So that, Joe thought, was how it was done. Something else he’d learned about radio. “What time do they want me?”
“Two o’clock Wednesday. John Dennis’ office. That’s the little fat man who auditioned you.”
Riding out to Northend Joe saw what Amby had meant by “bit show.” Everybody in the cast would have a short, terse part to read. He’d get on only when some boy had a plea to make. Perhaps he wouldn’t get on more than once or twice a month. But rehearsals were six dollars an hour, or part of an hour, and every show would be fifteen dollars. Not bad. The bus dropped him off and he walked rapidly toward home.
“Mother!” He was going to be calm about this. “I have my first part. I’m in my first show.” Calmness exploded. “Boy, do I feel grand.”
“Joe!” The warmth of his mother’s understanding made him feel even better. “How nice.” She led him out to the breakfast nook to pie and a glass of milk. While he ate he told her of how radio put on its personal experience programs like I Want Work, and about Lucille Borden, and about money. Six dollars for rehearsals and fifteen dollars for the show.
“The day you go on the air,” Kate Carlin said whimsically, “there’ll be no dinner prepared. I’ll be too excited. Your father’ll probably have to come home and cook himself an egg.”
They laughed together. Joe thought, as he had thought many times before, how easy it was to laugh with his mother.
John Dennis’ office was on the third floor of the FKIP building, a small out-of-the-way sort of room at the building’s rear. This third floor might have been the fifth floor where Joe had auditioned in Studio K. Given over to the pick-and-shovel work of radio, the third floor spent no money for glitter and blue leather. Four people, all talking at once, were crowded into the office with Dennis; three others, in the hall, walked about, bumped into each other, and read script aloud.
“Carlin.” Dennis tossed a script. “You’re Young Mr. X.”
Lucille Borden said: “Hello, youngster. You know these people?” She introduced him around. He shook hands with Archie Munn, a tall, very straight and very thin man with an amazingly deep voice, and bowed to Stella Joyce, a small, bird-like woman with a bird-like, fluttering way of talking. The others of the cast of I Want Work were shadows. He got away, out to the hall, and found his part: