And now, a tale well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
Act One of Date Night, starring Rosemary Rice as Kathy,
Richard Holland as Jerry, and Sam Gray as the father,
and written especially for suspense by William N. Robeson.
The Father
A father can't be too careful, not where his daughter is concerned.
That's what fathers are for.
But, Daddy...
No, buts about it, Button. I want to meet this young man.
I assure you, he is a perfectly respectable, charming, intelligent young man.
So, then you should be proud to introduce him to your parents.
Mother!
Your father's right, Kathy.
Oh, but it's so... mid-evil.
Like I was still in dancing school or something.
Not at all, Button.
Father, will you please stop calling me Button?
I'm sixteen, I wear lipstick and high heels,
and I no longer respond to that thoroughly reprehensible and childish word, Button.
My name is Kathy.
I beg your pardon, Kathy.
A father sometimes forgets.
Well, don't, please.
Especially in front of Jerry, if you still insist on meeting him.
I do.
Well, I don't see why.
Let's say to see if he measures up.
To what?
To my idea of the kind of young man who is worthy of you.
Oh, he wolf. No one ever has.
She was right, of course. No one ever has seemed worthy of her.
And this Jerry was no exception.
He was lanky and tall,
and his scrubbed and freshly shaved face displayed two razor nicks and a lingering acne.
The charm and intelligence with which my daughter endowed him escaped me.
Uh, nice weather we're having.
Yes, sir.
What a man says we're due for a change.
Oh, we are?
Yes.
Well, Kathy shouldn't be very long.
Yes, sir.
That'll give you a slight idea of his conversational prowess.
The absence, or weakness at least, of the chin disturbed me too.
But of course not enough to justify forbidding my daughter to go out with him.
But enough to make me uneasy and feed a growing premonition.
And then Kathy burst into the room, face flushed with eagerness, eyes bright, lovely beyond belief in her new formal.
Much too lovely for this lanky love.
Oh, you two have met, I see.
Yes, yes, it was inevitable.
Hi.
Hi. Well, I'm ready. You ready, Jerry?
Yeah, ready.
Well, let's go then.
Just a minute, please.
What is it, Father?
When are your mother and I to expect you home?
We won't be late.
I want to know when.
Mother, you heard your father, dear.
What time will this dance be over, Jerry?
Midnight, sir.
Then you should have Kathy home a few minutes after.
Father.
Shouldn't you?
Well, I'll try, sir. It's all the way on the other side of town.
Daddy, the kids may want to stop on the way home.
Stop? Where? What for?
I don't know, a mall or a hamburger or something.
At midnight in a public restaurant?
Yes.
Oh, no. A properly chaperone dance is one thing. A public restaurant at midnight is quite another.
You'll bring her straight home, won't you, Jerry?
Yes, sir.
Mother.
You better hurry, dear, or you'll be late.
Yes, mother.
Have a good time.
How can I now that daddy spoiled it all?
Come on, Jerry. We might as well try to salvage what's left of the evening.
Now, what's gotten into her?
At midnight, a public restaurant. Oh, Dan, have you forgotten?
Forgotten what?
Our high school dances. Did you ever bring me straight home?
That was different. Anyway, there's something not quite straight about that young man. He's shifty-eyed. I don't think I trust him.
You have forgotten, haven't you? But then you never knew what it was like to be a 16-year-old girl.
Of course I didn't, but I sure do remember what it was like to be a 16-year-old boy.
In a moment, the second act of...
...suspense.
How could a 13-year-old American boy living in Naples, Italy help a Nobel Prize winner in the middle of Africa?
This was the question Bobby Hill, son of an Air Force sergeant, put to himself one day.
Bobby's plan was the outgrowth of a man-to-man talk with his father.
Staff Sergeant Henry Hill was anxious for his son to understand the peaceful aims of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
After all, NATO was the reason why the Hills were living overseas.
To Bobby, the talk was inspiring.
You had heard the story of Dr. Albert Schweitzer's work in French Equatorial Africa.
Bobby knew of the famed doctor's desperate need for medicine.
So he asked his father and friends to buy some he could send to Dr. Schweitzer.
For transportation, he appealed directly to Lieutenant General Richard C. Lindsay, commander of NATO's Allied Air Force, Southern Europe.
The response from everyone was almost immediate, and the Italian press, radio, and television gave wide publicity to the project.
Soon, contributions poured in from all over.
By the time the planes took off for Dr. Schweitzer's headquarters, Bobby Hill's desire to help had resulted in some $400,000 worth of medical supplies.
