The Dick Gibson Show (37 page)

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
:
Tell him!

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: Tell me.

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: Ncy chymyc Tell him.

M
EL
S
ON
: What do I have to lose? It’s almost all up with me anyway. Gibson’s tie is brown and yellow stripes. The walls are green.

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: Mel? Is that you, Mel? Is he doing your voice?

D
ICK
G
IBSON
:
(whispering)
(I didn’t ask that.)

M
EL
S
ON
: It’s me.

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: Show him the gun, why don’t you?

[Mel Son takes a revolver out of his pocket.]

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: What is this? Mel, what’s happening?

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: Does he have a gun?

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: Yes.

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: Did you say yes or was that me imitating your voice?

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: I said yes.

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: Speak up. Will Dick Gibson deny that Mel Son has a weapon in his hand? Supposing for a moment that the audience has been hearing two Dick Gibsons, a real one and an imposter—which is not the case—that would still leave the real Dick Gibson to deny the existence of the gun.
Does
he deny it?

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: I already said he has a gun. I already said so.

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: There are no disclaimers? It’s not too late.

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: The gun’s real. The real Dick Gibson says the real gun is real.

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: Very well, then.

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: You really are a superb mimic, Mr. Gibson.

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: Stop that.

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: Is that loaded?

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: Show him.

[Mel Son holds the gun out and Dick Gibson peers into the chambers of the revolver. The leaden tips of the bullets resemble dull stones in a bracelet.]

D
ICK
G
IBSON
:
(softly)
You want to put that back, Mel. What would you need a thing like that for?

M
EL
S
ON
: I’m hunting. I’m a hunter.

D
ICK
G
IBSON
:
(to Behr-Bleibtreau)
Why don’t you talk to him? Can you talk to him?

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: Me? Shall I hypnotize him?

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: Why would a man bring a gun into a radio station? He’s supposed to be a professional. That’s got to be against FCC regulations. I just hope this program isn’t being monitored. There’d be one hell of an investigation.

[There is a click.]

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: He’s cocked it.

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: Listen, I don’t like what’s happening here. I think we need the police,
(to the listening audience)
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Dick Gibson, WHCN, Hartford, Connecticut. There’s a man in my studio waving a revolver around. If the police are listening, would you get over here, please? Maybe one of you listeners ought to phone them and tell them what’s happening.

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: Do you think that was wise? He could kill half a dozen people before the police even got close to him. He means to die. anyway.

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: We don’t know that.

M
EL
S
ON
: We
know
it.

D
ICK
G
IBSON
:
(to the listening audience)
Forget what I said. Don’t phone the police.
(to Behr-Bleibtreau)
If the police heard me they’ll be coming. They’d have to; it’s their duty. There’s no way to stop them.

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: They didn’t hear you.

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: They didn’t?
(suspiciously)
They didn’t, eh?
(whispering now)
(Ladies and gentlemen, this is Dick Gibson, WHCN, Hartford, Connecticut, the
Qui Transtulit Sustinet
State. A fantastic thing is going on at this station. I’m sitting in Studio 2A, where several people have gathered for an informal midnight-to- dawn talk program called
The Dick Gibson Show.
The guests, Jack Patterson, Bernard Perk. Pepper Steep and our Special Guest, Psychologist Edmond Behr-Bleibtreau, together with Jerry the engineer and yours truly, Dick Gibson, the show’s host who is wearing a solid blue tie, are being held virtually at bay in the white-walled studio along with several of
their
guests by Mel Son, an Amherst, Massachusetts, disc jockey and former unsuccessful candidate for the Massachusetts State Assembly. I don’t know how long I’ll be permitted to speak into these microphones, ladies and gentlemen, but as long as I’m able I’ll try to give you a picture of what’s happening here. There are, of course, several eyewitnesses to these events, and I’d put them on the air to let them describe in their own words all that’s occurred, but unfortunately, all their voices seem to have been stolen, with the exception of my own, Mel Son’s, and Dr. Behr-Bleibtreau’s. The pussycat’s got their tongues. Dr. Jack Patterson of Hartford Community College made a brief remark a little over an hour ago to Bernie Perk, the registered pharmacist, but since then has lapsed back into silence. Listeners to the program heard Patterson’s voice again a few moments ago when he reputedly handed Behr- Bleibtreau a napkin to wipe some ketchup off his glasses, but both the remark and the ketchup incident itself have been challenged by your reporter who believes the learned psychologist to be some kind of hypnotist/ventriloquist. At any rate, the three principals seem to be Behr-Bleibtreau, Mel Son and Dick Gibson. Wait, Behr-Bleibtreau is about to speak. Let’s listen … )

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
:
Ncy
chymyc.

