Video clip from the television program The Dick Cavett Show, January 7, 1970, with guest Jack Paar:
[Cavett] “...so going back to this Great Man of History debate, regarding the 1960s, who most surprised you and who most disappointed you?”
[Paar] “I think it is obvious that the social tumult that we have seen unfold these past five years is largely the result of a festering...um...untended cancer that grew out of decades of neglect; and it truly metastasized in our body politic in the 1950s. We had Eisenhower come riding in on his reputation after World War Two, stride to the leadership of the Republic, and yet he never fully grasped at how important the cause for civil rights was, and concurrently, how necessary it was to placate the fears of the white Southerner. So it was a missed opportunity, one that was allowed to overwhelm us and neither Kennedy nor Johnson was able to remedy this social disease we still are living with today.
I might add, however, that we did have one figure this past decade who, in my view, rose to become this Carlylian figure of a Great Man. Carter Ridge. He managed, in a few short years, to calm the people of his state, South Carolina, and do the moral surgery required to...”
[Cavett] “Carter Ridge? He’s largely forgotten now.”
[Paar] “You asked me who I was most surprised by, and it would be Ridge. I think there was much possibility with him, and mourn his absence from the national stage.”
April 1962, Columbia, South Carolina
The nameplate on her desk said Lurlene, but the beehive hairdo said the higher the hair, the closer to God. She nestled her cigarette in her Myrtle Beach souvenir Bakelite ashtray, and looked up from her typing.
Carter had arrived a couple of minutes early to do the evening top five countdown of the most requested songs from the day before. WCOS had the strongest AM radio signal in the Midlands, and as he walked into the lobby of the country music station, he pasted on his preset smile and greeted the receptionist despite the stale cigarette stench.
“Hi, there...Lurlene,” Carter said. “I’m Carter Ridge, and I believe—”
“One moment, please,” she said cutting him off, and mashed her intercom button at the edge of her filing cabinet. “Trip, your Top Five is here.”
She smacked her gum in the back of her mouth. “He’ll be right out, hon’,” and went back to her typing, picking up her cigarette before she slung her fingers onto the typewriter keys.
Carter cast a glance over at his wife, who had just sat down in the only chair in the measly lobby. Lighting her own cigarette, she then blew a cloud of smoke and put on an all-right-let’s-make-the-best-of-this smile. Margot was adept at finding these types of innocent, easy forums to chat and meet the average South Carolinian where they were, sending Carter off to address women’s missionary societies, Elks clubs, veterans halls, anywhere that “folks,” as she called these working class people, would be a captive audience for Carter to charm for fifteen or twenty minutes. Today, however, was Carter’s first foray into radio, and it being a country western station he felt out of his element. The slowly spinning ceiling fan in the lobby did its thing, just like Carter feared he was about to do. He reached for his pocket square and dabbed his forehead. How is it possible that it is hotter in here than outside, and looked at his watch. 4:58.
The door opened opposite Lurlene and out came a smiling biscuit of a man. “Carter Ridge!” he called as if they were old friends, and extended his hand. “I’m Trip Travers, thanks for comin’ by! You ready to have some fun?” Trip’s eyes were two squints of unadulterated cheer, and Carter followed him past the door into the studio.
“So I’ve got the Top Five at Five songs listed here on these index cards, and we’ll just chat a bit between so that the folks out there can get to know you,” Trip said as he sat back down in his chair, putting on his headphones over his bald head. A sound engineer from an adjacent room slipped a pair of headphones over Carter’s strawberry blond hair, and then retreated back behind the window where he saw Margot standing and talking to someone who must have been the station manager.
A commercial for Doan’s Back Relief pills was playing in his ears, when suddenly he saw a flashing of the On Air red neon sign across from their table, and then after a quick WC-Ohhhhhh-S jingle, heard Trip start talking to him.
“I have a very special friend in the studio today to help me with the Top Five at Five. Besides being a generous philanthropist and loving husband to his adorable wife, Miss Margot, Carter Ridge is a fan of Patsy Cline. So, welcome to WCOS, Mr. Carter Ridge!”
