LESLIE EPSTEIN
35
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
a nything 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 beat–
ing 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 Barrie."
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 Com–
mittee 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
