by Edward Riche
Hazel shook her head.
“The severance packages, the optics. If someone’s performance was terribly poor, Stanford would send them to a management training course at the Niagara Institute. And they are useful for keeping pitching producers from your door.”
“Okay.”
“I suppose . . . it might be worth firing a few of the most incompetent. If only to send a message.”
“Could you run me up a list of the five or six worst?”
“Absolutely,” said Hazel. “Now, I thought we might take a stroll, give you a tour of the plant, meet some of the worker bees.”
“Sure.”
“If you’d rather not, right now . . . I’ve been presumptuous . . .”
“Not at all. That’s the way I’d like to keep it, at least until I better know the lay of the land. Presume away, and stay close.”
Elliot knew to expect low morale stemming from the recent labour troubles. Wages were middling and the CBC, subject to cutbacks imposed in an earlier era and never reversed, didn’t have enough money to do things the way they should be done. What surprised him, moving through the expansive, unwalled newsrooms and open-concept offices of the other units, was just how dreadful the conditions were. Employees, even those of standing, were allotted a tiny working space. They were organized to lay eggs on an industrial scale, not to invent anything. Here was the handiwork of MBAs, thought Elliot: it wasn’t a workplace issue as much as a human rights matter. No wonder that his hand was shaken with so little enthusiasm and even, in one instance, refused.
That the mood was black was reinforced by the nagging omnipresence of posters for the EAP, or “Employee Assistance Program.” It was enough to be reminded, at every turn, that the people around you were in almost constant need of assistance, but it was worse to have that message conveyed with the aid of lurid graphics. One poster showed office workers, arms by their sides, morphed into matches in a book; the head of the employee farthest to the right was bursting into flames, dooming the conjoined to the same incendiary fate. The faces were all in a terrified, screaming rictus. The caption read, “Don’t get burned by the office hothead. Call EAP.” A banner in an elevator showed CBCers being hustled into boxcars by Gestapo, with the caption, “On time and under budget.” A sallow, beaten jobber nailed to a cross that rose from a cheery cocktail party of suited managers exhorted its audience, “Don’t die for their sins. EAP.” Elliot resolved to deal with the situation by staying, as much as possible, in his own office.
The tour was concluding with a quick recce of the studios, the shooting floors. A sketch comedy show was being made in the first of the hangar-sized rooms. The crew had obviously been alerted of his visit, for they were executing a technically demanding shot, using some sort of certain-to-break-down robotic jib arm, when Hazel and Elliot entered. Elliot pretended, as best he could, to be interested, but he was well enough versed in the mechanics of show making to know its tedium. The operator of the jib device was controlling it far from the action with a joystick. When Elliot offered his hand to shake, the technician took his own from the control. They finished their how-do-you-do’s just in time to see, on a monitor, the camera crashing into the wigged noggin of one of the goofmeisters on set. The funnyman was knocked senseless. Elliot could imagine the playback, the actor’s eyes and mouth wide as the lens bore down on him. Now that would be truly amusing stuff: definitely a cut above any of the witless gags crawling up the teleprompter.
Elliot was dreading having to repeat these meet-and-greets with “the talent” and so was relieved, if perplexed, to discover that all the other studios were rented to outside concerns and consequently off-limits. From without, as they passed, these appeared the busiest spots in the building. Actors milling about one sound stage were in period suits and dresses from the 1930s. “Some film out of Hong Kong,” Hazel explained. Farther down, a couple of tiny Southeast Asian tarts, sexy young things in skimpy body stockings and thigh-high boots, approached. “Vietnamese television over there,” said Hazel. As they passed, Elliot saw that the southern deltas of the performers’ suits were stretched and lumpen on account of the packages they carried.
In preparation for taking his post, Elliot had familiarized himself with — well, scanned — the Broadcast Act, the yellowing Canadian legislation that first established the CBC. As Elliot recalled them, the organization’s objectives and terms of operation, however fuzzy, did not include the goings-on he was now witnessing in these public facilities. Before Elliot could get his question out, Hazel was answering it.
“The real estate division of the Corporation is tasked with finding money, and their authority is absolute. They determined that the studios were being underutilized, so they put out the ‘for rent’ sign. It could be worse. Out in the wilds, in St. John’s and Edmonton, they sell the joints.”
Liquidating assets was always a last resort, a desperate measure. Elliot thought of his Mackintosh set, his snooker chairs.
“So all the vice presidents are not . . .”
“Equal? Heavens, no. It’s understood that, while you are on the same tier of the management committee’s organizational chart, your office is, in practice, more elevated than, say . . . VP English Radio. Similarly, the real estate division, despite their official standing in the bureaucracy, effectively outrank you. The CBC is broke, you see.”
Before leaving at six thirty Elliot stuffed his valise with a selection of show bibles and scripts from the pile on his desk. Rather than comparing one hapless sitcom to another, he decided to mix it up, grabbing a couple of half-hour comedies, a movie of the week for a family audience and another that could probably air only after midnight and even then only on cable, a reality show, a sketch comedy show, two hour-long adult serial dramas, and a twelve-hour documentary series about “Reason.”
