Q & A Read online

  Q:

  This was more than the

  arrangement called for?

  A:

  Yes, sir. Mister Greenmarch told me

  he was giving me a bonus, as he put it,

  because of my great histrionics.2*

  CONTROL

  —Camera Two Camera Three split screen, let’s see ’em sweating now, fellas, show me their pores—

  “Gentlemen, I caution you not to divulge your scores. Your booths are both on the air and you can hear each other. We’re at the end of the second round and neither of you has reached twenty-one points. You both get a chance to stop the game right here and now, and if one of you stops, whoever has the high score at this point will win. You’ll win at five hundred dollars a point for the difference in your scores, but I caution you, don’t stop the game unless you think you have the high score. I’m going to turn your booths off, give you time to think about it, and I’ll tell you when your time is up.”

  The studio orchestra plays, a brooding ascendant vignette.

  The frame is split with the players in closeup side by side, sodden with sweat, gray faces wracked.

  —Stay on Winfeld Camera Three don’t let’m out of frame Jesus-H the guy’s jittery isn’t he—

  COMMENTATORS

  “The living rooms were hushed, bluish from the little cube that looked very cold—its pictures were malignant and toneless—but was warm to the touch like any working machine. We all clustered around the cube, silent, intent, solitary—unlike ourselves.”

  KENYON

  Mom and Dad do not, of course, own a television set. To know they aren’t watching is in one sense a relief. In another way, though, it adds to Kenyon’s surprising loneliness.

  Loneliness? With five, ten million watching?

  In fact he can’t know how many, and it wouldn’t help to know. How does one hug a million people, let alone ten times that number? To be watched in this way is to lose all agency.

  Q:

  When the world and its machines

  are so busy creating you, how

  are you supposed to create yourself?

  A:

  Create yourself? Sounds like

  a whole lotta trouble.

  Let’s go for a ride. Now relax …

  A terrible feeling, to realize this medium itself might broadcast a person you barely resemble. There’s a black hollow in the pit of Kenny’s stomach. It came upon him unawares but is finally unmistakable—the feeling exactly of nauseating homesickness. The Klieg lights are no help, god knows. The glare on the glass. The applause, he must admit, is pleasurable. It puts a body in a glowing state: you can almost believe they love you—but even that is just a layer, a kind of lotion. The smallness of the booth, and being shrunken down that way—to a picture on a screen—some part of you knows, even while some good feelings wash over you, that you can’t be any more alone. Even George, who does own a small television, is not watching. And what is Kenny doing out here, so far beyond the edges of the values the Saint Claires embody? All the lights are on and powered to full brilliance. The books on his shelf, though, on his father’s shelves, are closed. He’s doing his best to keep his mind on the money. He’s told his parents, “I could win a couple hundred dollars.” They took this as pleasant news, amusing enough, worthy of their good wishes. At least eight thousand, though, is what Lacky had said when they signed the contract. Possibly much more. But how do you tell your parents such a thing?

  CONTROL

  “I’ll stop,” says Sid Winfeld, squat, gray, and bespectacled in his booth.

  —Camera Two Camera Three hold the split—

  “Sid Winfeld, I have news for you. This time you don’t win—now don’t get excited, you don’t lose either. At seventeen points you are tied with Mister Saint Claire and we have to play another game. As I’m sure you both know, this second game will be at one thousand dollars a point, which means that in the next few minutes one of you could win as much as twenty-one thousand dollars.”

  —Hold the split—

  “Conversely—I don’t mean to scare you here—you could lose twenty-one thousand. There’s a lot of money at stake right now, gentlemen.”

  —Ready Camera One—

  “So what do you say we just sorta slow down, and we’ll start the new game in just a moment. All right?”

  —Camera One—

  Close on Fred Mint’s face as he takes a deep breath.

  “I’m telling them to slow down. I’ll have to slow down myself. Whew! You know, this slow down is a word that’s very much in vogue now, cause a lot of you have been slowing down without even thinking about it. That’s because you don’t have much vitality left. It’s a problem that faces many this time of year, feeling tired and run down, especially after a cold, flu, or sore throat or virus.”

  —Ready title—

  “Well, your trouble may be due to what the doctors call iron deficiency anemia—boy, there’s a mouthful to slow you down. We call it by the simple term of tired blood.”

  —Title up. Good, oh that’s lovely fellas—

  “I have a wonderful suggestion as always. Take Geritol. In just twenty-four hours Geritol iron is in your bloodstream carrying strength and energy to every part of your body.”

  KENYON

  The questions Kenyon missed he went and looked up on his own—like the Churchill question coming at the end of this round, the nine-pointer in which he’s to say I’ll go all the way, Fred, I’ll try for nine.

  First, of course, comes Fashions. I don’t know anything about fashions. Can I take three points? Answer: Nylon. That one hadn’t stumped him. Then will come the first nine-pointer, category Founding Fathers, about the Massachusetts man who said “taxation without representation is tyranny.” He’d known it was one of two people but couldn’t remember whom, Daniel Delaney or James Otis. It was Otis, though he’d said Delaney.

