tell him that he will be on the credits, network wide, as “Associate Producer for Miami”. The credit is rather meaningless, but it will look good on the crawl and I think he’ll be happy with the title. The main thing is to keep Harry Thead informed at all times of what you are doing, so that he’ll have the right answers for the WOOZ owners. You could also use Harry as your coordinator with the Miami office of Baumgarten, Bates, and Williams, who will handle the national advertising. They are also very excited about the commercial possibilities.

Harry Thead did not have to come to us with his idea, even though WOOZ is an affiliate. He could have run the show as a local Miami show, which would have blown the idea for the network. So we have a lot to thank Harry Thead for. When he asks questions, answer them; he’s behind us and the new programme 110 %, and he respects your creative genius.

I wish you had been present when I sold the idea to the Board. I won’t bore you with it, except to say that some of the reactionary reactions were predictable, ranging as they did from pretended shock to forced indignation; but we soon settled into the specifics, and your overall tentative plan (except for the addition of another seven weeks, which reveals their true enthusiasm) was accepted in toto, without any major modifications. Mr Braden, who was in favour of Miami over St Louis all along, pointed out that the high crime rate in Miami has prepared the local audience there for violence better than St Louis which is quite religious-oriented, as Mr Braden mentioned, whereas Miami has only a few organised religious groups, i.e., Hare Krishna, Unitarian, and a few other sects. The former isn’t taken seriously in Dade and Broward counties, and the latter discredited itself with Miami businessmen several years ago when they, the Unitarians, protested putting up a cross on the courthouse lawn at Christmastime.

Another update factor, which comes as good news from a statistical standpoint: unemployment in Miami has increased 3.7 % since Harry Thead’s original demographic study, which, in turn, increases the predictable volunteers in Miami from 6.9 to 7.1. If I was apprehensive about anything, it was the 6.9 predictability, but the larger range to 7.1 ensures the required five volunteers. (The new 7.1 figure includes the overlap into Broward County, as well as Dade County.)

You, your staff, and the five volunteers, when you have them, will all stay at the Los Pinos Motel; the third floor on the wing facing the bay has been reserved, as well as the third floor conference room. The motel is less than three blocks away from the 89th Street Causeway location of WOOZ. Billy Elkhart, the unit manager, is already down there, of course, and he has everything under control, including rental cars. Phone him before you leave Kennedy, and he’ll pick you up at the Miami airport.

One last item, and it’s not unimportant. Harry Thead is a Free-Mason, with all 32 degrees. Before you leave the city, pick up a blue stone Mason ring (blue is the 4th degree, I think), and wear it while you’re down there. Stop by Continuity and ask Jim Preston (I know he’s a Mason) to teach you the secret handshake that they use. It will help you gain rapport with Harry Thead (call it insurance), even though he’ll be cooperative anyway.

From time to time, send me tape cassettes about your progress; and don’t worry about the budget. Simply tell Billy Elkhart what you need, and let him worry about the budget. He has the habit of thrift, anyway, and if he goes over it’ll be his ass, not yours. You have enough pressure creative-wise; I don’t want you worrying about money.

“The First Five in Line...” is undoubtedly the greatest concept of a television series ever to hit the air in modern times, Russell, and we (the Board and I) have every confidence in you as the creative force behind it.

Good luck, and Godspeed!

Is/DJ

Ms Violette Winters, 36, had short, slightly bowed legs, a ridiculously wide pelvis, and tiny, narrow hurting feet. She wore size 5AAA shoes, slit at the big toe with a razor blade to relieve the pressure on her bunions, usually nurse-white with rippled rubber soles, and cotton support hose. So far she did not have varicose veins, but she lived in dread of their purplish emergence, and she hoped that the white cotton support hose would hold them in abeyance for as long as possible; but she was fully aware that varicose veins were the eventual reward of the full-time professional waitress. Violette’s broad, blubbery hips and thick thighs, even with her girdle stretched over them, were mushy to the touch, and she bruised easily without healing quickly. Her ankles and calves, however, were trim. In her low-heeled white nurse’s shoes, she was five feet four, but appeared to be taller because of her narrow-waisted torso, petite breasts (with inverted nipples), long neck, and the huge mass of curly marmalade hair, which she wore with a rat, piled high on top of her head. When she worked, her hair was covered by a black, cobwebby net, which darkened her curls to an off-shade of dried blood. Her cerulean eyes were deep-set, well-guarded by knobby, bony brows and thick brown eyebrows. Any time a male got within seven feet of her person, her eyes narrowed to oriental dimensions. Her face had been pretty when she was a young girl, and she would have been handsome still if it were not for the harsh frown lines across her broad forehead and the deeply grooved diagonals that ran from the wings of her nose to the corners of her turned down mouth. Her retroussé nose was splattered with tiny pointillistic freckles.

