ne week after the meeting in Goldman’s office I received a check in the mail from Hank Rosen’s office for 16 grand. I had never seen so much money in a single chunk in my entire life. It was certainly a time for a celebration. I told Annie to get dressed up, and I put on my gray flannels and old Brooks Brothers brown Harris tweed jacket from college days (that was a little tight around the waist, but I didn’t have to button it), and we headed off to the much praised restaurant, Le Chateau, which indeed looked like a chateau, with turrets and all that, which had been built at the turn of the century by J.P. Morgan as a gift to one of his girl friends. I drove up the long winding drive to the front entrance where one of the two high school kids on parking duty took over the wheel of our old Pontiac station wagon, backing it into a space next to a Mercedes on one side and a Jaguar on the other as I watched to make sure they didn’t dent either of my fenders.

Dinner was grand. Splendid, as Norman Mailer would say. There was no holding back. We had champagne cocktails, which went down pretty fast, and a bottle of their cheap red. ($25 a bottle). I’m savvy enough to know that a decent bottle of cheap stuff can taste as good as the crazy stuff, especially with venison and wild mushrooms, which I ordered, and roast duck with a sweet cherry sauce, which Annie ordered. No point in showing off too much, even with sixteen thousand dollars in our bank account. (After the dinner it would be fifteen thousand, eight hundred and fifty.) We did splurge on the chocolate soufflé, however, which wasn’t really as good as a piece of cheese cake, but it was a specialty of the house and had to be ordered a half hour in advance. The experience was marred only slightly by an obnoxious noisy group at a nearby table (possible neighbors, though neither they nor we acknowledged any acquaintanceship.) Two old bulls in their sixties were extolling loudly the virtues of General Westmoreland, who was winning the war in Vietnam, oblivious of annoyed looks from nearby tables (including ours). It occurred to me that a bowl of Vichyssoise over their heads might be a generally appreciated response, but as a gentleman I realized that such enterprise might result in unpleasant consequences. Their wives sat and listened in obedient subdued silence until at a certain point they unleashed themselves to go to the powder room, thereupon immediately falling into fits of sheepish giggling.

No matter. Other more immediate concerns arose upon our arrival home. The baby sitter was asleep on the couch and both kids were in the bathroom vomiting into the toilet. They had opened my liquor closet, and there were bottles of bourbon, rum, scotch, crème de menthe and tequila standing on the kitchen table. No, the bottles weren’t empty, indicating there was no immediate medical emergency. It was just that they had been sampling small amounts, and had suddenly found themselves dizzy and staggering and rushing to the bathroom.

“I’m drunk,” Laura bawled, looking up from the bowl with eyes teary from retching. Pete was sitting on the floor, with a bewildered look on his face.

“What is the matter with you children?” Annie scolded. “Don’t you know you’re not old enough to drink that stuff?”

“I’ll never touch a drop again!” Laura bawled, suddenly throwing herself into her mother’s waist and hanging on.

“Wow,” Pete said. “Wow.”

“Get to bed,” I said. “Can you make it on your own?”

“Absolutely,” Peter replied, hoisting himself up, and immediately lurching toward the toilet bowl, and upchucking the last of his stomach’s contents. There would be no need for a stomach pump.

After they were in bed, and after I had driven the baby sitter home, without even bothering to scold her (We would never hire her again), Annie and I lay in bed that night. Actually, it was all pretty funny. It turned out that when questioned the next day, it had been Pete, of course, who had initiated the whole thing. That little experimental bastard. He just had to find out for himself what this alcohol stuff was really all about. And Laura was always behind him, in tandem. Well, he had found out, with no serious consequences. The kids had learned an important lesson, it seemed to us, and without much need of a lecture, either. So maybe it had been a good thing. Home and in bed after driving the baby sitter home I reached over to Annie and brought her in close to me.

“Hm-m-m-m,” she said, which was all that was necessary.

And shortly thereafter I knew that she was happy when she uttered the first of a series of shrieks, groans, cries accompanied by prolonged shuddering.

The next day was a Saturday, and instead of mowing the first spring freshets of grass that were now standing ankle high, I got to work on “Love Thy Neighbor.” If it went well, I could relax, and mow the lawn tomorrow, maybe cranking up the gasoline powered mower before breakfast and disturbing the neighbors while they tried to catch a few last winks of sleep before dolling themselves up for a Sunday trot by our dining room window. If we ever managed to buy the house, I would see what could be done about blocking off that right-of-way.

