50 (15 page)

“Your fathers are fifty. You’re not fifty,” Bob said despondently.

“You look better than you did a year ago.” Bob had been working out at a health club. “Maybe it’s the exercise.”

“I don’t look better. Your eyes are failing you.”

“They are failing me.” Doug squinted at the menu in the Italian restaurant and took out his reading glasses. “I’ll be needing large-print menus soon. And then large print food.”

“Maybe I’ll pull a Jack Benny,” Bob said. “I’ll only admit to being thirty-nine. That’s one way to handle fifty. With fancy bookkeeping.”

Since Doug was not going to have the house with the pool by the time
he
was 50, he decided that the little extras looked attractive, the better stereo for jogging, the snappy Ralph Lauren loafers that Broeden wore, which he could buy with the money John McCarthy said was available from the sportscasting job. He asked McCarthy to make a phone call in his behalf to Sports Cable Network, and Doug followed up with a call to Frank Cotton, the general manager. Cotton explained they were looking for a local correspondent for the regional portion of their Saturday-afternoon sports wrap-up show. The sportscaster would read ball scores, be involved with the editing of tape highlights of the day’s events, and give a sixty-second commentary each week. Doug was asked to prepare a sample presentation, which would include a simulated reading of ball scores, a commentary, and an “expression” he could use for peak moments such as Mel Allen’s “Going, going, gone!”

On his way to the audition he thought of
Startime
from the early days of television and the desperate looks on the faces of the
Startime
kids with their frozen smiles as they attempted to sing, tap, or accordion their way to stardom. He saw himself as a middle-aged edition of an ambitious tot vaudevillian. He smiled at the receptionist, physically sensing the lines of his false smile against the inside of his cheeks. And now here’s
Startime’s
own Doug Gardner to sing “I Want to Be in Pictures.”

Doug was led into the studio, where he was greeted by the producer-director, Seth Peters, a slim man wearing sweat clothes and sneakers who looked to Doug to be in his teens.

“Mr. Gardner, get yourself made up and we’ll be ready for you right away. Did you bring your presentation and your expression?”

“This is it, starstruck.”

“No, I mean—”

“I have it.”

Doug entered the makeup room where a woman in her 50s with carrot-colored hair, wearing a caftan, necklaces, and bracelets nearly to the elbow, introduced herself in a low, husky voice as Vera.

“I’m going to make you look very beautiful,” she said in a European accent.

“I thought I came in very beautiful.”

“Just extra touch here and there. You are actor?”

“Sportswriter.”

“I have made up writers. I worked NBC, ABC, CBS. I did everybody. Henry Kissinger. Neil Diamond. I make them all very beautiful. Who are you?”

“Doug Gardner.”

“I never heard of you. You will be very beautiful, though.”

As she worked with the makeup, taking more time than Doug would have liked, he said, “There is a philosophic question here. How much a journalist should allow himself to be made up?”

“Everybody gets made up. The Pope, I bet.”

She was patting and tapping and he was becoming very uncomfortable.

“I think that’s enough,” he told her. “Very beautiful.”

“Not finished. I have to put more color here. Your complexion is too sallow. And the bags under your eyes, the camera, it finds you out. You sleep good at night?”

“Could we define our terms? What is good?”

“You sleep alone? I don’t come on to you. I have lover. But you also look a little green.”

“Green and sallow? Replaces ‘Young and Foolish’?”

In the studio, Doug was seated at a desk on the set. Frank Cotton, a blond man in his 30s, five feet eleven, in a blue suit, introduced himself. Doug was fitted with a clip-on microphone by a production man.

“For my first number I’d like to sing ‘Granada,’ ” he said to allay his nervousness.

“Let’s begin, Mr. Gardner,” Peters called out.

Doug did a sample commentary, artificial playing surfaces versus natural surfaces, his opinion that synthetics look better on color television but have shortened players’ careers, and that in baseball it wasn’t the same game any longer when ball clubs could build their teams specifically for a fast artificial surface. He made a last-minute substitution, deciding to drop the broad
Startime
smile, which wasn’t playing well inside his head, for a more modest version, choosing to read the lines with what he hoped was appropriate energy, but with the decorum of a journalist.

“Very good, Mr. Gardner. Nice credibility,” Peters said. “Okay, we’ll do the simulated portion now. Just pretend you’re reading over taped highlights and give us your expression.”

