Leslie Epstein

(Excerpt)

Desert

Wild Red Berry rebounded from the ropes and, though only half the size of his opponent, seized him by the leg and by the neck. With the strength of Hercules he lifted the wrestler over his head.

"Uh-oh," said Arthur, our butler. "That Gorgeous George in big trouble now."

Indeed, Wild Red threw down the heavy wrestler like a stevedore hurling a bale or a barrel into the hold. The tremendous thud rattled the speaker of our brand new Zenith, and dust rose from the canvas square on the screen.

"Get up, Gorgeous! Get up!" My brother, Bartie, as blond as the fallen gladiator, was bouncing on the springs of the couch.

How could he get up? The wiry Berry had thrown himself across his antagonist’s chest. All you could see was the curl-covered head of the giant, along with his helplessly flailing legs.

"Sure looks like the end this time," said Arthur.

"No, no, no!" wailed Bartie. "Don’t say that! I’ll kill you if you say that!"

But fate in the form of the referee was already kneeling, preparing to slap the surface of the ring.

"Why you let these boys watch your trash?" That was Mary, Arthur’s wife, who had just opened the door. Her gold-rimmed glasses flashed as she walked in front of the set.

"Move, Mary. I can’t see."

"You the one to move, Mister Barton. And your big brother too. Don’t you have the sense you were born with?" That last was addressed to her husband, who, save for the white of his collar and the whites of his eyes, was nearly invisible in the darkened room. "These children got school tomorrow. I’s the one to get them out of their beds. Do you know what time it is to be watching this show?"

Barton: "Get out of the way! You fatty! He’s escaped! I know!"

Mary clicked off the TV. "You boys, you bet–"

She did not have a chance to finish. Bartie was bounding across the den. "You big black Aunt Jemima!" He pushed the heavy woman aside and pulled the knob of the set. "Didn’t I tell you? Bartie knows. Bartie sees."

What we all saw was that the fallen gladiator had not only escaped, Houdini-like, but had turned the tables. Now the head of Wild Red Berry protruded backward from the thighs of Gorgeous George, almost as if the big wrestler were in some fashion giving birth to the little one.

"Watch out," warned Arthur. "Gorgeous George going to give him the pile driver."

Which he did, dropping onto his buttocks with such force that the face of Wild Red Berry was smashed against the mat.

"Oh," said Mary. "That poor man."

"Kill him," cried Bartie. "Kill him, Gorgeous!"

"Don’t worry," I said to no one in particular. "It’s fixed. It’s all an act."

But I was worried myself, since only a few weeks before I had hauled Wild Red’s clubs around the back nine of the Riviera Country Club. If anything was an act, it was my imitation of a caddy. Berry, however, never said a word as I rattled the sticks in his bag or suggested an eight iron when, on the famed eighteenth hole, he had two hundred yards to the elevated green. I didn’t need the twenty-dollar bill he pushed into my hand. I was trudging the course to build character. The minute the wrestler dropped his final putt I went to the clubhouse and put a thick chocolate malted, with whipped cream, onto my father’s tab.

"You aiming to stay up to the hour of midnight? Miss Lotte know, she’d whip me with that tongue of hers worse than those two men beating each other." Mary wrapped her nightdress around her heavy body and once again bent to turn off the Zenith.

My brother grabbed for the knob. "You don’t know the rules. You’re the servant. You obey Bartie."

The two of them struggled for a moment. Mary fell back against the set, which unaccountably came on–not to the wrestling match, at least not the one in Santa Monica.

Would you state your name for the record? a voice intoned.

Even before our father could reply, Bartie said, "Look, it’s Daddy."

"Sure enough," said Arthur. "It’s Mister Norman. On the television from Washington, D.C."

Between them, I realized, Mary and Barton had changed the channel. This was the kinescope of that day’s testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Norman, in a dark suit, with his trademark handkerchief pouring from his suit pocket, sat behind a microphone. Our friend Stanley was beside him, whispering something into his ear. I saw that Norman’s hat was on the table. What was left of his hair looked damp, and was pressed against the tanned surface of his skull.

"Would you spell that for us, sir? Is it Jacobi with an i or a y?"

"Yes," said our father. "It’s with an i. J-a-c-o-b-i."

I looked for Lotte, but everyone in the crowd behind the table was blurred.

The same man, Mr. Walter according to the plaque on his high desktop, leaned into the microphone. "Mister Jacobi, we hope to take only a few minutes of your time. It won’t be necessary to do anything more than repeat here the questions you agreed to answer in executive session. I assume that arrangement sits well with you?"

My father nodded.

Mr. Walter: "You understand that your employer, Mister Jack Warner, indicated that you were suspect in his eyes because, and I quote, ‘He is always on the side of the underdog.’ Do you wish to respond to that? Or do you wish to make a statement?"

"No, I have no statement. I am ready to answer the questions."

"Mister Wood."

A second camera surveyed the congressmen in their leather chairs, including the one who was just now putting on a pair of reading glasses. "I have just one question for the witness," he said, "though it comes in two parts. Have you ever been a member of a subversive organization? That’s part one. And part two is, If so, what is the name of that organization? May we proceed with your answers?"

It was like a movie. The four of us, the two sons, the two servants, watched entranced as the camera caught Norman in a medium close-up. He nodded again. "In response to the first part of your question, the answer is yes."

There was a gasp from the crowd, which was suddenly no longer out of focus. The camera panned through the committee room: there were the crouching reporters with their notepads, the photographers with their flashbulb reflectors, the tangle of dark cords on the floor; and there too were the rows of men and women, among whom, in a pillbox hat and with slightly smeared lipstick, sat our mother. She was arm in arm with Betty, her childhood friend.