In finalizing his contract with the CBC he’d implied, discreetly and disingenuously, to those drafting the terms that the compensation was considerably lower than that to which he was accustomed. To lessen the blow they threw in a company car — an Audi — and a condo off King Street, walking distance from the Broadcast Centre. He would just as soon have stayed on at the Four Seasons, but it was too costly a proposition and would betray his lack of commitment to the job.
The forbiddingly named Liquor Control Board of Ontario turned out to be a well-stocked source of wine (though they did not carry Locura Canyon), with an outlet conveniently located at the nearby Queen’s Quay. There was a Loblaws supermarket there, too. He got what other grub he needed delivered from a tony local victualler, Pusateri’s.
He couldn’t be bothered to cook so threw a frozen President’s Choice rogan gosht in the microwave and opened a bottle of lager. He checked his email.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: ATF
Pickers freaked by uniforms in the Grenache. First pass on the east block and five dudes in the trees with sidearms, guys thought it was immigration. Miguel went up to see what was going on. Guys flashed ATF badges and told him to fuck off.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re. ATF
Don’t copy Bonnie on this stuff. No email at all. Call me on my cell.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Re. Re. ATF
What would the ATF want? Should I call them?
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected];
bonorg@locuracanyon
Subject: Re. Re. Re. ATF
I’m sure it’s nothing. I will deal with it.
And indeed that was his intention. The when and how still eluded him.
If 80 percent of success was showing up, was there not a corollary that said there was a 20 percent chance they’d forget about you if you failed to appear? Sure there was. Lucky Silverman was playing just such a game in
the matter of the wiretaps. If nobody was around to answer, the questions wouldn’t get asked. Maybe, if Elliot stayed out of reach long enough, the ATF and USDA would let the matter drop.
In the meantime, the new job meant Elliot was going to avert — just — a couple of disasters. With his first few cheques he’d catch up with Lucy, allow Bonnie to deal with the most pressing bills, and make a symbolic payment on (but still not dent) the winery debt. The wolf would no longer be at the door. He’d be in the parking lot, finishing a cigarette.
The microwave timer sounded, signalling that his prefab curry was ready and that he was alone.
The best he could do was to turn on the television, obliged as he now was to be conversant with the medium in Canada. The new couch gasped as he sat on it. All his furniture smelled of the factory, the synthetics still venting.
What was this show he was trying to watch? It was another medical drama, something set in an emergency room, but no, now there were guys in raincoats flashing badges, so a police procedural; one of the cops was placing a call on a cellphone; cut to a far too beautiful woman drying herself, having gotten out the shower again, one towel in hand, the other wrapped around her breasts — this was the troubled home life to which the dedicated investigator was not paying enough attention; having received the exposition, the woman slammed the portable handset back into its cradle. Next our hero was at the morgue, attending an autopsy. The audience was witness to it all, the incisions, the viscera, the close-up removal by forceps of some invidious foreign object.
Elliot knew why these shows were so popular these days. They told the viewer that murder and mayhem could all be decoded. Crime on the street, the random victim, the blood-drenched colonial war in the desert, the alarming biopsy results . . . it would all be explained away by an expert. Another agency of the hypnotic box: giving answers, even if entirely made up. And, of course, anything involving the police and gun violence was a gift for the lazy screenwriter needing to up the dramatic stakes — the “Guy with the biggest gun” merely had to point it.
Elliot changed the channel to the CBC. A horse opera? No, too many trees. A . . . well, you would call her “handsome” — a handsome lady was riding a horse. She came alongside a fence to talk to an RCMP officer. Cut to her coming home. She hung up her cowboy hat and walked into the kitchen, where a man was at the stove. She gave a tween girl a maternal kiss on the head; the house husband got one too. Elliot checked his jacket pocket and found Hazel’s business card. He dialled the number she had written on the back. It was answered after a single ring.
“What am I watching?” he asked.
“Hold on, what time is it? . . . Okay, it’s Banff 911.”
“Right.”
“Don’t blame the creative team. They have something new on your desk now and —”
“Why wouldn’t I blame the creative team?” Elliot asked, though he hadn’t yet decided, having watched only a couple of minutes with the sound off, whether he liked the show or not.
“Originally there was going to be a lot more skiing and resultant injuries, more helicopter medivacs from the mountains, that sort of thing . . . but it was too expensive. And the lead didn’t have the kid, she was leaving the husband. We had to have an Alberta show and it had to feature traditional family values. Stanford insisted on the horse angle; he felt if the show was from Alberta it had to have horses.”
“Are you watching it now?”
“No, but I’ve seen them all. And look, there was a notion, noble if antiquated, that the CBC could gather the whole family around the television together. It was wishful thinking. I don’t think you should be concerned about what’s gone on in the past.”
“How are this show’s numbers?”
“In the range of the survey’s error.”
“So we won’t be renewing it?”
“Unless we can’t get another show from Alberta.”
“There’s a regional quota?”
Hazel did not answer right away. Elliot was learning to be mindful of any hesitation in her speech.