Violette always moved swiftly at her tasks around the restaurants where she worked, rarely made a mistake in addition, and her large white fluttering hands could deftly carry up to six cups of coffee, on saucers, without spilling a drop. A highly skilled waitress, when the time came for her to quit a job, every manager she had ever worked for regretted her departure. By all rights, Violette should have made more money in tips than the other waitresses, if efficiency was a factor, but she was the kind of woman (and men knew this, as if by instinct) who would accept a miserly ten percent tip without making a fuss. Shrewder, middle-aged men, after taking a sharp look at her, left no tip at all. As a consequence, she made much less in tips than the other waitresses.

So far, at this midway point in her life, which frequently — at thirty-six — seems even more than a midway point to women than it does to men, Violette had had three husbands. By her standards, by anyone’s standards, they had been losers to a man.

Her first husband, Tommy, was the same boy she went steady with all of the way through junior and senior high in Greenwood, Mississippi. They had moved into Tommy’s parents’, after getting married upon graduation from high school, but three months later Tommy left Greenwood with a carnival that was passing through town, and no one had ever heard from him again. Two years after Tommy’s departure, Violette got a divorce, after giving Tommy notice in the classified section of the Greenwood paper for three weeks in a row.

At the time, in a less than liberal region, it had been embarrassing for a divorced woman to live in Greenwood, so Violette added the extra “te” to her name, and moved to Memphis. She obtained a job as a roller-skating car-hop at the Witch Stand.

After only three months on the job she was hit by a red MG that pulled into the lot at 55 miles per hour. Even then, she would have been able to dodge the MG okay, the manager told the police (Violette was a terrific skater), but she had tried to save a tray full of cheeseburgers, double fries, and two double choc-malts at the same time she tried to make good her escape from the vehicle.

During her stay in the hospital, Violette fell in love with an alcoholic named Bubba Winters, who was recovering from double pneumonia. Bubba had passed out in a cold rain, down by the levee, and had almost died from exposure before being discovered by an early morning fisherman. They were married two days after their release from the hospital, and Violette went back to work, this time as a waitress at the Blue Goose Café, and still wearing a cast on her left leg. She had to pay off both hospital bills, and support them both, as well, because Bubba’s old boss at the Regroovy Tyre Centre, claimed that Bubba, with his weak chest and all, wasn’t strong enough to change tyres all day.

To show her love for Bubba, Violette tried to drink with him at night when her work-day was over, but she didn’t have the head for it. Bubba, who had learned to drink in the Marines, where he had served three years out of his four-year hitch in Olongapo, on Luzon, had a great capacity for gin. In addition to ugly hangovers, Violette awoke one morning to discover that she had a tattoo on her right forearm, a tattoo she had assented to woozily the night before to show her devotion to Bubba. In addition to a tiny red heart, pierced with a dark blue dagger, there was a stern motto in blue block letters below the heart: DEATH BEFORE DISHONOUR. The twin to Violette’s tattoo, although it was slightly larger, both heart and lettering, was on Bubba’s right forearm, and had been there since his first overnight pass to San Diego from Boot Camp, and somehow, the tattoo looked right on Bubba. But it looked a little funny on Violette’s forearm, and because the Blue Goose patrons made remarks about it all the time, she was forced to wear long-sleeved blouses to work. She never drank again.

When Bubba’s unemployment cheques ran out, and Violette was unable to keep him in gin, because of the exorbitant doctor and hospital bills, so did Bubba. When Violette finished paying off her debts, she moved to Jacksonville, Florida. She didn’t want to risk the possibility that Bubba might come back to Memphis.

Violette retained Bubba’s surname, however, after divorcing her third husband, a civil service warehouseman (G-S3) in the Jacksonville Naval District, because she had never gotten around to divorcing Bubba Winters before she married him. The warehouseman, Gunter Haas, who didn’t drink or smoke, was a compulsive gambler. Every two weeks, when he got paid, he lost his money in the regular warehouse crap game before coming home to Violette. Violette, who worked as a waitress at Smitty’s Beef House in downtown Jax, rarely had two dimes to rub together all of the time she was illegally married to warehouseman Haas.

One night, on a pay night, after Haas had lost all of his pay, he brought three of his fellow warehousemen home with him at one a.m. to show them Violette’s tattoo. Unbelievers, they had foolishly bet Haas five bucks apiece that his wife did not have a tattoo on her forearm. She showed them the tattoo, so Haas could collect his winnings, but the next day she left Haas and Jacksonville for Miami on the Greyhound bus. Except for his low IQ and penchant for gambling, Haas hadn’t been a bad husband, as husbands go, but the insensitivity to her person in bringing three men into her bedroom, and her with just a nightie on, had been too much for her. Besides, as she wrote her married sister back in Greenwood, “We were married in name only. Legally, I’m still married to Mr Winters, even though I’ll never love anyone as much as I loved Tommy.”

Three sorry marriages to three sorry losers had made Violette wary of romance. She suspected, wisely, that she could fall in love again, and that she was susceptible to losers. So she solved her problem by staying away from men altogether, except in line of duty as a waitress. Gradually, week by week, Violette was finally building a little nest egg for herself, depositing ten dollars of her tips each week in the First Federal Savings Bank & Trust Company of Miami.

In Miami, Violette had found a job, almost immediately, in the El Quatro Lounge and Restaurant, on the Tamiami Trail (Eighth Street). The El Quatro, because of its peculiar hours (it opened at four a.m., and closed at noon), attracted a unique clientele. The first arrivals, at four a.m., were mostly drunks who came from other bars, or party diehards who had decided to carry on the party elsewhere. By six a.m. another group arrived, mostly hard-working construction workers who liked steak and eggs for breakfast. There were also large breakfast wedding parties two or three mornings a week. By ten-thirty a.m., a good many secretaries arrived, in twos and threes, to eat early lunches. They would be needed to answer the telephones in their offices during the noon hour when their bosses went out for longer and much more leisurely martini lunches. As a consequence, Violette worked hard at the El Quatro, and never quite got accustomed to the hours.

Violette rented a room, with a private bath, from a Cuban family on Second Street. She said very little to the members of the Duarte family because they made it a practice — a dying stab at the preservation of their culture — to only speak Spanish at home. Violette did not sleep very well, that is, for any prolonged stretch at a time. The family was noisy, but that wouldn’t have bothered her much; it was the peculiar working hours. Exhausted by the time she arrived home at one P.M., she napped fitfully, off and on, and watched television until it was time to go to work again. She ate two meals at El Quatro, and rarely fixed anything to eat on the hotplate she had in her room. She ate a good deal of candy between meals, mostly Brach’s chocolate-covered peanut clusters and chocolate-covered almonds.

On her day off (Monday) she took the bus to Key Biscayne and rented a cabana at Crandon Park. She would wander around the zoo, sit in the shade of her cabana looking at the muddy sea, and browse idly through the magazines she brought along. Her favourite magazines were Cosmopolitan and Ingenue, with Modern Romances a close third. She also subscribed to The Enquirer, but she read that at home. On these lazy, off-days, Violette almost forgot sometimes that she was a waitress, but she always remembered to pick up her clean uniforms for the week on her way home.

Violette hated being a waitress, but she knew there wasn’t anything she could do about it because of her astrological sign. She had read it in the Miami News, when she checked her daily horoscope on her birthday. “An Aries born on this date will be a good waitress.”

And it was true. Violette was a good waitress: she was waiting: and she was an Aries.

Whihh, whihh, wheee! Hello test, hello test. Okay. Note to Engineer. Please make a dub of this cassette for my file, and mail the original to Mr Doremus Jessup, Veep for Programming, NBN, New York.

Hi, Dory, this is Russell Haxby, and I want you to know first off that the quarters at the Los Pinos are el fino, as they say down here in Miami. Harry Thead and I, you’ll be glad to know, are getting along fabulously. In fact, we already have a bond in Quail Roost, and Harry isn’t into Scotch like so many TV station-managers. So we drink Quail Roost, and, thanks to you, the fraternal idea of being Masons together has worked out rather well. Incidentally, Jim Preston, in Continuity, gave me a pretty damned hard time when I asked him to show me the secret handshake. I had to show him your memo ordering him to give it to me before he came across with it. Don’t reprimand him, or anything like that, but I hope you’ll bear it in mind when cost-of-living time rolls around. No man loyal to the network should put some sort of weird lodge on a level higher than the organisation he works for.