Recently, Bobby, now 14, returned to the United States to accept a People-to-People Award at the White House.
He was further honored by being asked to act as an emissary for the Medical International Cooperation Organization
for the delivery of a hospital laboratory to Dr. Schweitzer's Jungle Hospital.
Honor and praise have been generously bestowed upon this young American Negro boy.
To him and to his Air Force father for inspiring his son should go a vote of appreciation from all Americans.
Together, they have dramatically reminded us that we are Americans.
As we go, so goes America.
It's quiet now. Late evening, quiet on the quiet suburban street where you live.
Marriott had gone to bed an hour ago. The crackling fire has become the red silence of embers.
It's quiet, save for the tick-tock of the clock punctuating the silence, marking off the duration of Kathy's date,
each tick that much further from her leaving, each tock the nearer to her coming home.
Your chest is tight, your breath short, you're worried.
Anxiety has clamped you in her clammy claws. Oh, this is ridiculous. Turn on some lights.
This isn't the end of the world. It's just your daughter's first big day.
She's out having a wonderful time at the high school dance. She'll be home before long.
What's that? A car. She's home early. Maybe she didn't have such a good time.
Maybe something's happened. Kathy! Kathy! Is that you, Mr. Foster?
Oh, yes. Oh, is anything wrong?
No, no, nothing. I thought it was my daughter.
The neighbors. The neighbors coming home from the movies.
Tick, tick, tick, tick on your leptin-footed marker of time.
Where were you yesterday and the day before and all the days before that for the last sixteen years?
Where was time when Kathy was growing up? It escaped us. It was gone before we knew it.
And I never got to know her.
Midnight at last. The orchestra will be playing the last strings of Good Night, sweetheart.
The boys will be lining up, pushing and jostling with the cloakroom for the girls' raps.
The girls, chattering like a tree full of birds, tired but not admitting it.
Their makeup's slightly askew now. Their hair is somewhat out of place.
Damp were cheeks had touched.
The party's over and it's time to go home. Hurry, hurry, before the kids turn to a pumpkin...
Jerry! Jerry! Here I am, over here!
Oh, yeah. Mustn't lose you, sugar, because you're the sweetest.
Jerry, really?
Oh, you know it, sweetie. Well, let's split up, huh?
Yes, I guess we've got to or my father will split.
Oh, we're not going home yet, baby.
Oh, but...
Jerry, I know this place where they don't ask for any ID cards or anything.
Oh, Jerry!
And we can get a drink.
Jerry, I...
Ah, you're not afraid, are you?
No, but daddy said that I have...
I heard him. But you're a big girl now, aren't you?
Yes, Jerry.
Well, then it's time you started living your own life, isn't it?
I guess so.
And tonight's the best time I can think of to start, right?
If you say so, Jerry.
Crazy.
That's the way it is. You're sure that's the way it is.
You should have followed your instincts and forbidden Kathy to go out with this... this friend.
You knew it from the moment he walked through the front door.
Shifty-eyed, evasive, a criminal face.
Now he's beyond your reach. There's no way to stop him.
Nothing to stop him but Kathy's sense of values.
And you wonder, are they strong enough to withstand the temptations of evil as attractive as this Jerry must be to her?
You wonder. You ask yourself.
You don't know the answer. You just don't know.
How about this pad, huh?
Oh, Jerry, Simone!
Swinging, huh, Chicklet?
Oh, yeah. You know, I often wondered what it was like, but...
I never thought I'd get a chance to go inside.
All it takes is knowing the right people, sweetenie.
Oh, I guess I'm a pretty lucky girl to know you, Jerry.
Oh, you might look at it that way. Have a cigarette.
Oh, no, no, thank you. I don't indulge.
You never have, honey.
No.
Well, it's gotta be a first time for everything.
Oh, I don't think I ought to, Jerry.
Why not? I thought this was your night to start living your own life.
Yes, but I...
Here, here. I'll light it for you.
There you go.
Come on, it won't kill you.
It won't?
No. Go ahead, drag.
Okay.
Hey, sugar, take it easy.
You don't have to become an addict on the very first one.
You can learn to inhale later.
I guess so. Oh, sorry.
You know, you look good like that.
Cigarette in your hand.
I do?
Yeah. Like you as with it. Grown-up life.
Do you like me that way, Jerry?
You know it, sugar.
I like you a lot.
A whole lot.
Oh, Jerry.
Yeah, yeah.
I like you a lot.
I like you a whole lot.
I've got to do something. I can't just sit here.
I've got to find her before it's too late.
The yellow book.
It must be such places.
I've got to stop her before she makes the greatest mistake of her life.