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: (Did you get that, folks?)

M
EL
S
ON
: I … My …

B
EHR
-B
LEIBTREAU
: Ync hcmyc.

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: It’s really kind of wonderful the way you guys worked all this out between you to take over my program. It’s really very funny.

M
EL
S
ON
: [He brings the barrel of the gun down heavily across the bridge of Dick’s nose, drawing blood.]

My name is Mel Son. I’ve been in a trance, but I’ve just been released—I get the feeling temporarily—in order to tell my story. I’ve never been in a trance before. It’s queer. It gives you a funny feeling. Everything in the trance but Dick’s tie was sort of blue—oo—oo and soft. Your eyes are blue, Dick.

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: My eyes
are
blue.

M
EL
S
ON
: Your blood—where I cut you—your blood is blue … gee, I just can’t get over this trance business. Once I was hypnotized in a nightclub. There were fifteen of us and we all went under, but this was nothing like that. This was like being sick or something. I don’t really mean sick—nothing hurts or anything like that—but it’s … well,
dreamy,
as if you were heavily medicated or just beginning to come down with something. It’s like the way you’re sensitized sometimes in a barber’s chair getting a haircut in winter. The back of your head gets all prickly. It’s terrific. I mean, I was really getting excited. And I’ll tell you something else. I never felt—this is important—I never felt
humble.
I mean, you’d think if a guy’s in a trance his will would be rendered helpless, that he’d be going around. Yes, Mastering everything in sight. But it isn’t like that at all. As a matter of fact, you feel very
proud
in a trance, almost stuck-up. You have a lot of confidence. It’s all very dignified. That’s the truth about trances. If you want my honest opinion, I think you’re making a mistake to waste your pity on enchanted princes locked up in trees. I can’t get over it. It’s really fantastic. I tell you, there’s more than is dreamt of in your philosophy.

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: Less.

M
EL
S
ON
: No, Dick, more—much more.

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: Why don’t you put the gun down, Mel?

M
EL
S
ON
: Not just yet, Dick. I’ve got to shoot myself with it. I’m going to put the barrel in my mouth and blow my head off. Brr. What a way to go! That’s a phrase that’s always gotten to me— you know what I mean? Another one is—you get this on the news wire every once in a while— “So-and-so killed his wife and three children and then turned the rifle on himself.” That sounds horrible, but I don’t get the logistics of it. A man would have to have incredibly long arms to turn a rifle on himself. “He put a bullet through his brain”: that’s another one. How discrete that sounds. So definitive. That’s the sort of thing
I’m
after. As a matter of fact, that’s one of the reasons I chose to do it on the radio. It’d be a different thing altogether if I snuck off in a corner by myself. I’d have done it on my own show but I don’t reach the market you do.

To tell the truth, I haven’t settled how I’ll do it yet. I thought I might sit on the pistol. Or stick it in my ear. Or against the part in my hair. Or through my eye. Or inside my shirt, or under my arm. Or against my heart. Or across my Adam’s apple. Do you get what I’m aiming at? Ha ha. Ignition, explosion, obliteration, smear. Something really dirty: he died as he lived. Before and After—that’s it. Here today, gone tomorrow. And a stain that won’t wash out. Something in me green or blue in the woodwork like grain. My nostrils divorced and my eyes disappeared, hair in the wound and skin on the floor. Bone around like shattered glass. Pieces of tooth, and my ingrown toenails out. My sideburns on fire and a hole in my birthmark. My death archeological, my corpse my body’s palimpsest. Mel melded. Jigsaw Mel the Sonsaw puzzle. Mosaic me. Blood and blood. Mel Sundry. Mel the Sonset, Mel the Melted. Molten Mel the Sonburned. The Sonspot.

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: [Upset. His wound, where Mel struck him with the revolver, is throbbing. Fantastically, it occurs to him that if Mel kills himself or if Behr-Bleibtreau takes his voice, he will never have done a quiz show.]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to …
Night School!
This is your host on the college of knowledge, quizzer whizzer Dick Gibson. Tonight’s contestant is Mel Son the Suicide, Amherst d.j. and d.o.a. Let’s try to get some answers—Mel?

M
EL
S
ON
: Quizzer whizzer?

D
ICK
G
IBSON
: Yez zir, yez zir. Are you ready for the first question?

M
EL
S
ON
: I am. For the time being I am. But hurry, hurry. I’ll plug my pulse and blast my blood. I’ll shoot my shirt and kill my collar. I’ll—