“Not officially. Never acknowledged. It is certainly not the way I would do things.”
“Understood. Thank you, Hazel.”
“Any time.”
“By the way, what were you watching?”
“Watching? No, I was reading.”
“That’s what I’d like to be doing. A book and a glass of wine.”
There was another silence. Elliot felt a need to fill it.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
“Me? . . .”
“Is there a show in it?”
“God, no. Leastways not for us.”
“Shame.” Elliot did not know what else he could say.
“Don’t . . . Try not . . . It would be best that you not mention that I was reading.”
“Of course. I understand.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, goodnight.”
“Yes. You too. Meetings tomorrow — with News.”
“That should be straightforward.”
“News? Oh, no. Leo Karek, the editor-in-chief . . . he really doesn’t like you.”
“But he’s never met me.”
“He hates what you stand for.”
“I don’t stand for anything, I’m in entertainment.”
“Exactly. See you tomorrow.”
Hazel knew it ALL. Elliot arrived in his office perhaps three or four minutes late to find a cube in a suit staring at his watch. Karek was all right angles, boxy head on a steamer trunk, limbs jointed assemblies of blocks. His was the pained and flushed visage of a constipated man struggling for relief. He rose stiffly and shook Elliot’s hand.
“I hope you weren’t waiting long,” said Elliot.
“Big news day.”
“Right.” Elliot wondered why. He’d scanned the Toronto Post and Leader over breakfast and nothing had registered.
“The financial statement. The federal government is tabling a mini-budget today.”
“Of course. The mini-budget.” Elliot worried that he sounded as though he were making fun. “Coffee?”
Karek shook his square head. Squared hair, too, razor-straight lines across the back of the neck and the bottom of the sideburns. In need of caffeine himself, Elliot called for coffee anyway. He tried looking relaxed, smiling, leaning back in his chair in the hope that his mood, even if affected, might rub off. From the unchanging expression on Karek’s face, Elliot saw it would not.
“Let me say first,” Elliot said, taking his cup from Stella, “that my immediate concern is next fall’s schedule . . . as it pertains to everything but news.”
Karek grunted something Elliot could not make out.
“And, you know, realistically . . .” — Elliot was grasping for something to say — “where the news is ‘new,’ I mean, how much planning can you do? How to . . . anticipate? If there’s a big disaster, we want to be there. If we have to bump an episode of . . . Banff 911 . . . because shit is blowing up and people, especially Canadians, are throwing themselves out windows, so be it.”
This did not put Karek at ease. Elliot could see it would take more time than he was willing to waste to win the Cube’s trust.
“Budget?” Karek asked. “Have you looked it over?”
“I have,” Elliot lied. He was sure it was among the hundreds of pages of incomprehensible financial statements and projections he was supposed to have read by now. “And while this may be a disappointment . . .” He could actually hear Karek tense, the fabric of his suit gather with a crackle of static. “. . . there will be some adjustments . . . but I’m really obliged to . . . freeze it at last year’s level.”
Karek had drawn insufficient air to yell at Elliot so said only, “I see,” rather too loudly. Cube had expected cuts.
“I want to take advantage of the accumulated knowledge in this building.”
Karek held his breath.
“. . . and in the regions.”
Karel exhaled with relief
.
“You, for instance, it’s what . . . ?” Elliot said, gambling with confidence that Karek had been around the Corporation for years.
“Started in the newsroom in Regina. Radio. Sports.”
“Wow.”
“Local sports. Summer replacement. 1972.” Karek said it as though the dimensions of his tenure at the CBC were only now dawning on him. He was doing life.
“I want to leverage that sort of investment.” This sounded great, thought Elliot, despite being unsure what it meant. “I’ve made my notes on my copies of the budget. Why don’t you have a look at your copy, tell me how you imagine resources being reassigned, and I’ll take that into account.”
“Done. What about consolidation of radio and television news?”
Elliot waved a hand vigorously over the papers on his desk as if shooing a fly.
“Radio? I mean, really, who gives a shit.”
“Right,” said Karek. “Fuck them.”
“Absolutely,” said Elliot, wondering if this stance was a bit bold considering he knew nothing about radio. The imposture Elliot had undertaken came easily, but it was still exhausting. “Great to meet you,” he said, pushing his chair back from the desk.
“One other thing. There are rumours you plan to move the evening news.”
“Where do these rumours come from?”
“Probably something you said during the hiring process. I don’t know.”
“Well.” Now Elliot stood; Karek couldn’t but follow him to his feet.
“So? No?”
“Everything is under consideration. Let’s talk about it after I’ve seen your budget revisions.”
Elliot saw that this offhand avoidance of the matter was, however unwittingly, a vicious sneak attack, gamesmanship in the power dynamics of the office. Karek was winded by the statement, pushed back against a wall by a stronger combatant. The chunky sap limped from the room. Elliot could get the hang of this. He made a mental note to ask Hazel what was up.
“The time slot for the evening news, at ten p.m., cuts into prime time,” Hazel explained.
“Yes. Yes, it does. It’s crazy.”
“But say we moved the news to eleven and had an extra five hours of prime time every week.”
