We Interrupt This Broadcast

by K. K. Beck

  “So what are you saying, exactly?” said Bob LeBaron with a puzzled frown.

  “I’m saying that there’s a chance this place is going down the tubes, and so will you if you don’t find something else to do with your lives,” said Franklin. He gazed out at their pale, startled faces. “If a suitable buyer can be found . . .” He trailed off. Maybe they could get jobs as Wal-Mart greeters.

  “But that’s not fair!” said Judy.

  “What can we do to keep KLEG going just like it is, but better?” asked Daphne. “There must be something we can do.”

  “Well, if you win the lottery, I’ll sell you the place for half a million bucks,” said Franklin. “Until then we can all work hard to keep overhead down, increase revenues and improve the quality of our on-air product so that Alice will have something decent to sell.”

  “Our on-air product suffered a disastrous blow today,” said Phil with a catch in his voice. “To see our fine archive of fabulous vinyl LPs boxed up and—”

  “We’ve already discussed that,” said Franklin sharply. “Let’s not get spastic over plastic. Just forget about it.”

  Phil made a whimpering sound, like an injured animal, but everyone ignored him.

  “You don’t understand,” said Judy in a shrill voice. “You have to put more money into this place if you want it to succeed.”

  “Yes,” said Daphne enthusiastically. “You should be promoting the station on TV, on billboards all over town. Hiring PR firms to plug the on-air personalities. Getting the word out. Making it sound fun and exciting!”

  “Daphne’s right,” Bob LeBaron chimed in. “Back at KZZ we had a crack promotion department. Gosh, they came up with fabulous contests. People were winning cruises and cars. Why, there was even a Date with Bob contest.” He chuckled. “This is a great story. You see, there was this little gal who entered about a million times—”

  Franklin cut him off. “You people are living in a dream world,” he said in an exasperated voice. “I’m trying to do the decent thing and let you know how things stand. Okay, don’t believe me if you don’t want to. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  No one seemed to hear him, but they were all animated and attentive when Judy piped up: “We’re not going to give up without a fight. With our talent and commitment, there’s no way we can just disappear. We’re an institution.”

  “You all belong in one,” Franklin muttered under his breath.

  “We need KLEG T-shirts and bumper stickers,” Daphne said bouncily. “Let’s plan a whole PR campaign!”

  “Fine,” said Franklin, throwing up his hands. “You can finance it with a bake sale. I’m going to work now. I have a real job in the real world.”

  Alice Jordan rose and said something in a subdued voice about making some sales calls. The rest of them sat there nattering away like a bunch of kids in a 1940s musical, planning to put together a fabulous show in the old barn. The exception was Carl, who, as usual, sat silent and depressed-looking. He rose obediently when Judy snapped, “Get the phone, Carl.”

  In the parking lot, Franklin saw Alice getting into her car. She looked just as crushed as she had that day she’d come dragging in after losing the Carlson’s Clock Shop sponsorship.

  “Listen,” he said gruffly, “I’m sorry I sounded so negative. I just thought everyone needed a reality check. I do want to tell you you’ve been showing real spirit and hustle out there.”

  She smiled weakly. “Thank you,” she said. “And I appreciate your honesty about KLEG’s future. It’s just that I’ve been through a kind of unstable time, and to be brutally frank, no one but Caroline wanted to hire me and—” Her eyes pooled up with tears. “I just feel kind of fragile. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t cry!” he said with alarm.

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated, blinking furiously. “I’ve always cried easily, ever since I was a little kid. It’s so humiliating. I must just have bigger tear ducts than other people or something.” A big teardrop rolled down her cheek, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. “I just got anxious, thinking I’ll be out of a job again so soon after trying so hard to get one, and I’ve got a kid to support all by myself.”

  “What about the kid’s father?” said Franklin. “Where’s he? What does he do?” Franklin found himself suddenly irate at whatever cad could have left this poor helpless, weeping woman to raise his child by herself.

  “My husband—well, ex-husband, I mean—is a dentist.”