“The fast-stepping Cardinals got six leg hits off Ron Darling today at Shea, but it wasn’t enough. Darryl Strawberry was on the premises—and let’s pick up the action in the bottom of the sixth. One man on, the pitch from Tudor, a long drive—pencil it in, pencil it in … write it in the record book! Two-one, Mets. Darling the win. Tudor the loss. Over at Yankee Stadium, virtually a one-play ball game and here’s the play. Winfield up, bottom of the ninth, one-nothing, Twins. Two on, two out. A long drive to left, pencil it in, pencil it in … erase it! Caught at the wall. Blyleven the win. Righetti the loss. This is Doug Gardner for Sports Cable Network.”

“Excellent,” the general manager announced.” ‘Pencil it in, pencil it in, write it in the record book!’ And if the ball is caught, the pass is dropped, ‘erase it!’”

“You’ve got a real good expression,” Peters said.

“Writing, record books,” the general manager continued. “It implies history being made,” he said solemnly. “Very prestigious.”

Doug was given a copy of the audition tape by the engineer, and he and Nancy watched it that night on her video recorder.

“I’m fat. I’ve been found out. Green, sallow, fat, and nearly fifty.”

“You look great.”

“The camera doesn’t lie. Cary Grant we don’t have here. Howard Cosell we don’t have here.”

“You seem very relaxed. You absolutely look like all those people who do this kind of thing.”

“This is so strange to watch yourself on TV. But terrific,” he said, laughing.

Doug was hired by Sports Cable Network. He would be on the air every Saturday at 7
P.M.
for five minutes, in the studio to review tape at 5
P.M.,
one hundred fifty dollars a week. He didn’t consider this real journalism, and he kept a lighthearted approach to the enterprise. “Narcissism unbound,” he said to Nancy. On the air he was casual, conversational. He had no illusions about or interest in anchoring Monday Night Football one day. The sixty-second commentary would give him a chance to talk about sports items that might be insufficient for a column. He was going to enjoy being on the air. And the children would get to see him on television—take that, Flash.

Of his first appearance Andy said, “You were really great, very professional.” Karen was teenage-excited. “I couldn’t believe it. My Dad! On television! Wait until I tell my friends.”

Tell Broeden, too.

Karen missed his next week’s show. In this time between the end of camp and the beginning of the new school year, while Andy was getting ready to leave for college, Karen slipped off with Broeden and Susan to “do a little London,” she said, language she would never have used before Broeden.

“Hey, Doug, I hear you’re doing some TV up there.”

“A local segment. Yes, Robby.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“You should appreciate the publicity. I’m introduced as ‘Doug Gardner, columnist for
Sports Day.
’ ”

“Now let me understand this. You use
our
offices and your work time for me to build up your credentials, and while I am paying you more money than you can get anywhere else you sell your services to another company?”

“I’m on the air for five minutes, Robby. I do a sixty-second commentary.”

“The lawyers are looking into this, Doug. We have an agreement for you to provide exclusive services to us.”

“For print. My lawyer already looked into it.”

“I don’t know if I want you doing this.”

“Why would you care if I’m on television for a few minutes in New York? Is this about power, too, Robby?”

“Of course it is. The issue is, who owns you? Do you own you or do I own you? Oh, go ahead. But you should have asked me first.”

Doug arrived at Nancy’s that night, still tense from Reynolds’s phone call. She asked about his mood and he recounted the conversation with Reynolds.

“He certainly is controlling. On the other hand, you get a column that’s read across the country.”

“Are you trying to make nice?” he said, touching her hair affectionately.

“I’m trying to be realistic. I go through it every day. I’m constantly weighing A against B. How much am I giving up of myself to do the work I want?”

“He probably does think he owns me.”

“He doesn’t though. And if this goes beyond the limit of what you’re willing to do, you can make a decision then.”

“Obviously you don’t think I’m at that point.” “I think you’re getting more than you’re giving up. You have a forum,” she said.

“I also have someone who’s smart and supportive.”

“But what are you giving up for that, your freedom?”

“I’ve had the freedom. It’s a little bit overrated.”

Doug returned to the office one day after having lunch with Nancy and he passed Pat Lahey sitting in an undershirt, sweating, a bottle of Scotch in front of him on his desk. When Lahey saw Doug, he raised his glass and started to recite “Casey at the Bat.”

