by Emma Mills
Sidney had lifted her head, looked Rose right in the eye.
“I want to play Kingdom,” she replied.
24.
JOYDEEP AMENDED HIS ORIGINAL REQUEST a couple hours after we chatted: They have to be facts that are INTERESTING, but vague enough that people can’t just google and find him right from it.
We need to CULTIVATE the MYSTERY
Okay I will KEEP THAT in MIND JoyDEEP, I replied.
I ended up sending him a generic list. It was pretty bare bones. Joydeep didn’t even look at it until the next time he got on-air—I could tell by the color commentary.
“So. There is something cool that we’re going to do, that I am going to tell you about,” he said. “On Sounds of the Nineties.” Joydeep gave me a meaningful look, like he wanted credit for correctly ID’ing the program. “We’re going to have a very special interview with a very special mystery guest in April. So. Because of that, we’ve got three facts here for you today, about him—or her. Them. The mystery guest.” He cleared his throat and looked down at his phone, where he had my list pulled up. “Fact number one … Our mystery guest has lived in the state of Indiana. Hm. How about that. Fact number two … Our mystery guest has a connection to the restaurant chain TGI Fridays. Huh. Cool. Fact number three … Our mystery guest’s favorite color … is yellow.” He cast me a truly exasperated look. “Cool stuff. Really intriguing. Here’s a song by a person.”
I scrambled to switch on the music.
“What?”
“His favorite color is yellow? That’s the best you could do? That’s a fun fact to you?”
“I don’t know! You said to keep them vague.”
“Not so vague that they could apply to any person who’s lived here, eats cheesy potato skins, and likes yellow! That could be any of us!”
“Hey, if you care so much, you compile a list. Why do I have to be the one to do extra work?”
“It’s your dad! If anyone knows him, it should be you! But fine, if you’re gonna give me his favorite color is yellow, I’ll make a list myself.”
It was quiet after that while Joydeep rage-googled. I guess Sasha must have been looking too because her head snapped up a little while later.
“Your dad interviewed This Is Our Now?” she asked.
They were the boy band of the moment. Or of the last few moments, probably. “Yeah, before one of their concerts a couple years ago. They weren’t as big then.”
She grinned. “What’d he say about them? Did he have a favorite member?”
“Um … I can ask?”
“Do it.”
I texted him. Later that night he’d answer, The one with the shaggy hair was the friendliest, and we would identify him as Josh.
“Put it on the list,” Joydeep said. “That’s a fun fucking fact right there.”
It was quiet in the studio for a bit after that, Sounds of the Nineties playing low, until Sasha suddenly burst out: “We got a notification!”
“Hm?” Jamie looked up.
“Online! Our account! Someone said something about us.” A pause as she clicked. “bbright720 says, Bless @soundsofthe90s for playing TB back to back. No one else out there giving him the respect he deserves on air.”
“TB?”
Joydeep glanced at the monitor in front of him, scrolled through the playlist. “There’s no TB.”
“Are any two songs back-to-back by the same artist?” I said.
“Not on purpose,” Jamie murmured.
“Ah.” Joydeep made a face. “I copied one when I was messing around with the list earlier. Sorry.”
“Who is it?” Jamie asked.
“Existential Dead,” Joydeep read. “‘Love Is a Blackened Lung,’ 1994.”
Sasha raised an eyebrow. “That weird grunge thing?”
“That weird grunge thing,” Jamie confirmed. “The catalog has all their albums.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” I said.
“That’s probably why they’re in the catalog,” Joydeep replied.
“Who’s TB, though?” I looked to Jamie, but he just shrugged.
“I’m not super familiar with them either. I kind of threw that one in last minute.”
Sasha did some clicking. “Tyler Bright. Lead singer.” A pause. “Maybe we should play more.”
“Why?”
“This bbright720 guy has like twelve thousand followers. If some of them like that band too, then maybe we’ll get more listeners.”
“That’s a good idea,” Jamie said, and went over to Joydeep’s monitor. “I’ll add a couple more to the list.”
“Oh, great,” Joydeep said with false brightness. “More gravelly moans and echo guitar.”
“We should answer that bbright person,” I said. “Tell them we’ll put more on.”
“Got it,” Sasha replied.
@bbright720 thanks for the love! Keep it tuned, more Existential Dead headed your way soon!
It was quiet for a bit until a track started with a low, heavy guitar riff.
“This is them,” Jamie informed us.
The singer’s voice was deep and gruff as he started in on the verse.
“I can’t even understand what he’s saying,” Sasha said after a moment or two.
“Check these lyrics,” Joydeep said. “Under the crushing weight of your gaze/Cannot breathe or see through unnumbered days/Choke me out, choke me out, choke me out.” He grinned. “Then four more stanzas of choke me out.”
“There’s no way he’s actually saying that,” Sasha said, just as the deep-voiced singer begin wailing something that sounded like chah-me-ahhhhhhhh over and over again.
Joydeep held his phone out toward her so she could see the screen. “Deep stuff.”
“Whatever it is, fourteen people are listening right now,” I said.