Cafes, coffee houses.
Coffee houses? Yes, that's where she'd be. Coffee houses.
That's where a scoundrel like that Jerry would take her.
The Midnight Espresso.
Probably a deep and exhausting house. That sounds right.
Like?
Hello? Hello?
Like, hello?
Is this the Midnight Espresso?
Crazy.
Is my daughter there?
Like who?
My daughter. Is she there?
No, she ain't here, man.
Are you sure?
Man, I'm sure.
How can you be sure? I didn't tell you her name.
It don't matter, man. I'm sure she ain't here on account that there's no one here.
The Midnight Espresso ain't that Midnight Man. We're closed.
And like you interrupted my sleep, and that ain't too cool.
Where then? Where else could she be?
Clubs? Supper clubs? Nightclubs? Black Kippy?
I can't get my sounds sinister enough. Maybe she's there. She's got to be there. She's got to be.
Hello, Black Kitten?
Is my daughter there?
Well, there's a lot of people here, sir, but I have no idea if one of them is your daughter.
She's very pretty. She has brown hair and she's 16.
But she's not here.
How can you be so positive?
She's a teenager. So she's not here.
Are you sure?
Certainly I'm sure.
We don't do business with teenagers unless their parents accompany them.
And you obviously aren't with her, so she's out for no good, right?
Well, I hope not.
So do I. But she's certainly not going to get in trouble here because she can't get in the door.
All right. Thank you very much.
Of course, I should have known respectable places like the Black Kitten can't afford to take chances.
But then let the others that don't care.
There are always times that are willing to profit from human weakness.
You hear about them. You read about them in the papers after the trouble,
after they've been raided, after someone's been murdered or worse.
That's it, sugar. You got it fine.
Keep turning those little bows back and forward.
Okay.
Take those shoulders.
All right.
You got a twist, honey.
Twist.
Oh, that's hot work.
You know.
Well, let's go back to the table.
Something to drink, huh?
Oh, Jerry, I'm having so much fun.
That's what life's all about, sugar. Fun.
That's the point. Here, have a seat.
Okay.
Jerry, where did this come from?
What?
This bottle in a bucket of ice.
Now you guess.
Did you order it?
That's right. Champagne, Audrey.
Champagne.
Bollinger 43, the best.
Oh, Jerry. I couldn't. I never have.
Tonight's the night to start, sugar.
Jerry!
There you are. Just like New Year's Eve on TV.
Oh, no. Jerry, I'm afraid.
Of what?
I don't know.
Look, you were afraid of the cigarette, too, weren't you?
Yes.
And it didn't hurt you, did it?
No.
You liked it, didn't you?
Yes.
Drink.
Oh, no, Jerry, I shouldn't.
Come on, kid. Grow up.
Yes, Jerry.
Fine. Here's to us.
To us. Jerry, I like it.
Sure you do.
Oh, Jerry, what a wonderful night.
My first cigarette, my first glass of wine.
I'm grown up at last, Jerry.
Tonight, I'm a woman.
That's right, sugar.
Tonight, you're going to become a woman.
We turn back to the dark living room.
It's pleasant and quiet in the dark.
You lean back, close your eyes.
You'll rest a while in the quiet dark.
You wait quietly in the dark and rest.
But there's no rest.
The scene plays on to the next, and the next,
the story develops on the imaginary screens behind your eyelids.
No, Jerry. I said no.
Why not?
What's the matter with you all of a sudden?
Look, it's late, Jerry, and I've got to get home.
Oh, now you've got to get home.
Please.
After I show you the time, after I go all out.
The champagne, the work.
What do I get for it? I got to go home.
Please, Jerry, take me home.
I will take you home in dust.
Fullness of time.
How about that?
The fullness of time.
That means when I get good and ready.
Jerry.
Come on, I can't say.
Come on.
How about a kiss?
Oh, please, Jerry, be nice.
Oh, I'll be nice.
Honey, you have no idea how nice I'll be.
Jerry, stop it.
Come on.
Tonight you're a woman, remember?
I said stop it.
You slapped me.
I meant to.
Now take me home.
All right.
Catherine, I'll take you home.
I'll take you home like you've never been taken home before.
A siren.
What kind?
An ambulance siren?
Maybe not.
Listen carefully.
Well, police cars have a deeper sound.
Fire engines waver.
No, it's an ambulance.
All right.
Something's happened to Cathy.
Operator.
Operator, this is an emergency.
Get me the county hospital.
I will connect you.
County General Hospital.
Hello.
Hello.
Is this the hospital?
This is the County General Hospital.
