Tony Hale (11:07)
The Stand In My client is feeling very insecure this week, stebbins said, swinging his feet up onto the leather couch, leaning his head back against the paper in a masquerade and lighting up a large cigar. Yes, the doctor said in a deep baritone rumble from somewhere behind Stebbins. And what has he been thinking? And. And what has he been feeling? Frankly, he's worried about his mother's visit, stebbins said, glancing at the little blue notebook he had propped against his rising and falling waistline. His mother's visits always remind him of his sister in law, who came to stay with the family when he was three. She was always put up in his room, and he had to sleep under the front stairs with the brooms. Brooms? The rumble noted. Any associations. Dirt, stebbins said quietly, and then he paused, as if reluctant to go on. Ah, you're quite right, Doctor, he said, turning to flip an ash from a cigar into a saucer placed on the floor beside him with the life he's been leading lately, he feels that somehow he has been snuffing the candle at both ends. On the one hand he wants his mother to stay with him, but on his other hand he feels that every time she comes he has to take her to a Broadway musical. And that costs. Stebbins continued consulting his notebook. His father, as we know, used to beat him with a silk scarf whenever he spent his allowance too fast. Money is still a big problem. The rumble broke into a deep cough. I've been meaning to ask you, it said with just a trace of its Venezuelan accent. That is, I mean to ask your client, Mr. L. My patient. Naturally, I was wondering about his strong resistance to my fees, this whole problem with money. Perhaps as a start, you could tell me how much he pays you for your services. Stebbins sat bolt upright on the couch. Please, Doctor, he said, there is one thing that I will not have. My financial arrangements with my client are a matter of strictest confidence. There will be no discussion of these matters. None. I'm sure you understand. As a professional man yourself, Jack Stebbins had been, in one capacity or another, a professional stand in since he was six years old, when his parents had rented him out to childless couples for visits to the children's zoo. At eight he had been a backstop babysitter for older children too busy to care for their charges on Saturday nights. At 9 he had walked dogs for other people, and at 10 he had served as a delivery boy for a diaper service during the Christmas rush. Throughout his high school years he had willingly loaned his civics papers and chemistry laboratory reports to younger students, and on one occasion he helped his sister pass home economics by knitting her mid semester argyles and baking an A minus Linzer tort final. At college he often stood in for his roommate on blind dates arranged by the roommate's myopic great aunt in Detroit, and twice he put on dark glasses and makeup to sit in at language examinations for his friends. It was at this point that his fees began to constitute a modest livelihood. Upon graduation, Stebbins managed to avoid the draft by borrowing a portfolio of X rays from an uncle with flat feet, and the following summer he sublet a bachelor apartment in New York, where he picked up spare cash in the evenings by holding a place in line for hungry standees outside the Metropolitan Opera House. His big break came when one of the regular standees confessed that someone had given him tickets to that evening's recital by the Electric Moog in Bryant park and asked Stebbins not only to hold his usual place in line, but also for an additional sum to attend the opera for him. I've been waiting all year to hear Stagmuntz and die Trams Izson, he said. And even if I can't go in person, I'd hate to feel I'd missed the performance entirely. Stebbins accepted the assignment, reported that Stigmuntz was getting a bit reachy in the upper register, deplored the ballet sequence, and found that he had begun a new phase of his career. Within a few weeks he had become a familiar figure at the New York Philharmonic, the Met, the YMHA Poetry center, testimonial barbecues for West Village Republicans, and other functions of the sort that make the original ticket holder feel that his personal attendance is optional but his opinion is mandatory. One evening a gentleman whose wife Stebbins had several times escorted to the family box at Cafe La Mama called him with a new proposal. Stubbs, he said. It's an awkward thing. Molly signed up last August for one of those charter flights. Her women's club is going on a nine day perfume appreciation tour of the major capitals of Europe. Now I persuade her to go to bog fishing with me in Western Canada instead. The problem is, unless they can get someone to sit in the 25th seat, they're going to lose the charter rate. So Molly suggested. The details were quickly arranged. Stebbins parted from the touring ladies as soon as the plane touched down in Geneva, having observed that the ladies were occupied during the entire flight in writing postcards home. Stebbins was struck with a plan which subsequently took shape as the Agency. That evening he placed an ad in the Paris edition of the World Journal Tribune. Correspondence undertaken letters to relatives, friends, business associates. Let the agency write them for you. You supply names, addresses, degree of intimacy, desired mailing drops. We provide everything from travel cliches. Oh, wish you were here. Send more money to sensitive Auppergu. The Croats have lost their sculpted profiles and valiant devotion to the soil. The agency 13 Rue Scribe Stebbins another breakthrough. Within a short time, Stebbins clientele included functionally illiterate businessmen from small towns who felt obliged to write to the entire membership of their Lions Clubs, brilliant engineering students on travel grants who felt obliged to express great longings for their fiancees back home, and even a girl actually living in Cornwall with a Prussian Aubrecoutier who felt obliged to post dutiful letters from a Lausanne boarding school