Numero uno. The soundproof glass boxes are being built now at the station, according to the specs. We plan to use the narrow parking lot behind WOOZ, which faces Biscayne Bay. This area, ordinarily, is the staff and VIP parking area, but there is plenty of parking space out front, so Harry said to preempt it. A good part of the Miami skyline is in the b.g., so for the interview shows, we can do them outside, putting the skyline in the background when the MC talks alone, or goes from booth to booth. We will be able to hear the volunteers, but they won’t be able to hear each other. The speaker in each box will pick up the MC’s voice, and for control, my mike from the director’s booth.

Two. At Harry’s suggestion, we are going to lodge the five volunteers, when we have them, but not the staff, in a fairly large two-storey houseboat that’s moored about fifty feet down the causeway from the studio property. The houseboat belongs to a friend of Harry’s, and it will make everything much simpler. No transportation problems, and we can put the psychiatrist in there with them, and station a couple of security men at the gangplank for absolute control. The staff will remain at the Los Pinos. I told Billy Elkhart to work out some kind of fair rent deal with Harry’s friend, even though we were offered the houseboat gratis. It’s better to lock up a rental contract at a minimum fee, so he doesn’t all of a sudden need his goddamned boat back in the middle of things.

Point three. As it turned out, it was a good idea to select the resident psychiatrist down here instead of bringing one down from New York. Not only was it cheaper — twenty applicants from the Miami area answered our ad in The American Psychiatrist’s Journal — but these Miami doctors are more familiar with Florida mental profiles than New York doctors. Dr Bernstein, by the way, is enthusiastic as hell about the programme. He thinks he’ll get a book out of it, poor bastard. A New York doctor would have understood the release he signed, or at least have had his lawyer read it. I didn’t tell Bernstein any different; I’ll lay that bomb on him after he turns in his pre-and-post programme studies. On the release he signed, he won’t even be able to retain his notes.

Eliminating the other nineteen psychiatrists was simpler than Harry and I thought it would be. The first five we interviewed had nasal Midwestern accents, so we let them go immediately. Four others hadn’t published anything in the last two years, one of our main requirements. As you know, I won’t even go to a goddamned dentist if he doesn’t write and publish in his field. And three were against the programme morally, or said they were, so I let them go. We narrowed down the others on the basis of videotape screen tests, and their publications. Bernstein’s recent article in The Existential Analyst’s Journal was the most objective, and if you want to read it let me know and I’ll send you a xerox. He can also fake a fairly good German accent that’s still intelligible. He used to imitate and mock his old man, he said, and that’s how he learned to do it. He’s photogenic, wears a short white goatee, and his crinkly eyes will look kindly — with the right make-up. Also he has a head full of salt-and-pepper hair, and a little below-the-belt melon paunch. If it weren’t for his bona fides, he could’ve been sent over by Central Casting. In fact, he looks so much like a psychiatrist, we’re going to have him wear a suit instead of a white doctor’s coat when we go on the air.

Problems. A few. And I don’t mind suggestions. WOOZ has got six camera operators. Five are women, and one is a fag. Harry says the five women are all good, and he hired them a couple of years back to keep the women’s lib people down here off his ass. The same with the fag, who’s the secretary/treasurer of the North Miami Gay Lib Group. The women have degrees in Communications, two of them with MA’s from Southern Illinois. So there’s no way we can fire any of them for cause or incompetence. I talked to them, and none of them object to the programme idea. Why should they? They’re pros, and they have union cards. But — and here’s the problem — these women, being women, and a fag, being a fag, might faint during the operation scenes. They’ve never seen anything like the stuff we’ve got coming up, you know. What I wanted, and we discussed this in New York, was some ex-combat Signal Corps cameramen who were used to the sight of blood. These female operators sure as hell wouldn’t stand for any stand-by cameramen, either. They want to do a network show, more for the prestige than for the extra money. Anyway, we’ve still got plenty of time, and if you have any ideas, let me know soonest.

