Auto Light and its 98,000 dealers bring you Miss Agnes Moorhead in tonight's presentation
of Suspense.
Tonight, Auto Light salutes the American Automobile Association and its traffic safety program
as we present a dramatic report called, The Empty Chair, our star, the first lady of Suspense,
Miss Agnes Moorhead.
This is Harlow Wilcox speaking for the worldwide Auto Light family.
Since 1922, the American Automobile Association, with the cooperation of 276 affiliated clubs,
has been active in helping schools develop educational programs designed to protect children
on their way to and from school, and to make them careful drivers upon graduation.
Traffic safety is, as you know, everyone's business.
So our story tonight will dramatize how we all can help ourselves and our children by
driving carefully and by cooperating with traffic safety instructions.
Here in the program, we will hear from Mr. Royce G. Martin, chairman of the board and
president of the Electric Auto Light Company, and Mr. Ralph Thomas, president of the American
Automobile Association.
And now, Auto Light presents transcribed, The Empty Chair, starring Miss Agnes Moorhead,
hoping once again to keep you in suspense.
Now, are we all settled down?
That's good.
Miss Barbara Warner.
You may call me Miss Barbara or Miss Warner, either one, which gives you young ladies and
gentlemen at least two choices when you wish to attract my attention, so that there'll
be no need to yell out, hey, teacher.
Besides, 10B3, 10B3, and your homeroom, high school at last.
And today's the first day.
Young ladies and gentlemen, truly, and today's the day it really starts.
So now let's get to know each other, shall we?
All of you will get up and go to the back of the room, please.
I have your study cards here, and I've arranged them alphabetically.
We'll start with the first row and the first seat, and as I call your names, you'll be
seated.
Sidney Aronson, Mary Avanti, right in back of Sidney.
Yes, that's right.
David Coop, George Darley.
Just a minute, George.
Leave an empty seat, Jessica Bromley, and then skip one, and then you, George.
An empty seat for David Cooper.
For now.
How'd you like that, Miss Warner?
Bobby.
What?
Nothing.
I didn't say anything.
Don't worry about a thing, Miss Warner.
Home.
And how'd you like your ride?
Well, I'm glad it's over.
And I was just getting a compliment ready for you.
Oh, you were?
I've never had a teacher in my car before.
And?
I wanted to see how one of them would react to going 65 miles an hour.
Nearly 70, Bobby, and in a residential section, too.
Just for the last six blocks, Miss Warner.
I was going to say how I was surprised you didn't scream at me or get hysterical.
I was going to say I'm glad, since you're that kind of person, I'm glad you're going
to board with my mother and me.
Now you're sorry about the whole thing.
Oh, no, no.
I didn't mean that.
I'm a good driver, Miss Warner.
Yes, I'm sure you are.
And this is a good car.
Yes, it's beautiful.
You mean it?
Yes, of course I do, Bobby.
But what about school, the traffic classes, and the sessions on safety?
What about them?
Well, didn't they impress you?
Most of the boys and girls learn to drive through school classes, didn't you?
Yes, ma'am.
And reaction times, you were taught about those and how no one's reaction time is really
fast enough to cope with an emergency at high speed.
You drive as if you'd forgot all about that as soon as you walked out of class.
And you sound like a-
Bobby!
Miss Warner!
That's my mother.
Well, what are you two out here for?
Come on in.
I've got tea made.
Oh, I'm so glad you're here, Miss Warner.
I wasn't sure when you'd arrive.
Mrs. Morrison, mother of Bobby, a woman in her forties perhaps or younger, in a plain
cotton house dress that hung loosely about her and her hands were almost delicate and
quite thin and worn.
And her fingers quickly and nervously pushed strands of graying hair tied against her temples
and on her face the trace and not yet deep of lines of strain.
Don't let Miss Warner carry her bag herself, Bobby.
You take it.
Take it to her room.
Bobby!
And then her touch on my arm and Mrs. Morrison led me into her house, into her home and showed
me the living room, neat, sparingly furnished and said that I was welcome to use it any
evening for my guests if I just let her know beforehand.
She would arrange to go to a movie or call on a neighbor, just let her know beforehand.
And the kitchen and where she kept the toaster and the coffee canister and the sugar and
the other things I'd need for breakfast or a snack whenever I pleased.
She didn't mind a bit.
And then my room.
I, uh, I had Bobby fix up the little radio on your bed table.
I thought it might be nice.
A pleasant room.
A summer blanket neatly folded at the foot of the bed.
A window open to a small wire fence vegetable garden.
A desk, a chair, a pleasant room.
Unpacked now and change and lie down and rest.
Listen to the radio.
And doze.
Lay off me, Ma.
Leave me alone.
Just lay off me.
Do you hear me?
And wake in then to summer evening and do something more harsh.
I'm fed up, Ma.
Fed up.
Do I reach your mind?
Is it getting through to you?
Listen to me, Bobby.
I've had it listening to you, Ma.
Bobby, she'll hear you.
Miss Warner will hear you.
Let her hear!
You hear me, Miss Warner?
You're listening real good?
Hey, Warner, wake up!
Hit the deck!
Wake up and get an earful!
All right.
We'll do that, Bobby.
We'll let Miss Warner listen so you won't have to yell at her.
Miss Warner?
Yes?
Would you come out, please?
I want you to...
Would you please?
Yes, Mrs. Martin.
Good evening, Bobby.
Can you flip or something, Ma?
My son was yelling and screaming at his mother and then at you.
And he said he didn't care if you heard.
Go on, Bobby.
Tell me and tell Miss Warner how fed up you are with your mother.
I told you and told you, Ma, just lay off me.
You've had experience, haven't you, Miss Warner, with boys like Bobby and the others he runs
around with?
They must confide in you and tell you their things that they won't tell their mothers,
that their mothers can't possibly understand or know or share.
You're younger and more experienced and they must.
Bobby?
You're getting it blow by blow, Miss Warner.
You stick with Ma and me and you'll get it every night, all night.
Where are you going tonight, Bobby?
Who will you be with tonight, Bobby?
Where will I find you if I need you, Bobby?
If you need me, Bobby?
Look, I'm 17 and there's a joint that's got a jukebox in it and girls with pockets full
of dimes and me, I got a car.
I got a car, hot, real hot.
Are you on the high school teacher here, Ma?
You put your heads together and maybe it'll come out mathematical where your baby boy is
nice.
Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Warner.
Forgive us, please.
Don't mention it.
He's...
No, I want to tell you about my boy.
He's had no father since he was eight.
When he was 13, Bobby got some work around the garage after school.
It helped, it helped out a lot and I was glad to see it.
He loved working around motors and...
Well, you saw that car he built and a boy's 17 to have built such a car.
Mrs. Morrison.
Yes?
Has Bobby ever told you about Mr. Douglas?
I don't think so.
He's a teacher at our school, a manual arts teacher.
No.
He takes special interest in boys like Bobby.
He's also our driver education teacher, we call him.
He works with the boys and girls and the local automobile club helps him.
Sometimes I...
I just think my son is wild, that's all.
That's just what I'm telling you.
Mr. Douglas teaches safety and sanity in driving.
He tries to tell the young people...
Mrs. Morrison.
Hey, Mrs. Morrison.
Oh, oh, hello, David.
Come in.
Oh, David, this is Miss Warner.
She teaches at the high school where you're going to go this year.
Miss Warner, this is David Cooper, a neighbor boy.
Hi, Miss Warner.
Hello, David.
I'm glad to know you.
Me too.
Where's Bobby, Mrs. Morrison?
He's not here, David.
Oh, out in the garage, huh?
Working on that super neat job of his, I'll bet.
I don't think so.
Well, where'd he go, Mrs. Morrison?
I don't know.
He promised me.
He promised me for sure this time.
Promised you what, David?
Well, he said next time he was in a race, I could ride with him.
And I know there's one tonight.
He welshes out on me.
Well, he's the best, Mrs. Morrison.
Real absolute best.
Well, he's got all those other guys...
How old are you, David?
Huh?
I ask how old you were.
Thirteen.
What's that got to do with it?
Bobby promised me.
He said I was old enough now for him to break me in.
Well, good night, Mrs. Morrison.
Miss Warner.
David's our neighbor boy.
Not many years ago, I used to babysit for his mother.
Read to him, he and Bobby.
Could I fix you something to eat, Miss Warner?
And here, this picture was taken at Lake Louise, too.
You can hardly tell I'm the one in the middle, can you?
The way Miss Reba and I dressed up there.
It must have been very expensive.
Oh, and restful.
I've got a lot of reading done that I've been promising myself to get...
Oh, sit still, Mrs. Morrison.
I'll get it.
Good evening.
Does this young man belong here?
Yes, he does, officer.
Please come in.
Who is it?
Now, don't get excited, Mom.
Oh!
I said don't get excited.
Are you Mrs. Morrison?
Oh, yes.
Yes.
I'm Officer Cleaver.
The man who was in the room.
I'm the man who was in the room.
I'm Officer Cleaver.
The only reason your son isn't in juvenile court right now is because, as far as I know,
it's the first time he's pulled a trick like he did tonight.
What are you talking about?
In his car.
Him and another one speeding down Presbury Street.
Your son headed north and the other one south, headed toward each other.
Front wheels on the white dividing line to see who'd give way.
Going over 70 miles an hour.
Oh, Bobby.
Who the other kid was, I don't know, ma'am.
We can only catch one of them.
Him.
Auto Light is bringing you Miss Agnes Moorhead in The Empty Chair, tonight's presentation
in radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Suspense.
We'll continue with Suspense in a moment.
Now here is Mr. Royce G. Martin, Chairman of the Board and President of the Electric
Auto Light Company, to introduce our special guest.
Tonight, the worldwide auto light family is privileged to salute the American Automobile
Association and its traffic safety program.
To tell us how this practical safety program is helping to reduce traffic accidents by
teaching future drivers how to be careful drivers.
Here is the President of the American Automobile Association, Mr. Ralph Thomas.
Thank you, Mr. Martin.
We at the American Automobile Association are grateful for the interest shown in our
work by the auto light family, as evidenced by this program tonight.
The problem presented in this dramatization is unfortunately a very real one and a very
common one.
However, cooperating with school and community authorities, we are engaged in stimulating
and aiding an active educational program to teach our young drivers and pedestrians safety
first.
This year alone, 3A materials and services are being widely used in grammar and high
school class instruction.
Indeed, will help over 12 million students.
This of course is important to all of us.
If you have a son or a daughter in school, ask about this program and set a good example
yourself by practicing safety behind the wheel.
If you are a student, take an active part in class and when you are behind the wheel,
be the best amongst the young drivers.
Be a sportsman-like driver.
Thank you, Mr. Thomas.
And as an 8-year-old boy said when he was asked what safety meant, safety is thinking
not to get hurt or to hurt.
There is a definition we should all remember.
And now, auto light brings back to our Hollywood soundstage, Miss Agnes Moorhead in Elliot
Lewis's production of The Empty Chair, a dramatic report well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Friday night in a quiet room and a window that opens onto the silences of a town already
asleep.
Friday night and an end to summer, last weekend before school's opening and the last book
you've promised yourself to read before summer's closed.
And read now to the undercurrent of voices from another room in Mrs. Morrison's home.
The night stillness and Mrs. Morrison's search through it for the words to speak to her 17-year-old
son.
Saturday morning and Mrs. Morrison has made breakfast and over coffee.
Will you try and do something about my boy, Miss Warner?
Maybe you could do something, please.
And dress then and go to the school.
Try to save a boy.
Doors open.
Come on in.
Oh, hello, Miss Warner.
I don't want to interrupt, Mr. Douglas.
I just...
No, you're not.
I'm just getting everything ready for when school opens Monday.
What are you doing here today?
Anxious to get back in honors?
I don't know.
I think so.
Mr. Douglas.
Yes?
Do you know a boy named Bobby Morrison?
Why, yes.
What about Bobby?
I'm boarding with him and his mother.
I wanted to...
I heard the police picked him up racing last night.
Some of the boys came in and told me about it.
I'm sorry to hear...
His mother is very troubled.
She asked me to help.
Bobby's very bright.
A real bright, intelligent boy.
And sensitive.
You were going to say something else, Mr. Douglas, about Bobby.
He's a boy without a father.
When he was eight.
Bobby's a boy who's looking for something.
And he finds it in speed and in danger, in ways that could kill him.
We try, Miss Warner.
We try real hard.
We cooperate with the auto clubs.
You know about the classes I give in driver instructions.
Mr. Douglas...
And I tell the kids, you kids drive like that, I say one out of a thousand of you'll be a
corpse before the year's out.
One out of 45 hurt crippled.
We tell them why traffic laws are made.