“For real?” Jamie leapt up to look at the counter onscreen.
I nodded. “That’s like our highest listenership so far.”
“Check our account,” he said, and Sasha clicked back over.
“bbright720 tweeted again! Yooo thank you @soundsofthe90s you are killing me tonight with these cuts from Three Deep. Can we get something from Velvet Flycatcher next?”
“You sure as hell can,” Jamie said with a grin.
* * *
We played five more Existential Dead songs that evening—all of them sounded pretty similar, with similarly bleak lyrics—and our listenership peaked at twenty-three people. We got three more tweets, and even though we had broken from our official 1994 theme by playing songs from Existential Dead’s 1991 and 1992 albums (Velvet Flycatcher and Cryptic Undertow, respectively), it seemed worth it for the numbers.
“We should definitely mix some more of them into the playlist,” Joydeep said. “We might actually have a shot at best listenership.”
“Colby said they’re averaging fifty people a show,”
“Colby’s full of shit. It’s probably half that,” Joydeep scoffed. “He’s notoriously exaggerated the size of things in the past, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t,” I said, and Jamie shot me a look, clearly trying to suppress a grin. “What could you possibly be referring to?”
25.
Conrad: We’re talking this morning about weird—well, not weird, we’re not here to judge—let’s just say, unusual things that people just can’t let go of. Earlier we talked to Rick who has kept—
Nikki: And worn! Not just kept! Actually legitimately worn!
Conrad:—he’s worn his same retainer, his original one from seventh grade, every night for the last thirty years.
Will: That’s, I mean … I just don’t know about that. The bacteria on that thing, ughhh … I don’t even want to think about it.
Tina: Wouldn’t it melt? Like, over time?
Nikki: What?
Tina: Like, wouldn’t the heat of your mouth melt the retainer?
[silence]
Conrad: Tina, I’m not judging you, but that’s the most cuckoo bana
nas thing that’s come out of your mouth in a really long time.
Tina: What? Why?
Will: You think a temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit is sufficient to melt plastic?
Conrad: How would anyone use plastic forks and spoons if that was the case?
Tina: I meant like over time, like, wouldn’t the constant exposure to—
Conrad: How would there have ever been plastic straws? Wouldn’t we just liquefy our straws immediately?
Tina: I’m saying your body heat might wear it down over time—
Nikki: Couldn’t drink out of a plastic bottle either. You might just melt that thing right down, according to Tina.
Tina: That’s not what I’m—
Conrad: Okay, we’re going to be taking more calls here in a moment, so let us know, is there something you’ve been holding on to for ages, a thing you just can’t let go of, like Rick’s retainer? Or Tina’s troubling notion of thermodynamics? Give us a call.
Tina: I hate you guys.
26.
I LISTENED TO MY DAD’S show that night while I was doing homework. A woman called in and admitted she had kept all of her grown children’s baby teeth. Another lady had saved the McDonald’s bags from her first date with her ex-husband.
Ex? Dad exclaimed. Ex-husband? Maybe it’s time to ditch the bags, then?
It’s bonfire time! Light ’em up, Kristy! Will bellowed.
Sidney was definitely a packrat like that—she kept all manner of old drawings and notebooks and assignments, like her sixth grade pre-algebra homework was really going to come in handy someday.
I was kind of the opposite most of the time. But I did have a shelf above my bed with a few random trinkets—a couple Polaroids of me and Alexis, making faces at the camera, a wooden duck, a plastic tiara Sidney had given me, a jar of tinfoil gum wrappers. I always took the foil and folded it back into its original shape, then folded it again into a thicker, smaller rectangle. I started when I was a kid, but it was mostly out of habit now. The gum that comes in little plastic compartments arguably tastes better, but I still got the strips sometimes, still stuck the wrappers in the jar.
Rose had a shelf over her bed too—it held an art print from a show she went to last year, a little enamel box she kept jewelry in, and some glass figurines. A teddy bear sat up there too, one of the honey-colored ones my dad had gotten for each of us, with its yellow-checkered dress and apron and bow. We used to refer to them as the Honey Bears, and had decided that they were sisters like us.
I had no idea where my bear was. And for some reason, sitting there that evening, I was seized with a sudden and powerful urge to locate it. A quick search under my bed and in my part of the closet revealed nothing.
Rose was sitting on her bed, working on something.
“Have you seen my Honey Bear?” I said.
Rose looked up from her sketchbook, pulled out her earbuds. “What?”
“Honey Bear.” I pointed to the shelf above her bed. “Mine. Have you seen it?”
“Uh, no. Ask Sid.”
I went to Sidney, who was in the living room holding her script, one sheet of paper covering the page, her face screwed up in thought.
“Can’t talk. Memorizing,” she said.
“Have you seen my Honey Bear?”
“No.”
“Where’s yours?”
“Under my bed, in the blue Tupperware.” With that, she went back to memorizing. Sidney was a packrat, sure, but an organized packrat.
I could’ve given up then, but maybe I wanted a reason to procrastinate on finishing my calculus homework. I went to my mom, who was sitting at the dining room table leafing through a catalog. Dan was the only person I had ever met who ordered clothes through catalogs and not online.