I had the original script in front of me. At first it seemed like a daunting task, but there was a 40 thousand dollar bill dancing before my eyes, and tearing out the second act (I had multiple Xerox copies), I plunged into it.

Casting. Well, there was Harold, and his wife Satyiwati. I would look up an equivalent pretty name for an Indian wife, (one that the actors could pronounce) and hope that we could find a male actor who could project enough unconventionality and largeness of spirit to be married to her. Steve McQueen came to mind. Possibly Cary Grant? Gene Hackman? Bogart, of course, was long gone.

I was able to throw in some new jokes. That was easy. Harold was the kind of husband who could berate his wife for doing a lousy paint job on the ceiling of his studio, pointing out that Michelangelo never complained after 12 years on his back doing the Sistine Chapel. (although I was concerned lest we put little Saty in a position of ridicule). Then there was the pajama party. It was necessary to think in terms of someone like Annette Funicello and keep them screeching and jumping up and down on the beds and complaining about the old dorm. It could be done.

But the ending. How it pained me to have a Western Union guy deliver the message that Harold had been chosen to design the measly dormitory, then have him grab his Indian wife, and the two of them belt out a number celebrating triumphal success. And the entire cast – especially the pajama party girls – joining them in the grand finale.

Oh, what a peasant slave and whore was I. But, let us not forget, I still had the original play intact, and was already sending it out to Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and some of the other more prestigious regional theatres – Buffalo Stage Company. Dallas Theatre Group. Cincinnati Theatre in the Park. With the TV title changed to “Love Thy Neighbor” the regional theatre dramaturges, who were above watching television drama, would never know that I was the author of the vulgar boob show.

They gave me a month to work on the adaptation, and even before the deadline I had it finished (giving it to the typing pool at Pro-Tec for a final polish) and had copies off to Hank Rosen for distribution to Goldman and Elizabeth Snidecker at CBC.

A week later Hank called to congratulate me on a job “well done,” adding that Goldman liked it, too, and that we had a meeting with la Snidecker the following Friday, two days away. Whoopee! Moving right along now.

The CBC building was another one of those glass blocks in the center of town (on the West side), and her office, although not as grandiose or spacious as Hank Rosen’s, was nonetheless imposing. There were floor to ceiling windows (which I always cringed back from) overlooking the city’s rooftops and water towers, and house plants all around and a vase of fresh-cut flowers on her coffee table directly in front of her desk. Beige wall-to-wall carpeting was like a trampoline as Hank Rosen and I and Goldman and a young blonde lady on Goldman’s arm bounced across the room to shake Elizabeth Snidecker’s hand. Snidecker was a piece of work. With loose paratrooper pants tucked into riding boots (Colonel Slaughter immediately came to mind) and a silk blouse matching the color of the rug and bracelets and earrings and loops of necklace jingling and jangling like Santa’s sleigh she greeted us warmly. She knew Goldman and Hank, of course. Hank introduced me. Goldman introduced the blonde as one Agnes Gotti who would be playing the part of the wife in my adaptation. Elizabeth Snidecker was still holding my hand which was perhaps the only thing that kept me from falling on my face. I staggered slightly.

“What happened to Satyiwati?” I turned to Goldman, who this time prodded my ankle with more than usual savagery. Fortunately he was still wearing his sneakers.

“Pleased to meetcha,” Miss Gotti spoke up. Her blonde hair was gathered in a scrunchie and stood up like a feather duster on top of her head. She was wearing what at the time was being called a micro skirt so that when she sat down it was incumbent upon her to cross her legs or she might have been subject to arrest for baring the beaver.

“I’ve had a chance to go over the script,” Elizabeth said. She gave it a little pat, and a frown crossed her face. She looked like she frowned a lot. She was a lady of about 40, not unlike Sissy Sweatland in some respects, but without the fluttering. There were creases in her forehead that no amount of make-up could hide. “I have to say, Bill –” There was no formality about her – “I’m a little disappointed.”

My heart sank, and I cast a bleak look at Hank Rosen.

“Your original script had poor Harold going off and committing suicide at the end after a period of great soul-searching and existential angst.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding.

“What happened to that? You’ve got him dancing around with a bunch of idiots in panties and bras and celebrating his commission.” She looked down at both the original playscript and the adaptation which she had open on her desk. “I thought that was the ending of the first act.” She gave me a long hard inquiring look.