  “A dentist? And you can’t get any child support out of him?” Franklin found this hard to believe.

  Now Alice burst into a sob. “It’s all so humiliating. He just abandoned his practice and ran off with Marilyn, his hygienist. Before I knew what he’d done, he managed to turn over most of our joint assets to Marilyn’s guru.”

  “What?”

  “It’s this woman named Marina who runs a community in northern California and channels the spirits of dolphins and other aquatic mammals.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Franklin. Years of Caroline’s irrational fiscal behavior made him sympathetic to anyone saddled with an irresponsible family member. “He can’t transfer community property like that. And besides, he can’t just bail out of child support. He must have some current income you can get your hands on.”

  “He and Marilyn live there, cleaning and filling the teeth of communards for free while the dolphin lady flies around the country in her own Cessna.”

  “You need a good lawyer,” said Franklin sharply.

  “I have a legal aid lawyer,” said Alice. “But since the Republicans are cutting legal aid for civil things—” Alice looked frazzled. “Oh. But maybe you’re a Republican,” she said.

  “Some of my best friends are Republicans,” said Franklin with a smile. “But my parents made sure I could never be one without seeming ridiculous.”

  “Really?” said Alice. Her eyes dried up and widened with curiosity. “How did they do that?”

  “I don’t tell everyone this,” he said. “But if you promise not to reveal my secret, I’ll tell you. My middle initial is D., and it stands for Delano.”

  “Oh,” said Alice. “Franklin Delano Payne. That’s sweet.” She giggled.

  He giggled back. Hearing about her humiliation at the hands of that stupid dentist and the dolphin-channeling charlatan, Franklin had been seized with the desire to confide to her some little thing about himself. Suddenly he realized that he was having this rather piquant conversation standing up in the middle of the oily and trash-strewn gravel parking lot outside the studios of the hated KLEG. He had a sudden urge to take Alice somewhere pleasant and cheer her up.

  “What are you doing for lunch?” he said.

  She held up a brown lunch bag. “I was going to eat this in a park,” she said. “It’s sort of nice to get away from the station.”

  “I can believe that,” said Franklin, shuddering at the thought of that break room with the mean-eyed Judy and the grungy Carl rustling their paper bags in unison. “Come with me. We’ll go somewhere nice.”

  “Oh,” she said, “I can’t. I promised I’d meet with Detective Lukowski. He’s bringing his lunch and meeting me in the park.” She turned pink. “Strictly business, of course. I guess because I inherited Ed’s job he thought I might have some insights into the case.”

  Franklin was surprised at his feeling of disappointment. “Another time, then,” he said curtly and went over to his own car. He recalled how the detective had been hanging in that familiar way over her cubicle partition and turning on the charm. An angry feeling of territoriality came over him, and he thought, How dare a public servant hit on my employees like that, right there in front of me at my own radio station.

  Alice Jordan was clearly a vulnerable woman. Spirited and brave in her own way, but essentially helpless, bursting into tears all the time. She’d already let that half-witted dentist and his floozy hygienist roll right over her. Now that predatory cop was coming on to her. Clearly, one o
f life’s victims.

  He sighed and slid behind the wheel. He mustn’t let himself get worked up about the character flaws of all the lame ducks at KLEG. They would all have to make their own way in the world and let him get on with his life.

  As Franklin turned the key in the ignition, Phil’s voice came out of the speakers. “I can be silent no longer.”

  “Oh, yes you can,” said Franklin through clenched teeth. He rummaged in a nest of tapes at his side and jammed one into the machine, replacing Phil’s peevish tones with a Brahms piano trio. So what if Chip Gilmore had broken the bathroom window at KLEG and let himself in? If the little worm could come up with the scratch, Franklin would sell him the station and try to get the deal done before Caroline came back.

  * * *

  Daphne Hamilton stared in horror through the glass into the studio. She was on shift, and she’d drifted out during the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique—sixty-seven minutes, to run across the street to the convenience store for some kitty litter and Pond’s dry skin cream. She’d come back with fifteen minutes to spare, but Phil was in the booth, talking. Had she somehow miscalculated? Was her watch wrong? Had there been dead air once again, and had Phil rushed in to save her?

  Slowly it dawned on her that Phil sounded peculiar. “For too long now,” he was saying in a lugubrious tone, “I have been silent about certain practices here at the station. I went along like a good soldier, simply obeying orders. But there are times when conscience dictates another course. I must tell all of my radio friends, loyal listeners who have been with me for lo these many years, about a grave injustice perpetrated by the management of this venerable radio station—KLEG, a Seattle institution that has fallen on hard times, musically, ethically, morally.”

  Daphne listened in horror, and Carl and Judy came up beside her as Phil rolled on.

  “Today I was told by Franklin Payne, the owner of KLEG, to remove our wonderful collection of LPs from the record library. Our long-playing records of these fabulous performances, great music played by sensitive musicians, are being sold, sent down the river, the collection to be scattered to the four winds. It brings to mind, does it not, the destruction of the library at Alexandria?”

  Suddenly Phil’s voice took on a grim determination. “But I have news for the barbarians. They can consign a proud heritage to the flames with their scorched-earth policy, but their flames of destruction cannot consume the dwindling embers of culture, because when the smoke clears, they will have surely burned their bridges.”

  “Wow,” said Carl.

  “He just broke in to the Berlioz,” said Judy. “I can’t believe it.”

  Bob LeBaron, who had been hanging around the station bothering people with his complaints about KLEG and his reminiscences about KZZ ever since the staff meeting had broken up, emerged from the bathroom and joined the others outside the studio window. “What’s Phil doing?” he said.

  “Mixing metaphors,” said Carl.

  “Poor Phil,” murmured Daphne. “I never realized how far gone he was. Oh, the hurt that man has!”

  Phil turned toward the row of shocked faces pressed against the glass and gave them a mad grin, then stuck out his tongue and waggled his hands at them. He turned back to the mike and continued in somber tones. “In what I hope will be perceived as a noble gesture, although perhaps, sadly, a farewell gesture, I’m going to stay here as long as I can and keep the flame of civilization alive. I’ve locked myself in the booth with several cartons of LPs. I will play them for you, commercial free, for as long as I can. The last sounds you hear will no doubt be those of the scuffle as I am carted off by the forces of darkness. Listen to the dying tones, the Götterdämmerung, of a golden age. The lights are going out all over Seattle. They may not be lit again in our lifetime.”

  “He’s seriously disturbed,” said Judy. “We have to take control. Let’s run in and overpower him. Bob, you can grab the microphone and say something about Phil being indisposed, then go right back into the Berlioz.”

  Bob LeBaron seemed not to hear. “Gosh,” he said. “The old announcer-locking-himself-in-the-booth gimmick. That’s a classic. Often combined with the one-record gimmick. I remember it the first time back at that little station in Walla Walla where I started out. We had this fellow go in there and play ‘Rockin’ Robin’ six hundred and twenty times, screaming and whooping in between. It was the talk of the county for months. Boy, that got their attention. It was in all the papers.”

  “I say we just let him carry on,” said Carl quietly. “We’ve been covering for him for too long.”

  Bob chuckled. “Back at KZZ we pulled that locked-booth thing every once in a while during a rating period. We had sound-effects tapes of people busting through the door with an ax, breaking glass, the whole bit. Play-by-play of men in white coats strapping the guy into a straitjacket. It was a real kick. TV stations came down and got footage of our guys bouncing off the glass. It was fabulous publicity.”

  Judy clenched her jaw in a determined way. “We’ll be a laughingstock. We have to go in there and stop him.” She rattled the door handle. “He wasn’t kidding. It is locked,” she announced.

  Carl shrugged. “He said he was going to play some of those old LPs. Wait until he’s into some music or you’ll hand him that audible scuffle he promised his listeners, and you’ll make a big martyr of him.”

  From the reception area they heard the sound of ringing phones.