"That’s Lotte," said Bartie, putting his finger on the glass of the screen. Then he put his lips there. "Here, Lotte. Here is a kiss for good luck."

Arthur said, "Best turn the machine off, Mary. No good coming from it."

Norman was already leaning forward again. His handkerchief, I thought, looked as white as a flower. "The answer to the second part of your question is Warner Brothers."

There was a pause, whether of puzzlement or shock I could not say. Then someone cried, "Oh, my God!" The next thing I heard was laughter, ripples of it, then a roar of it. Mr. Walter was calling for silence, to no effect. Stanley had his hand cupped to Norman’s ear and was shouting something. Someone’s microphone was making a ringing sound. A policeman moved in front of the photographers, as if to block with the bulk of his body the rays from their flashing bulbs. I saw Betty with her head back, laughing. A veil, pocked with dark dots, had fallen over Lotte’s face, so that it was impossible to know if she were laughing too.

"What’s subversive?" asked Barton. "Is it something funny?"

A Mr. Frank Tavenner had the word Consul on his nameplate. He was the one banging the gavel. "Come to order! Come to order!" he shouted. "Come to order or we’ll clear the room!"

The noise, if it did not stop, subsided.

"Did you wish to say something, Mister Jackson?" Mr. Walter asked.

"I just wanted to say that everyone knows Mister Norman Jacobi is a great humorist. I’ve had my share of fun at his films, too. But this is not the time for cut-ups, sir. The country is in danger. Do you wish to answer our questions or do you want to play the wiseacre? Because if he’s going to be a wiseacre, Mister Chairman, I’d just as soon dismiss the witness without further testimony."

That sobered the crowd. In the ensuing silence Norman said, "I am sorry, Congressman. It’s a flaw I have. You correctly bring attention to it–that even at the most inappropriate times I can’t resist. I’m afraid that what Chairman Walter said about Jack, about Mister Warner: well, I think he named everyone on the lot he couldn’t get under contract. I apologize. I let my feelings run away with me."

I felt, at those words, a hollow sensation in the pit of my stomach, as if Gorgeous George had butted it with his head. Apologize? To them? I could not believe it. I watched my father wipe his hands on the side of his pants and then, under the hot lights of the television cameras, use his handkerchief to wipe his brow. It was like a flag of surrender.

Mr. Jackson: "I think I speak for the membership when I say we understand how in times like these feelings run high. We appreciate your patriotism and your spirit of cooperation. Now Mister Tavenner has told us that in executive session you expressed your conviction that the United States of America is under attack and that its enemies are undermining our institutions and our Constitution."

Another congressman, Mr. Doyle, said, "Would consul read the pertinent passage from the executive transcript? We are being broadcast by the medium of television. I think all Americans should hear it."

Tavenner had been prepared. His thumb, I saw, was at the proper page. He did not need glasses. "I have it here, Congressman. Mister Jacobi states, ‘I have come to believe the country is being undermined by a small but determined group of fanatics who have no respect for our liberties or our way of life. They have no respect for our laws. They mock our free institutions. They have done great damage and threaten to do more. They are more powerful now than they have ever been before.’"

Mr. Doyle said, "That’s the part. About being more powerful than ever before. It’s the very point we’ve been trying to establish."

Mr. Jackson: "And did the witness declare that he was willing to give us the names of those he rightly calls fanatics?"

"Don’t you think we should change the channel?" I asked in a voice plainly cracking. "Arthur, we won’t know who won. I’ll bet on Wild Red Berry. What about you, Bartie? Want to bet a quarter on Gorgeous George?"

But the chauffeur sat unmoving. My brother rocked from foot to foot, a bulge of concentration forming on his brow. Even Mary stood with her fists on her hips, as if to express her indignation. Meanwhile Mr. Tavenner was confirming for the committee that our father had indeed promised to disclose a list of names.

It was the turn of Mr. Wood: "Very well, sir. Are you prepared now to give us these people by name?"

"I am."

There was, in that paneled room, as in our own stucco den, a perfect silence. Norman, from an inside breast pocket, took out a piece of paper folded in squares. As he spread it open, Stanley, his pale, plump attorney, shaded his eyes. "Clyde Doyle," my father began. Then, a little louder: "Donald Jackson. John S. Wood. Francis E. Walter. Frank Tavenner–"

The room was already in an uproar. Mr. Walter, red faced, was smashing the gavel down all over the surface of the desk in front of him. Flashbulbs were going off like lightning. The audience was laughing even more loudly than before. Mr. Wood was on his feet now. "Why, he’s giving the names of this committee!"

Norman said, "Oh, I can do better than that. Martin Dies. J. Parnell Thomas. John Rankin. Jack Tenny. Joseph McCarthy. Richard Nixon–"

"He’s under oath! Under oath! Cite him for contempt!" Mr. Jackson, in lieu of a gavel, was pounding the desktop with his fists.

"Remove the witness." That was Tavenner. "Sergeant at arms! Remove the witness from the room!"

Arthur said, "My oh my. Going to be the devil to pay now."

"You got no call saying anything about Mr. Norman, the man be so kindly toward us these years."

"Those men are big men, that’s all I’m saying."

"Do you get it, Bartie?" I asked my brother. "Ha ha ha! Do you see how he turned them into fools?"

Barton ignored me. He bent to the Zenith and switched back to the live broadcast from the Santa Monica Auditorium. Wild Red Berry was gone. So was Gorgeous George. This was a tag team match. Two men wearing masks were bouncing off the ropes and hurling themselves against two other men wearing capes. They were throwing fists. They were throwing chairs. It was mayhem. It was pandemonium. The referee ran about like a puppy jumping at the humans’ knees. The open-mouthed crowd was hooting. Bartie stood up; he turned around. Even in the near-absolute darkness of our little room I could see that his uneven eyes were sparkling with delight.