For the protection and survival of the community.
By actual demonstration, we show them what a tremendous force they're handling when they're
behind the wheel of an automobile.
We go out and demonstrate the different conditions.
The distances it takes to stop a car on a dry and slippery pavement from different speeds.
Together, we study accident reports and actual photographs of what happens when you're arrogant
or careless with a car.
Smashed cars from head-on collisions.
Smashed people.
We give them visual and muscular coordination tests.
So they'll understand what speed and hundreds of horsepower can do to them.
And how to face emergencies behind the wheel.
We try to make sportsmen-like drivers out of them.
Miss Warner.
Yes?
Boys like Bobby.
Whatever their reasons, they won't listen.
Nights they gather and go out to the hub in their souped-up cars and they dance to the
jukebox and they won't listen.
The hub?
A place out on State Highway 52, south side of the bridge.
Used to be a kind of general store.
A fountain and hamburgers.
The kids picked it up, had Charlie Phillips, the owner, put in a jukebox and a big neon
sign.
They gather their nights.
For races.
Will you take me there, Mr. Douglas?
What?
I want to see for myself.
Tonight, around nine.
I'm at Mrs. Morrison's on Benton, 853.
Will you call for me?
Why, of course.
Thank you.
And later, when I got back to the house, Mrs. Morrison said Bobby hadn't been home all day.
But it wasn't unusual, she said.
He'd show up for dinner.
But he didn't.
And Mrs. Morrison picked at her food and got up from the table too often and walked around
and made excuses which could cover Bobby's not being there.
A double feature Bobby had to see twice.
A friend had him to dinner and Bobby forgot to call.
The ordinary excuses we all make to hold back the truth for a while.
And after dinner, dishes and her trying to chat brightly, but somehow sentences trailing
off and not being finished.
And glances through the window onto the night street and the head cocked to the sound of
every passing automobile.
And when the doorbell rang, a mother hurrying for news of her son.
And the disappointment.
Please come in, Mr. Douglas.
Thank you.
Oh, Miss Warner.
Mr. Douglas is here.
And the ride down State Highway 52, south through good countryside of Sycamore and Birch,
across a wooden bridge.
And the intrusion now upon a time of evening quiet of a thing, a wheel, an enormous wheel
of red neon.
A wheel whose each spoke displaced a tube of sky when it lit, one spoke after another.
And when the huge and clever wheel was finally complete, a thing happened.
The word hub announced itself at the split second when the center of the wheel appeared.
This is the place.
Let's go inside.
You and your friend can have this booth right here, Mr. Douglas.
Thanks, Charlie.
Oh, don't go away.
I want you to meet a friend of mine, Miss Warner, Charlie Phillips.
How do you do, Mr. Douglas?
Hello.
The hub belongs to Charlie.
Yes, ma'am.
Our things, Charlie.
Last night, that kid over there, you see him?
That one near the music box.
Gordon Matthews?
Who knows what his name is?
Well, that's Gordon, all right.
He was in my homeroom last year.
You should have made him write a few hundred times, don't play with matches.
He would like to set fire to the place last night.
Why, that boy's barely 15 years old.
What's he doing out here five miles outside of town this late at night?
Listen, he's got a pair in a toon can ask that question, I mean.
Oh, why don't you just tell him to go home, Charlie?
Why don't you keep him out of here?
For the same reason you're teaching school, to eat, to make a living.
Once this was a nice place.
Why, there's David, David Cooper.
David?
Oh, hello, Miss Warner.
What are you doing here, David?
David, I'm talking to you.
I know you are.
How did you get out here?
I hitched.
Mr. Douglas and I are going to take you home.
I'm sorry, Miss Warner, but I...
Oh, hi, Bobby.
You ready, kid?
What is this, Bobby?
School opens Monday.
Then you ask questions and ask for hands.
Saturday night don't belong to you, Miss Warner.
Come on, kid.
Please, Miss Warner, let me go.
What's the trouble?
Look, you'd better stay out of this, Mr. Douglas.
David is going someplace with Bobby.
I want to know where.
Where, Bobby?
Where?
All right.
Outside is my car.
And outside is two other cars.
And the boys in them are impatient.
That's how we tell each other we're impatient.
You're going to race, Bobby?
Yeah.
And down the road a few yards is a bridge.
You get the picture?
You're crazy.
What's he going to do?