  “We could shut down the transmitter,” said Judy.

  “Let him rant,” said Carl. “Who cares? Franklin says this place is doomed anyway.”

  “Maybe Bob is right,” said Daphne. “Maybe the press will cover this. Maybe that’s the press on those phones now, like when Ed’s body was discovered. Maybe TV camera crews will come down here.”

  Both women instinctively patted their hair into place, as if preparing for the coverage. “Carl, maybe you better help me with the phones,” said Judy, hustling off.

  Carl ignored her.

  “And so,” Phil went on, “we begin with the incomparable Glenn Gould, in this 1955 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. A misunderstood artist expressing himself musically in a now-maligned medium—the long-playing record. You won’t hear a performance like this again.” Phil cued up the LP, giving it a little turn so it would have time to get up to speed, then pushed the turntable button.

  As the record spun, he sat hunched in his chair, his head turned sideways like a big owl, apparently mesmerized by the sight of the needle traveling across the surface of the record.

  Judy came back, panting. “A bunch of listeners want to know what’s going on. They think it’s weird. Oh! He’s into the record now. Let’s get him out of there!”

  “Why?” asked Carl.

  “Because he’s out of control,” said Judy harshly, rattling the knob again and pounding her fist on the glass.

  “You’re really into control issues, aren’t you, Judy?” said Carl snippily.

  Phil pulled himself away from the sight of needle meeting groove and made a kissy face at Judy through the window. She clicked her tongue and rushed out into the reception area.

  Daphne said, “We definitely should call the media. Maybe we could get some PR out of this. It would draw attention to the station.”

  “I don’t know,” said Bob LeBaron thoughtfully. “That gimmick’s pretty old. It would probably have to be a pretty slow news day. They covered it at KZZ because we were already famous. Big personalities around town. Household names. Anyway, everyone knows it’s fake.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Carl thoughtfully. “Look at him.”

  Phil was now pacing around the booth, stopping occasionally to throw back his head and laugh wildly. The maniacal sound that came from his mouth, however, could only be imagined, as the glass was soundproof.

  Judy rushed back with a piece of typing paper with a crudely lettered felt-tip pen message scrawled on it with apparent haste: “You Must Open the Door. Now!” Assuming a
fierce expression, she plastered her sign against the glass.

  Phil stopped pacing, made an exaggerated bow and waggled his index finger from side to side, then executed a few stiff dance steps.

  “He looks like old Dr. Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker,” said Carl.

  Judy produced a second piece of paper with a second message: “We’ll have to come in and get you.”

  Phil straightened up, closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side like a stubborn toddler, then began pushing big boxes of LPs up against the door.

  “A screwdriver,” said Judy. “I bet we can get in there with a screwdriver.”

  “The toolbox is inside the booth,” said Carl.

  “Maybe I’ve got something in my car we can use,” said Judy, dashing off again.

  “We must call the media,” said Daphne decisively. “Any publicity is good publicity. We can explain how the Paynes want to sell the station. Maybe there will be a public outcry.”

  “I suppose I could call my old friend Rex Blaine,” said Bob LeBaron.

  “God, Rex Blaine,” said Carl with a moan. “Is he still on TV? He did the news when I was a little kid. He had weird hair with too much Brylcreem in it.”

  Bob looked a little miffed. “Hey, he was the market’s number one TV anchor when I was the number one radio morning man. Okay, so maybe he’s not anchoring anymore since they demoted all the mature white guys, but he had a lifetime contract with that TV station, and he wouldn’t let them buy him out. They’ve got him doing soft features until he retires at seventy.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Daphne. She turned to Carl and explained. “Blaine’s Byways. He travels around the state in an old VW van with a poodle, looking for oddball feature stories. You know, houses made of old bottle caps and greased-pig contests at county fairs.”

  Bob chuckled. “I’ll call Rex and tell him this stunt of Phil’s is probably the only known example of the crazed-announcer-locking-himself-in-the-booth gimmick that could be for real.”

  “Life imitates art,” said Daphne. “I like it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE