5
The second telecast had the anticipated effect. The day after, Friday, nearly a hundred thousand letters and telegrams had been received, and Cave’s life had been threatened four times over the telephone.
I was awakened at five o’clock on Friday morning by a newspaper man begging an interview. Half-asleep, irritably, I told him to go to hell and hung up though not before I’d heard the jeer: “Thought you fellows did away with hell.” This woke me up and I made coffee, still keeping my eyes half-shut in the dim winter light, hoping sleep might return to its accustomed perch; but more telephone calls demoralized my fragile ally and I was left wide awake, unshaven, with fast-beating heart beside the telephone, drinking coffee.
Every few minutes there was a call from some newspaper man or editor requesting information: they had all been shocked by the telecast. When I told them they should get in touch with Cave himself, or at least with Paul’s office, they only laughed: thousands were trying to get to speak to Paul, tens of thousands to Cave; the result was chaos. Shakily, I took the phone off its hook and got dressed. When I opened my door to get the morning paper, a thin young man leaped past me into my living room and anchored himself to a heavy chair.
“What....” I began; he was only too eager to explain the what and the why.
“And so,” he ended, breathlessly, “the Star has authorized me to advance you not only that money but expenses, too, for an exclusive feature on Cave and the Cavites.”
“I wish,” I said, very gentle in the presence of such enthusiasm, “that you would go away. It’s five in the morning....”
“You’re our only hope,” the boy wailed. “Every paper and news service has been trying to get past the gate out on Long Island for three weeks and failed. They couldn’t even shoot him at long range.”
“Shoot him.”
“Get a picture. Now please....”
“Paul Himmell is your man. He’s authorized to speak for Cave. He has an office in the Empire State Building and he keeps respectable hours; so why don’t you....”
“We haven’t been able to get even a release out of him for three days now. It’s censorship, that’s what it is.”
I had to smile. “We’re not the government. Cave is a private citizen and this is a private organization. If we choose not to give interviews you have no right to pester us.”
“Oh, come off it.” The young man was at an age where the needs of ambition were often less strong than the desire for true expression; for a moment he forgot that he needed my forbearance and I liked him better. “This is the biggest news that’s hit town since the war. You guys have got the whole country asking questions and the big one is: who is Cave?”
“There’ll be an announcement today, I think, about the company. As for Cave, I suggest you read a little book called 'An Introduction to....’”
“Of course I’ve read it. That’s why I’m here. Now, please, Mr. Luther, give me an exclusive even if you won’t take the Star’s generous offer. At least tell me something I can use.”
I sat down heavily; a bit of coffee splattered from cup to saucer to the back of my hand: it dried stickily. I felt worn-out already, the day only just begun. “What do you want me to tell you? What would you most like to hear? What do you expect me to say since, being a good journalist, that is what you’ll write no matter what I tell you?”
“Oh, that’s not true. I want to know what Cave’s all about as a person, as a teacher.”
“Well, what do you think he’s up to?”
“Me? Why ... I don’t know. I never heard him on the air until last night. It was strong stuff.”
“Were you convinced?”
“In a way, yes. He said a lot of things I agreed with but I was a little surprised at his going after the churches. Not that I like anything about them, but still it’s some stunt to get up and talk like that in front of millions of people. I mean you just don’t say those things any more, even if you do think them ... can’t offend minorities; that’s what we learn first in journalism school.”
“There’s part of your answer then: Cave is a man who, unlike others, says what he thinks is true even if it makes him unpopular. There’s some virtue in that.”
“I guess he can afford to in his position,” said the boy vaguely. “You know we got Bishop Winston to answer him for the Star. Signed him last night after Cave went off the air. I’m sure he’ll do a good job. Now....”
We wrestled across the room; since I was the stronger, I won my privacy though muffled threats of exposure were hurled at me from behind the now-bolted door.
Acting on an impulse, I left the apartment as soon as I was sure my recent visitor had gone. I was afraid that others would try to find me if I stayed home; fears which were justified: according to the elevator man, he had turned away several men already. The one who did get through had come up the fire escape.