  Say it just like that, Lacky told him. Say, hmm, it’s either Daniel Delaney or James Otis.

  So, Otis for nine points, which will carry him to twelve. Then the Churchill question and I’ll go all the way, Fred.

  Ding! goes the bell.

  “The category is Churchill. How many points do you want?”

  “Do you mean Winston Churchill?”

  “Let me look and see myself. I assume it’s Winston Churchill. Yes it is.”

  “I’ll go all the way, Fred. I’ll try for nine.”

  “Nine points, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Kenyon Saint Claire, if you answer correctly you will have twenty-one, but you’ll still have to wait while we give Sid Winfeld his chance to answer. Because we are at a crucial moment here, let me ask you again, you wanted nine points, is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then here is your question, for nine points. Winston Churchill wrote a series of six brilliant books chronicling the events leading up to and including World War Two. I want you to name any three of them. Because you are trying for twenty-one, you’re allowed a little extra time to think about it. I’ll let you know when your time is up.”

  The studio orchestra plays. In the earphones the three-tone melody is a wheezy blare, mounting forebodingly through its octaves.

  Kenyon moves his lips, furrows his brow, rubs his chin. He’s sweating everywhere, with another round still to go. You’ll tie at twenty-one in the second, said Lacky. The third, you’ll get the same score and win.

  “Kenyon, your time is up. For your nine points, which would give you twenty-one, name any three of the six brilliant books I mentioned a moment ago.”

  “One of them, I think the first one, is The Gathering Storm.”

  “That is one.”

  “Another is The Grand Alliance.”

  “That’s two. You need one more to give y
ou twenty-one points.”

  Turn your head a little aside. Murmur. “I’ve seen the ad for those books a thousand times. I can’t have any more time, huh? Oh, I have it. Triumph and Tragedy.”

  “That’s right, and you have twenty-one!”

  Applause like a refreshing splash, the pressure so beautifully let off, the audience so thankful.

  “Now, Mister Saint Claire, you have the twenty-one points needed to win, but of course Sid Winfeld still has one chance to answer and we’ll see what happens. I’m going to allow you to listen in because you’ve got twenty-one, but please do not say anything, OK?”

  Click.

  “Sid Winfeld, you have eleven points. The category is Churchill. How many points do you want to try for?”

  SIDNEY

  Sidney can already hear him breathing over there. Mr. Professor listening in, which means he’s at twenty-one. They think Sidney doesn’t know!

  “I’ll try ten,” he tells Fred Mint.

  And now the big reveal, which he’s supposed to look surprised, Mint saying, “I can tell you now that your opponent has already scored twenty-one. If you answer this question correctly we’ll have another tie. If you miss you’ll be back down to one point with a difference of twenty points in your scores, meaning that at one thousand dollars a point you’ll lose twenty thousand dollars. Remember now, there’s a lot at stake and take your time. Here’s your question for ten points. Prior to his election to Parliament in 1900, Winston Churchill was with the British Army in three foreign countries. Name them. Do you want some extra time to think about it, Sid?”

  He knows the television picture is split to a two-shot now: himself and Mr. Saint Somebody side by side in closeup.

  “No thank you, Mister Mint, I have the answers.”

  They think he didn’t know Selman fucking Waxman already? No hems and haws now, he’ll run right through these Churchills and Mr. Professor can go right on and listen.

  “South Africa in the Boer War,” says Sidney.

  “That’s one.”

  “India.”

  “That’s two. One more left for twenty-one.”

  “Sudan.”

  “That’s right, and we have another tie at twenty-one!”

  But in the ensuing applause Sidney doesn’t even grin.

  LIVING ROOM

  And now the third game, for fifteen-hundred a point.

  Constrained in the oval of the TV screen, drained of color but glistening silver with sweat in that field of gray, each player remains in his booth, earphones on, listening, or not listening, as the master of ceremonies flips the switch to mute him or let him speak.

  Ever so slightly the picture wobbles, each figure striated and wavy at the edges, the shadowy areas very black. Oh, but how white and cleansing is the light. How rapturous the transmission. What wattage must they use to bring the faces forward from the dark?

  The first question is for Mr. Saint Claire, tall, dapper, and dignified in his booth. Is there anything he does not know? Sid Winfeld must hope there is, for he stands to lose more than thirty thousand.

  Ding! goes the bell.

  “The category is Queens. For fifteen hundred dollars a point, Mister Saint Claire, how many do you want?”

  “Do you mean mythical queens or real queens?”

  “Well, goodness, I’ll have to look. I think these were real queens. Yes they were.”

  “Eleven. I’ll go for eleven points.”

  “All the way, the most difficult question. Here it is. The wife of King Ahab was a cruel and willful woman. She favored the idolatrous worship of Baal and persecuted the prophets of Jehovah. What was her name and what country did she rule?”

  Always when Fred Mint reads a question an extra zone of silence surrounds his voice, a tight breathless silence you can almost see on the screen. The man in the booth and the whole world listening.

  “You say the wife of Ahab?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  He looks uncertain, Kenyon Saint Claire. His brow is all furrowed and the sweat around his eyes suggests tears. He seems so vulnerable. He just might miss this one. He moves his head around in thought and you can hear the little clang of his earphone cord against the microphone. The closeup is cruel, all but cannibalistic.