Oh, yes, yes.
Have you had any emergencies admitted since midnight?
A young girl, just 16, name is Cathy.
Central Police Sergeant Sherry Spiegel.
Have you had any accidents reported in the last hour or so involving a young boy and
girl?
They were driving a...
Highway Patrol, Crawford Spiegel.
I'm calling about an accident with a car...
This is the city mark.
Please, I want to know if you've brought in a young girl, 16 years old, brown hair, wearing
a white party dress...
Hold the line, please, and I'll check.
Never mind.
Daddy?
What were you calling at this hour of the night?
The morgue.
Why?
What's the matter?
What's happened?
Suppose you tell me.
I'm sorry we're late, Daddy.
You see...
And you, young man, what have you got to say?
Well, sir, you see, it was like this.
Excuses, alibis, I thought I told you to bring Cathy straight home after the dance.
Yes, sir, you did.
Well, then...
What's all the shouting for?
Oh, you're home, dear.
Yes, Mother.
Did you have a good time?
We can save the social notes until later.
I want to know where this young man has been with my daughter until dawn.
It's only a little after two, Daddy.
It's quite a bit after the time you were due home.
Young man, I ought to give you a sound flashing.
Oh, Dan, really?
You stay out of this.
You should be taught that you can't go around taking advantage of every young girl you meet.
Daddy!
What an awful thing to say.
Let me smell your breath.
Why?
Do you mean to stand there and tell me you are not smoking tonight?
Yes, Daddy, you know I don't smoke.
And are you going to deny, young man, that you forced my daughter to drink champagne?
Me?
Daddy, what I'd like to know is what have you been drinking?
You keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak to your father.
Well, Dan, perhaps if you keep a quiet tongue in yours.
What a thing to say to your father at the night you put me through,
sitting here getting more and more worried as it got later and later,
until I was sure something terrible had happened to you.
Do you realize I phoned every police station and hospital in three counties,
and I was just starting on the morgue when you walked in?
That's what you put me through tonight, my little lady,
and then you say a thing like that to your father.
I'm sorry, Daddy, but if you haven't been drinking,
then your imagination's sure been working overtime.
Dan, if you'll just simmer down, I'm sure Kathy and Jerry can explain everything.
Very well, very well. I'm a reasonable man. I'll listen.
But it better be good.
Now, Jerry, would you care to explain?
Well, yes. We started straight home right after the dance, like you said.
Mm-hmm.
And to save time, I took the shortcut that threw no run.
Well, right in the middle of that deserted stretch, I had a flat tire.
Oh, what a shame.
A likely story. But it's the truth. Truth.
And then I found I didn't have a jack in the car, so we had to walk.
Both of you?
Well, I couldn't leave Kathy alone while I went for heptasy.
Oh, we must have walked a couple of miles in the dark.
Oh, it wasn't more than a mile.
Anyway, Mother, it was real spooky. And Mother...
We finally found a service station that was open,
and the man drove us back and changed the tire, and here we are.
Oh, I'm sorry we upset you so, but I got her home just as fast as I could.
What about the Smokies?
Smokies?
And the Champagne?
Champagne?
Yes, and the necking of a parked car.
Smokies?
Mother, you're imagining things.
Oh, you say you were in a service station.
Mm-hmm.
They do have telephones, you know.
Yes, Daddy, they do, and I tried to call you, didn't I, Jerry?
That's right.
And I suppose you're going to tell me the phone didn't answer.
Oh, no, it was busy. I kept trying and trying, but it was always busy.
Busy? Who would be using our phone in the middle of the night?
You?
Me.
Yes, and if you hadn't tied up the phone, calling up those hospitals and police stations and morgues,
I'd have been able to get through and tell you I was all right.
Oh.
Why don't you come to bed now, dear? You had such a trying evening. You must be exhausted.
Suspense.
You've been listening to Date Night, starring Rosemary Rice as Kathy, Richard Holland as Jerry, and Sam Gray as the father,
and written especially for Suspense by William N. Robeson.
Suspense is produced and directed by Bruno Dorado, Jr., music supervision by Ethel Huber.
Featured in tonight's story, we'll be talking about the
story of a woman who was a womanizer, a womanizer, a womanizer, a womanizer, a womanizer, a womanizer,
and music supervision by Ethel Huber. Featured in tonight's story were Tony Darnay, Freddie Chandler,
Jack Grimes, Lawson Cervi, Bill Lipton, William Mason, and Guy Rep.
Listen again next week when we return with Doom Machine, written by Edgar Marvin,
a story tale well calculated to keep you in.