And now, another tale well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
Not many of us rob banks, or traffic with the supernatural, or commit murder.
Yet most of us play our part in one of the most suspenseful dramas man can experience.
The birth of a baby.
That's what our story's about.
That and the Hollywood freeway, that swift and terrifying facility built by a man not for the convenience of men,
but for the convenience of machines.
It's the most heavily traveled road in the world.
It knows death intimately, almost daily.
In a moment, Ivy's a lovely name for a girl by Sam Pierce.
Hello, this is Gary Moore with a parable for you.
This isn't going to be one of those shaggy parables of yours, like the celebrated Blue New, is it Gary?
There would I make you no promises.
Well, we'll keep our fingers crossed.
Well, here it goes.
Once there was a hummingbird named Martha.
Her mate, Sammy, had been worrying about feathering their nest, and he said as much.
Martha, he asked an attired chirp, how are we going to go about feathering our nest?
Martha, a wise hummingbird, she hummed, let's use feathers.
Uh, Gary.
This isn't such a good idea for people, besides the tickles.
The best idea is to feather your nest by systematic saving in improved higher interest earnings, United States savings bonds.
Buy them through the payroll savings plan or the bond a month plan, and you'll like what happens to your money.
Friends, sound advice from the proprietor of the Gary Moore radio show, weekdays on CBS radio.
No need to mention that, Derwin.
Oh, no?
It wasn't as though this was our first baby.
Robbie was eight, going on nine.
It was just that Linda was out of practice, and it made her jumpy.
We'd planned this thing like Eisenhower planned the Normandy landing, and yet every hour on the hour, Linda wanted to run down the checklist.
She wasn't so pretty, and if I didn't love her so much, I might have gotten a little annoyed, as it was.
Well, a little understanding never hurt anyone.
I know it's silly, Tom, but is the car full of gas?
To the top.
And you called Marion about coming over and staying with Bobby?
Yesterday, the day before yesterday, and also today, twice.
I wonder if your sister answered the phone at all.
Did you call Dr. King today?
I called him. I told him you felt fine.
You told him I thought I might have to go to the...
I told him your built-in calculating machine said tonight was the night, and he said not to knock it.
Mothers-to-be usually have inside information on such things.
Please, no jokes.
He gave me the phone number where I could reach him if he wasn't at home or at the office.
Tom, I'm sorry I'm such a nag about this, but I just don't want anything to go wrong.
Baby...
I keep reading about people running out of gas on the way to the hospital, or losing their way, or getting there and not being able to find their doctor.
Baby, I know.
I just figure I couldn't take it if something like that happened to me.
I guess I'm not much of a mother.
Now, you look. You're a wonderful mother.
You've done a magnificent job with Bobby, and you're going to do okay with the new one.
Say, where is Bobby?
If we have to leave in a hurry, I don't want to have to start looking all over the neighborhood for him.
Honey, he's just out in the backyard.
He isn't climbing the ivy to the garage roof again, is he?
Tom, I've asked him not to play in the ivy a hundred times, and he says, okay, Mom, and goes right on doing it.
I think you ought to speak to him. I mean, you're his father.
Now, Linda, listen to me. Bobby is an eight-year-old boy.
He's a healthy, normal boy with the urge to climb that every kid has had since boys were invented.
Honey, that ivy on the garage is as strong and as safe as a rope ladder.
He's not going to hurt himself.
He could fall and kill himself.
He could fall, and he'd probably bounce right up again.
Tom, I want you to call him in. I want you to tell him not to climb on that ivy anymore, and I mean it.
All right, honey, I'll call him.
Looks like rain out anyway.
Hey, you know what? I just had a great thought.
If the new one's a girl, maybe you should call it Ivy.
Yeah, Ivy Peterson. It's a pretty name.
It's a horrible name, and I don't think you're funny.
I don't think you're funny at all.
Baby, come on now. I was only kidding.