I glanced over at Hank who seemed to be studying a hangnail and not about to volunteer anything.

Goldman spoke up. “Mr. Brock thought it would be better to drop the heavier side of the hero’s character,” he said.

“The hell I did!” I exploded. “That was Goldman’s idea. I hated it.”

Goldman stood up quickly from his chair, and took a step toward me. “What the hell are you saying?” he growled.

I remained seated, my heart beating wildly, joggling between exhilaration over what Elizabeth Snidecker had just declared and Goldman’s fury over his rejected vulgar prescriptions. “I’m saying that you tried to rip the guts out of my play, goddammit!” Now I was standing up. Hank Rosen rose and stepped between us, while Miss Gotti reached in her purse to apply another layer of lipstick.

“Hey, guys, take it easy,” Elizabeth Snidecker interposed.

I turned to her. “This clown insisted that I drop all the introspection. He insisted that I conclude the play at the end of the first act. He insisted on – on – on that stupid pajama party –”

“I like the pajama party,” Elizabeth said quickly.

“Ha!” Goldman exploded.

“It only adds to the grief of Harold over the – the repugnant renunciation of his own ideals,” Elizabeth Snidecker said.

“Ha!” I exploded back in Goldman’s face.

“I can’t work with this bozo,” Goldman said, facing Elizabeth.

“We’ve got a contract, Moishe,” Hank interjected.

“Fuck the contract.”

Ha, ha. Hank said.

“Jesus, I wish you’d all calm down,” Elizabeth said. “Sit down, gentlemen.”

I was glad to sit down. Goldman gave her a baneful look and retreated to his chair.

“Look,” Elizabeth said. “There are some new jokes in the script. I like them. The pajama party is fine. It heightens the sense of self-loathing that Harold ultimately will feel at the end”

“You mean, you want him to commit suicide by running his car into the Taco Shack?” Goldman asked, incredulous.

“Absolutely. That’s the power of the piece.”

I was grinning now, practically drooling, as she went on. “What you’re saying is that the original concept is valid, and it’s what you want,” I said.

Elizabeth was nodding. “That’s right. This is just – well, no offense, but it’s schlock.”

“Of course it is. I said that right from the beginning.”

“It’s a musical!” Goldman was shouting now.

“Moishe, of course it’s a musical. But more operatic than burlesque house,” Elizabeth said.” She looked down at the rewrite. “And this – this – Indian wife. What’s that all about?” She glanced over at Miss Gotti who dropped her eyes demurely.

Oh, God, I wanted to leap across Elizabeth’s desk and kiss her. Wrinkles and all.

Goldman was shaking his head.

“Moishe, maybe you should withdraw from the project,” Elizabeth was saying.

“What? What? What?” Goldman was shouting now. “No way.”

“We ain’t gonna do the show?” Miss Gotti interjected.

“I’m going to do the show!” Goldman insisted. “Of course I am. I wasn’t quite sure which direction you wanted to take it in, Elizabeth. I mean after ‘Cops in Love’”

“Forget ‘Cops in Love’. That was a different kind of thing.”

“What about the title?” I put in. “Does it stay the same?” I was holding three aces and a pair.

Elizabeth frowned thoughtfully. “I dunno. It might spook some of the sponsors. Maybe we could call it W.I.T.S.O.B. You know, Why is that Son of a Bitch, et cetera. Maybe advertise it that way, with a little asterisk with the full title down at the bottom of the page.”

“That makes sense,” Hank Rosen offered.

The Lord was on my side today. “I think the network is in tune with what I had in mind originally,” I said.

“Well, I think we’re clear at any rate over what’s needed.” Elizabeth said. “Do a rewrite, and let’s see it next month.”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Incidentally, I think I’ll leave the character of the wife the way I originally wrote it, and Mr. Goldman here can cast it any way he wants. Maybe he knows a good Chinese actress.”

Goldman glared at me, and Miss Gotti was blinking. Her eyelashes, I noticed, extended over her eyeballs like a black thatched pagoda roof.

Elizabeth gave us all a smile that meant that the meeting was over. We stood up. More handshakes, reaching across her desk.

Outside, on the sidewalk, Goldman took a step toward me, his fists clenched. I was tempted to kick him in the kneecap, but Hank Rosen was holding onto my sleeve. “Look, you guys, we got a deal. Don’t blow it.”

“I can’t work with this bastard,” he said.