I walked quickly out into the quiet street, the snow now gone to slush as dingy as the morning sky. Fortunately, the day was neither windy nor cold and I walked to a Times Square automat for an early breakfast.
I was reassured by anonymity. All around me sleepy men and women clutching newspapers, briefcases and lunch pails sat sullenly chewing their breakfast, sleep not yet departed.
I bought a roll, more coffee, hominy grits which I detested in the North but occasionally tried in the hope that, by accident, I might stumble upon the real thing. These were not the real thing and I left them untouched while I read my paper.
Cave was on the front page. Not prominent, but still he was there. The now-standard photograph looked darkly from the page. The headline announced that: “Prophet Flays Churches as Millions Listen.” There followed a paraphrase of the telecast which began with those fateful and soon to be famous words: “Our quarrel is not with Christ but with his keepers.” I wondered, as I read, if anyone had ever taken one of the telecasts down in shorthand and made a transcript of it. I, for one, should have been curious to see in cold print one of those sermons. Cave himself knew that without his presence they would not stand up and, consequently, he allowed none of then to be transcribed; the result was that whenever there was a report of one of his talks it was, necessarily, paraphrased which gave a curious protean flavor to his doctrine, since the recorded style was never consistent, changing always with each paraphraser just as the original meaning was invariably altered by each separate listener as he adapted the incantation to his private needs.
A fat yellow-faced woman sat down with a groan beside me and began to ravish a plate of assorted cakes. Her jaws grinding, the only visible sign of life, for her eyes were glazed from sleep and her body, incorrectly buttoned into a cigarette-ash-dusted dress, was as still as a mountain, even the work of lungs was obscured by the torpid flesh.
I watched her above the newspaper, fascinated by the regularity with which her jaws ground the bits of cake. Her eyes looked past me into some invisible world of pastry.
Then, having finished the report on Cave’s telecast, I put the newspaper down and ate with deliberate finesse my own biscuit. The rustling of the newspaper as it was folded and placed on the table disturbed my companion and, beneath the fat, her will slowly sent out instructions to the extremities. She cleared her throat. Her head lowered. Her chewing stopped; a bit of cake was temporarily lodged in one cheek, held firmly in place by a gaudy plate. Her eyes squinted at the newspaper. She spoke: “Something about that preacher fellow last night?”
“Yes. Would you like to see it?” I pushed the paper toward her.
She looked at the picture, carefully spelling out the words of the headlines with heavy lips and deep irregular breaths. “Did you see him last night?” she asked when her eye finally got to the small print where it stopped, as though halted by a dense jungle.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I did.”
“He sure gave it to them bastards, didn’t he?” Her face lit up joyously; I thought of ça ira.
“You mean the clergy?”
“That’s just what I mean. They had it too good, too long. People afraid to say anything. Takes somebody like him to tell us what we know and tell them where to head-in.”
“Do you like what he said about dying?”
“About there being nothing? Why, hell, mister, I knew it all along.”
“But it’s good to hear someone else say it?”
“Don’t do no harm.” She belched softly. “I expect they’re going to be on his tail,” she added with gloomy pleasure, spearing a fragment of eclair which she had missed on her first circuit of her crowded dish.
I spent that morning in the street buying newspapers, eavesdropping. I heard several arguments about Cave: the religiously orthodox were outraged but clearly interested; the others were triumphant though all seemed to feel that they, as the automat woman had said, would soon be on his tail. Ours was no longer a country where the nonconformist could escape disaster if he unwisely showed a strange face to the multitude.
I tried to telephone Iris and then Clarissa but both telephones were reported busy; I called the office but was told by a mechanical voice that if I left my name and address and business Mr. Himmell would call me as soon as possible. The siege had begun.
I arrived at the Empire State Building half an hour before the meeting was to begin, hoping to find out in advance from Paul what was happening and what we were supposed to do about it.