All right, I'll go out and get Bobby.
Bob! Bobby!
Hi, Pop.
Where are you, son?
Up here, on the garage.
Well, now come on down. You're not supposed to play on the garage roof.
Okay, watch. I'll show you how I can slide down the ivy.
Yeah, yeah, okay. But you better hurry up. It's starting to rain.
I can do it in the rain, Pop. I've done it. Watch.
It's easy now. Your mom doesn't like your climbing things.
Watch. I can climb right down like a ladder almost.
See, I'm down. How's that, Pop?
That's great, son. Only your mom doesn't want you to do it.
You might lose your grip and fall, and you could get very badly hurt.
You wouldn't want that, son, would you?
I fell lots of times, and I didn't even hurt myself at all. I can climb easy.
Now, before we go in, I want you to listen very carefully.
I don't want you to mention the ivy or the garage to your mother.
Okay.
Oh, now, look, I'm serious about this. Your mom's a little...
Well, she's not exactly herself. She's nervous.
She worries about little things because... well, because...
Because she's going to have a baby? Isn't that right, Pop?
Yeah, that's right, son. I couldn't have put it better myself.
I sure hope it isn't a girl.
What's wrong with girls?
Oh, they cry all the time, and they dress in dresses, and they can't climb or anything.
Well, your mother wants a girl, and I'd kind of like one myself.
You're enough boy for one family.
Now, come on in the house. It's really beginning to rain.
Tom?
We're here, Linda.
Tom, please hurry.
What is it, baby?
Tom, I think you'd better call Dr. King. I think it's time to go.
Okay. Okay, I'll call him right now.
Look, Bobby, you can help. You go in your mother's room and get her overnight bag.
It's at the foot of the bed.
Okay, Pop, you'd better call Marion.
Yeah. Now, take it easy, sweetie. I'll call her.
First, I've got to call the doc, then I'll call your sister.
Let's see. It's almost dark.
If we can get out of here in, say, 15 minutes, we should get to the hospital by...
Hello. Hello, is Dr. King there?
Oh, it's you, doc.
Well, this is Tom Peterson.
And Linda, my wife?
Yeah, Linda.
Yeah, well, she's fine, but she's going to have the baby, and...
Yeah.
Yeah, well, she thinks we'd better go pretty soon, doc. She says that...
Tell him now, Tom. Please tell him now.
She says now, doc.
Yeah, I know. I know. Okay. Yeah.
I'll drive her over there as soon as we can get away, and you'll be there.
Okay, thanks, doc. Thanks a lot.
Did he say he'd go right over to the hospital?
Yeah, that's right, baby. He'll be there.
Now, all I have to do is get your sister Marion over here, and we can go.
You get Marion on the phone, and that's the first hitch.
She says her husband Gus had their car, and it blew a gasket or something, and...
Well, now she's about to have hysterics because she has no way of getting over to take care of Bobby.
So you make the only move you can. You tell her to forget it. You'll take Bobby to the hospital with you.
Bobby.
Yeah, Pop?
Now, look, we're going to have to change things a little. You're going with it.
Oh, boy, Tom.
I can't help it, honey. Your sister got loused up with the car, and she can't get over here. So we've got to do it this way.
That'll be all right. Bobby won't be any trouble. How are you, son?
No, I won't be any trouble. I promise.
Okay. Now, you all set, Linda?
I think so.
And Bobby's got the bag?
Yeah.
Car's out front? Yeah.
Well, I could do without this rain. Well, you can't have everything.
Tom, let's go.
Yeah, honey. Okay. We're off. And don't worry, baby, there's plenty of time.
I know the way to the hospital like a book. You just take it easy and relax, and don't worry. Okay? Let's go.
You've gone over the route so many times in your mind you could drive it blindfold.
But you hadn't planned on a San Fernando Valley rainstorm.
A half an hour of rain and the streets are running knee deep, and your windshield is covered with mud and water before the wipers can clear it.