“Mom, have you—”
She had heard me ask Sidney, of course, because our living room and dining room were in fact the same room.
“Maybe in the storage closet?” she said.
* * *
Each floor of the Eastman had a storage area—a gray-walled room that was portioned off into “closets” with chain-link fencing.
Ours was packed with Christmas decorations and plastic bins full of old stuff.
I pulled out a couple of the most easily accessible bins and started digging through them. I hadn’t been at it very long when something caught my eye—not my Honey Bear, but a small container full of cassette tapes. I extricated it from the rest of the clutter and opened it up.
The tape on top had red writing on the label. CONRAD AND MICKEY: THE SUPERCUT, it read in handwritten letters.
I pocketed the tape and kept looking.
27.
This is Joydeep here on Sounds of the Nineties. It’s time for some more facts about our mystery guest. So. We have learned a few things about this mystery person. He—they?—she?—lived in Indiana. They are associated with the restaurant TGI Fridays in some secret capacity. They like the color yellow better than any other color. Those were our original facts. And owing to those facts being, just … so super interesting, we’ve got some new facts for you tonight. So let’s get started.
First of all, this mystery guy—person—has a connection to the band This Is Our Now. Can you believe that? We have it on good authority that this person’s favorite member is Josh. Next up, this mystery person …
28.
WE MADE A DECISION, THE evening of our 1995 episode, to officially depart from the “one year an episode” format. The demand for more Existential Dead songs was just too high, meaning at least seven people had tweeted at us about it, which was six more people than were tweeting at us before.
Existential Dead only had three albums, the last having come out in 1994. So if we wanted to keep them in rotation, we had to switch up the theme.
“We can still do songs from the featured year each week,” Jamie said, “but it definitely seems worth it to mix some more Existential Dead in.”
He even went through the playlist and added songs that were suggested via online algorithm, “For Fans of ’90s Cult Grunge.”
We were sitting around the studio that evening while a track from Existential Dead’s 1992 album Cryptic Undertow was playing when Sasha looked over at me.
“So do you think your dad will be able to stay for the whole show when he comes, or just part of it?”
“Uh … not sure. Why?”
“I’m making some more posts to tease the interview and I wonder if it sounds better if we say it’s an interview with the mystery guest and they’ll be co-hosting that night, if he can stay the whole time.”
The truth was, I hadn’t exactly mentioned the interview thing to my dad yet. But he was for sure coming in April for Sidney’s show. He was definitely taking time off for it. So it would be fine. It wasn’t a big deal. I just had to get around to asking.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll check with him.” Then I pivoted to Joydeep. “Hey, so what kind of stuff are you planning to ask in the interview anyway?”
“Hm?” Joydeep was doing something on his phone.
“We’re reading facts and stuff now, but what about the actual thing? What kind of topics are you thinking?”
We had told Mr. Tucker about the details of our substantial plan—he was really enthusiastic about it, especially the idea of Dad coming to talk to our class about his career in radio.
“This is great initiative,” he had said. “I’m really impressed.”
Right now Joydeep just shrugged. “I’ll probably wing it. It’s just asking questions, how hard can it be?”
“It’s not just asking questions. There has to be some back-and-forth.”
“There is back-and-forth. There’s a question and an answer.”
“Yeah, but, like, you have to be able to adapt your questions based on the answers. Look—like, Sasha, do you like sports?”
She glanced up from her computer. “Yes.”
“What’s your favorite one?”
“Volleyball.”<
br />
Silence.
I turned back to Joydeep. “See? You have to be able to, like, have a conversation with someone or else it goes nowhere. Just asking a question isn’t enough. You have to … react.”
Joydeep just blinked at me for a moment and then said, “I can do that.”
“Maybe you should practice, though, is all I’m saying.”
“I can do that too,” he replied.
When it came time for the next link, Joydeep turned to me with a gleam in his eyes and then turned back to the mic.
“This is Sounds of the Nineties. That was a song called ‘Fatalistic Wasteland’ by the band Existential Dead. Hey, if you are listening right now, you’re in luck, because we’ve got a guest in-studio today. Everyone, please welcome…”
I shook my head forcefully. “Don’t,” I mouthed.
At that last moment, Joydeep swiveled his chair, taking his mic with him. “Sasha!”
Sasha’s eyes widened, and for a moment, it was totally silent in the studio.
There was nothing for me to do but stand and swing one of the guest mics toward her.
“Uh … hi,” Sasha said, pulling her headphones on. “What a … surprising opportunity.”
Joydeep was unabashed. “Sasha, tell us, what’s your favorite sport?”
“Volleyball.”
“Awesome. Volleyball is a really dynamic sport. Would you say it’s your favorite one to play, to watch, or both?”
“Both, I guess, but I also like watching basketball,” Sasha replied.
Joydeep nodded. “The girls’ basketball team is really good this year. Did you ever play on the team here? Or want to?”
“I played in middle school, but in high school, I kind of wanted to … focus on one sport so I’d also have time for other stuff.”