Tell her.
The three of them will line up abreast on the road.
Then they'll race to the bridge and over it.
But there's only room for two cars across that bridge.
That's right.
And the three of us will have to drop back.
Come on, Davey.
Okay.
Oh, you stay here, David.
Now listen, you can get killed.
Let go of me.
I would if I were you, Mr. Douglas.
I'd really let him go.
Mr. Douglas, hey.
What do you want, Charlie?
These kids, they turn into a wolf pack.
Don't get yourself into any trouble.
These boys wouldn't dare to.
Listen, Miss Warner, last month an older brother, there must have been a man about 30, very
hefty fellow with muscles on his forearm.
This fellow came in here and tried to pull his kid brother out of here.
He landed in the hospital.
Cut.
There's 16 kids here, Miss Warner.
But what Bobby is going to do, that race over the bridge with David, both of them can be
killed.
The way they handle those cars, you don't know.
Come on, Davey.
You coming?
Sure.
name, Mr.Douglas & Mr.panzee as the prices are,21
And Mary Wheeler, you start the last row, Mary, will you please?
Take the seat down front.
Then Judy Wilton.
Then John Young, the third seat.
And Martin Young.
Your brothers, aren't you?
I can tell.
And next to the last, Audrey Zant.
And George Zimmerman.
There.
Now, young ladies and gentlemen, here we are.
10B3 at Alexander Hamilton High School.
Oh, come right in, Bobby.
And so, class, this is the first day of our new school year, and this is where we'll meet
to start each day and to end it.
The young gentleman who just came in to visit is a senior, and his name is Bobby Morrison.
He asked if he could talk to you, and I said he could.
All right, Bobby.
Thank you.
I guess, first of all, I want to apologize to you.
All of you.
Miss Warner, and, well, all of you, because of that empty chair.
It's my fault.
I guess you know about it.
I guess you've heard.
But I want to tell you how sorry I am.
It was my fault.
Now, soon you'll be taking those driver training courses, and that way you're going to learn
what safety means.
That it means respecting the lives of others.
Now, that's something I didn't do, and that's why you've got that empty chair instead of
David Cooper.
But David's going to be all right.
I've been spending a lot of time at the hospital, and today they told me that.
That's about all, Miss Warner, and thank you for letting me say it.
Thank you, Bobby.
And that's why we'll save David's seat for him.
He's coming back.
I want to wish you all a fine, productive, and safe school year.
And if there's anything you want to talk to me about, I'll always be here.
You may go to your first class.
Suspense.
Brought to you by Auto Light, tonight's star, Miss Agnes Moorhead, will return in just a
moment.
Tonight, our worldwide Auto Light family has been privileged to salute the American Automobile
Association and its traffic safety program.
In fact, everyone who helps bring traffic safety and driver training programs to boys
and girls in their school classrooms throughout the world.
You too can aid in promoting safety by driving carefully at all times, and by making sure
that schools in your community are teaching traffic safety in their classrooms.
Full information on programs available can be secured from your local automobile club
affiliated with the American Automobile Association or from the American Automobile Association,
Washington, D.C.
And now I'd like to present Agnes Moorhead and our producer director, Elliot Lewis.
Thank you, Harlow.
Agnes, I'm happy to inform you that you have been voted Auto Light's Golden Mike Award
for the best female performance of the year on Suspense.
Congratulations, and here, this is for you.
Oh, thank you, Elliot.
As you know, Suspense has always been my favorite radio show, so receiving this award is a double
honor.
Thank you very, very much.
Next week, a story based on fact as we recreate the excitement and violence of a fire in an
oil field.
The story is called Hellfire.
Our star, Mr. John Hodiac.
That's next week on Suspense.
Suspense is transcribed and directed by Elliot Lewis with music composed by Ranny Garragenk
and conducted by Lud Gluskin.
The Empty Chair was written for Suspense by Morton Fine and David Friedkin.
In tonight's story, Sam Edwards was heard as Bobby.
Featured in the cast were Michael Chapin, Paula Winslow, Joseph Kearns, and Herb Butterfield.
Agnes Moorhead will soon be seen in the magnificent obsession.
And remember, next week, Mr. John Hodiac in Hellfire.
And now, this is Harlow Wilcox saying good night for the Autolite family with this reminder.
You're always right to be careful.
This is the CBS Radio Network.