The only thing that's really on your side is time, because you had everything ready to go, and Linda said she could tell sooner with a second child.
Well, that's what she said.
Tom, how long will it take to get there?
Well, you know we planned it for about 20 minutes. Half an hour at the outside.
Well, this rain, I mean, how long will this rain?
I don't know, honey. Maybe a few minutes longer than we planned. Not much.
Hey, Pop, that car went through a puddle in Spasska.
A puddle? More like a lake. Oh, it won't be like this when we get on the freeway. Water doesn't stand on the road there.
You think we should take the freeway in the storm?
Honey, do you want me to drive through these lakes all the way to the hospital?
Look, we get off this street in about three blocks and get up on the freeway. Well, from there on in, it's easy sailing.
They drive pretty fast on the freeway.
Holy mackerel, honey, will you relax? I drive the freeway to work every day of my life. I know it like a book. We'll get there on time. Relax.
And you make the turn off Laurel Canyon Boulevard, climb the long ramp, and you're on the freeway.
Now, you hollered right along with the next guy about the crazy mixed-up Hollywood freeway system, but right now it looks great.
Four wide velvet smooth lanes inbound and four lanes outbound, and a lovely stripped divider down the middle.
Of course, on this section of freeway, the divider isn't a steel fence like on some.
It's sort of a raised parkway, asphalt on top about 10 feet wide, with boxes every hundred yards or so planted with shrubs.
But it does keep you separated from the cars in the opposite lane, and in a rain like this, with the glare from your headlights mixing crazily with the others, it's a comforting feeling just to know it's there.
Daddy, are we almost there?
Almost.
How much further is it?
Stop bothering, Daddy. Bobby, it's just a little ways yet.
Bobby, the Hollywood Bowls over there on your right. You can't see it, of course, but that's where it is.
And those are the lights of Hollywood right ahead of us.
Will we get to the hospital pretty soon?
Sure, we will, Bobby. We go along the freeway here until we get to the Vermont off-ramp.
Oh, then we go down Vermont a few blocks, and we'll be there.
Do you know that we're going almost 60 miles an hour, Tom?
I do, honey.
Boy, 60. Let's go faster, Pop.
Now, son, 60 is the average speed along the freeway.
If you go faster, you run into the cars ahead of you, but if you go slower, you get clobbered by the cars in back of you.
An awful lot of traffic for this time of night, isn't it?
Nothing unusual, honey. They begin to jam up all the way to the interchange, but they all move.
I never feel easy driving so close to other cars so fast.
Not bad. A lot better than that old-fashioned stop-and-go routine.
Oh, so long as everybody keeps in their own lane and stays moving, things are fine.
How do you feel, honey?
I'm all right, but I wish we'd get there.
I thought you said the second ones were, well, a little more predictable.
This one seems to be in an awful hurry.
Well, I'm sorry, Tom.
Oh, come on, baby. I didn't mean anything. I was just kidding.
Tom, will you see if you can get us there as soon as you can?
Hopefully. Please, not yet.
Honey, just hang on. I'll see if I can.
Tom! It's the tower, our front tower.
Tom, we're swerving. We're going up in the divide.
I know, honey.
Dear God.
You're all right, baby.
I'm all right.
Bobby?
I'm okay, Pop. Why'd you drive up here, Pop?
I had a blue eye. Oh, we're lucky. No one hit us.
We didn't go across the divider, no car coming the other way.
We're okay.
Tom, I can't stay here very long, huh?
Now, take it easy, Linda. Hold on.
I'll get out and flag down the car, and I'll get them to take us to the hospital.
Just sit tight. I'll get out there, okay?
Hey! Hey! Hey, slow down, will you?
Hey, we need help!
Hey!
Oh, they won't stop, honey.
Rather, they can't stop. Everybody's going too fast to stop.
What are we going to do?