Carter cleared his throat about to speak, and realized that his mouth was dry. He let out a weak cough, and then frantically looked and saw a glass of water had already been placed on the studio table for him. He took a quick swig and said, “Thanks, Trip, it’s a real honor to be here.”
The sound of his own voice in the headset surprised him. Is that what I really sound like? Trip had a wide grin on his face and was talking, but all Carter could focus on was trying to keep some saliva in his mouth, and what an immense nasal cavity he must have.
“...that you’ve heard. So, Carter, who do we have at number five this afternoon?” Trip asked, rousing Carter back. He cleared his throat, and lowering his voice slightly to bring it in alignment with the baritone he believed himself to be, Carter said, “Well, Trip, today it’s Claude Ray...er...Gray, with ‘Family Bible’.”
That sounded a little better, he thought, except for messing up the singer’s name. Carter felt a stream of sweat run down his torso beneath his dress shirt and tie due to the hot, stale studio. He shot a quick glance over his left shoulder into the sound engineer’s room where Margot was laughing, charming the same older gentleman as before, not even listening to Carter as he slowly died in front of Trip. He heard the twangy moaning of Mr. Gray intoning about memories of sitting around the family table, readin’ and singin’ from the family Bible. He felt less self-conscious about his own sharp nasally voice after hearing a few stanzas, and then the music faded and Trip got up from his chair and disappeared for a moment. He came back with a wide grin and two Styrofoam cups of coffee balanced in one hand as he opened the door.
“Thought you might like a cup, sorry for not offering one earlier.” He passed it over to him. He put back on his headphones just as the On Air light began flashing again.
“And that was Claude Ray Gray, as he likes to be called,” Trip said, winking over at Carter. He grabbed Carter’s hand on top of the table and said, “I’m just kiddin’ with ya Carter. So, tell me, who are you pulling for in Martinsville?”
Carter felt his face redden, and he feigned another smile. Martinsville? Is that an upcoming election? Carter struggled to hide his sheer panic of having no idea what Trip was referring to. He took a sip of his coffee and saw Trip staring at him like a Golden Retriever holding a slobbery, favorite wet sock toy.
“You know, folks are sayin’ that this new kid, Richard Petty, has a good shot at it,” the deejay said grinning, as if it that were the most natural transition in the world.
Carter smiled back feebly, having no clue as to what in the world Trip was talking about. He could tell his hands were wet, but they were no match for the beads of sweat making their way down his temples. He shot a quick glance over to see if Margot was still engrossed with her new fan, and saw that she was staring intently at him and Trip. She was taking a long drag from her cigarette.
Carter refocused back onto his host. “Yes,” he began, stammering, “I s-suppose Richard Petty is worth keeping an eye on, I agree.”
Trip began talking about the track conditions for the weekend coming up and something about NASCAR. I’m not the right guy for this job, I’ll never get these country folks to want to vote for a guy like me. Finally, he heard “Which brings us to number four, Carter. What do you have for us?”
Carter swallowed a bit, assuring himself that his mouth was ready, as was his diaphragm, bypassing his nasal cavities. He said in his best hokey-radio-joking voice, “’Misery Loves Company’, by Porter Wagoner.”
After a few chords of music, the sound went dead in his ears as the engineer came on and said, “You’re doing great, Mr. Ridge.”
Carter swung his head back around to see the little room behind the glass window, and the engineer had his thumbs up to encourage him. Margot had a look in her eyes as if she was not quite sure what she was witnessing. He heard Trip say, “Carter, after this song we’ll move to a quick commercial break if you need to use the restroom or anything.”
He assured him that he was fine, and after dabbing his forehead again with his handkerchief, took another sip of the coffee. He undid the top button of his starched white shirt, and loosened the knot in his tie by a knuckle. A guy like me, Carter mused, shaking his head. If they only knew.
Trip finished his voice-over plugging for the new Love Chevrolet dealership in Irmo, and turned to Carter. “You’re from Aiken, aren’t you? What car do you drive?”