Miss Gotti nodded vigorously.

“Moishe, relax,” Hank said coolly. “Bill will do the script. I’ll work with him. I’m sort of the go-between.”

“Good idea,” I said, glaring back at Goldman.

So that was the way we left, parting ill-naturedly in different directions on Sixth Avenue. Hank accompanied me for a couple of blocks while I went to retrieve my car in a parking lot nearby.

“Nice going,” he said. “You got what you wanted.”

“What about that creep Goldman?”

“Forget about him. Your job is to hand in a script that Elizabeth likes.”

“Is he gonna put in that dizzy blonde in the part of Maggie?”

“That’s none of your concern. You write it. He produces it. If he fucks it up, that’s his problem.”

“My name is on it.”

Hank smiled. “Aren’t you the lucky one, though. It’s a great credit, boy. You’re on your way to bigger and better things.”

“What if it stinks?’

“It doesn’t matter. Once you got a show on, you’re a pro. You don’t suppose ‘Cops in Love’ was any good, do you?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see it.”

“Neither did anyone else.”

What a sense of power! With a network like CBC behind me and old smoothie Hank Rosen in my corner, I felt I could fly. I was even flying around the office, passing Diana Payne-Pignatelli on my way to the typing pool with my script revisions, giving her big smirks and cheery greetings.

Around the house, I strutted like master of the domain until Annie told me one evening to get up off my ass and help wash the dishes. She, of all people, could exercise control over me, because despite my temporary euphoria, I never lost sight of the fact that whatever she said was usually right. I got up off my ass and helped wash the dishes.

In the evenings and on week-ends I worked on the adaptation, taking great pleasure in throwing out the first draught. Back to basics, recognizing that there would be segues into some kind of musical interludes. Goldman could work that out any way he wanted to. Harold, my hero, went back to being the same kind of opinionated, witty, brilliant, creative, brooding, slightly arrogant genius that I had originally envisioned. He would be elated at having won the competition to design a college campus (not just a dorm), at the same time as he would become increasingly humiliated that as he proceeded on the actual work and submitted preliminary designs he would be pressured to compromise his integrity by pandering to popular conventional taste. (A trustee committee, including the dumb son of a bitch down the street – whom I conceived of brilliantly as being on the board of trustees – would insist upon input and final approval). The finished design would be neo-gothic architecture, a rip-off from the college dorms at Yale and Harvard, instead of the soaring sheets of glass and metal suggesting birds in flight or pods of porpoises sporting in the sea that Harold had originally envisioned. Harold, (unlike me, sadly) was the kind of person who was too principled to accept the kind of capitulation required. Maybe there would come a time in my own life when I would write whatever I wanted to write, and the networks and dumb sons of bitches would come begging for me to favor them with my genius and inventiveness.

But, of course, there is always something to clog up the creative juices. Life does not move in a straight path to easy satisfying conclusions. (A little philosophy at this point to assuage my momentary angst). What I am saying is that poor Peter, despite the heroic efforts of Mrs. Bellingham, his tutor, was not doing any better in his class work.

Miss Crashaw, the dweeb school psychologist, called for another meeting, which as dutiful parents we were obliged to agree to. When we arrived at the appointed hour, she was sitting at her desk in the closet she occupied, very busy studying papers spread out on her desk. It took her a few minutes to look up as we stood in the doorway. When she finally raised her head, there was this look of smug self-satisfaction on her face, a kind of a smile under squinting eyes that accused us of being the incompetent fool parents that she had ascertained from our first meeting.

“Well,” she began. “Here we are again.”

Neither Annie nor I spoke.

She turned down to her papers. “Peter, I’m afraid, will not progress to the next grade this year.”

This was no surprise. Mrs. Bellingham had warned us as much.

“So,” she said, looking up at us again, with a bit of triumph. “What do you think?”

“We have been giving him private tutoring at home since our last meeting with you,” Annie replied.

“Oh? Well, that’s good.” She paused. “And any discipline added?”

“We’ve given him jobs to do around the house. He seems quite willing and conscientious about performing his duties,” Annie said.

Miss Crashaw nodded. “Good. Now, if we could only get him to pay attention in class –”

“Is that what it is?” I broke in.

“It seems to be. He sits and looks out the window a lot. Sometimes he draws pictures on the pages of his book. Which, incidentally, constitutes defacement of school property.”