Everything else is on schedule. We’re working on the script for the TV spot announcements — to get the volunteers — this afternoon. Dr Bernstein is a help here, more help than the writer you sent me, Noble Barnes. He can’t seem to forget that he’s a novelist, and a black novelist at that. He’s got to go. I’ve been around for a long time, Dory, and I’ve never seen a novelist yet who could do shit with a spot or a screenplay. Noble can’t spell, and he leaves the “esses” and “ee dees” off his words as well. On a programme as important as this one, I’ve got to have another writer. “The First Five in Line” isn’t “Amos and Andy” for God’s sake.

— Sorry, Dory. I know we have to have at least one black on the staff, but if we’re lucky enough to get a black volunteer, I’m shipping Noble Barnes’s black ass back to Harlem. How, I’ll always wonder, did this fucker ever get through CCNY?

Tomorrow we meet with the Miami account exec from Baumgarten, Bates, and Williams, who wants to discuss national accounts at this end. I’ll send you a tape or a transcript of the minutes. The WOOZ engineer has rigged up the conference room at the Los Pinos, and we’re going to tape everything. It’s quite possible that Mr Williams himself might come to this meeting, according to the account exec. A good sign, don’t you think?

Some possible alternative titles from my notes:

“The Five Who Fled”; “The Finalist Quintet”; “The End of the Line”; “Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief, Cowboy and Lady”; “Five Fists Full of Dollars”.

I’m not crazy about any of these titles, but they’re on the record, so you can kick them around.

Ciao, J.D. And that’s a ten-four.

A good many men in America, if they had to do it at all, would have rather done it John Wheeler Coleman’s way than the more conventional method, but Coleman had always felt cheated by the failure of his father to get him into the US Military Academy at West Point, or, failing that, into the Virginia Military Institute where General Marshall had matriculated. In other words, despite Coleman’s distinguished military career, he had never managed to become a Regular Army officer.

His failure to become RA had coloured his life brown.

Coleman had obtained his commission as a second lieutenant at Fort Benning, at The Infantry School, by attending Officer’s Candidate School, and he had served his country well for twenty-four years. He had retired as a lieutenant colonel, with a “gangplank” promotion to full colonel on the day before his retirement, from the AUS (Army of the United States) instead of the USA (United States Army).

The difference between the AUS and RA, in Coleman’s case, would have made all the difference to his career. As a Reserve officer on active duty — instead of being a Regular Army officer on active duty — Coleman’s active duty status was in jeopardy every single day of the full twenty-four years he served. Every Reserve officer on active duty knows this, but Coleman had never been able to adjust to the idea of sudden, peremptory dismissal. There wasn’t a day that went by that the possibility of a letter, informing him that he would be “riffed”, would land on his desk. The term “riff” is an acronym coined by Louis Johnson, during his tenure as Secretary of Defence, from “RIF,” reduction in Force. Many thousands of officers were able to stay the full distance for twenty years, and retirement, but many more thousands were riffed; and when an officer was riffed there was no way that he could find out the reason, if, indeed, there was a reason other than a further reduction in force.

Coleman often thought bitterly (never voicing it, to be sure) about General Douglas MacArthur’s fatuous remark, “There is no security, there is only opportunity.”

Sure, a man who was RA could say that, and MacArthur had gone to West Point; but if MacArthur had been a Reserve officer, he would have whistled a different tune.

As a combat officer, serving in Korea and Vietnam, Coleman had been decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross; the Silver Star, with one Oak Leaf Cluster; the Bronze Star, with V Device; and two Army Commendation Medals. As a Reserve officer, Coleman had always tried harder than regular officers of the same rank, but the positive knowledge that he could be booted out of the service any day, without a reason, unlike RA officers, and without getting a dime in severance pay, either, had affected his decision-making ability. Coleman never hesitated about making a decision, of course (if he had, he never would have lasted the full twenty-four years), but his decisions were always determined by thinking first what kind of decision his immediate superior officer (the officer who made out his bi-annual Effectiveness Report) would have made in the same situation. He had been very successful at this kind of thinking, although the overall pattern of his career, as a consequence, made his record a somewhat eccentric mixture of inconsistencies. A brilliant record, to be true, but a strange one if examined closely, because it reflected the thinking of more than 100 different superior officers. Despite his Superior Effectiveness Reports, with only one Excellent Report to mar his record (the time, when he was a First Lieutenant, and a Supply Officer for Company “A”, 19th Infantry, and someone had stolen ten mattress covers from the supply room), Coleman had served under a good many officers who had made dumb decisions. His decisions, under dumb officers, had been equally dumb — but that had been the game he had had to play if he wanted to stay on active duty.