A picket line marched up and down before the entrance, waving banners, denouncing Cave and all his works in the names of various religious groups. A crowd was beginning to gather and the police, at least a score, moved frantically about, not knowing how to keep the mob out of the building. When I stepped off the elevator at Cave’s floor, I found myself a part of a loud and confused mass of men and women all shoving toward the door which was marked Cavite, Inc. Policemen barred their way.
Long before I’d got to the door, a woman’s shoe went hurtling through the air, smashing a hole in the frosted glass. One policeman cocked his revolver menacingly. Another shouted, “Get the riot squad!” But still the crowd raved and shouted and quarreled. Some wanted to lynch Cave in the name of the Lamb, while others begged to be allowed to touch him, just once. I got to the door at last, thanks to a sudden shove which landed me with a crash into a policeman. He gasped and then, snarling, raised his club. “Business!” I shouted with what breath was left me. “Got business here. Director.”
I was not believed but, after some talk with a pale secretary through the shattered glass door, I was admitted. The crowd roared when they saw this and moved in closer. The door slammed shut behind me.
“It’s been like this since nine o’clock,” said the secretary, looking at me with frightened eyes.
“You mean after two hours the police still can’t do anything?”
“We didn’t call them right away. When we did it was too late. We’re barricaded in here.”
The team sat about at their desks pretending to work, pretending not to notice the noise from the corridor.
Paul, however, was not in the least disturbed. He was standing by the window in his office looking out. Clarissa, her hat and her hair together awry: a confusion of straw and veil and bolts of reddish hair apparently not all her own, was making-up in a pocket mirror.
“Ravenous, wild beasts!” she hailed me. “I’ve seen their likes before.”
“Gene, good fellow! Got through the mob all right? Here, have a bit of brandy. No? Perhaps some Scotch?”
I said it was too early for me to drink. Shakily, I sat down. Paul laughed at the sight of us. “You both look like the end of the world has come.”
“I’d always pictured the end as being quite orderly....” I began stuffily but Doctor Stokharin’s loud entrance interrupted me. His spectacles were dangling from one ear and his tie had been pulled around from front to back quite neatly. “No authority!” he bellowed, ignoring all of us. “The absence of a traditional patriarch, the center of the tribe, has made them insecure. Only together do they feel warmth in great swarming hives!” His voice rose sharply and broke on the word “hives” into a squeak. He took the proffered brandy and sat down, his clothes still disarranged.
“My hair,” said Clarissa grimly, “may never come out right again today.” She put the mirror back into her purse which she closed with a loud snap. “I don’t see, Paul, why you didn’t have the foresight to call the police in advance and demand protection.”
“I had no idea it would be like this. Believe me, Clarissa, it’s not deliberate.” But from his excited chuckling, I could see that he was delighted with the confusion. The triumph of the publicist’s dark art. I wondered if he might not have had a hand in it: it was a little reminiscent of the crowds of screaming women which in earlier decades, goaded by publicists, had howled and, as Stokharin would say, swarmed about singers and other theatrical idols.
Paul anticipated my suspicions. “Didn’t have a thing to do with it, I swear. Doctor, your tie is hanging down your back.”
“I don’t mind,” said Stokharin disagreeably, but he did adjust his glasses.
“I’d a feeling we’d have a few people in to see us but no idea it would be like this.” He turned to me as the quietest, the least dangerous of the three. “You wouldn’t believe the response to last night’s telecast if I told you.”
“Why don’t you tell me?” The comic aspects were becoming apparent: Stokharin’s assaulted dignity and the ruin of Clarissa’s ingenious hair both seemed to me suddenly funny; I cleared my throat to obscure the tickling of a smile. Paul named some stupendous figures with an air of triumph. “And there are more coming all the time. Think of that!”
“Are they favorable?”
“Favorable? Who cares?” Paul was pacing the floor quickly, keyed to the breaking-point had he possessed the metabolism of a normal man. “We’ll have a breakdown over the weekend. Hired more people already. Whole lot working all the time. By the way, we’re moving.”
