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“Well, I was doing pretty good the first fifteen minutes, but then the vertical hold on the set went kapooee, and I missed my entire arithmetic lesson for the day and half the geography, and then the Billy Kramer show went on, and I never miss the Billy Kramer show … so my lessons didn't go so well today”.

“Well we'll get the set fixed for tomorrow, so you can get a good day of lessons in. But I don't understand Billy Kramer in the middle of your lessons. Didn't Mother make you put your lessons back on?”

“Nah, but that's okay. Thursdays and Fridays are repeat days anyway. They put Monday's, Tuesday's and Wednesday's lessons off for those who missed them, so I'll see what I missed Thursday. You don't have to worry about the set being fixed though. Mom called the man to fix it already. Captain Smasheroo is on tonight. We couldn't miss that”.

“Yeah, that's right—Captain Smasheroo. Wouldn't want to miss that”, Frank said bewilderedly. He looked at his watch. “We'd better head back home if we want to catch the beginning of Captain Smasheroo”, he said, just to show the boy they had something in common.

As they walked along, Jim pointed toward the big elm tree that had been Frank's favorite haunt when he was a boy and had lived on this side of town.

“What is that, Daddy?” asked Jim.

“What is what?” asked Frank, looking ahead for what Jim was looking at.

“That”, said Jim, pointing straight ahead, down the street.

Frank looked, stared, strained, craned, moved his head from side to side, tried to focus on the same plane as Jim, but could see nothing.

“What, where, Jim? Show me what you want to know”, said Frank, pleased, feeling that, at last, he could get to a closer feeling with his son by being able to explain things for him.

“This”, said Jim, putting a pudgy finger on the trunk of the elm.

“This?” rasped Frank. His voice cracked with incredulity and surprise. He cleared his throat and asked again. “This?”

“Yes, this, this”, announced Jim, striking the bark with his pudgy finger again.

“Why this is, why this is … it's a tree … an elm tree”. Frank was speechless. Could it be the boy had never seen a tree before?

“Oh, I never saw one so big before. They're usually smaller than this, aren't they Daddy?”

“Why, no, Jim. They grow in all sizes”, said Frank, somewhat relieve at this answer to his unasked question.

“I never saw one this big … all the ones I saw were small”.

Frank wondered, but said nothing. As they walked as briskly as Jim could manage back to the house, Frank espied a long, wide verdant field; the same field upon which the bonds of closeness and friendship between he and his father were sealed during numerous ‘catches' with a football.

“Say”, said Frank, inspired. “How about, when Captain Smasheroo is over, we come over here with the football and have a catch. You still have that football I gave you for Christmas a couple of years ago, don't you?”

“Yeah, I have it, but I don't want to play football, Dad. There's the Pabst Beer Variety show on right after Captain Smasheroo”.

“Well, what the heck. I don't see you very often, and missing one program won't kill you, will it?”

“I don't play football anyway, Dad”.

“Why, what's the matter with football. Don't you like it?”

“Well, it's not that I don't like it”, said Jim. “I like to watch it, but I've never played it. I don't know how. I mean, I know how, but I just never have”.

“You've never played football?” asked Frank astonished. “Don't you ever go out with your friends and have a catch?”

“Well, I don't have too many friends in the block, anyway, Dad”.

“You've got to cultivate friends. You have to give and take. You just can't expect people to bow down to you, you know”.

“Yeah, I know”, said Jim. “But it's not that. It's just that, well, I hardly ever see anybody my own age. They don't go out much either. They don't go out and play ball, not very much, anyway. Once in a while they do, but I don't know any of them, and I don't feel like playing ball anyway”.

Frank scanned the ball-field, remembering his father throwing the ball to him, running … but Frank's dreams of renewing ties like that had just been crushed, beaten, out trendexed by electronics. He hunched his shoulders and kept walking.

“Dad”.

“What, Jim?”, said Frank without even turning.

“This is grass out here, isn't it? I mean, well, is grass always this color, or is it different colors? I never saw colored grass like this before”.