“A free spirit,” I said. I was thinking of Harold in the adaptation. “Maybe he’s not ready yet to buckle down. I’ve heard that some children –”

“Unfortunately, there’s a norm that all children are expected to conform to,” Miss Crashaw interrupted peremptorily.

She was right, of course. I suppose that despite her unattractive manner, she was, after all, doing her job, trying her best. Still, her expertise was not necessarily applicable in every case. We were in a quandary over what to do about Pete, but one thing was certain in my mind. He was a good guy (Must have gotten that from his mother). Disciplinary punishment was not the answer.

“Have you thought of putting him in some kind of summer training camp?” Miss Crashaw asked. “They have camps, you know, where backward children are given special training.”

“I don’t think he’s backward exactly,” Annie put in.

Miss Crashaw simply smiled tolerantly.

“I think he could go to a camp,” I said.

“For backward children?” Annie asked in alarm.

Miss Crashaw shook her head. “Well, not necessarily backward. It was a concession to our feelings, I supposed. “A lot of children come from emotionally disturbed homes –”

“Whoa! Wait a minute,” I blurted out. “He doesn’t come from an emotionally disturbed home.” I could have leaped across the desk to strangle her, but on the other hand it might have proved her point.

“They do give such children special attention, I guess,” Annie said.

“Exactly.” She shuffled some more papers about on her desk, and I could see that she had come prepared. “I have the names of some camps here that you might want to look into.”

“Are they expensive?” I heard myself saying.

“Well, in some cases the state pays the tuition. In other cases – I suspect as in your case – it might be up to you to defray the expense.”

“Which is a lot,” I said.

“It would be worth it,” Annie said, giving me a look.

“With a lot of – of – emotionally disturbed kids.”

“They’re not all bad kids,” Miss Crashaw stated. In her mind we would forever be the emotionally disturbed parents of an emotionally disturbed kid who might, or might not be a bad kid.

“It’s what we used to call a reform school,” I mumbled bitterly.

Miss Crashaw was shaking her head. “Oh, no. Well –” She paused. “It would depend on what kind of camp you picked.” She shoved some of her brochures toward us. “They give a pretty good description of what’s offered in these.”

“Maybe just a camp to give him a change of location,” Annie said, picking up the brochures.

Miss Crashaw gave us that condescending smile again. “I think you might want to do more than that.”

“Well,” Annie said, her lips compressed tightly. “Perhaps.”

“It’s really very important,” Miss Crashaw said. “Particularly at this early stage. Maybe you can catch the problem in time.”

Annie was nodding. I knew she was heartsick, as I was myself. Still, maybe the dweeb could be right. A change of scene, a learning camp, might be the best thing we could do for Peter at this particular time in his life.

Weeks passed without a word regarding the house from Superior Court Judge Wolcott. Every time the phone rang, my tendency was to fear that the news would be bad. The judge would have ruled against the sale; Lydia Hollingshead would have died in the nursing home, and that shit cousin of hers would have inherited the estate (now that we had fixed it up). Attorney Birnbaum had paid for replacement of the upstairs bathroom pipes, at not an inconsiderable cost, I might add, and I had gotten up on a stepladder and scraped and repainted the ceiling in the dining room.

Then, one day Attorney Birnbaum did call with the news. Which was not all that good.

“The judge thinks the house should be put up for public auction,” Attorney Birnbaum informed me.

“An auction? What does that mean?”

“It means just what it says. The house goes on the block, and you can bid on it to buy it.”

“What if somebody offers eighty thousand!” I was whining, I could hear it in the tone of my own voice.

“Then, you offer eighty-five. Or move out.”

“Shit!” I mumbled.

“What’s that?” Attorney Birnbaum asked. I guess he wasn’t accustomed to profanity on the part of his clients. Though we weren’t really his clients. He was merely representing the interests of Mrs. Hollingshead, but since he wanted to sell the house, and we were the ones willing to buy it, we were, in a sense, being represented by him.

“I’m disappointed,” I said.

“Well, look at this way,” he went on. “Suppose you offer only 60 thousand, and nobody bids higher. You save yourself fifteen thousand dollars.”

Hope, like a sudden spike of flame from one of David Harris’s punky logs, suddenly leaped up. “Could that happen?”

“Well, nobody has ever made an offer before you and Mrs. Brock. I’d say start at sixty, and see what happens. You could always go a little higher.”

“And when does all this happen?”

“In three weeks,” Attorney Birnbaum answered.