I want you and Bobby to stay right here.
I can't get across those four lanes of traffic. I'd never make it.
I'll walk down the divider, the next overhead street crossing.
Can you get off the divider there?
Of course I can. They've got to have some steps up the inside of the cement posts, or a steel ladder up the outside.
Oh, Tom!
Honey, they probably even have a phone at the base there, in a box or something.
After all, nobody's built a freeway with a divider stripped down the middle of it with no way off.
That'd be completely crazy.
Can I go with you, Dad?
No, son. I want you to stay here with your mother.
I'll be back before you know it. It can't be too far.
Please hurry, Tom. Be careful.
Don't worry, baby. I'll be back in a jiffy.
You mean to walk ahead to the next overhead, but then you remember that you passed one back about a quarter mile.
So you walk back along the divider instead.
You walk, and you begin to fight a crazy urge.
It's like the feeling you had when you were a kid and you used to walk the railroad tracks,
as if you were balancing on a narrow tightrope and you were going to fall off, step off into space.
And then, after what seems like an hour, you're at the overhead crossbridge.
You look at the cement pillar rising 60 feet above you to the road bottom,
with a decorative vine climbing thinly up the wet cement.
And you look for the stairs, for the ladder, for the phone.
And there are no stairs. There's no ladder and there is no phone.
There's just you and the raised divider you're standing on, and the cement pillar,
and the jigsaw splashing headlight hurtling by you on both sides,
not seeing you or not doing anything about it if they do see you.
You've never felt so alone in your life. You've never felt so trapped.
You've never been so scared.
In just a moment, we will return for the second act of suspense.
A station affiliated with the CBS radio network sounds different
because of a sound difference in its programs and news.
For this station presents not only the news that interests you most locally,
but adds to it national and worldwide perspective through CBS news coverage and reporting.
This station brings you more than its exacting standards for local interest programming.
Its schedule includes the top product of CBS radio's New York and Hollywood production facilities,
spotlighting the stars and star entertainment that are national in appeal and importance.
This station offers not only complete objective public affairs broadcasts that affect listeners at close range,
but selects the award-winning product of CBS News Department of Public Affairs,
weighing important issues of the nation, exploring new horizons in science, medicine, the arts, and the humanities.
When you listen to this station, the different sound is your assurance
that a sound difference governs its presentation of news and entertainment.
That difference is made possible by this station's affiliation with CBS radio,
America's most listened-to network.
Music
You stand on the narrow concrete divider in the rain, and you know you have to get off.
You've got to get help for your wife and your son.
End the new life that's trying so hard to be born back in the car.
Maybe, maybe if you time it right, you can get across the four lanes
and make it up the bank to the street and get help.
Maybe, if you watch closely and break for it just right.
Yeah, yeah, that's got to be the trick.
Get a break and run for it.
Now.
You don't get two feet before they're on you.
You make it back, and that's all.
And now you know you can't get help that way.
So you hurry back through the rain a long quarter mile to the car.
Hi, honey.
Will.
I didn't make it.
I'm going back to the other way and see if there's a way up there.
It's the only thing I can do.
Where's Bobby?
He's with you.
No, honey, I left him with you.
I told him to stay with you.
But I let him go look for you.
I thought I was going to have a baby, and I asked him to go and get you.
I thought.
He didn't get to me.
I came back to the car.
He wasn't on the divider.
He has to be.
He went the same way.
Back?
Back towards Hollywood?
No, you said you were going forward to the next overhang.
Honey, I didn't go forward.
I went back.
Oh, Linda, baby.
Bobby's out alone on that divider somewhere.
I'll go get him.
Oh.
Hurry, Tom.
Please, her.
I can't hang on much longer.
I can't hang on.
I'll be back, baby.
I'll be back as soon as I can.
In just a moment, we'll return for the concluding act of suspense.
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A double L hyphen B-R-A-N.
