Mulak Reader - The Cipher

I did this as a wedding present for a friend. The marriage has since gone south, but the story and it’s message lives on.

THE CIPHER

    What can it mean?  Each one as separate and distinct as flakes of snow that fall and then vanish into thin, thin air?

          As he came through the door, Paul noticed that the ceiling fan was stopped. It wasn't something that would have ordinarily caught his eye, but today he was making a small effort to record details for future memories.  Everything else seemed the same; the late afternoon crowd was noisy as ever, drowning out the TV and the piped in music.

          This was perhaps the only bar in the world where he was known by name, and several of the regulars waved as he made his way in. Rachael smiled and mouthed a silent "Hi Paul" as she passed with a tray of drinks. His usual place at the turn of the bar was occupied by a young couple. He sat at an empty table.

          The bartender had the phone cradled against his shoulder, washing tumblers as he spoke into the receiver. When he saw Paul, he signaled 'Come on down here' with a wave of his arm and hung up the phone. At Paul's approach he reached across the counter to shake his hand.  "I read about it this morning—What a lucky break for you."

          Paul liked Arnie, but 'lucky' was not the word he would have chosen, except maybe out of a hat. He nodded in reply, and the bartender turned to the couple seated at the turn. "This is Mister Paul Brant—You know, 'Television voice of the Giants'."

          "Really?"  They were unsure if they were being put on.

          "Yes, that's me." Paul smiled the smile he used in such situations. "Not for much longer, though."

          "Sure—That the voice. Excellent!" The fellow was surprised, then insisted on shaking Paul's hand. He and his girlfriend were impressed. Paul often wished that no one, including himself, was ever impressed.

          "You're in his seat." Arnie automatically began moving the couple's drinks.

          "No no. Stay right there." Paul waved his hands. "I just stopped in to talk to Arnie for a minute." He turned to the bartender, "For a change, let me buy you one..."

          Arnie shook his head. "You can't buy a drink today." He turned to the couple again.  "Did you see the Chronicle? Paul is moving up to the big time: ESPN hired him."

          It surprised Paul to hear this, not because Arnie announced it out loud, but because it was true. He still hadn't quite gotten used to the fact.

          The fellow leaned in front of his girlfriend. "That's an excellent break for you, huh? Really, I thought the job you did for the Giants was really excellent." He used the word as if he himself had invented it just recently. "I hope you're going to put some humor into those 'Game-of-the-week' broadcasts like you do with the Giants—You know, be somebody like Garigiolla or Uker—They're excellent."

          "I'm going to give it my best shot." Paul said. But in listening to his own words, he sounded like someone trying to convince himself of something.  While he had never gone overboard to define himself in someone else's terms, Mr. Excellent had touched on an enigma—one that had troubled Paul from the very beginning of his negotiations with the network: Just who exactly is Paul Brant? He had trouble with the question, since he wasn't sure he knew himself.

          "Salutè." The bartender raised one of the two shot glasses he had poured in front of Paul. "You've been a good customer and a better friend: All the best, Paulie." This was an occasion: Arnie seldom drank behind the bar.

          "You make it sound like I'm never going to see you again, Arnie." Paul touched his glass to the bartender's. "Salutè."

          Arnie shook his head. He was not saying no, but rather, refusing to answer the accusation. Instead, he poured another pair of shooters. With his drink midway to its destination, the bartender paused: "You know what I've been thinking?" There was a silence that was just a bit longer than it needed to be before he pronounced, "Cossell."

          Paul laughed, but there was a false heartiness about it that betrayed his uneasiness. Arnie continued to look at him quite directly, his glass still suspended at an arm's length.

          At length Paul said, "I liked Howard, too." meaning Cossell. "His trouble was that he seems to constantly confuse serious with solemn—Especially when it came to himself."

          "Oh, he was a jerk. No doubt about that." Arnie tilted back the glass, and set it back on the bar like a gavel being brought down, confirming Cossell's jerkhood. "But in a world of sportscasters who seem determined to prove a man can make a living with nothing more than a sixth grade vocabulary, Cossell was articulate."

          "Verbose was more like it."

          "That too. You didn't have to love his work, but you at least had to root for the guy." There were times when, in his own bartenders' style, Arnie could be elegantly rational.

          "So you want me to turn into the new Howard Cossell?" Paul had a way of laughing as he spoke. This time it sounded more natural.

          "Nothing like that, Paulie.  But you've been a lot like Cossell in that respect: You're articulate. People don't realize it, but that's why they like you." He paused as he glanced up and down the bar, then added, "I just don't want you to turn into another network stiff when you get to the east coast."  Arnie pointed a finger at Paul as he spoke, then started down the bar toward other customers.

          Paul caught his own reflection across the bar. He saw a man pondering a problem. For the second time in as many conversations, someone had spoken his thoughts. Arnie's point made sense, but Paul had been hoping he would say something else. He studied his glass, preferring that to the serious image across from him.

          "Hey, sportscaster." Gene startled him when he clapped him on the shoulder. "I hear there's an opening in the TV booth at Candlestick. I think I'll apply."

          "What the hell, they paid me, didn't they?" Paul was equally insincere, and kept a straight face as he answered. "Go ahead.  I figure anyone can do it."

          Gene stuck his hand out, then clapped his left over the handshake.  "Congrats, guy. This is great. Let's see if I can flag down Arnie and I'll buy you one." Gene's appearance in the bar shortly after five had the inevitability found in a pop-up's fall back to earth, and was one of the reasons Paul had stopped in just now. Outside the bar, Paul wasn't sure if he would know the man, but Gene had become a friend and confidant during the past few years.

          Fifteen minutes later, as their conversation was ending, there was a change in Gene's tone. "You know, I've been a fan of yours all along, Pablo.  But you get onto national TV, I was thinking that you should do more with the fact that you used to be a player—You know, like Joe Morgan or Bench or Tim McCarver or Whats-his-face, the guy in the underwear ads."

          "Jim Palmer."

          "Yea, Palmer. They've got all the insights into the game from the player's point of view, and, what the hell, you've been there, too." Gene, when he was trying to speak in structured sentences, made motions with his hands that held meaning only to him.

          Paul shook his head. "Those players you mentioned were bona fide stars—Hall-of-famers, even. They've got credentials. Does anyone think two seasons as a reserve outfielder qualifies me to pretend I know what's going on?"

          Gene took the rhetorical question for a real one. "Damn right.” He said.  “You're ever bit as good as Morgan or anybody else when it comes to what's on a player's mind, and a lot smoother, too. The times you talked about your experiences in pro ball were the times you were most believable."

          Arnie had joined them, and on the other side of the bar his "Ah-hu" of agreement was more hummed than spoken.

          Paul listened again to his own thoughts: Become another Joe Morgan? It was a compliment, sort of. Most ex-jocks did an accurate job, but the fact that something is accurate doesn't necessarily make it good. All of which brought him back to the question he had been mulling over for the past few days: Who is Paul Brant, sportscaster?

          Paul said his goodbys and turned to go. Half way to the door Rachael hurried by. "Don't leave yet." she said.

          He sat at a table and waited for her, and allowed himself to remember the time he had carried a pretty lady in high heels over a mud puddle, and when he had played Pac Man in an arcade to an appreciative audience of one. And mornings on Buchanan street that stretched into early afternoons.  He wished he had loved her in much the same way as you might wish you could play the piano. But he never could.

          "A penny for your thoughts, stranger." She slid into the chair next to him.

          "Save your money for something really important." Paul grinned, and Rachael smiled back at him and took his hand. That was a question she had asked him before, and the same answer he had said then.

          "I'm so happy for you, Paul. What great news—It was even on the front page of the Chronicle.  Really—Congratulations. Everybody's been talking—Not just Arnie and the bar regulars, but I even hear about you from people who never knew about us." Impulsively, she kissed him on the cheek.

          He looked at her hand holding his own. "You might be the only person in the world who knows what this means to me."

          She lifted her palms, not quite an answer.

          "What's the matter?"

          She hesitated. "It's none of my business, really—not any more. But all this advice people seem to want to give you: Who you should be like, what new things you should do, how you should change." She shrugged eloquently. "You shouldn't listen to any of it."

          Paul nodded slowly.

          "I can't understand why you would want to be a second rate Bob Uker or Howard Cossell or Joe Morgan when you can be Paul Brant. I always thought you were an original, and you've never yet given anyone reason to think otherwise."

          The fundamental truth of her sentiment went through him like silence through space. He sat for a long moment without saying anything. Then, as she had done before, Rachael smiled and slipped away.

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