“Not a moment too soon,” said Clarissa balefully. “I suggest, in fact, we move now while there are even these few police to protect us. When they go home for lunch (they all eat enormous lunches, one can tell), that crowd is going to come in here and throw us out the window.”
“Or suffocate us with love,” said Paul.
Stokharin looked at Clarissa thoughtfully; with his turned-around necktie he had a sacerdotal look. “Do you often think of falling from high places? of being pushed from windows or perhaps high trees?”
“Only when I’m on the top floor of the world’s highest building surrounded by raving maniacs do such forebodings occur to me, doctor. Had you a greater sense of reality you might be experiencing the same apprehension.”
Stokharin clapped his hands happily. “Classic, classic. To believe she alone knows reality. Madam, I suggest that you....”
There was a roar of sound from the hallway; a noise of glass shattering; a revolver went off with a sharp report and, frozen with alarm, I waited for its echo: there was none; only shouts of: Cave! Cave! Cave!
Surrounded by police, Cave and Iris were escorted into the office. More police held the door, aided by the office crew who, suddenly inspired, were throwing paper cups full of water into the crowd. Flash bulbs like an electric storm flared in all directions as the newspaper men invaded the office, let in by the police who could not hold them back.
Iris looked frightened and even Cave seemed alarmed by the rioting.
Once the police lieutenant had got Cave and Iris into the office, he sent his men back to hold the corridor. Before he joined them he said sternly, breathing hard from the struggle, “We’re going to clear the hall in the next hour. When we do we’ll come and get you people out of here. You got to leave whether you want to or not. This is an emergency.”
“An hour is all we need, officer.” Paul was smooth. “And may I tell you that my old friend, the Commissioner, is going to hear some extremely nice things about the efficiency and good sense of his men.” Before the lieutenant had got around to framing a suitably warm answer, Paul had maneuvered him out of the inner office; he locked the door behind him.
“There,” he said, turning to us, very businesslike. “It was a mistake meeting here after last night. I’m sorry, John.”
“It’s not your fault.” Cave, having found himself an uncomfortable straight chair in a corner of the room, sat very erect, like a child in serious attendance upon adults. “I had a hunch we should hold the meeting out on Long Island.”
Paul scowled. “I hate the idea of the press getting a look at you. Spoils the mystery effect; guess it was bound to happen, though. You won’t have to talk to them.”
“Oh, but I will,” said Cave easily, showing who was master here, this day.
“But ... well, after what we decided, the initial strategy being....”
“No. It’s all changed now, Paul. I’ll have to face them, at least this once. I’ll talk to them the way I always talk. They’ll listen.” His voice grew dreamy. He was indifferent to Paul’s discomfiture.
“Did you get a new place?” asked Iris, suddenly, to divert the conversation.
“What? Oh yes. A whole house, five stories on East Sixty-first Street. Should be big enough. At least for now.” The inter-office communicator sounded. Paul spoke quickly into it: “Tell the newspaper people to wait out there. We’ll have a statement in exactly an hour and they’ll be able ...,” he paused and looked at Cave for some reprieve; then, seeing none, he finished: “They’ll be able to interview Cave.” He flipped the machine off. Through the locked door, we heard a noise of triumph from the gathered journalists and photographers.
“Well, come along,” said Clarissa, “I thought this was to be a board of directors meeting. Cave, dear, you’ve got to preside.”
But, though he said he’d rather not, Clarissa, in a sudden storm of legality, insisted that he must: she also maliciously demanded a complete reading of the last meeting’s minutes by Paul, the secretary. We were able to save him by a move to waive the reading which was proposed, recorded and passed by a show of hands, only Clarissa dissenting. Cave conducted the meeting solemnly. Then Clarissa demanded a report from the treasurer and this time Paul was not let off.
