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Nothing. And indeed he does nothing. Mungo stands there and stares forward with a doltish expression on his face, which is how the actor Mark Goode portrayed most emotions.
    It is Father White who acts, reaching up, taking hold of Black Chester’s hand and squeezing. There is no attempt at screen realism here, no exploding skull or blood, but we children, all of us, gasped with terrible shock as the padre slumped to the ground. And then we began to weep.
    Not everybody in the theatre, but the three of us certainly, we erupted into blubbery tears. I knew we were not weeping for the clergyman’s huge self-sacrifice, not exclusively. We were weeping because this selfless act on his part (this bit of cheap melodrama, when you get right down to it, after which Mungo summarily shot Chester Nipes through the heart) allowed us to. We were weeping, finally, for our own rankerdom.
    In some strange way, I saw suddenly the trajectory of a man’s life, of
my
life; how, lacking the courage to do anything remotely close to what Father White had just done, I would end up wallowing in besotted loneliness.
    And here I am.

    “Hello?”
    “McQuigge here.”
    “Phil?”
    “Yeah,
but
do not call me
Phil
, because this is not a social call. How are you, anyway?”
    “First-rate.”
    “Okay, great, but never mind about that right now. I want to take issue with the phrase
rose above the mediocrity of the material.”
    “I’m not with you, Phil.”
    “In the obituary. Ed Milligan’s obituary.”
    “Ah. Wrote that, did I?”
    “I think you even said
consistently. Consistently rose above the mediocrity of the material.”
    “I see. And you’ve been brooding about it for all these months.”
    “No. Yes.”
    “And which aspect of the phrase in particular are you taking issue with, Phil? Milligan’s rising above or the mediocrity of the material?”
    “What do
you
think?”
    “For starters, I think you’re drunk. And I think your relationship with Milligan was complicated, that you resented his stardom. And lastly, I think you know that
Padre
was a mediocre program.”
    “Really.”
    “Don’t feel badly. Almost everything on television is mediocre.”
    “And what, precisely, is so mediocre about
Padre?”
    “I’ll tell you what’s mediocre about it, Philip. Here’s the thing. The writing is actually quite good. Sometimes, especially when
you’re
writing it, there’s very good dialogue. Clever stuff. And I appreciate the plot twists, don’t think I don’t. Often I’m reminded of your man Serling.”
    “Oh, you and I have discussed Rod Serling?”
    “Philip. We came to blows in Banff whilst discussing Rod Serling. At least, you did.”
    “Ah, yes. Now I remember.”
    “No, you don’t.”
    “Carry on. You like a lot about
Padre
, despite which, it remains, in your view, mediocre.”
    “Here’s the thing. Sometimes the show seems like it was created and written by a prepubescent boy. And it’s not just that the women are either virtuous or slatternly. Although there is that. But the show exhibits a very immature, a very unexamined, world view. It’s a black-hat white-hat show, Philip. And you’re far more intelligent than that. Now, I know what you’re going to say, that it is mere entertainment. But that would be disingenuous on your part. The show purports to be dealing with questions of good and evil, and its failure to do so consigns it to the bin marked
mediocre.
Milligan—who was neither wholly good nor wholly bad, but managed, as we know, to be both in grand measure—at least shaded things slightly. Lent the proceedings some ambiguity. And in doing so rose above the mediocrity of the material.”
    “Oh. I see.”
    “Are you working on anything now, Philip? I could mention it in my column.”
    “Thanks, man, but I’m out of the television business.”

7 | THE SITUATION
    I LIVE IN A BASEMENT APARTMENT, COMPRISING A KITCHENETTE, A bedroomette and a sittingroomette. I could afford more spacious