week later, and still the plumber had not shown up. Probably on a cruise with his wife to the Caribbean. When I finally reached Sissy Sweatland’s office I was informed she was playing in a golf tournament in New Hampshire, and couldn’t be reached for another couple of days. We put pans on the dining room table, and they filled up slowly with rusty water which we only had to empty once a day.

No matter. Into each life some rain must fall, but in every cloud there’s a silver lining. How’s that for deep philosophical thinking? Three weeks after the meeting in Hank Rosen’s office there was a call for me. I was at work, of course. Annie was tending her flowers in the garden. The kids had arrived home from school, and Peter answered the phone. He took the message, and immediately forgot about it, heading out into the woods with his metal detector. What saved the day was that Laura was standing by when the call came, and at dinner that night she wondered idly who had called Daddy that afternoon.

“What, what, what?” I looked at Annie, who appeared mystified, and then at the children.

“Somebody called me?”

“I think so,” Laura said. She looked at Pete. “Did somebody call Daddy?” she asked.

Pete came out of his reverie. He had dug up a skull that afternoon that was currently soaking in a pasta pan in the kitchen, and he was very excited about it. He was sure it was a dinosaur skull. Having seen it myself, I tended to think (killjoy) that it was the skull of a rabbit. “Oh, yeah,” Peter said.

“Who was it, Pete?” I spread both arms out across the table and with my upper torso pressed against the table edge focused beady threatening eyes on him.

“A man –”

“Yes?” Patience threatening to ignite into fury.

Pete was scratching his head. “Oh, yeah. You’re supposed to take a meeting.” He looked bewildered.

“And who was it who said I was supposed to take a meeting, Pete?”

Peter was shaking his head. “Some man. Oh, yeah. I think it was a man. He had kind of a – a sissy voice.”

Hank Rosen’s secretary!

I pulled back into my seat. I gave Annie a look, then turned back to Peter. “If you take messages for Daddy, Pete, you’re supposed to remember to tell Daddy.” No father had ever spoken to his child in a more reasonable tone. With murder in his heart, and melody in the sound of his voice.

“Okay,” Pete said sweetly.

At five minutes after ten the next day I called Hank Rosen’s office, and got Flutie on the phone. Yes, he had called, and left a message with the illegal maid we had working for us.

“Right. She doesn’t always get messages right.”

“Mr. Rosen wants you to take a meeting with Mr. Goldman at Mr. Goldman’s office day after tomorrow at 2 p.m. If that’s convenient.”

“Day after tomorrow at 2 p.m. Yes, I think I can make that.” I would tell Morrie Glick that I had an important meeting with a trade editor in town. “Where is Mr. Goldman’s office located?” I broke in on my own question. “You know, I don’t know your name, sir. What is your name?”

“Bruce,” was the crisp reply.

“Bruce, where is Mr. Goldman’s office located?”

Bruce took a minute, apparently to look up the address. “Six twenty-nine West 56th St.”

“Are you kidding? What’s he live on, a houseboat.”

“It’s on the far west side,” Bruce said, not joining in on the little joke.

“I’ll say. Is Mr. Rosen in yet?”

“He’s on the phone at the moment. No. Wait a minute. He just hung up. Will you hold.”

“Not if it’s twenty minutes.” I tried to soften it with a little chuckle.

I’m in cyberspace again. But then Hank Rosen came on after only a minute, or so. “Good news, guy. Goldman has no initial objection to your writing the adaptation. In fact, he thinks the way we do, you probably could do it better than somebody who’s not thoroughly involved with the script.”

“Exactly. Oh, good, Hank. That’s good news.”

“He wants to talk to you. He has some ideas of his own.”

“Oh?”

“Listen, the guy’s a pro. Be sure to listen to him. He’s no dummy. I’ve never found a script yet, Bill, that couldn’t be improved upon. And that’s with all due respect to your – artistry.” I could almost hear him smiling as he hit upon the right word to massage the writer’s ego.

“Okay. Will you be there.”

“Can’t I’m flying out to the Coast – in about three hours, as a matter of fact. Won’t be back for two, maybe three days.”