Another period of stomach tension and indigestion.

“And where does it happen?”

“Why, right in front of the house.”

“There’ll be a gang out in front of the house and an auctioneer?” That sounded fairly ridiculous. “Do they get some guy in from the tobacco fields to yodel and bubble?”

“No. The court has appointed a local attorney. Maybe you know him. Gerry Farrell.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Well, he’s an old-timer. Been around a long time. The judge takes care of him. He drinks a little.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. You’re saying he’s a drunk.”

“I said he drinks a little. He’ll show up. If he can stand. He needs the money.”

“I’d prefer if you were the auctioneer,” I said.

“Can’t be. I’m the conservator. An interested party.”

“I should hope so.”

“Stop worrying,” he reassured me. “Maybe nobody will even show up.”

Well, if that was to be another hopeful moment, our feelings were quickly dampened when the next day a guy arrived at the house with a sign about the size of a roadside billboard.

It was somehow humiliating living in a house with that sign three feet back from the road in front of the white fence that I had repaired. One had the feeling of being a pauper about to be evicted. Every time the Colonel rode by on his steed, he managed to glance down at the placard from his saddle as if noting some bit of excrement that defaced the neighborhood. Well, I perhaps would have done the same thing, if I had owned a horse, and wasn’t afraid of. riding. It looked like a fire sale.

Worse than the sign was the fact that strangers began showing up to view the premises. That meant they could walk through the entire house, including our bedroom, where Annie, my beloved, who is the worst housekeeper in the continental United States. never bothered to make the bed until we were ready to climb into it at night. It was embarrassing perhaps, but certainly made the place look like a flea market. (Good). I kept following the prospects around volunteering that the house was a wreck, that the roof leaked, (which it didn’t, really) that there was only a dirt crawl space for a cellar. Only a fool would want to own the place. We were only there as renters until our mansion was completed. These folks rarely acknowledged my remarks, but did presume to ask certain pertinent questions, such as:

-- How much is the oil bill?

-- What do you pay for cooking gas?

-- How much is your electric bill?

Of course, I exaggerated all of the figures, raising them by about half until I got a call from Attorney Birnbaum warning me not to lie, as some of the prospective bidders had checked out my numbers with the various utilities, and they were prepared to issue a complaint to Judge Wolcott.

What were we to do? Well, we could bid on our own house, starting at sixty thousand, and hope that nobody would want the place. Attorney Birnbaum further advised that if our bid was accepted, we would be obliged to hand over to the court in loco a cashier’s check for $10,000 to be deposited in a trust account by Attorney Gerry Farrell.

“Can you handle that?” Attorney Birnbaum asked, sounding dubious.

“No problem, counselor.” Little did he know of our sudden recent cash windfall. “Sure. I’ll have a check in hand. In loco.”

“Well,” he said, not knowing what else to say. “Good luck.”

Oh, yes, good luck. The day of the auction arrived, a Saturday morning on a sunny June day. Auction bidders began showing up a half an hour before the auction, a rag-tag looking bunch of thugs who parked their mostly pick-up trucks on the grass in front of the fence, and then stood around throwing cigarette butts on my lawn. I made a point of retrieving them, then rather ostentatiously dropping them into a little paper bag. They got the message. After awhile, they field stripped their butts, shaking the dregs of tobacco into the street and putting the little wadded up rounds of paper into their pockets.

Sissy Sweatland was there, looking as though she had just lost in the final round of an important golf tournament. It seems she would be out of her commission now, since this was a public auction. Maybe she thought we would slip her a couple hundred for being a nice person. Maybe she was just being a good sport. Maybe, thinking ahead, she knew we might need a realtor some day, in case we decided to sell the place. Or in case we didn’t get it, and needed her services again. I recognized some of the faces of the folks who earlier had tramped through the house examining it. David Harris, of course, was there. We didn’t know what he would do, but it was doubtful if he would bid higher than our original seventy-five, because he had already had his chance and passed on it. He probably had as much money as we had had in our account before the sale of W.I.T.S.O.B.

