Roth? I said.
“Wayne Persphere,” said Persphere.
Wayne Persphere, I said. Wayne Persphere, I said. Wayne Persphere, I said, you are not Philip Roth. I want to talk to Roth. Put Roth on the phone.
“You said thirty min—”
How long does it take to get a man on the phone?
“I think you can imagine. He’s not just some man. He’s a great American novelist. Some say the greatest. You yourself called him ‘the last great—’”
Don’t ever put quotes around my words again, Persphere.
“I’m not trying to upset you. Kindly hear me out. I’m just trying to tell you that it’s no easy thing. We rustled up his number from the telephone company, but it turns out he writes in a barn this time of day. A barn in Connecticut. It’s a big ole barn, that, with a bathroom and wiring, but a barn nonetheless. The barn’s behind his house and he doesn’t have a phone there, for reasons, I reckon, of concentration. After we tried him and got no answer, we rung up his publisher and got to his editor, who told us what was and then told us what wasn’t.”
And?
“And now we’re sending some good local lawfolks who live there to talk to him. It might take us a little more than seven minutes, though.”
Six.
“Right,” he said, “six. We’d like some more time.”
How much?
“We’d like ninety minutes — he’s really out in the sticks.”
You’ve got one hour.
“Much appreciated. Can we talk about something else now?”
The prisoners?
“Yes,” he said. “Well — prisoners. Wait. Are they hostages or prisoners?”
Get Roth on the line and they’ll stay safe, Wayne.
“Can we call you back on this line to talk?”
You can call me back as soon as you’ve got Roth. No concessions before then. And you can tell your boss I don’t much take a shine to fake Texans and their like. In your accents I hear deeply harbored contempt.
“Contempt for whom?”
For real Texans, Wayne.
“I rightly must say—”
Rightly come real or pick another accent. And use a better name. No one’s ever been a Persphere.
“We’ll—”
I punched END.
RICK STEVENS, NBC NEWSANCHOR: Sorry to interrupt you, Bob, but we have an important update: we’ve just received confirmation that Gurion Maccabee had indeed attended two of those schools we reported on earlier. I repeat, he had attended two of them. Now on the line with us from Chicago, we have Rabbi Lionel Unger, headmaster of the Solomon Schechter School, where the young terrorist was in attendance from 2001 til just this past May.
Rabbi Unger, a great number of your male students failed to show up to school today, and I take it this isn’t any kind of ditch-day prank.
UNGER: No sir, it isn’t. Jewish students do not engage in ditch-days, at least they didn’t used to, though frankly, we can’t yet say for sure why they failed to show up — no one knows. I, for one, suspect that they were told by Gurion of his plans to commit this act of terrorism and they all went somewhere to watch it on television.
STEVENS: Where might they have gone?
UNGER: Maybe to the home of a student with two working parents, maybe to a pizza parlor, it’s hard to say.
STEVENS: A pizza parlor.
UNGER: That is correct, sir. They aren’t aliens, these boys, but Americans. Like so many young American boys, ours enjoy pizza, and frisbee as well, even black dance music. They play yo-yo and ping-pong and wear denim jeans on casual occasions when slacks aren’t called for. Ice cream is something they find delicious. If you prick them, they bleed, sir. Like any American.
STEVENS: I wasn’t trying to— Just how many students, in total, are missing, Rabbi Unger?
UNGER: Two-hundred twelve, though three are legitimately ill with strept throat.
STEVENS: Two-hundred twelve from your school alone.
UNGER: Yes, from Schechter Chicago. That’s all our boys, grades five through eight, and a smattering of our lower-schoolers.
STEVENS: That’s a lot of young boys to congregate in a pizza parlor, let alone a living room.
UNGER: I see your point, and will consider its merits.
STEVENS: In the meantime, can you tell us what kind of student Gurion was?
UNGER: I can’t speak of his record. That’s private information, protected by the law. I can tell you, however, that I always suspected he was dangerous, violent, too big for his britches, and swollen-headed. He confirmed this for me last May in my office, when in the middle of a quiet conversation we were having, he physically assaulted me on the face with a stapler.
STEVENS: A stapler.
UNGER: My own stapler. He threw it at my face.
STEVENS: May I ask what the conversation was about?
UNGER: Is that important, sir? Is that really important? I tell you that during a quiet conversation in my office, this boy holding hostages, who was, I assure you, the one who murdered the poor murdered gym teacher, threw a stapler at my face — at my eye, which bled—and you search for motives in our conversation to justify the violence? No wonder, sir. No wonder things like this happen, sir.
STEVENS: Thank you for speaking to us, Rabbi Unger.
UNGER: My pleasure.
STEVENS: Now let’s go back to Bob Brians at Aptakisic Junior High.
BOB BRIANS, CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Rick. As you can see behind me, the police and emergency services personnel are establishing a perimeter fifty yards east of the school, in accordance with demands made by the terrorists, demands caught on that exclusive NBC tape that we played for you just a few minutes back. I’m here with the cameraman who captured that footage, NBC’s own Ori Gold. Ori, it’s a privilege to meet you. You were sent here by NBC to tape the filming of a music video by up-and-coming popstar Boystar currently one of an unknown number of hostages being held inside the school. For viewers just tuning in, that’s him — Boystar — tied to that chair just inside the front entrance of the school. Now, Ori, can you tell us—
STEVENS: Sorry to interrupt you Bob, Ori, but we’re being asked to play Ori’s tape again for those viewers who are just tuning in. Here it is.
Neither Botha nor Jerry had broken out of the bathrooms, but both of them were conscious and they shouted for help as we entered the Cage. Benji shouted back so they’d know we weren’t saviors, and all shouting stopped.
We sat Brodsky down on the desk of a carrel on the Cage’s east wall — the wall opposite the bathrooms — with his wrists tied together behind his back.
Are you comfortable? I said.
“Tch,” Brodsky said.
I want you to be as comfortable as possible, I said. That’s why we put you on this desk — you’ve got three walls to lean on. If you’d rather lean on one of the carrel walls, we’ll tilt you. Just say so. The main thing is I don’t want you to hurt yourself. Those idiots in the bathroom — as soon as we leave, they’ll try to convince you to squirm off this carrel, crawl over, free them. Don’t try it, Mr. Brodsky. You’ll end up hurt. The way you’re tied, if you go face-first, you’ll knock yourself out when you hit the floor, maybe break your neck. Hurl yourself sideways so your shoulder takes the impact, and that shoulder will break, and maybe your clavicle. Go legs-first with that foot — you can imagine the pain. You can’t walk as it is. But say I’m wrong. Say you squirm off, land lucky, undo your bindings, drag yourself across the floor, get the bathroom doors open — you’re still locked in here, and you won’t get out til I say you get out, and that won’t even be that long from now, so—
“None of this is solving your problems,” Brodsky said.