GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!
Jimmy Lowe was now leaning toward Lola, beginning to snarl. Behind the partition, Irv’s heart was beating wildly. He still had his headset on, although he wanted to take it off. His central nervous system was going
into the fight-or-flight mode, and he was definitely partial to flight, and the headset would be an impediment. He looked at Mary Cary and mouthed a single word: “Ready?” But she had anticipated him. She already had her headset off and was standing still, facing the partition, while the makeup woman fluffed up her great blond hair and touched up her forehead and nose with powder. The two technicians, Gordon and Roy, were already up off their stools, headsets removed, standing right behind her. What a pair of great wide hulks they were! (Thank God!) They must have been in their thirties, but in the pallid glow of the monitors, their faces looked like a pair of ancient underwater rocks. Right next to them stood Ferretti. He had taken his headset off, too. He gave Irv a wink!—a wink! As if he didn’t have a worry in the world! Once more Irv marveled.
“I’m gon’ show you, Jeemy, right now!” It was Lola’s voice, sounding in Irv’s ears over the headset. She was losing her composure. He looked at the monitor screen. She was trying to recapture her concupiscent leer. She also had her hand on the door handle. Miss Lola Thong was ready to bail out. “There!” She pointed toward the partition. “You have a special vees’tor!”
Irv turned back toward Mary Cary and with a frantic look in his eyes mouthed the word “Now!” But she was already heading through the concealed door in the partition. Didn’t have to be prodded! Marching straight out to confront these … skinheads! … murderers! Irv Durtscher, the Maxim Gorky of the Mass Media, involuntarily crouched. He needn’t have. Gordon, Roy, and Ferretti followed right behind her. Their hulking forms filled up the opening.
Irv spun back toward the monitors. None of the hidden cameras had yet picked up Mary Cary, but he could see all three of the soldiers, sitting on the couch, staring toward her. On another monitor—there went Lola, slipping out of the RV and closing the door behind her. The soldiers didn’t even notice. They were dumbstruck. Standing before them was a big blond bombshell in a creamy white silk blouse open down to the sternum, a sky-blue cashmere jacket, and a short white skirt showing
off her terrific legs … and, moreover, perhaps the best-known blond bombshell in America.
“Hello, Jimmy,” said Mary Cary, “I’m Mary Cary Brokenborough.”
I’m Merry
Kerry
Broken
Berruh.
It was precisely the way she said it every week on the show! No different ! Not a tremor in her voice! Irv was astounded, even though he had seen her do it before. His admiration, his envy, cut through his fear as he crouched behind the partition, staring at the monitors and listening over the headset.
“Aw, come on naow,” said Jimmy Lowe, his mouth open, his head cocked to one side. “I don’ believe theeus.” He tried a smile, as if somehow she might respond with a smile and reveal that this was all some kind of harmless prank.
“No, you can believe it, Jimmy,” said Mary Cary. “I’m Merry Kerry Brokenberruh, and I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, we’re not the police. The bad news is, we’re from
Day & Night.
”
By now, as Irv could see on the monitors, Mary Cary had moved out in front of the couch and was being picked up by the hidden cameras. What was not picked up by the cameras, and what would not be seen by
Day
&
Night’s
50 million viewers, was the line-up of heavies who now stood there as Mary Cary’s glum-faced centurions: Gordon, Roy, and Ferretti.
Jimmy Lowe didn’t say anything. He looked at Ziggefoos and then at Flory, and then all three looked at one another. This was the pivotal moment. The three of them were no brain surgeons, but they were bright enough to know that—
Gotcha!—
they were now in trouble. This was the moment in which they had to make a decision. An older trio, wiser or not, might very well refuse to say another word and depart or, conceivably, attack. But these three were children of the third television generation. To them, television was not a communications
medium, it was an atmosphere you breathed. TV came into your life as naturally as oxygen, and you would no more think of trying to keep it out than you would the air in your lungs. A
Merry Kerry Brokenberruh
came into your home every week as inevitably as the barometric pressure—and now she had been beamed down into these boys’ very presence. They were shocked, awed, mesmerized—and in that moment they lost the battle with logic. They neither fought nor fled. They stood their ground, transfixed by the aura of the broadcast goddess, who might be feared, might be disliked, but who could not be denied. She was in their lives, just like their bloodstreams, and
she had her questions
.
