Deathbed

* * *

“Isn’t that Carroll Mitchell and his wife up ahead?” Valerie Walsh asked.

“Where? Oh, yeah, I think so.”

Bill “Red” Walsh was much better qualified than his wife to verify the presence of the Mitchells. A professional basketball player, at six-feet-eight he was sixteen inches taller than his wife—a petite and beautiful local actress.

The usher showed them to their seats near the rear of the main floor. There was a stir among nearby patrons. Some recognized Valerie. But from his size alone, not to mention the frequency of his appearances on the local sports pages, more people identified her husband.

Valerie paged through her program.

“Now, that’s a coincidence, isn’t it?” Walsh did not bother with a program. He was present only because his wife wanted his company. “I mean Mitchell’s being here just a few rows ahead of us. Aren’t you supposed to be in one of his plays soon?”

“New Hope.” She did not look up.

“Yeah, you did that one before, didn’t you?”

“Um-hmmm; a couple of years ago, when it first opened.”

“Was it that long ago . . . God!” Walsh squirmed, attempting to find comfort in a space definitely not meant for a large person. It was by no means an uncommon challenge. “Hey, isn’t that the guy you’re always talking about?”

“Who?” Valerie looked up.

“There . . . down front near the aisle . . . you know the guy.” Walsh seldom adverted to the fact that others’ sight-lines did not give them the same view that his aerie gave.

Finally, by half-standing, Valerie was able to spot him. “Groendal! Well, you’re wrong about one thing, Red. I don’t ‘always’ talk about the bastard. Only when I’ve been fouled and the referee refuses to call it”

“Gotcha!” And he did. “If he weren’t so old, I’d pop him for you.”

Valerie smiled. “That’s sweet of you, love. But it wouldn’t solve anything. He’d just come back needlessly hurting people twice as much as before . . . if that’s possible.”

“Well, we know you can’t get his attention by batting him around, eh? Any of you people ever think of putting out a contract on him?”

Valerie looked up, startled.

“Just kidding.”

“Well, I should hope so.”

“Seriously . . . he sure seems to be making life rough for a lot of nice people. I wonder how long he’s gonna go on doing that?”

She sighed. “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Ordinarily, we don’t get so worked up over criticism, even when it’s negative. After all, I’m in a field where everything is pretty much subjective. Either you like a person’s performance or you don’t. It’s not like you and basketball. There you can measure a performance by some pretty objective standards—points scored, percentages, assists, shots blocked, rebounds, things like that. With me, I can deliver my lines perfectly, make no mistakes in performance; the audience may love me . . . and still a critic can blast me just because he didn’t like what I did . . . or maybe just because he’s got something against me personally.”

“Yeah. There’s some sportswriters that are like that. No pleasing ’em.”

“Well, that’s the way it is, I guess. You’re right; there’s an element of subjective evaluation even in sports, I suppose . . . though not as much as in the arts. But a jerk like Ridley Groendal goes beyond that. He’s vindictive and mean. He’s the type of critic who needs to feel more significant than the artist he’s critiquing.” She paused. “You know, I didn’t think I could get more angry at him, or loathe him any more than I do. But his latest review of the Detroit Symphony really reached me. He even singled out Dave Palmer for individual blame.”

“That’s bad?”

“There’s really no way, from the vantage of the audience, to tell if one specific musician in the entire first violin section has made a mistake. God, even the conductor can’t do that! But Ridley C. Groendal can!

“He’s really got it in for Dave Palmer, along with just about everyone else, and he’s going to nail him every chance he gets. You watch: When he reviews tonight’s concert, odds are he’ll single out Palmer and blast him.”

“But from what you tell me, he does things like that all the time. How come this reached you?”

“I don’t know; I guess it was just the final straw. Anyway, I sent him a nasty letter.”

“Uh-oh. What’s that gonna do to your career?”

Valerie smiled briefly. “Honey, my ‘career’ is taking care of you and our kids. Oh, I know once upon a time, Groendal had a shot at my career and hit it dead center. He can’t hurt me anymore, much as he still tries. But I can reach him. I mean really reach him: scare the hell out of him.”

“You mean like old Scrooge in A Christmas Carol?”

“That’s the ticket. It’s about time somebody let that rotten creep know that, to some extent, we all live in glass houses. And some of us have some pretty big rocks to throw.”

“Uh-oh, there go the lights. The concert’s about to start.”

* * *

“Finally!” Harison said. “We’re about to get started. About time.”

“I can hardly wait.” Groendal’s voice dripped sarcasm.

Harison turned one final time to view the near-capacity audience. “Uh-oh! They’re just coming in now. In the balcony.”

“Who?”

“Charlie and Lil Hogan.”

“That piece of trash. He’d be better off staying home and working on a novel. Not that it would do any good. No matter what he tries, it’s still going to be a sow’s ear.”

* * *

“Hurry up! The lights are dimming; the concert’s about to start” Lil Hogan looked about frantically, trying to locate their seats.

“It’s all right,” Charlie assured her, “we’ve still got a couple of minutes.” He handed their stubs to an usherette, who led them down the aisle and indicated two empty seats toward the middle of the row.

“Excuse me,” Lil said repeatedly as she led the way around and past a series of legs. “Well, here we are,” she remarked as she sat down.

“Lil, you’re just going to have to get more organized. We can’t keep arriving places at the last minute. My heart won’t take the strain.” He was kidding and she knew it.

“Your heart’s okay, Charlie. And nobody knows that better than I. Unfortunately,” she nodded toward the main floor of the gradually darkening hall, “Ridley Groendal’s heart seems to be every bit as good as yours.”

“What’s that? Oh, my God, there he is!” Hogan hesitated in lowering himself into his seat. Directed by his wife’s gaze, he identified Groendal in the diminished light.

“He seems to have survived your letter,” Lil said.

“If truth be known, I don’t give a damn whether he survived or not. The thing is, I feel better. I’ve been keeping a whole bunch of things bottled up for so many years. It just felt good to get them off my chest. But I’m not done with that bastard yet.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I thought it was high time somebody told him off—for all the good it’ll do. I think he’s one of those people who are so nasty to the core that they can’t be reached.”

“There goes the curtain, Lil.”

“Right. Let’s enjoy the concert until we read Ridley C. Groendal and find out how lousy it was.”

“Damn!”