With his daring combat record as a junior officer, Coleman, by all rights, should have been a full colonel with his own regiment at least five years before his retirement, but he had performed so brilliantly in Command and General Staff School, at Fort Leavenworth, he had been marked down for staff work. Without ever getting into command, of at least a battalion, he was doomed to staff work from then on, and no matter how brilliant a staff man happens to be, he is always considered a No. Two man, which means he is passed over for command more often than not.

The key year, for an officer with reserve status on active duty, is his eighteenth year of service. If the officer is allowed to serve for eighteen years, he cannot be riffed (except for a very serious cause) until he has served twenty years and is eligible for retirement. But even when Coleman passed safely through his eighteenth year, and then his twentieth, he was still unable to relax his vigilance. He tried even harder, in fact, feeling now that there was still a chance to make RA before his retirement and then stay for thirty years. If he could stay for thirty, or until he became sixty-five, those extra years would make the possibility of becoming a general officer a certainty. But he never made it. He languished as a regimental S-3, and was finally riffed after serving twenty-four years.

One morning, as he had been expecting for all of those years, a letter riffing him from the service appeared on his desk.

If a man is single, and Coleman had never married, a colonel’s retirement is sufficient to live on, providing his needs are simple. He lived frugally in The-Bide-A-While Rec. Centre. Once a week he visited the officers’ club at Homestead Air Force Base, on Bingo Night. The rest of the time, he watched TV, or took long nature walks in the nearby Everglades State Park. He drove a Willy’s Jeepster, and sometimes drove to the Keys, just to have somewhere to go. After a few months of this boring retirement, he took a course in Real Estate, like so many other retired officers living in Florida, and passed the examination for Agent. During the long hot days after getting his licence, he sat in empty houses for eight hours a day, and sold at least one house a year. His commission was usually $1200 for each house he sold, and he added it to his savings. His savings, more than $100,000 in Gold Certificates, were kept in the Homestead Air Force Base Credit Union, at eight per cent. Sitting in empty houses gave him something to do, and he considered the commissions he made as hedges against future inflation.

Coleman had made few friends in the army, and he found it even harder to make friends on the outside. He was a lonely man, and he was ashamed of his military career, which many men would have been proud of — for one reason.

Despite his combat decorations for bravery under fire, Coleman felt as if he had never been tested. Coleman, who had never known any real joy, had never known any real pain, either. He had never been sick a day in his life. He was trim, athletic, and ate with small appetite. Nor had he ever been wounded in combat, or even hurt. He had never known the joy — or pain — of marriage and fatherhood. In short, by normal standards, many men would have considered him to be a lucky bastard all the way round. Although he kept his hair in a brush cut, with white side-walls, he had even retained his hair.

But when a man has never been tested, truly tested to the limits of his endurance, how does he know that he can meet the test? There is only one way, and that is to take the test.

Coleman thought about this a lot, especially during the long days when he watched the soap operas as he sat in empty houses, thinking about the emptiness of his life.

Hi Russell, this is DJ. I’ll be sending this tape down with Ernie Powell, who’ll also bring along some notes, including the comments from Doctor Glass of Bellevue. Ernie’s been hired by the unit manager as a production assistant for TFFIL, but he’s really a procurer. He has a rep in the trade, in case you haven’t heard of him, of being able to get any prop, or anything else for that matter, within twenty minutes. He worked for seventeen years as a stage manager in summer stock, so you know how valuable he is. Ernie’s worked with Billy Elkhart before, so I know Ernie’ll be glad to have him on the staff.

First, those titles you reeled off were terrible. I’m putting a couple of Columbia grad students on the title. They’ll be working free at NBN for two weeks, for two college credits, and they might as well learn something about TV the hard way. It will give them some incentive. I told them that if they came up with a useable title, great, but if they didn’t, I wouldn’t recommend them for the two college credits. It’s obvious from your last tape that you don’t have time to think creatively about an alternative title, and I want your mind to be free for all of the things you have to do.