On the monitors Irv could see the boys’ skinned heads and stuck-out ears turning. Mary Cary had moved to the seat Lola had vacated and was sitting down. She gestured toward the television set. “You recognize what you just saw, don’t you?”
“Sonamabitch,” said Ziggefoos. He had a small, incredulous smile on his face. “This really is you?”
“I think you recognize me, and I think you recognize what you just saw,” said Mary Cary, motioning toward the set again. She spoke calmly and firmly as if she played a game of
Gotcha!
like this every day.
“God
day
um!” said Ziggefoos with such a crazy sort of exaggeration it startled Irv. “Merry Kerry … Merry Kerry … you’re jes shittin’ us, rat?”
“Didn’t it look real to you?” said Mary Cary. “You, Jimmy, Flory—talking about what happened to Randy Valentine … in your own words?”
“Merry Kerry … Merry Kerry …” Ziggefoos had a dreamy tone and a dreamy look and a silly little smile. “Watchoo talking abaout, Merry Kerry?”
“It’s what you were talking about, Ziggy, you and Jimmy and Flory, on that videotape. Why don’t you tell me—”
“All’s I saw was some hooker shakin’ her fanny aout’na pineywoods, Merry Kerry,” said Ziggefoos.
Mary Cary simply ignored the comment. “Why don’t you tell
me”—she looked straight at Jimmy Lowe—“why don’t you tell me exactly what you did when you surprised Randy Valentine in that men’s room that night?”
“Merry Kerry,” said Ziggefoos. He paused. “Jewer have a vodka twilat?”
“No, and if I were you—”
“Let’s go git us a coupla vodka twilats, Merry Kerry. Rat’air inna DMZ.” He broke into a grin.
Goddamn this kid! thought Irv. “Merry Kerry.” Irv had seen this irritating familiarity before, especially among young people. The face and the voice of Mary Cary Brokenborough were so familiar, people felt as if they knew her. She already dwelt somewhere inside them. And this kid was just smart enough or just drunk enough to use this deluded sense of intimacy to try to transform the ambush into some kind of bullshit flirtation.
Jimmy Lowe’s panicked expression began to dissolve as the beauty of this strategy dawned on him, and he, too, grinned and said,”’At’s a goddayum good idy! Gitcher tail up, gal, and let’s go git it on!”
“Fuckin’ A!” said Flory.
Ziggefoos grinned at both of them, egging them on.
“Thank you very much,” said Mary Cary curtly, “but I’m not here to go honky-tonking. I’m here to get to the—”
“
Awwwwww,
come on, Merry Kerry,” said Ziggefoos, “don’t be lack ‘at. You got on yer party clothes, gal! If you don’ want a vodka twilat, I’ll git us a Coors lat, long neck. If I got me a beer, you got half.”
Jimmy Lowe and Flory cracked up over that.
You got half!
That was rich.
Thus encouraged, Ziggefoos said, “And a pack a Salem One Hunnerts, too. We don’t git many vis‘tors fum New York daown here’ta DMZ. ‘At’s whirr you fum, ain’t it? New York City?”
Jimmy Lowe and Flory were doubled over with laughter. Irv began to despair. Mary Cary had confronted them, but they were turning it into a farce.
“You’re not going to have much to laugh about if you’re faced with a
charge of
murder
,” said Mary Cary. She said it with such stentorian firmness, Jimmy Lowe stopped laughing. She had his attention. “On that tape, which you just saw, you describe how you made an unprovoked attack on Randy Valentine in the men’s room of a bar not far from here. You—”
“Awwwwww, latin up, Merry Kerry,” said Ziggefoos. “This ain’t Day &
Nat.
This here’s nat time on Bragg Boulevard. Jes letcher hair daown and git it on.”
But Mary Cary kept boring in on Jimmy Lowe. “You just described how you kicked down a door, flattened Randy Valentine against a wall, and began beating him.”
She wouldn’t let up. She was staring him down. He was close enough to reach out and grab her by the throat.
“You need a drank,” said Ziggefoos. “You need to latin up.”
Ziggefoos continued to grin, but Jimmy Lowe and Flory no longer had it in them to be amused. They looked at each other and at Ziggefoos with alarm.
“You also described your motivation,” said Mary Cary. “You made it very clear what it was. It was homophobia. You assaulted Randy Valentine because he was different, because he didn’t have your sexual orientation, because he was gay. Isn’t that what you just told us?”