“But shouldn’t you be there?”

“No. Better if you go alone. Listen to what the guy says. He’s got some ideas.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“He’s going to be sizing you up, Bill. See if you guys can work together.”

“You’re making me nervous, Hank.”

Ha, ha, ha. “Don’t be nervous. Just be yourself. Listen to his ideas.”

“Yeah. I think you told me that.”

“I did. I know I did. You’ll be all right. He wants to get started.”

“I hate to be crude, or anything, Hank, but is everything all set now? I mean, is the script sold?”

Ha, ha, ha. “You – artists –” and I couldn’t help but note the irony in his voice – “are all the same. Yes, my lad, the script is sold. Twenty g’s –”

“Twenty! You told me fifty.

” “We did the best we could, bubbala. You’re a first-time writer. They didn’t buy the French production of your grandmother play. Never mind, if this thing is big, and I know it will be, next time, it’ll be a hundred and twenty.”

“Wow. And how much for the adaptation?”

“If Goldman gives us the okay, we’ll go for fifty.”

“Ah, Hank, I love you.” I have to admit I was a little disappointed at only getting twenty (less commission) for the script, but still –

“Gotta go, Bill. Good luck with Goldman.”

“Okay, Hank. ‘Bye.” I was feeling real comfortable with my agent now. Hank, my main man.

Mr. Goldman’s office was not on a houseboat, but it was about as close as you can get to a houseboat without being in the Hudson River. If I had expected to find him ensconced in another glass and steel skyscraper at the far end of town, I was to be quickly disabused of that notion. Number six twenty-nine west 56th Street from the outside looked like an abandoned 19th century brick warehouse, and as I entered the front door of the building, checking first several times to make sure that this was, indeed, the right address, the inside didn’t look much more promising than the outside. You had to remember, though, every cloud must have a silver lining. And in this case, this out-of-the-way address meant that parking would be cheap, and no screwing around with mid-town traffic. Right off the Henry Hudson Drive I could park and look up at the building where Mr. Goldman’s office was. A display panel inside the front door, with only a few listings, but with an abundance of cobwebs and insect spatterings on the inside of the glass protective covering revealed the location of Mr. Gol-m-n’s office to be on the third floor.

There was a freight elevator that I could hear clanking somewhere above, but I chose to take the metal stairs with the cast iron railing, noting on my way that the odor of urine on the street level became less pronounced as the blasting sound of enraged punk rock music above intensified. By God, there it was, Goldman Enterprises, with a logo of an alligator underlining the words. Well rendered, too. The door was open, and it was from inside the office that the music was coming. I gave a rap with the knuckles loud enough I hoped to be heard, and stepped in to be met immediately by someone who was apparently a butler, or aide, or bouncer, or assistant, or gofer, or whatever such supernumeraries are called, a very dark-skinned man with hair standing up like lightning bolts, sleepy bloodshot eyes, a deep scowl in furrows across a narrow forehead and a mouth with a scornful extended lower lip that was as pink on the inside as the core of a chocolate dipped strawberry. He was dressed in a gray and white dashiki over Levis and black jogging shoes. Rings hanging from both ear lobes. I gave him my best ingratiating P.R. man smile, assuming this was Mr. Goldman’s office. A quick glance around revealed that the room was bare of furnishings except against the far wall where there were all kinds of video and camera equipment and stereo and recording machines where the blasting punk music was coming from. And a set of drums and a battered upright piano. There was what appeared to be a conference table more or less in the middle of the room covered with a zebra patterned cloth that hung to the floor. At the table, smoking a cigarette, was a light-complexioned lady with golden blond hair who was not quite young enough to be an ingénue, but very, very sexy, wearing, I noted in passing, a flimsy blouse that at a quick glance appeared to be transparent with two generous breasts straining to break out.

“Mr. Brock,” the blackamoor said heartily, clapping me on the back, and sort of giving me a push into the room. I managed to turn and glare at him, unaccustomed as I am to having doormen clap me on the back and nudge me in a direction with more than a little firmness.

“I’m here to see Mr. Goldman,” I said, giving him my Prince Charles of England impersonation.