We’re paying Dr Glass a bundle, and you’ll see by his notes that he’s finally come up with some valuable stuff, except it’s about two months too late. The gist is that the last three weeks in August and the first week in September would be the best time of the year to get volunteers. Our predictions show, as I said in my memo, a possibility ratio of 7.1, counting the new Miami unemployment figures, for volunteers. But in August, plus the first week in September, Glass claims that ninety percent of the Miami analysts, psychologists and psychiatrists, go on their vacations to North Carolina. This means that there are approximately five thousand or more neurotics stumbling around down there without a doctor to turn to for advice. At loose ends, these analysands would undoubtedly boost the probability factor for volunteers. Now, don’t think I’m worried, but it’s just too bad that Dr Glass’s information was a month late, or as L.B.G. used to say, and “a dollar short”.

We also need a black man as a volunteer, or failing that, a Cuban. But Glass said we would never get a black volunteer, never. They’re too practical, he said; but at least they won’t be able to holler discrimination when we’re playing this game straight and we can prove it. So you’ll be stuck with Noble Barnes as a writer. At any rate, Glass’s figures will be helpful if we get another season out of the show — and next time we’ll go to St Louis where there is a bigger percentage of blacks.

Re the women (and fag) camerapersons. No sweat, here. Hustle their ass over to the emergency ward at Jackson Memorial Hospital and make them watch a few emergency operations from the car wrecks. There will be amputations a-plenty, so make them watch a few. If any of them pass out you can replace them before rehearsals begin, and they can’t squawk to the union. Anyway, hire at least one ex-Signal Corps cameraman as an advisor only, and have him stand by for emergencies during the actual programming. Too bad we decided to do this live, instead of on tape, but we do need the immediacy that a live show engenders.

Are you getting any, Russell? If not, ask Ernie, and he’ll have a broad in your room within twenty minutes. It’ll be good recreation for you, and you should do it anyway, even if you aren’t interested, just to see Ernie work. Here he’ll be, with this tape and the notes, right from the airport, and in a strange new city, and I’ll bet you a case of Chivas to a case of Quail Roost that he can get a broad in your room within twenty minutes. And a free one, too. It’s rather uncanny, when you come to think about it.

I called the Los Angeles office, and it’s firm. Warren Gates will be the MC. We might have to work around his movie schedule, but that’ll be Billy Elkhart’s problem, not yours. You will have Warren Oates as your MC. Warren used to work a live game show with Jimmy Dean back in the early fifties, and he did a lot of TV work before going into films. He’ll be a great MC, and he has a positive image for this kind of thing. The only snag in his contract is that he gets to wear his dark sunglasses on the show. I had to concede this point, but you may be able to talk him out of it. By the way, when Warren comes out there from Hollywood next week, do not, do not under any circumstances, ask him what he’s carrying in that burlap sack he lugs around with him. He’s very sensitive about this point. Okay? Okay.

This is D.J., and a ten-four and God Speed.

Leo Zuck (nee Zuckerman), at 82, was a dapper dresser, even by Miami Beach standards, although sartorial standards on Miami Beach are not very high. Leo owned a white gabardine suit and a burnt orange linen suit, which, in various combinations, gave him four different changes. He possessed two white-on-white drip-dry-never-iron shirts, and twenty-five pink neckties. (He had had the neckties made to order out of the same bolt of cloth at a bargain price.) He also owned a red silk dinner jacket, with a ruffled pink shirt and maroon bow-tie to go with it, as well as blue-black tuxedo trousers and the cherry red patent leather pumps to round out the costumes. He did not, unhappily, have any underwear, and he had only two pair of black clock socks left in his wardrobe. The white suede shoes he wore with his suits-sports outfits, although they were clean enough, were very bald.

Leo Zuck, living in very reduced circumstances, was mostly front. Leo had lost his job as the MC at the Saturday night pier dance, and he did not know what he was going to do for the little luxuries that extra ten dollars a week had provided him with: a daily cigar, Sen-Sen (for his notoriously bad breath), and an occasional Almond Joy. But now he had to give up these small luxuries.