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You start off running now, running down that tiny strip of wet asphalt as though your life
depended on it.
And you know it isn't your life.
It's Linda's and a little new one and Bobby, an eight-year-old.
He could get bewildered.
He could get dizzy and step out into that traffic.
And you keep running until you reach the overhead bridge.
And there's no Bobby.
There's nothing but rain and concrete and headlight and fear.
You're just about to make another try at a run across the traffic when you hear it.
A siren, moving, coming along the freeway.
Maybe you can stop it.
Maybe you can jump out in front of it and stop it.
But you know before you even consider it that you wouldn't live long enough to tell them
what you wanted.
And now you can see it, a revolving red light on a moving car coming up the fast lane.
You stand there like a madman, weaving your arms and screaming,
Stop! Stop here on the divider!
Please! Please stop!
And you watch it hurtled by you.
And you hate them for not seeing you.
And you wonder if there is a way off this strip, this miserable, thin, wet divider.
And then you realize the siren is dying down, not fading away, but stopping.
You look down the divider to see the revolving red light on the top of the police car.
And it's stopping. By your car, it's stopping.
And you run, run back towards the car, back towards Linda.
And now you know the police car has stopped because the car is ahead of you in the fast lane
and it's stopping too.
And you run back along this damnable strip.
And you run, and you run, and you run.
And it blasts you there.
You're back at the car.
And there's a policeman with flares standing behind the police car.
And inside your car, there are two policemen with Linda.
And Bobby's there too.
Hi, Pop.
Bobby, where were you?
Where'd you go?
I went up the ivy, Pop. I thought maybe you'd climb the ivy up to the bridge.
So I climbed up there to find you. Mom said for me to find you.
It's okay, Bobby. It's okay, son.
I guess you're the father here.
Mother and child are doing fine.
Mother and child?
Linda, Linda, are you all right, honey?
I'm okay, darling.
It's a little girl.
Bobby brought these policemen back with him.
Yeah, Bobby's quite a boy.
Popped up over the edge of the overhead bridge just as we were crossing.
I thought I was seeing things.
You wouldn't have climbed it, Pop, but I thought you were up there.
It's okay, son. You did just the right thing.
It was easy. The ivy was just like it is on the garage.
Linda.
Yes, Tom?
I couldn't get off.
I couldn't find any way off the divider.
If it wasn't for Bobby.
I know, Tom. I know.
And you know something else I know.
What, honey?
I've changed my mind.
I think Ivy's a lovely name for a girl.
Yes. Ivy.
Ivy Peterson.
Oh, it is a lovely name, honey.
Hiya, Ivy.
Caw, caw, caw, caw.
Suspense.
You've been listening to Ivy is a lovely name for a girl, written for suspense by Sam Pearce.
In a moment, the names of our players and a word about next week's story of suspense.
What is a newsman's first duty, his prime responsibility?
It can be summed up in three words.
Get the story.
Of course, this statement of his responsibility isn't as simple in practice as in the saying,
to get that story requires ingenuity and resourcefulness.
An indefinable nose for news based on experience.
A good newsman files his report only after he's sure of his facts.
His integrity prevents him from slanting a story for sensationalism's sake.
He has no access to grind.
A good newsman views his responsibility as one which requires him to convey word of the day's events with speed, accuracy, and objectivity.
For all three, speed, accuracy, and objectivity, the newsmen and correspondents who staff CBS news bureaus around the world are foremost in the field of broadcast journalism.
Theirs is a reputation gained through many years of bringing the news to CBS radio listeners from coast to coast.
Today as for decades, you're always sure of getting the news fast, first via CBS News on CBS Radio.
Music
Heard in tonight's story were Phil Meader as Tom, Jane Hussack as Linda, Johnny Spencer as Bobby, and Carl Frank as the Cop.
Listen again next week when we return with Witness for Death by Ronald Dawson, another tale well calculated to keep you in.
Suspense