“You’re looking at him,” he said. As he led me to the table. “This is Miss Piermontininini.” It sounded like ‘Pierre Mount Teeny. “Elena,” he added.

“’ow do you do?” Signorina Piermontinini said, in a heavy Italian accent, extending an arm languidly. Possibly I was supposed to kiss the hand, but I didn’t think fast enough, so I shook it instead.

There is no point in pretending I wasn’t surprised – stunned, would be a better word – to discover that Mr. Goldman – Moishe, as I would soon be calling him – was a man of color, very dark color, and not the grizzled old Jewish gentleman that I had envisioned. How he got the name Goldman, and Moishe, is another story, (which I picked up over time) having to do with his father’s conversion to Judaism a long time ago, (preceding Sammy Davis, Jr.) having become absolutely convinced that he was part of a lost tribe of Israelites most of whom were still living in Africa. Malcolm X had given up his slave name of Malcolm Little to become a modern American Muslim, and Ephraim Goldman had given up his name, whatever it had been, to become a modern American member of the U.J.A. The son, Moishe, had given it all up to become a hotshot TV producer of such successful musical shows as “Cops In Love.”

Along with all the other impressions racing through my mind was a curiousness as to why the network would pick an African American of Jewish descent who was primarily associated with musical comedies about policemen to be the producer of my Chekhovian masterpiece.

Moishe indicated I should sit down in the most comfortable upholstered chair, one of an eclectic group that were so grotesquely mismatched that they looked like they had been snatched from the sidewalk at various times. I sat down directly opposite Signorina Piermontinini, who smiled winningly, tilting her head sort of coyly, and who was the first to speak.

“I luva you play,” she said.

“Oh, thank you.” Nothing like a little compliment to soften up a writer.

Moishe Goldman sat down beside me. He was holding a copy of my script, which he spread out on the table. “We’re hopin’ to work in a part for Elena,” he said, smiling. When he smiled, the pink lip drew in, but the scowl on his forehead remained.

I smiled at the two of them, more in panic than anything else. “There are no Italian ladies in the play,” I said.

Moishe shrugged. “We can fix that.” He gave Elena a reassuring smile, then turned back to me. “Well, what do you think, Bill? Are you ready to go to work?”

I nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes.”

Moishe looked pleased. “The play is – dark,” he said.

“Uh huh. But also funny.”

“Funny as hell. I love that line about the – the mold on the grapefruit. What is it? – Maybe we can sell it for penicillin.”

Oh, God! I liked that line myself. It was at a point in the play when the repossess guys were going to take the refrigerator, and the protagonist tells his wife to save the grapefruit. Well, you get the idea.

“We need more of it.”

I pondered a moment. “Sure. I love jokes.”

“And the ending, Bill –” He was shaking his head, and chuckling. “No way, man, this guy could kill himself.”

It was as if I was suddenly being mugged. “That’s the point of the play, Moishe.”

“No, no. The point of the play is that the guy is a wild man.” He laughed raucously, sounding to me now a little bit like the wildest man in his tribe.

“Yes, yes. He is wild. And wild enough, just wild enough to do what he has to do at the end – kill himself.”

That Moishe, he could switch from laughter to pain in the snap of a finger. He was scowling now as if he had just had a spear driven into him. “20 million viewers will turn off their sets, and write letters to the network.” He held up a cautionary hand. “No, I take it back. It will never get on in the first place.”

I could feel heat in my face. “I thought you liked the play. The network likes the play. Elizabeth Snidecker –”

“—wants me to help you fix it up, man.”

I turned in the chair focusing on him all the mock dignity that I used sometimes on Diana Payne-Pignatelli when she came up with one of her more outrageous suggestions. “I don’t want you to help me fix it up, Moishe.” I glanced over at Elena Piermontinini, who was looking back at me with the most plaintive Italian actress look I had ever seen except on the face of Sophia Loren when she was making love with Marcello Mastroiani.

Moishe continued. “Bill, can’t you see the guy crashing into the Taco Shack, grabbing a handful of Tacos and heading out onto the open road, with new hope in his heart –“

“No. I can’t”

“And the entire cast singing something like, “We’re on Our Way-y-y-y!”