If Leo had learned or invented some new material each week, he could have, in all probability, kept the MC job indefinitely. Abe Ossernan, who ran the weekly dances (Admission 25 cents) and owned the pier concessions on South Beach (as South Miami Beach is called) was not a mean man; and Abe had hinted to Leo more than once that he should brighten up his faded material. But Leo paid no attention to Mr Ossernan; Leo loved his material, and he had it down ice cold. Leo had purchased his act in 1925 for $150, when $150 was $150, and he had sharpened and refined the material to perfection on the Keith-Orpheum Vaudeville circuit for fifteen years. An excellent mimic, with a rubbery, if deeply lined face, Leo did accurate and extremely funny imitations of Charles Ray, George Bancroft, Emil Jannings, and Harry Langdon. He was also able to sing “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy” raucously out of the side of his mouth in a near-perfect imitation of George M. Cohan. This act of Leo’s had wowed the hicks in the sticks for years, but the material was so old now it baffled even his nostalgic audiences at the pier dance on Saturday nights.

Leo had a large scrapbook filled with yellowed clippings from every large city and from most of the small cities in the United States and Canada, attesting to how good his act was — or had been — and, in Leo’s opinion, the act was still as good — if not better than ever. Except for minor alterations in timing, the only addition to Leo’s act since 1925 (a socko finish!) was made in 1945. In this cruel year, Leo had had his remaining teeth removed, and was fitted with a full set of upper and lower white plastic choppers. Because of his thick, fairly long nose and pointed, rather long chin, Leo could perform a reasonably accurate imitation of Popeye the Sailor by removing both plates. Except for elderly persons with very keen memories, however, Popeye the Sailor was the only imitation most audiences recognized.

When vaudeville died out forever, as it had in 1940, Leo had been fortunate enough to get in the US Army Special Services during the war, joining various variety companies as they were put together in New York; and he had entertained troops in the South Pacific, England, and eventually, Italy. Between overseas tours he had made the rounds of stateside Special Service shows, as well. GI audiences are not critical, and they had applauded his old gags and imitations of long dead movie stars with cheerful tolerance. They liked especially his introduction:

When the war and his teeth were finished, Leo obtained summer employment in the Catskills and Poconos at third-rate hotels on the Borscht circuit. Social directors did not care greatly for Leo’s act, but he was a great success with the old ladies, mostly widows, who sojourned at these cheaper mountain hotels. Leo had never married, and single men were a premium in the mountains.

In his red satin dinner jacket under a pink spot, Leo was distinguished-looking on stage. He knew how to apply make-up for maximum effect, and his full head of blue-white hair reminded many old ladies of Leopold Stokowski. Leo sported a well-trimmed white toothbrush moustache, and it was almost as white (except in the centre where it had turned brownish from cigarette tar and nicotine) as his flashing false teeth.

Except for his own act, which was practically engraved on his brain, Leo’s memory was not consistent, but no one in the Poconos minded when he put on his reading glasses and introduced the various acts, in his MC capacity, by reading the names and remarks off three-by-five inch cards with a flashlight.

In the mid-1960’s, however, Leo had been unable to get any more work — even in the Poconos — and he had retired to South Beach to a residential hotel. He drew the minimum in Social Security benefits, of course, because, like many entertainers, he had preferred to be paid in cash for most of his theatrical life, but the minimum had been enough to pay for his room and meals for several years. He had also supplemented his meagre income, from time to time, by playing a few dates at parties and social functions. He had been interviewed twice on WKAT radio (for free), and once on a late night talk show on Channel Four. When the host on the Channel Four Talk Show introduced him, Leo said automatically, “Suck what?”

Because of three irate phone calls, Leo wasn’t invited back to the TV station, but he was still a kind of celebrity to the retired old people who make up the general population of South Beach. With inflation, Leo’s Social Security cheque was barely enough to cover the rent of his hotel room, and when the rent was raised again — which it soon would be — he would have to find a cheaper room, although there were no rooms cheaper in South Beach than the one he had. After paying the rent, there was no money left over to eat with, and he had to be satisfied with the one free noon meal he got each day at the Jewish Welfare Centre. The loss of his MC job at the pier, and the tax-free ten dollars that went with it, was a disaster for Leo and, for the first time since 1940, Leo Zuck, the old trouper, began to doubt seriously that vaudeville would ever come back.

We realise this is just a tantalising glimpse of what could have been, and the reader will wonder where the other men in line are, but sadly this is all there is of a novel which the legendary Charles Willeford began writing in 1975 and never completed.

There are so few short examples of Willeford’s noir work available, with its distinctive absurdist incarnation of pulp, that its inclusion in this anthology was warranted, we feel. As to the rest of the story, we leave that to the reader’s imagination...