  “Mister Saint Claire, I’ll have to ask for your answer.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to guess.”

  His wide mouth looks stretched, the strain of worry. Give the poor guy a smoke.

  “The only person I can think of … could it be Jezebel?”

  “It could be, you are correct! And one more part—what country did she rule? I’ll have to ask you to answer more quickly now.”

  “That must be Palestine.”

  “You are right, and you have eleven points!”

  They let you hear the audience applause, but it’s not like The Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Question—on this program you never see all the people clapping, their amazed faces.

  “Sid Winfeld, for fifteen hundred dollars a point, the category is Queens. How many points do you want?”

  “I’ll try ten.”

  Winfeld, so tense-looking, so out of sorts, his hair sticking up or his voice all wrong, nevertheless always seems sure of himself.

  “For ten points. Placed on the throne unwillingly, this girl ruled England for nine days before she was imprisoned and killed by the government of the Queen who succeeded her. What was her name, and who was the Queen who followed her to the throne?”

  What must the one or two-point questions be like? Nobody ever asks for those.

  “Her name was Lady Jane Gray.”

  “Right.”

  “And she was killed…”

  “All we need is, Who was the Queen who followed her?”

  “She was succeeded by Mary Tudor.”

  “Queen Mary. You are right. That gets you ten points!”

  Applause, and Sid Winfeld, not quite smiling, nods with closed eyes.

  SIDNEY

  Click: the applause is gone and Mint turns to the other booth.

  Queen Mary, they’d told Sidney to say. As if he didn’t already know she was a goddamn Tudor.

  He’ll take eleven points on the next, finish off at twenty-one, which one question left means Professor over there is getting twenty-one right this minute to set up the third tie. Because of course Saint Kenny isn’t going anywhere, no, it’s all laid out so nice, and Greenmarch sure loves these tie games, a fetish like.

  Off-camera, boiling away, mopping his neck and mouth and brow, Sidney awaits his eleven-pointer. How good to get another one right, no matter what’s coming next week. Hasn’t he had a helluva run anyway, and he’ll make sure to get his money, and there’ll be future appearances of one kind and another—TV ain’t done with Sidney Winfeld and his encyclopedia brain. A champ like you, Greenmarch told him, you won’t just disappear. We’ll need you occasionally at least, if not regularly.

  Eighty grand in winnings all told, the most money ever won on TV. Even if Sidney’s net take is a different number entire, well, to win all that on the air where anybody can see, that’s a helluva run. And naturally it far exceeds sixty-four thousand.

  “Sid Winfeld, you have ten points. The category is Opera. How many points do you want to try for?”

  “Eleven.”

  “You want to go for twenty-one. Then I can tell you now that your opponent—it’s the same thing that happened before—your opponent has twenty-one points.”

  Sure enough, he’s listening in again from that booth next door. Might as well say, Hi there, Kenny, you think I don’t know opera? Get a loada this.

  “Now Sid, I caution you to take your time and answer carefully. If you should miss you’ll be back down to zero and your opponent at twenty-one points with fifteen h
undred dollars a point will win somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-two thousand dollars, which will be deducted from your sixty-nine thousand five hundred. So be very careful.”

  Should’ve been a banker, that Fred Mint. Spends half of every show crunching numbers, hanging dollar signs on every little comment. If they’d just stick to the questions Sidney could really show them.

  “Here is the question, Sid—and you can have extra time if you need it. I want you first to listen to this aria.”

  In his earphones now: the music, a woman’s up-pitched voice, but Sidney’s not hearing it. What he’s hearing already, beyond the fizz and crackle of the tape, is his answer. Now the music stops and Mint’s voice cuts in.

  “Sid, for eleven points I want you first to tell me the name of the aria. Second, the name of the opera. Third, who wrote it. And fourth, the name of the character in the opera who sings it. Would you like extra time to think about this? I’ll tell you when your time is up.”

  Cue the studio orchestra, which the music always goes doom doom doom, up and up, like something copped from a Hitchcock movie. Sidney does his concentration act. Then Mint’s voice is back.

  “For your eleven-point question, which could either make or break you on this, Sid Winfeld, first give me the name of the aria.”

  “I’d like to try the opera’s name first.”

  A nice twist, which those producers, Sidney’s got to admit, they know their show business.

  “Right, give me the opera’s name.”

  “The name of the opera is Rigoletto.”

  “Right. Now the composer’s name.”

  “Guiseppe Verdi.” Sidney says it correctly even though Greenmarch told him to pronounce it like Guy-seep-ee. They want it like everything Sidney knows comes from a book and he mispronounces because he’s not properly educated. Oh, and that humiliating spiel last week where they made him say on air about missing the answer on gothic architecture the week before, Well Mister Mint, I went home and I checked my encyclopedia and found out that gothic architecture originated at the Abbey of Saint Denis—“Saint Dennis”—outside of Paris in 1144. Up until then I was sure it was Germany.

  “Verdi is right,” says Mint. “And the name of the character who sings the aria?”