“Singing?!”

“It’s a musical, Bill.”

“It is not a musical.”

“You don’t know that it’s a musical. It has all the elements of a musical. Comedy. A wild eccentric character. Who brings light into everybody’s life. A guy who is larger than life. A guy –”

“I agree with everything you say, except two things, it is not a musical, and precisely because the guy is so much larger than life, he has no hesitation in giving up his own life, if it can’t be on his terms.” Even as I said it, as principled and heroic as I knew myself to be, I was thinking that perhaps I was committing suicide.

“Beautiful! Beautiful!” Moishe stood up from the table. I was convincing him. “Except he doesn’t have to die, and the whole thing is sunny, because it’s a goddamned musical.” I started to sputter, but before I could speak, he went on, “You’ve written a unique type of musical. Something like Brecht. A play, with wild music, like you’re listening to right now.”

“I can’t stand what I’m listening to right now!”

Moishe looked over at Elena, who looked so sad one wanted to take her in their arms and comfort her. “What am I going to do with this guy, Elena?”

“Get reed of ‘im,” the sad Madonna snapped.

I couldn’t believe this. I didn’t know anything about actors or actresses. Like the leading lady in my play who for the first two weeks of rehearsal wouldn’t speak to me, or look at me, and I think she was, in fact, the broad who asked Annie what breed of dog Spot was, and then suddenly was doing everything but dragging me to Motel Six. And this Italian bombshell who looked like she wanted to cuddle me, or be cuddled by me as Moishe and I went back and forth, was in four words telling him to give me the shaft.

“What do you mean? Get rid of me?” I said. “I came here to work constructively with you, Moishe,” I said, looking now into his bloodshot eyes. “I mean, you said you wanted more jokes. I can go along with that.” I paused a second. I desperately wanted to do the adaptation of my own play. “Maybe the guy doesn’t have to die. I mean, maybe -- I said just maybe -- we could work on that.” I would do almost anything to get this thing on. “But a musical! For Christ sake, the play is not a musical.”

“Wait a minute! Wait just one fucking little minute, man. Who the fuck do you think I am?” Moishe made an extravagant gesture to the far side of the room where the hideous punk rock sound was coming from. “What do you think all that sound equipment is, fun for the kiddies? I’m a director of musical comedy. Why do you think they picked me to do this stupid show?”

“Stupid!” I was up out of my chair, standing now, facing him.

“I’m the director of ‘Cops in Love’, for Christ sake. That’s what I do. Musicals.”

“And I’m the guy who says Go find yourself one, then. This is not a musical comedy.”

“Get reed of ‘im,” Elena said again, butting out her cigarette.

“Good-bye, Mr. Goldman!” I simply scowled at the bimbo, and went for the door.

“You had your chance, bubbala!” Goldman called after me.

I heard this in the hall, as I was already outside the so-called office.

From a phone booth in the street I called Hank Rosen’s office, and immediately got Bruce. “I must talk with Mr. Rosen, Bruce,” I said. “Can you tell me where he’s staying in California?”

“He’s right here,” Bruce chirped. “Will you hold?”

“I’m in a phone booth, Bruce. I don’t have any more change.”

“I can ask him to call you back.”

“All right.” I gave him the number that was inscribed on the coin box, and hung up.

Standing and waiting for the call from Hank Rosen – and wondering why the hell he wasn’t in California where he said he would be – I was fretting and sweating, even with the door open. Feeling a little bit like Alec Guinness when Hayakawa put him in the sweat box in “The Bridge Over the River Kwai.” Just thinking about that brought to mind the colonel riding by my house, and when the phone rang a few minutes later I was ready to start screaming.

“That fucking Goldman wants to turn my play into a musical comedy!” I bawled at him.

“Yeah. He told me.”

“He told you?”

“He just called. He doesn’t think you are the right guy to do the adaptation.”

“Wait a minute! He doesn’t think I’m the right guy? -- Incidentally, I thought you were in California.”

“Meeting was cancelled. Well, you know, it happens all the time.”