“What’s going on?” Doug asked.

“I did the first profile ever written in New York on Jackie Robinson. For the old
Trib.
I knew them all. Campanella. DiMaggio. He used to call me Paddy. ‘How are you, Paddy?’ Joe D. Joltin’ Joe. The Yankee Clipper. What else, Doug? You remember what else they called him?”

“DiMadge.”

“Right. DiMadge. There are people today, your readers, and the biggest thing they know about him is that he was in that Paul Simon song.”

“What is it, Pat?”

“I was fired.”

“Damn it!”

Doug was deeply upset about Pat, and about what Pat represented, an old-time newspaperman; the resource was not replaceable.

“Reynolds called me. That was personal of him. He could have sent it on the computer. He said they’re putting in writers-at-large, a half dozen of these four-paragraph whiz kids. Wilkes is going to be one of them. They’ll be rotating, coming through New York. And along with the wire-service copy, Reynolds says they can handle everything through Houston. All they need here is an office manager. Replaced by an office manager. He says he wants to do this now, so I can still get myself situated, rather than a couple of years down the line. Who does he think he’s kidding? If I stay to sixty-two, he has to pay me retirement benefits. And where am I going to get a job on a sports desk at fifty-eight? Feller. I loved those Friday-night games when the Indians would open a series at the Stadium and Feller started. Or a Dodger-Giant series on a weekend. O’Malley and Stoneham. They raped the city.”

“What are you going to do, Pat?”

“I’ve got plans. Cousin of mine, he has a big mail order house. He’s been after me to go with him. Run his sports section. Ever see those novelty items? NFL piggy banks, football jerseys, that kind of thing?”

“You’re a newspaperman, Pat.”

“One is until he’s not. You know, if you drink a fifth of booze fast, your heart can stop.”

“But we’re not going to do that, are we, boys and girls?”

Doug took him back to Lahey’s apartment. He canceled dinner with Nancy and stayed with Lahey until his daughter came from Long Island to retrieve him. The next morning the office manager arrived at
Sports Day
—Brad Smith, in his 20s, from Houston, with a degree, he told Doug, in “Office Technologies.”

Doug met Lahey for lunch that week. Doug had gone to the archives of the public library, tracked down an old copy of the
Herald Tribune
and found the profile about Jackie Robinson Lahey had mentioned. Doug had it photocopied, then laminated as a plaque.

“It’s lovely, Doug. Too bad they can’t laminate me.”

Lahey had been drinking before Doug arrived and his speech was slurred.

“Pat, I read it a few times. It’s beautifully written.”

“All these kids. They’re going to start talking to each other. Short pieces by people brought up on short pieces, written for an audience just like them. Ted Williams, not giving in, hitting right through the shift, remember? The Kid. The Splendid Splinter.”

“The Thumper.”

“The Thumper! That was a good one. I forgot that one. Beware, Doug. New people are coming up behind you and they never even saw the Thumper or DiMadge.”

A
NDY WAS ABOUT TO
leave for college. On his last night in New York he asked Doug if they could merely bring in a pizza, and he spent most of the evening on the phone saying goodbye to people. Karen, back from London, was in her room working with charcoal in a sketchbook. She no longer painted in Doug’s apartment, and once when he asked her about this she explained, “It’s something about the light here. It’s not optimum.” She had said this offhandedly, oblivious to the possibility that she might be hurting him, that the best he had was a side street, which was not Central Park West overlooking the expanse of the park. She was making an artist’s simple statement of fact: in the other apartment the light was better.

Doug helped Andy tie some of his belongings into a carton, remembering when he had left for college. He had walked out of his parents’ apartment into the subway. His parents had a party back then when he was accepted at NYU on a baseball scholarship out of Haaren High School. They served cold cuts and bottles of rye at an event largely for adults: Frank and Norma Gardner got a son into college! They may have been second-generation Americans, but by social class they still considered themselves immigrants. When the children, specifically when Doug moved into American corporate life, they would finally get their citizenship papers. They would visit him at his home in the suburbs, their son the executive. “NYU. The business school,” his mother said proudly, her face jolly for the moment. “He’s my guy,” his father added, patting Doug on the back. Frank and Norma were being congratulated on all sides by their friends, and Doug was weak with sadness for his parents, for their need to live through him.