Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

Pink carnations wilted before the shrine of the Blessed Virgin. I lit a candle and prayed desperately, the way women loving men have prayed to Her for years and years. "Show me the way. Show me the way . . ." That night I didn't sleep. I lay awake, finding courage to leave Johnny. The tragic thing was that I still loved him so desperately. Leaving him would be agony, like cutting out part of my flesh with my own hand. But leaving him was also the only way left to me of proving how much I loved him. It was the only way I could save him. IV UMBLY, the next day, I made my ■L" arrangements. I packed my clothes and moved out of the apartment to a furnished room. I applied for jobs, and by a stroke of good fortune which seemed like an omen that I was doing, at last, the right thing, I found one as receptionist at City Hospital. I didn't write Johnny a letter and I didn't let him come home and find me gone. I couldn't — for although I hated the things he was doing now and I trembled for the things he might do, I still loved him with all my heart. His train came in late one afternoon, and when he opened the door of our apartment I was there, waiting. Waiting, every muscle tensed against the blinding desire to walk into his arms and stay there. He strode toward me, but he stopped when he saw my face, and looked around him in a puzzled sort of way, as if he sensed that the apartment was somehow emptied of all the things that had made it a home. I didn't wait for him to voice that bewilderment— I had to get this over, quickly. "Johnny — I've something to tell you," I said. "I'm leaving. I can't go on this way. I've tried — harder than you know — to be indifferent to the kind of — of work you're doing. But I just can't. It's wrong for you to defend people like Rooney, and it's wrong for me to take the money you make. So — I've found a job and . . . and I'm going to live by myself unless . . ." My voice trailed off. What I wanted to say was, "Unless you'll come with me, away from Kennedy," but looking into his hard, angry face, I knew it would do no good. "If this is a trick to make me quit my job, it won't work," he said. "It's no trick, Johnny," I said, and slipped past him, out of the door. He didn't try to follow me. I didn't expect him to. He had been able to convince himself that he needn't be ashamed of the work he was doing for Kennedy, and if he could convince himself of that it would also be easy for him to decide I didn't mean what I said, and that I'd be back if only he let me go. And I'm sure that when I actually walked out of the door he didn't believe what was happening could really be true — any more than I did. But it was true. It stayed true for long weeks. Only my job saved me from going 54 back to him in defeat — because, ironically, every minute of that job was a reminder of Matt Kennedy. City Hospital was a disgrace. One of Kennedy's friends, a Dr. Watling, was Superintendent — a fumbling, incompetent quack whose knowledge of medicine was limited to castor oil and calomel. The wards were dirty, the nurses and orderlies slovenly and badly trained. This, I told myself whenever loneliness was like a hand clutching my heart, was the result of Matt Kennedy's greed. He, and the men who worked for him — men like Johnny — made it possible. And as anger grew in me, I determined to strike out against Kennedy when I could. The opportunity came in a way I hadn't expected. I was on duty at the reception desk late one night when a thin man with a face as old as time and as evil as sin pushed open the door and came toward my desk. Red drops fell from his hand, which he carried stiffly against his side. "Where's Doc Watling?" he asked in a grating voice. "Tell him Mike Stevens wants him." I saw a round hole in the fabric of the man's suit, up near the shoulder. A bullet-wound case, I thought. Another of the Kennedy outfit, coming here for special favors, perhaps for secrecy because he didn't want that bullet-wound reported to the police. And suddenly I was blazingly angry. TED STRAETER— directs the choir on Kate Smith's CBS shows, besides playing with his band in a smart New York night club. Ted always knew he wanted to be a musician, and set about realizing his ambition with a single-mindedness worthy of a commanding general. When he was only eight he bought a second-hand phonograph from a pawnbroker, and two years later talked his father into buying a used piano, with the phonograph as part down payment. Ted agreed to sell magazines and repay his father at the rate of four dollars a week. It was a good investment, for when his father died Ted's musical ability got him a radio job and with his earnings he was able to support the Straeter family. «O»O»O«Q«e»O»O«o«o«O»Q494O«O«O»O«O«O«O#O«O«O0e«O0C4O«O«o»o«O«O0O4C»O«Q0O4 "I'm sorry," I said crisply. "I can't disturb Dr. Watling this late at night. Just step into that room and I'll call an interne—" "Listen, sister," he ordered. "You'll call Doc Watling, like I tell you, or you'll be really sorry." I gave him one look which said plainly that I did not intend to call Watling, and I reached for the telephone. Suddenly his uninjured right hand had darted into a pocket, and I was looking into a revolver. "Now will you call Watling?" For a long moment there was silence, while my hand froze above the telephone. Then — miraculously, unbelievably— the door behind Mike Stevens opened again and a man came in. Johnny. Stevens turned, and a second later Johnny rushed at him. There was a horrible, whirling scuffle. Stevens was smaller than Johnny, but he fought like something slimy and elusive. In the midst of it all there was a shot, and something struck my breast . . . I came up out of darkness, fighting against a dead, smothering weight that was trying to keep me down. A white figure moved, bent over me. A woman's voice — "Everything's all right, Mrs. Lane. You've been under ether. You must keep warm and try to sleep." "Johnny — my husband — " I murmured. "He's all right. He wants you to get well." I must have dropped off again then, because that's all I remember. It was daylight when I woke again, feeling weak but perfectly calm. The nurse — she was one I knew — smiled at me. "What happened?" I whispered. "Mike Stevens' gun went off while your husband was trying to get it away from him, and the bullet went dangerously near your heart. It's out now," she said. "Mr. Lane had quite an argument with Dr. Watling about it. Dr. Watling wanted to operate himself, but Mr. Lane wouldn't let him. He got Dr. Jordan instead and brought him in over Dr. Watling's head." "Where is — Johnny — now?" "He stayed here until you were out of danger, and he'll be back this evening." But it was not then that I saw Johnny again — not for another two days, when Dr. Jordan said I was well enough. He looked older — and very tired; but his eyes drank me in. "It's so good to see you again, dearest," he said. "I thought maybe I never would — for a while." "Johnny," I said. "Why did you come here to the hospital that night, so late?" "I don't know ... I thought it was to see you, to ask you to come back. »o«o*e*o«o»e«s«o* But maybe it was because — something— told me you'd be needing me." He spoke with a kind of wonderment. "I did need you. Thank you for coming — and thank you for not letting Watling operate, for getting Dr. Jordan instead." There was something I wanted to know. But I couldn't ask him. I had to keep on talking, hoping he would tell me of his own accord. "Watling! That bungler!" Johnny's lip curled scornfully. "He's a bungler, Johnny, but every day people that can't get any other doctor, or go to any other hospital, come here. They — don't pull through, or if they do it's at the cost of so much pain and suffering. And the only reason Watling is here is — Matt Kennedy and — " I stopped, but Johnny finished the sentence for me. " — And the men who work for him, like me," he said. "Was that why you let me come in to see you?" "I hoped you might be going to tell me you'd quit Kennedy," I said. "I hoped it — " His face was strained and white. His hand was on the door-knob. "But I haven't," he said dully . . . and opened the door and went out. I didn't know what he meant. I thought he meant that he had already been seduced by the money he was earning; that it was more important to him than my love. But I didn't cry. I was beyond tears. He didn't come back again. I didn't think he would, really. In time I was up, getting well and strong. Dr. Watling sent me a curt note that my services as receptionist RADIO AND TELEVISION MIRROR