“I don’t want that guy having anything to do with my play,” I roared.

There was a silence on the other end of the line. “Elizabeth Snidecker wants him to do it, Bill,” Hank Rosen said in a very reasonable tone of voice.

“I don’t care what Elizabeth Snidecker wants. I absolutely refuse –”

“Bill, Bill, Bill. I hate to see you blow this sale.”

“I’m not blowing the sale. I don’t want that Lost Tribesman doing the adaptation of my play!”

“Then, there’s no deal, Bill.”

“What?”

“Do you want to sell this play for 20 g’s or not. It’s immaterial to me, Bill. If you want to sell the play, Goldman is the producer.”

“It’s my goddamn play!”

“Oh, definitely. You still own your play. You just won’t own the TV rights. You can keep your play – just as you wrote it. Maybe another amateur group in Wyoming, or someplace will want to do it. Meanwhile, if you go through with the deal, they can do with the property whatever the hell they want.”

A fly trapped with me inside the telephone booth was dive bombing me, while I tried to think. “So I get 20 grand, less commission, and they let some other guy turn my play into a musical comedy.”

“That’s it. If you want to go ahead.”

“Somebody else gets the 50 g’s for an adaptation.”

“Right.”

I was thinking of my upcoming mortgage with the bank, the cost of a tutor for Pete, the image of myself pulling up in front of the supermarket with Spot sitting beside me in my new BMW convertible. “Well, you know, a musical might not be so bad.”

“I don’t think Goldman will work with you, Bill” Hank Rosen replied coolly.

“Call him back! God damn it, Hank. Call him back. Tell him – tell him, you know, come to think of it, it might make a wonderful musical. He has some – good ideas. We could work in that Italian actress girlfriend of his.”

There definitely are advantages at being a P.R. man. You can talk yourself into believing in any kind of bullshit. Whenever it was necessary to write a new press release, I could bring myself to love those hateful Rajah condoms. I could get to love writing a musical based on my tragic Checkhovian masterpiece. What a challenge! It might even be fun! “Call him back! He’s got some good ideas. You know, I had an initial reaction – you know, an artist’s sensibility. Yeah. The guy makes a lot of sense. We could make a hell of a team together.” This, I admit, was a bit of a stretch, as I thought I might vomit in the phone booth. Fifty thousand dollars! “Call him back, Hank! You know what to say.”

I could just see Hank Rosen shaking his head, and chuckling. These fucking artists. “I’ll give him a call. I think you’re making the right decision, Bill. I think you two guys can work this thing out. That’s what I’ll tell him.”

“Yes! Yes! Tell him anything!” I hung up, and actually did manage to get out of the booth before gagging over the gutter. Not much came out, just a retching, and a little goo. And great spurts of salt water bursting through the membrane of my eyeballs.

I don’t remember driving home that evening. It was as if I had passed out and was driving drunk. But I made it without running into anybody or driving into a ditch. When I related to Annie what had happened, she immediately put a bright face on things. That darling little wife of mine.

“Well, Bill, there’s twenty-thousand dollars we’ll have. It’s enough to secure a mortgage.”

“Sixteen thousand, after the agent’s commission.”

“Well, still.” She was cautious about proceeding. “You know, they’re going to get someone to turn your marvelous play into a musical.” She gave me a long sympathetic look. I have to say this about my wife. We had been living together for a little more than ten years, and during that time she had learned – I know this – just exactly the right way to pull the strings. She has this clever way of disagreeing with me by totally agreeing with everything I say, and then pointing out a few related issues that are irrefutable. “So if you could get them to agree to let you do the – the – book, maybe they would get somebody brilliant to do the music and lyrics, and you would become famous, you would be in demand, you could get the original play on in theatres all over the country, maybe on Broadway, and, Bill, when you write your next serious play you would be in a position to insist that it be done just exactly the way you want it done, whether the movies were to buy it, or TV, or whoever.” She gave me such a winsome little smile, I could feel myself melting on the floor into the puddle from the ceiling drops which had overflowed the containers. When she looked at me like that, it was just exactly the way that Italian bombshell had looked at me (and at Marcello Mastroiani) before she told me to get lost. But in this case, Annie, my darling, was not going to tell me to get lost. She was going to tell me that we were having meatloaf for dinner.

