THE TIP OF THE CONSORTIUM stayed for my reading, and they insisted that Lana stay with them, so I had an audience of twenty for my reading of “Enough Is Enough,” the twenty-seventh episode of Dead Air.
MRS. JERROLD AND I were sitting side by side on her sofa, making a recording. We were imitating a morning radio program called “Bob Balducci’s Breakfast Bunch.” I played the part of a guest host sitting in for Bob, who was on permanent vacation, and she played the part of my lovely assistant.
“Hello there, everybody,” I said, “and welcome to another meeting of the Breakfast Bunch. How about a big hand for my lovely assistant, Mrs. Jerrold.”
Mrs. Jerrold made the noises of a crowd applauding and cheering herself.
“Thank you, thank you,” I said. “As my lovely assistant, Mrs. Jerrold, has already told you, Bob can’t be here today — ”
Mrs. Jerrold made noises of disappointment.
“ — but we’ve got a lot planned for you, and we think we’re going to have a wonderful show, don’t we — um — Mrs. Jerrold?”
“Well, Peter — ”
“Call me Larry, Mrs. Jerrold.”
“Larry?”
“That’s my radio name.”
“It is?”
“Sure.”
“Well, Larry — ”
“Say, folks,” I said, “this is embarrassing, but the truth is — I don’t know my lovely assistant’s first name! Let’s find out what it is, shall we?”
I held the microphone toward her.
“Betty,” she said, like a shy girl.
“Betty!” I said. “That’s a wonderful name, isn’t it, folks?”
Mrs. Jerrold made the noises of an appreciative crowd, the kind of crowd that really gets a kick out of the name Betty.
“Reminds me of a cousin of mine.”
“Betty?”
“Yes, indeed. Did I ever tell you that story?”
“No.”
“I never told you that story?”
What on earth was I talking about? What story? I didn’t know any stories about a cousin named Betty, but because I was talking to fill the air and the time, without giving much thought to what I was actually saying to fill the air and the time, I’d committed myself to telling a story. What story was I going to tell? It would be interesting to find out. “Oh, she was a lovely girl, Betty, lovely. Not as lovely as you, Betty, of course. Isn’t she lovely, folks?”
Crowd noises of agreement from Mrs. Jerrold.
“Yes, well, let’s see, I was going to tell you about my cousin Betty, wasn’t I? You see, Betty wanted to get onto the radio in the worst way . . . and if there was a worst way to do something, Betty was sure to find it.” As I spoke, I became aware of a remarkable phenomenon, a change that was occurring within me as I talked, I was speaking less and less as myself and more and more as Larry Peters, the boy hero of a series of books to which I was addicted. As Larry, I spoke easily, glibly, because, in a sense that I hadn’t yet explored, speaking wasn’t as risky if someone else was speaking. I could say anything — whatever came into my mind. “Isn’t that right, Betty?” I said.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “I’m not Betty.”
“I thought you told us your name was Betty.”
“It is, but — ”
“You’re getting a little confused, Betty.”
“I mean that I’m not the Betty you’re telling the story about.”
“Oh, no, of course not. That’s my cousin Betty, a lovely girl, but not as lovely as you.”
“You said that.”
“Isn’t she lovely, folks?”
“You’re starting to sound like a broken record, Peter. Larry.”
“A broken record! What do you think, folks, do I sound like a broken record?”
“Yes!”
“Sorry,” I said, to Mrs. Jerrold, not to the microphone, and as Peter Leroy, not as Larry Peters, “I don’t know what else to say.”
“Take some time and think about it.”
“But you have to keep talking when you’re on the radio. You can’t stop to think.”
“Who says so?”
“Nobody. It’s just something that I noticed. They never leave any spaces.”
She thought about that for a moment. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “But you can be different. You can be the one who leaves spaces. The one who takes time to think.”
I looked at her, closely, and I took some time to think, enough time so that she reddened, gave my cheek a little slap, turned aside, and said, “That’s enough thinking, I think.”
[to be continued]
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