For the first time I had a clear picture of the company of which I was a director. Shares had been sold. Control was in the hands of Clarissa, while Paul and several West Coast industrialists whose names were not familiar to me, also had shares. The main revenue of the company now came from the sponsor of Cave’s television show. There was also a trickle of contributions which, in the last few weeks, had increased considerably.
Then Paul read from a list of expenses, his voice hurrying a little over his own salary which was, I thought, a bit large. Cave’s expenses were recorded and, with Clarissa goading from time to time, Paul gave an accounting of all that had been spent since the arrival in New York. John Cave was a big business.
“The books are audited at standard intervals,” said Paul, looking at Clarissa as he finished, some of his good humor returning. “We will not declare dividends unless Mrs. Lessing insists the company become a profit-making enterprise.”
“It might not be a bad idea,” said Clarissa evenly. “Why not get a little return....”
But Paul had launched into policy. We listened attentively. From time to time, Cave made a suggestion. Iris and I made no comment. Stokharin occasionally chose to illuminate certain human problems as they arose and Paul, at least, heard him out respectfully. Clarissa wanted to know all about costs and her interruptions were always brief and shrewd.
Several decisions were made at that meeting. It was decided that a Center be established and headed by Dr. Stokharin to take care of those Cavites whose problems might be helped by therapy. “We just apply classical concepts to their little troubles,” he said.
“But it shouldn’t seem like a clinic,” said Iris suddenly. “It’s all part of John, of what John says.”
“We’ll make that perfectly clear,” said Paul quickly.
Stokharin nodded agreeably. “After all it is in his name they come to us. We take it from there. No more problems ... all is contentment.” He smacked his lips.
It was then decided that Cave would spend the summer quietly and, in the autumn, begin a tour of the country to be followed by more telecasts in the following winter. “The summer is to think a little in,” were Cave’s words.
Next, I was assigned the task of writing a defense of Cave for certain vast syndicates; I was also requested to compose a set of dialogues which would record Cave’s views on such problems as marriage, the family, world government and various other problems all in urgent need of answering. I suggested, diffidently, that it would be very useful if Cave were to tell me what he thought about such things before I wrote my dialogues. Cave said, quite seriously, that we would have the summer in which to handle all these subjects.
Paul then told us the bad news; there was a good deal of it. “The Cardinal, in the name of all the Diocesan Bishops, has declared that any Catholic who observes the telecasts of John Cave or attends in person his blasphemous lectures commits a grave and mortal sin. Bishop Winston came to tell me that not only is he attacking Cave in the press but that he is quite sure, if we continue, the government will intervene. It was a hint, and not too subtle.”
“On what grounds intervene?” asked Cave. “What have I done that breaks one of their laws?”
“They’ll trump up something,” said Clarissa.
“I’m afraid you’re right. They can always find something to get us on. So far, that is about the worst that can happen.”
“But do you think it will?” I asked. “Free speech is still on the books.”
Paul chuckled grimly. “That’s just where it stays, too.” And he quoted the national credo: In a true democracy there is no place for a serious difference of opinion on truly great issues. “Sooner or later they’ll try to stop Cave.”
“But they can’t!” said Iris. “The people won’t stand for it.”
“He’s the father of too many now,” said Stokharin sagely. “No son will rise to dispute him, yet.”
“No use to get excited in advance.” Paul was reasonable. “Now let’s get a statement ready for the press.”
While Paul and Cave worked over the statement, the rest of us chatted quietly about other problems. Stokharin was just about to explain the origin of alcoholism in terms of the new Cavite pragmatism, when Iris said: “Look!” and pointed to the window where, bobbing against the glass, was a bright red child’s balloon on which had been crudely painted: “Jesus Saves.”
Stokharin chuckled when he saw it. “Very ingenious. Someone gets on the floor beneath and tries to shake us with his miracle. Now we produce the counter-miracle.” He slid the window open. The cold air chilled us all. He took his glowing pipe and jabbed it into the balloon which exploded loudly; then he shut the window beaming. “It will be that easy,” he said. “I promise you. A little fire and: pop! they disappear like bad dreams.”