“The theme song of the thing could be ‘The Bridge Over the River Kwai’,” I said bitterly.

“Aw, honey, come on now.” She smiled sweetly. “Fifty thousand smackereenoes.”

“All right, all right.” I gave her a plaintive look. “What if Hank Rosen can’t persuade that gorilla to take me back?” I was pacing the floor now, avoiding the puddle of water, totally committed to writing a musical comedy based on the tragedy of “Why Is That Dumb Son of a Bitch Down the Street Happier than I am?”

“Be patient, darling. Hank is on your side.”

I gave her a questioning look. “Well –”

“Meanwhile,” she said, changing the subject, partly to cheer me up, and partly to bring me back into the real world, “we have an appointment in Superior Court in Stamford the day after tomorrow.”

“Oh, my God. Right.”

“And if the judge rules that the sale can go through, we’ve got sixteen thousand dollars – in cash – to put down toward a mortgage.”

“Yes! Yes! And yes!” A moment’s pause. “And do we have enough money to pay Mrs. Bellingham for Peter’s tutoring?” Old worry-wart Bill.

Annie was smiling. “We do. I have put a little aside in a separate savings account.”

“You what? How did you manage that?”

“Never mind,” she said, offering me a slightly smug expression. “You are living with a frugal housewife.” I should have mentioned earlier, Annie was a photographer of not inconsiderable talent, and since the time we had been living in Fairfield County she had picked up a number of assignments to photograph weddings and also some family groups. These jobs were quite remunerative, as a matter of fact, and she had opened her own savings account.

“Ah, sweetheart.” Who could resist her?

I took her in my arms and stood there holding her, swaying back and forth a bit, the movement of our bodies speaking more eloquently than any amount of words. A few words came out, anyway. “I love you, darling.” We broke apart with a little puckered kiss. She smiled, and I swear extra light flooded the room.

Mrs. Bellingham showed up for her appointment with Peter at four the next afternoon. She seemed to love children, having taught small children most of her life until her retirement, and she was the mother of two of her own, now grown, and a grandmother of three Her offspring lived in California, so in their absence, and with no classes to conduct, she took to Peter as one of her own. She walked slowly, partly as a result of arthritic hips, which she refused to have replaced, and partly because she was carrying about 40 pounds more than her small height should normally have allowed. Peter liked her, thank God, although her twice weekly visits interfered with his metal detector hunting. Whether or not he was making any progress was another matter. He couldn’t seem to read anything, so she held him close to her on the living room couch and read to him from his school picture books, going over the words carefully and occasionally getting him to read – laboriously – back to her. I don’t know where she got the patience, but she kept at it, and he submitted. Sometimes I sat down with him after dinner, and tried to go over the same material he had gone through in the afternoon with Mrs. Bellingham. No dice. He could get some of it with her, but with me, he drew a blank. Seething with frustration, I would encourage, cajole, scold, and finally give up at which point he would pick up the drawing pad we had given him, and draw pictures of Spot, and most enthusiastically, renderings of his collections of animal skulls. The drawings were good, but a little spooky, to tell the truth.

Mrs. Bellingham had also been a clinical psychologist, and she decided to run a series of tests on Pete. This took about three sessions at the end of which she produced a five page report (which I took one look at and passed over to Annie), and the end result was that Pete’s I.Q. was in no way superior, and in no way inferior. It was about normal, at 110. There were also a bunch of Rorschach results which didn’t reveal him to be an axe murderer, and most revealingly a series of associative questions, in which she would spring words at him, and he was supposed to answer with whatever first image came to mind.

I am duty bound to report on four of these, which I remember. One) boys. Answer: Play games. Two) Men. Answer: Live in caves. Three) Mother. Answer: Love. Four) Father. Answer: Drives a rusty Pontiac.

Wonderful. At least, the kid had imagination. I wasn’t sure how to respond to this. I consoled myself with the thought: Wait until he sees my musical comedy on television.