“Didn’ tale you any such thang,” said Jimmy Lowe. He had a helpless expression, as if he couldn’t comprehend how this national apparition, which had somehow materialized out back of the DMZ on Bragg Boulevard, was now hurling such accusations in his face.
“But we just heard you,” said Mary Cary. “We just saw you. You just said it in so many words.”
“All’s I said was—”
“Shut up, Jimmy,” said Ziggefoos.
“And we just heard from you, too,” said Mary Cary. “And from your friend here, Flory. You just admitted your own involvement, and you just described your own motivation. Randy Valentine wasn’t ‘from our parish.’ Isn’t that what you said, Flory? The gay lifestyle is disgusting. Isn’t that what we heard you say, Ziggy?”
Irv marveled. Mary Cary was staring them down. There wasn’t even the tiniest break in her voice. The sentences were rolling out perfectly. She had them on the ropes. If they didn’t stop talking now, they’d hang themselves for sure.
Ziggefoos hesitated. Then he said, “Whatchoo know abaout it?”
“I know what I’ve just heard you say—you and Jimmy and Flory—in your own words.” She looked at Jimmy Lowe again. “If it wasn’t for the reason you said, why did you attack Randy Valentine?”
Jimmy Lowe said, “All’s I did—”
“Jes shut up, Jimmy!” said Ziggefoos. “You don’ have to tale’er a dayum thang.” Then he looked at Mary Cary. To Irv, watching on the monitor behind the false wall, Ziggefoos’s narrow eyes and long, lean face looked more menacing than ever. “I’m not talking abaout thayut, Merry Kerry. Didn’t none a us have nothing to do with Randy Valentine. Don’t none a us know what the hale happened to him. But I kin tale you one thang.”
“What’s that?”
“I kin tale you one thang abaout yer ‘gay lafstyle.’”
“All right—go ahead.”
“It won’t never made fer the U.S. Army.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“You ever knowed anybuddy in the U.S. Army?”
“As a matter of fact, I have. My father was in the Army. He fought in Korea.”
“You ever ask him what he thought a having homoseckshuls ‘long-side him?”
“No, I never did, but I’m sure he wouldn’t have been in favor of kicking down doors and beating them senseless.”
“You know what a soldier’s spose a do? You know what he’s spose a be there fer?”
“Tell me,” said Mary Cary. There was irritation in her voice. She didn’t like what this redneck kid was doing, taking over the role of interrogator.
“A soldier’s ther to fat,” said Ziggefoos. “He’s ther to risk his laf.” By
now Irv knew the boys’ redneck elocution well enough to figure out that fat meant
fight
and
laf
meant
life
. But Christ—did Mary Cary?
“’At’s what h‘it balls daown to. Ever nawn’n’en, a country, any country, h’it needs men to fat and risk their laf. And do you think ther’s any man ‘at jes natch’ly wants to risk his laf?” He waited for her to answer.
Mary Cary, irritably: “Go on.”
Damn
! thought Irv. This kid was fulla shit, but he had a knack for taking over the script and turning things around. If only she could have gotten Jimmy Lowe talking! But Ziggefoos had cut him off. Jimmy Lowe and Flory were just sitting there with their mouths open and their eyes blinking, looking from Mary Cary to Ziggefoos and from Ziggefoos to Mary Cary. Well, maybe he could—
“Hale, no,” said Ziggefoos, “ain’t nobody jes natch’ly wants to risk his laf. You know what I’m trying to tale you?”
“Go on.”
“You got to take ‘ose ol’ boys and ton‘em into a unit. A unit. You know what I’m saying? The
unit’s
the onliest thang that don’t know no fear. When you’re in the field and you’re pinned daown by spear far?”—once more it took Irv a couple of beats to translate:
spear far
meant
superior fire
—they’d have to use subtitles—“the unit’s the onliest thang’at don’t run away. The
ind
‘vigil? He’ll run on you, Merry Kerry. I’on keer who he is. He’ll run on you. But when he’s in a
unit
—ain’t jes his own mind and his own heart working no more. He’s got evvy mind and evvy heart in the
pla
toon inside
uv
’im, whether he wants’em’air’not, and even if he don’t want to hear it, they’re saying to him, ‘A man don’t run, a man holts his graound, a man risks his laf if he has to.’ Being in a far fat’s—”