At five minutes before the appointed hour Attorney Gerry Farrell pulled up in a ten-year-old Cadillac. You could hear him coming from a half mile away, because the wreck needed a new muffler and one rear wheel apparently was scraping against a dented fender. He parked on the grass behind some of the other vehicles. Farrell, looking like one of the bums in Brecht’s “Threepenny Opera”, slid out of the car, carrying a briefcase that it occurred to me probably concealed a bottle of Jamieson’s. He was about the same age as Attorney Birnbaum, his face much the worse for wear, however. He was red-cheeked, and with a full head of coal black hair looking as though it might have been colored with shoe polish. He was dressed in an oatmeal patterned wool suit that appeared to have been slept in, (very likely in the back seat of the road warrior), and a dingy white nylon shirt, one of those early models that they claimed you didn’t have to iron, which was turning yellow, and a necktie of an indistinct pattern that would hide egg droppings. Once he accustomed himself to where he was, he offered a somewhat embarrassed grin, nodding at last to Sissy Sweatland whom he apparently recognized. Opening his briefcase, he spread out a surveyor’s map on the hood of the car and also a copy of Judge Wolcott’s order. The briefcase he placed on the ground where presumably it would be the repository for whoever gave him a $10,000 cashier’s check.

“This is an auction,” he announced, looking over the faces of the assembled mob of about 25 persons.

He then read from the judge’s order, looking up again to ascertain if there was full understanding. There was a noticeable absence of any of our neighbors. For the most part the bidders were rather seedy looking types who were shopping for a junker, which they would go about fixing up (as if I hadn’t already done their work for them) and then sell it for a quick profit. Attorney Farrell finally announced that the auction was now open for bidding.

Annie and I looked around at the group, keeping mum. Nobody said a word.

“Sixty thousand,” I said at last.

One of the gas station attendants offered sixty-five.

“Seventy,” I snapped. I gave the bidder a cocky look as if to warn him that no matter how high he went, I was prepared to outbid him.

Annie and I looked around to see if there were any more smart-asses in the crowd.

“We have an offer of seventy-thousand on the table,” Attorney Farrell said, patting the hood of his Cadillac. “Anybody else want to bid?”

We waited breathlessly, but there was total silence, causing me in the next moment to wonder if the others knew more than I did, and that even at seventy thou we were getting screwed.

“Are you prepared to place a $10,000 binder on the property, sir?” Attorney Farrell asked formally, covering his mouth to stifle a belch.

“Yes, sir, we are,” I said, unfolding the cashier’s check that I had been holding in my hand, and presenting it to him.

“I guess that about winds it up then,” Attorney Farrell said, glancing down briefly to assure himself that the check was genuine. It was made out to the Superior Court where it would be deposited in a trust account, so I figured he wouldn’t be heading off to the bank and cashing it for a spree in the Bahamas. He gave a final look around at the group, some of whom were already leaving to get into their cars and trucks.

Attorney Farrell looked at Annie and me as the successful bidders, and offered a broad grin. “Done,” he said. He reached into his briefcase to retrieve some papers that we would have to sign.

I looked at Annie, and she looked back at me. We fell into each other’s arms. We held on tight for a moment, and I could feel her body, or possibly my own, or possibly both, shaking noticeably as I stroked her back.

I borrowed Attorney Farrell’s pen, and shook his hand. “We own the house,” I said, thinking that I would immediately order those persons still remaining to leave the premises immediately, with particular aim at David Harris who was sulking in the background. It occurred to me that I would permit him to continue to live in the shack at the bottom of the hill, provided he was prepared to pay $500,000 a month rent. In advance. No, just kidding. We would work out something reasonable.

“You don’t quite own it yet,” Attorney Farrell said, stuffing the papers into his briefcase. “Judge Wolcott now has to approve the sale.”

“Well, for Christ sake! – Excuse me. But hasn’t he already set the terms for the sale?”

“He has. But it’s a formality that he has to approve it in writing. Mrs. Hollingshead has to be informed. Even though she probably won’t know what I’m talking about.” Apparently he knew of her condition. “We’ll need her signature.” He smiled. “It’s just routine.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “How soon do you expect all this to happen?”

Attorney Farrell shrugged. “I’ll get the papers to the judge. Then, if he finds everything in order, he’ll sanction the sale.”

“So we can assume – for all practical purposes – that we’ve got the place,” I said.

“Oh, yes. For all practical purposes.” He paused. “I wouldn’t make any major renovations or anything, however, until the final closing is set.”

“Oh, no.” I shook my head vigorously. “Well, we’ve already done a lot of fixing up of the place.”

Attorney Farrell nodded congenially, and raised his somewhat bloodshot eyes for the first time to survey the house. “Yes. It looks very nice,” he said.