Somehow this seemed like the worst moment to mention that he didn’t even really drive a car, but had a driver. Even worse, that his car of choice was a French sedan, a cobalt-blue Citroën DS that he’d fallen in love with at the Paris Auto Show a couple of years earlier while on vacation. He might as well throw in the towel on his candidacy for the governor’s office without even having officially announced yet. Instead, he reflexively reached for an anecdote about his mother.
“Trip, hearing you talk about the good folks over at Love Chevrolet reminds me of learning to drive on my momma Idella’s big old 1939 Pontiac. That car was as big as a tractor, and the hood was as long as a month of Sundays.” Trip chuckled. “I was this skinny whip of a boy, scared half to death trying to not stall on the only hill we have in town, and my daddy said, ‘son, if you don’t get us killed today, I’ll take that as a sign from the good Lord that I must’ve done something right with you.” Carter smiled, the first genuine one since he had arrived, at last relieved that he hadn’t flubbed anything up, even if it was a false memory. My daddy would never have taken me for a car ride.
Trip handed him the next index card, and Carter read it aloud, “Coming in at number three, ‘She’s Got You’, by Patsy Cline.”
Carter’s momentary respite from the anguish of his performance promptly ended when Travis asked while the song played in the background, “Do you want to take any calls from the listeners?” As jovial as Trip was, Carter knew that there was no way that Trip would be able to save him from a question about bass fishing, or turkey hunting, or any other innumerable traps one of the listeners could lay for him. Plus, Carter could practically hear from behind the glass wall Margot’s head “no.”
“Trip, I don’t think that will be necessary. I need to get going at 5:30 to be back in Aiken for a meeting later,” he lied. This entire half hour is nothing but a lie. Not the first time, nor the last. It bothered him, though, that he was so good at it, all of this deceit. He could pretend to be authentic, which was ridiculous on the face of it, but he had mastered projecting what others wanted to see at a young age. Learning how to navigate between the difficult shoals of his demanding father, and the welcoming basin of his doting mother, Carter knew how to perform for each. With his father Carter had to claw for the scantest of praise in sports, the manlier variety the better. Tennis was met with an eye roll, but when he dislocated his shoulder in water polo, he overhead his father extolling his skills at a dinner party. But not to his face. Those crumbs of proud approval fell sparingly from David Ridge, least of all to his eldest son, Carter.
His mother, on the other hand, saw Carter as nothing short of a divine blessing. Idella Ridge had always said his birth was a gift. She delighted in telling her friends seated near her perch in the third pew from the front at church, or even, in later years, the nurses who convalesced her ambling decline towards death, that she had heard stories about the agony of labor, but Carter had arrived like a sneeze. She barely remembered any pain from pushing him out into the world. No, those vestiges from the Garden of Eden, Eve’s curse, would come with Carlton’s and later, with Helen’s birth, but her first-born was as if God himself had ordained that he should be perfect.
“Well another time, then,” Trip said with a wink. He looked at the sound engineer and rolled his fingers like we’re moving forward, and with the blinking On Air again reminding Carter that it was time to fasten his mask tightly for the homestretch. He rubbed his still moist palms on his grey wool suit pants, and gave Trip a winsome grin, feeling his dimples do their magic and exuding a confidence that had served him well the past thirty-three years.
“Rounding out our top five, is yesterday’s top requested song, coming in at number two today,” Trip intoned into his microphone. “Carter, will you do the honors?”
He cleared his throat, which sounded like a cough through his headphones, and said softly out of embarrassment, “’She Thinks I Still Care’, by Mr. George Jones.” After a few bars, the sound went dead again in his headphones and he turned to check back at the control booth, but it was only the sound engineer inside. He wondered if Margot was still listening to the broadcast, but suspected that she already had plenty of notes for him during the car ride afterwards.