to her parents in Providence. Stebbins soon turned over the agency to qualified assistants and went home to begin his new and even more challenging assignment. My client would like to say that he's furious this week, stebbins said, waving a lighted cigar above his face in great agitation. Yes, said the doctor, coughing sotto voce. Stebbins drew in his cigar, exhaled a blue cloud of smoke, and said nothing. Yes, said the doctor again, more gently. Frankly, Stebbins said, tapping the fingers of his cigar hand on the wall beside him, he feels that lately you haven't been paying attention. Last Wednesday, for instance, you hardly seem to be listening. He finds that nervous coughing of yours. Yes, the doctor said, particularly distracting. Well, the doctor cleared his throat. Actually, I've been meaning to bring this up for some time. You must realize that a cigar in an enclosed space often stimulates a coughing reflex in the non smoker. Frankly, Doctor, said Stebbins, half turning around to look at the doctor's now florid face, that sounds like a rationalization. Any opera buff knows that a coughing audience is a bored audience. I only meant to suggest, the doctor said said that perhaps we could dispense with that particular prop for our 50 minutes together. I'm sorry, that's out of the question, said Stebbins, staring up at the ceiling and flicking off another half inch of ash. I rarely smoke myself, but my client finds it impossible to talk freely without a cigar. Yes, said the doctor with a renewed interest. Perhaps we should investigate that further. I don't think we have the time, Stebbins said, consulting his watch for the moment. I've been instructed to respond to your last week's apparent rejection with a two minute sulk. You are aware, of course, the doctor said, that what you are doing at this moment is what we call acting out. Stebbins stared at his watch and said nothing. The session ended 10 seconds before the sulk was over, but the doctor chose not to interrupt. When Stebbins had sat up again and extinguished his cigar, the doctor clapped his notebook shut, opened his eyes, and said, I have another patient waiting in the outer office, Mr. Stebbins, but I wonder if I might talk to you personally for just a moment. Yes, Stebman said. Frankly, the doctor said, I should like to consult you about a problem of my own. I shall find it impossible to attend any of my regular sessions. I have been asked to deliver a paper, my own, at a meeting of the American Sonic Article association in Tampa, and I wonder whether you might, in a professional capacity, as it were, stand in for me. Um, I don't see why not, Stebman said after a moment's reflection. My client is returning to the city on Saturday morning, and that should leave me free the fee. Of course, the doctor began. Of course, stebbins said. Experience always tells. Stebbins found that standing in for a lie doctor was no more difficult than the escorting, delivering, sitting, knitting, baking, taking, dating, writing, and free associating which had marked the earlier stages of his career. His only problem was, as he conceived in an ethical one, what to do about transference phenomena. If his patients transferred their transference to him, they might have trouble retransferring their reference when the unsuspect expecting Doc to return from his conference. But Stebbins felt that he could handle it. You know, his confidence had increased to such a degree that he was not even disturbed when on Wednesday morning he received the following telegram in Barcelona Monastery Stop. Flat broke. Stop Suffering dos coronados. Stop. High fever. Stop. Cannot return before Monday. Stop. Stebbins immediately recognized the economical cable style of the cattle and bureau of his agency. He knew that his client, Elle was not in Barcelona at all, but was actually conducting a torrid romance on the ski slopes of the Stabanien Ford. There was the problem of El's 6 o' clock session with the doctor, but Stevins thought about it for a moment and decided there was no real reason for concern. The regular janitor in the syndrome building, having gone to a matinee at 2, had asked his brother in law, Charlie, to take his place for the afternoon. At six o' clock Charlie was polishing the leaves of a split philodendron in the deserted hallway on the seventh floor when he noticed a light shining through the transom above the door to the doctor's waiting room. The room itself was empty. Charlie turned off the light and stretched out for a little nap. When he thought he had heard mumbling coming from the inner office, he opened the door a crack and peered in. Settled comfortably in a chair with his feet up on the leather couch was a gentleman with a cigar in one hand, a pencil in the other, and two notebooks propped against his rising and falling waistline. He was talking to himself. Charlie backed away from the door, tiptoed through the waiting room, and raced down the hallway to the telephone. Hello? Hello, operator? He said. I want to report a nut. When the police arrived, Stebbins rose graciously to his feet. Yes? He said. Yeah, you better come with us, fella, the larger of the two policemen said. Which one of us do you want? Stebbins asked, waving the cigar and the pencil. My client is in a Catalonian monastery and the doctor is in Tampa. But in either case, officer, I hardly think that's all right, fella, that's all right, the policeman said. I'm just afraid you better come along right now. Where are we going? Stebbins asked. Where would you like to go? The officer, who had majored in psychology at the police academy, said kindly. To Surrogate's Court, stebbins suggested, and giggled. The policeman exchanged a glance, lunged forward, and seized Stebbins by a wrist and an ankle. Okay, there'll be no violence, fella, the smaller of the two policemen said, tightening his grip on Stebbins ankle. Where you're going, you can talk to yourself as much as you want. Stebbins nodded slowly and straightened his tie with his free hand. Experience always tells. Get me a mouthpiece, he said.
