Soft Targets

'Well, my logo will peer out at the world from Charlie's backdrop like a malediction. I really ought to sign it. Behold, a very proper Charlie!' With this fanfare, Dahl D'Este spun the sketch pad around and awaited reactions.

Everett was thankful that he did not need to surrogate approval. The sketch was, somehow, the face of Charlie George as an enraged Goya might have seen him. Yet the surface similarity was unimportant. Splashed across the paper in hard sunlight was a stylized symbol of repel­lence. The head and shoulders of a vicious imbe­ cile faced them as it would glare out at untold millions of viewers. The face was vacuously grinning, and gripped a fuzed stick of dynamite in its teeth. The fuze was short, and it was lit. In redundant arrogance, just exactly enough out of scale as though reaching toward the viewer, was a time-dishonored gesture: the stink-finger sa­lute.

Laughter welled up from the group and gey­sered. Althouse raised his beer in obeisance.

'Ah,—about the monodigital scorn, Dahl,' Charlie wavered, darting a look at Everett.

Althouse held his hands open, cradling an invisible medicine ball. 'C'mon, Charlie, it's perfect.' He too risked a sidelong glance at the FCC Commissioner. 'And for its public use, our precedent was a recent vice-president.'

D'Este: 'Of which net?'

'Of the United bloody States,' cried Althouse in mock exasperation. 'And Rockefellers built Radio City. Yes it's naughty, and yes it's safe!^'

'I'm inclined to agree,' said Everett, 'if it's done by a questionable character for a crucial effect. Chevy Chase, ah, had a finger in that deci­sion.'

D'Este leaned the sketch against the solar panels. 'A proper Charlie,' he repeated, then looked up quickly. 'Did you know that British slang for a total loser is a veddy propah Chahlie?'

'Poor Dahl,' sighed Althouse. 'Did you know that we picked the name `Charlie George' in 1975 because semantic differential surveys told me they were the outstanding loser names in the English-speaking world? Bertie is good, 0llie is better; but Charlie George is the people's choice.'

'Thanks for nothing,' Everett chortled. 'I always wondered why citizens band jargon for the FCC was `Uncle Charlie'.' Althouse affected surprise, but not chagrin.

Charlie looked back into the middle-distance of his past. 'I wasn't too keen to change my name from Byron Krause to Charlie George,' he re­flected, 'until I thought about that poem.'

Althouse saw curiosity in Everett's face and broke in. 'I tacked up my doggerel on a sound-stage bulletin board, and Charlie saw people react, and bingo: Charlie George.' He squinted into the sun as though studying some sky-written stanza, then recited.

'Heroes all have lovely names,

Like Vance, or Mantz, or Lance—or James;

But authors elevate my gorge

By naming losers Charles—or George.

There's no suspense on the late, late show:

Big deal the bad guy's Chas., or Geo.

Goof-offs, goons, schliemiels and schmucks:

Georgies every one, or Chucks.

Since the days of big Jim Farley,

Fiction's fiends have been George and Charlie.

No wonder heroes all seem crass

To any guy named Geo. or Chas.

I think I'll change my name, by golly!

My last name's George. The nickname's Cholly.'

Everett grinned around his swig of beer, but: 'Obviously some of your earliest work,' D'Este purred.

'Point is, Dahl, it fitted the image I was after,' the comedian insisted. 'And it's been good to me. Your logo is great, by the way; it is a proper charlie.' He paused. 'I want you to release it to the public domain.'

The ensuing moment held a silence so deep, Everett's ear hurt. D'Este broke it with a stran­gled, 'Just—give it away? Like some—amateur? No—' and there was horror in his hushed, '—residuals?'

'Oh, I'll pay, Dahl; don't I always? But I want the thing available with no restrictions, for any medium anywhere, anytime. PBS. Mad Mag­azine. The National Enquirer maybe.'

'Madness. Madness,' D'Este said again, aghast, his normal hyperbole unequal to this task. He reached for a beer.

When Rhone Althouse spoke again it was in almost fatherly tones. 'I'm afraid you haven't been listening very closely, Dahl. It's no accident that Charlie and I are planning to spring this idea in different networks. Charlie's the rudder of several steering committees where the power is in some veepee. I have a little leverage in ABC and with any positive audience response we can slowly escalate the trend. IF there's no problem in, uh, certain quarters.' He raised an eyebrow toward Everett.

Everett traced a pattern on the label of his beer bottle, thinking aloud. 'There shouldn't be any serious objection from us,' he began. 'It's in the public interest to pit media against terrorism—and if you find yourselves in jeopardy it won't be from the Commission.' He could not keep an edge out of his voice. 'Personally I think you've waited too goddam long already.'

'They nearly bagged an FCC man, you mean,' Charlie prodded.

'No. Yes! That too. I can't deny personal feel­ings; but I was thinking of ENG people from three networks, casually hashed like ants under a heel. That's why network execs care. That's why your iron is hot. But so far I don't hear evidence of any broad scope in your plans.'

The comedian bit off an angry reply and Everett realized, too late, that he teetered on the brink of a lecture that none of them needed. Charlie and Althouse had broached the idea months earlier, looking for outside support that he represented. This group comprised, not prob­lem, but solution.

Althouse rubbed his jaw to hide a twitch in it. 'You came in late,' he said softly. 'You didn't hear us planning to expand this thing into news and commentary. If you've ever tried to apply a little torque to a network commentator, you know it's like trying to evict a moray by hand. I think morning news and editorializing are a good place to start; more folksy.'

'Start what? Boil it down to essentials.'

'It boils down to two points: we turn every act of terrorism into a joke at the terrorist's expense; and we absolutely must refuse, ever again, to do a straight report on their motives in connection with an act of terrorism.'

Everett sat rigidly upright at the last phrases, ignoring the pain in his side. 'Good God, Althouse, that really is censorship!'

'De facto, yes; I won't duck that one. But legally it's a case of each network freely choosing to go along with a policy in the public interest. Wartime restrictions beyond what the gov­ernment demands are a precedent, if we need one. When countries go to war, their media gen­erally follow that model. Why can't a medium go to war on its own?

'American television has already seen its Pearl Harbor in Pueblo, Mr. Everett. It just hasn^'t declared war yet. And the National Association of Broadcasters could publish guidelines for independent stations. The NAB is an ideal go-between.'

The issue lay open between them now like a doubly discovered chess game. Everett saw in Althouse a formidable player who had studied his moves and his opponent. 'It's unworkable,' Everett said. 'What'll you do when some Quebec separatist gang tortures a prime minister? Sit on the news?'

'Of course not, if it's a legitimate story. The medium can give coverage to the event, sympathetic to the victims—but we must deride the gang as a bunch of charlies, and refuse to adver­tise their motives in connection with an atroc­ity.”

'While you let newspapers scoop you on those details?'

'Probably—until they get an attack of conscience.'

Everett's snort implied the extravagance of that notion. 'A couple of Southern Cal people did in-depth surveys that suggest there's no 'probably' to it, Althouse. Editors will print assassination attempts as front-page stuff even if they know it brings out more assassinations. They admit it.'

'Hey; the Allen-Piland study,' Althouse breathed, new respect in his face. 'You get around.'

'I've been known to read hard research,' Everett replied.