After announcing the day’s top song, ‘Don’t Worry’, by Marty Robbins, Carter thanked Trip for his hospitality, and waved goodbye to the engineer. He rubbed back his hair with his left hand, a nervous tic, as he walked out of the studio and thanked Lurlene. Margot was standing at the exit waiting for him, and she called back, “Thanks so much, Lurlene darlin’.’”
Carter slipped his sunglasses on as he left the radio station, out into the late afternoon sun and humidity, and as he escorted Margot to their waiting car, she said, “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m glad that is over.” He rested his hand on her back, and once they got to the car, his driver Shelby opened her door for her. She glided in and after Carter was seated next to her in the other rear passenger seat, he unbuttoned his grey suit jacket and exhaled a sigh of relief.
“Oh no,” she said, glaring at him. “You got lucky, mister.”
Carter said nothing and stared out of the window as Shelby pulled the Citroën into the rush-hour traffic of downtown Columbia. The five-minute drive back to the old library would be just enough time for her to make her point, and then she would be done with it he hoped. He knew he hadn’t done well, if anything, he was usually a harsher critic about his performance than she was. But this was a new medium for him; hearing his voice like that, not being able to see his audience, not having prepared a script in advance, he felt exposed. And if it was one thing that he dreaded, feared above all else, it was being exposed.
“I won’t bring up the fact that I explicitly told you that Trip Travers was an avid NASCAR racing fan,” she began. “But I guess you didn’t read my background memo for today, despite the fact that it was in your briefing folder last night.”
She studied him as he continued to sullenly fix his attention somewhere beyond the horizon, then shook her head. “Listen, Carter, it was just your first time on the radio. It’s normal to be off of your game with something new, which is why we’re trying this out early, this appealing to the folks, months before you announce. Better to get the kinks out now than when you are really under scrutiny.”
He looked back at her, and extended his hand to hers in an uncertain truce. She could have gone on for another ten or fifteen minutes, nitpicking every detail. He sighed, relieved that her inquisition was over. The whole experience had left him particularly anxious, because not only had he failed at being perfect, he hadn’t even come close to being very good. The unease had left him keyed up, needing a release of adrenaline—or more. Plus, he knew that his days of anonymity were rapidly coming to a close, which just poured more fuel on his troubled state. The desire to vent built up in him quickly, and like a ripened mosquito bite, it was ready to be scratched.
The ambiance of the bar, if one were to deign with a French word such a tragic atmosphere, was lit to the point it took a few seconds for one’s eyes to adjust upon entering. Even at night. There was a single red light bulb behind the bar, above the cash register, projecting its meager lure through the rest of the cellar that was not so much a bar but a last stop. Carter found his seat on a bar stool, placing his fedora on the stool adjacent, and by the time he turned to the patron, was already being given a tumbler with three ice cubes and several fingers of scotch.
“Thanks, Mac,” Carter said, raising the glass.
Carter looked around at the room. A small group of young hoods, most likely ex-cons who would do almost anything for a dollar, hung together in a corner next to the jukebox. Across from them sitting at a tall table were what Mac, the owner, called the “fairies.” Older, some wore ascots, others pink pocket squares, or green carnations, but they all accentuated their sentences with their wrists, and drank their watered down cocktails with an extended pinky. The rest of the clientele were an infrequent flow of the curious, the scared, and horny novices such as himself. He was certain that the bar was also frequented by vice cops on occasion, but as far as he could tell, there was no illicit activity taking place on the premises. The brusque tattooed old Navy veteran who ran the place took no prisoners if there was any hint of drunken indiscretions.
Carter had had Shelby drive Margot home back to Aiken, and he’d taken her car so that he could have dinner in town with an “old friend.” He knew that she usually saw through this charade, and depending on her mood and taste for a fight, she would either shrug and say don’t be late or dig her heels in for a go at making her point that Carter, you really need to take this prep phase seriously.
He caught the eye of a young kid wearing a tight white tee shirt and jeans with long cuffs. The boy smiled at him, and Carter took a final gulp of his drink, sliding five dollars across the bar counter to Mac who was wiping down a glass. Someone slipped a nickel into the jukebox and ‘Don’t Worry’ began playing.