Charlie Jingle came out of the underground tubes and walked down a block of chipped brick and colored plastic buildings, past picket fences and an empty street. He looked at the street, the pavement—dark, quiet, uncluttered by garbage, devoid of kids. On the roofs of the buildings was a jungle of neatly bent, squarely twisted, staunchly mounted aerials. The kids were under them, behind the picket fences, watching five-foot-square screens that flashed stories and news and the life histories of ring heroes like himself. A nice, clean-cut, handsome actor would act the part of Charlie Jingle, his fights, loves and disappointments, all ending up in one glorious, stirring message. Charlie Jingle made it. From rags to riches in a single swipe.... So can you. He stopped in front of Hannigan's Gym, looked up and down the street, and cautiously spat into the gutter. Then he went past the swinging doors into the building's interior.
Inside the door, he breathed deep the stale smell of oil and leather that permeated the atmosphere. Opening his eyes, he looked into the flat, grinning face of Emil McPhay. McPhay had been chalking schedules on a blackboard when he spotted the rapt expression of Charlie Jingle's face.
"As I live and panhandle!" exclaimed McPhay, his eyes rolling in their fat sockets.
"Anybody to see me, Emil?"
"Well you know as well as me somebody is, Charlie. The lovin' picture-makin' people 're here. Got a whole staff wit 'em." He leaned close, rolling his eyes shyly. "You gonna give 'em the story of yer bloody life, Charlie?"
Charlie strode toward his shop at the back of the gym.
"Not unless they make me lead man. And you the leading lady!"
He went past a row of smoked-glass doors to the last one with C. JINGLE, TRAINER printed on it, opened it, and went in. As Emil McPhay had said, the room was mobbed with smoking, suntanned Californians. An elegant-looking man rushed forward and jerked his hand up and down.
"Glad ... so glad.... Pictures.... Hope.... Contract.... Of course. Your boy.... Mister Jingle.... Famous...."
Nobody had called Charlie Jingle mister for ten years. In one night, he'd graduated from flop to mister. He rubbed his fingers together, feeling the sweat on them. His eyes took in the walls painted their flat, drying green, the racks of tools on them, the pictures of great fighting machines all over them, the electrical diagrams, the Reflex-Analyses Patterns mapped out next to each one. Then he lowered his eyes to take in the grinning, smooth-faced men around him, doing nervous things with their faces and hands. He looked at the man in front of him, his mouth flapping open and closed, contorting this way and that, and suddenly Charlie shut his eyes tight, drew in a blast of air, screwed his mouth open, and yelled "Shaddap!" good and loud.
There was stunned silence. Charlie looked around at them, at their poised, waiting faces.
"Scram!" he yelled, and jerked his finger to the door.
Slowly, the suntanned Californians drifted out of the room, watching him closely lest he maul them or loose another violation of the success story at them. One man broke the spell.
"Of course, Mister Jingle, one's life history is certainly something to be treasured. Not to be treated lightly. But I assure you we—my company, that is—we will make certain that we adhere to the facts, in our fashion. There will be no unnec—"
Charlie Jingle grabbed the man's jacket-front with his left hand, his trouser-seat with the other, and, taking advantage of the man's total unpreparedness, threw him bodily out of the room, in the same motion kicking the door shut so hard, the glass cracked and a piece jumped out of the upper left hand corner.
Then Charlie Jingle stormed into his shop, where Tanker Bell awaited him.