“You never saw colored grass before. What did you think it was, anyway?” asked Frank.

“I don't know. It's always dark grey on the television. We don't have a color set, so I never knew what color it was”.

“Well, grass is always green, all right”, Frank said in an exasperated way—“oh, oh”, Frank said to himself, “shouldn't lose my temper. Mary would be angry and Jim will get a complex”.

As it was, Jim was not walking with Frank any more. He was still standing in the spot on which he was when Frank issued those angry words. It seemed as if the first angry words Jim ever hear riveted him to the spot where he stood, head down, sulking …

“Oh, come on, Jim. I didn't mean it”, supplicated Frank as he walked back to where Jim was standing. “Captain Smasheroo will be going on in a few minutes. Let's hurry”.

Jim moved, not from love, not from love of Frank, that is, only a desire to see the Captain.

When they arrived home, Frank asked Mary to stand outside the television room.

“What is it, Frank, come on, Captain Smasheroo is going on now, and you know I promised Jim …”

“Mary, do you think that this television school that Jim watches is doing him any good? I mean—?

“Shh, don't say things like that so loud. What the matter with you? Of course it's doing him good. Didn't you see his report card. We got it in the mail yesterday”, whispered Mary.

“Yes, I know, but what's the matter with the boy?” Frank whispered back.

“Nothing, nothing at all is the matter with the boy! He's a perfectly healthy, normal boy. You didn't say anything like that to him, did you? I mean, even imply that there was something wrong with him?”

“No, or course not”, answered Frank.

“Well, good thing. You know what something like that could do to him”.

“Yes, I know, but I can't understand what's wrong with the boy. I mean, we were walking and he didn't even know what a tree was, or how to play catch, or even what color grass was. All he knows is television. When I was a boy I used to climb in the very tree he asked me about, and we had a football team, and … well, he, he …”

“Shh, be more quiet. Do you want Jim to hear you?” cautioned Mary.

“Well, he”, whispered Frank as quietly as he could, “he didn't even know what these things were when he encountered them in the street”.

“Frank, when you were a boy, things were different than they are now. You must understand—things have changed. Jim is a perfectly normal, modern young man”.

“Oh, come, will you. Don't you see, this watching television all the time and the catering to him isn't doing him any good. He's got to grow up sometime and face the world”.

“Don't expect too much too soon out of the boy”, whispered Mary. “After all, if you rush him, you may leave a scar on his unconscious for the rest of his life”.

“But, Mary, the boy didn't even know a tree”, said Frank, exasperated.

“That's all right, he will. Don't worry. If only you don't rush him. Believe me, Frank, I know. I'm his mother. And the doctor assured me, he's perfectly normal, so there's nothing to worry about”.

“Nothing to worry about? Perfectly normal? For Christ's sake, Mary”, shouted Frank at the top of his lungs, “that kid is eighteen years old!”

A GENTLEMEN'S WAGER

The blue-grey wisps of smoke curled upward, and then slowly drifted toward the window. They squirmed through the small opening at the top, which was left to assure the passage of fresh air into the office, and flew out over the interminable, eternal, huddling of the mortar subjects of the goddess New York. Large buildings, small buildings, dimly lit ones, neon emblazoned ones, all sat and huddled together for extra warmth, while without, the humans were walking faster to stay warm. Small spumes of steam emitted from their mouths as they rushed toward Broadway, or down to Rector Street, or over to Wall Street, or Greenwich Street.

“It'll probably be colder than all kinds of hell, on the island tonight”, said Frank, his shoulder against the window frame, watching the insect-sized people spuming steam and scampering into the innards of the silent building entrances far below.

“Don't let that worry you”, replied Jim, who was across the room, bending over the small cabinet bar that he had built into his office for convenience sake.

“C'mon, let me have that glass of yours, so I can freshen it. This damn bottle of scotch has been here almost a week … you want it to go sour?”

“You must wrap yourself in your money when you get home”, said Frank, chuckling, “that's why you're so much warmer than I am. You have so much more of it than I do”.

“Now come on, Frank. I know damn well you've been doing quite well yourself lately. Why, just yesterday, Henderson was telling me that that Helicon Mountain deal of yours made quite a nice bundle. You're not fooling me, Frank. You must keep pretty warm in that house of yours, too”.

“Sure, Helicon Mountain went fine”, said Frank, “but did you hear about the fiasco of that Quatrain Supply? I lost my shirt”.

“Let's not talk any more business now”, said Jim with a wave of his hand. “I'm pretty tired from all battling and trading today. Give me your glass, and let me get you another drink so we can just relax and not go on with all this nonsense”.

Frank handed Jim his glass. He remained at the window, looking across the room at the wide expanse of fine wool worsted that covered Jim's broad back. Jim … James A. Ackland to be sure, most successful of the securities traders in the neighborhood of Wall Street. “Why the hell should he worry about a little loss or gain, … he's worth millions to begin with. Just a drop in the bucket to him”, thought Frank, Francis R. Graham, to be sure, who was one of the most successful new-comers to the market.

Though it was never discussed broadly or openly, it was fairly common knowledge to those of the inner groups on the Street, that Jim had given Frank his start, had taken him into the fold when Frank began to invest, had guided him and helped him build up his holdings through loans and advice. Jim had done quite a lot for Frank, and yet, well, maybe that was the reason for the hidden vexation, the never voiced resentment that Frank hid deep within himself. Perhaps it was that Jim had been too helpful, that Frank was too much indebted to him, that caused him to what—resent Jim? Not openly, not boldly, for he still needed Jim—but quietly, covered over by a devotion, hidden by a desire to be near Jim, to be like Jim, to bask in the effulgence of success.

Frank wanted to be like Jim; look at the money that Jim had, that fabulous pile, compared to Frank's small nest egg, that was added to only by the diligent, constant, restless toil of his cunning brain, … while Jim merely had to breathe on or near a transaction, just suggest that he was interested in a property, and lo, the heavens and earth trembled and a pot of gold was ushered to his feet. The only effort necessary on Jim's part was to stoop over and pick it up.

Perhaps Frank envied Jim's power of … but hadn't it always been this way, even when they were in college?

“Say, Jim”, Frank said once when they were living in the same dorm. “I was wondering if you might be able to help me out. I've sort of goofed my date for the week-end and now I'm stuck. Do you think you might be able to help me out with a number I could call?”

“Sure thing, buddy boy”, said Jim. “Just let me get to my room and I'll see if I can hunt up a number for you”. And he did. Jim could always do anything, get anything, be anything he wanted, while Frank had to toil relentlessly, had to snivel and cringe while Jim merely had to breathe.

“Here you are, buddy boy, another drink to help keep you and your money warm?”, said Jim jokingly.

Frank took the drink, lifted it in salutation, and drank deeply, watching Jim out of the side of his eyes. Jim stood staring back at him.

“What are you staring at? Is there anything wrong?” asked Frank, lowering his glass.

“Hell, no. Just thinking of all the things that you and I have been through together, college, the war, then when you returned from the coast. It's been a long time that we've been together, hasn't it?”

“You're right. It has been a long time. And you've been damn good to me, damn good. And don't think I don't appreciate it. Why without you, I'd still be selling textiles. Yep, I owe everything I own, everything, to you and your help. I owe you plenty”, said Frank with narrowing eyes as he raised his drink again.

“Say, look at this paper”, said Jim, leaning with one hand on the conference table that dominated the side of his office, looking at the early edition of the Journal. Frank lowered his drink and moved to the table to see the paper.

There on the front page was the full length picture of an assassinated man shot down in the street the night before, assailant unknown. The detailed story leaped off the pages as Jim read, Frank listened, until he finished the article.

“This town is getting pretty bad”, said Jim, looking up from the printed page. “I tell you, it's almost as bad as Chicago in the Prohibition days. I'd be afraid to walk down a street in town at night, afraid I'd be mugged, or beaten, or even murdered”, said Jim.