Wizard of the Wind

by Don Keith

  Jimmy knew the technical stuff would draw in Detroit. It always did. Dee firmly believed in FM’s future already. Hell, he was the one who had first convinced Jimmy it would one day be as viable as AM. Maybe even more popular than AM radio, he had said, once people heard how much better it sounded. How much fuller and life-like the stereo imaging made the music. How the signal did not drop away to a buzz when the car passed under power lines or the station turned down its power at sundown as required.

  "I've been out there, Dee. I know what people want to hear. I've had to sit there on the request line and tell them I couldn't play it for them. There's a whole other world of music that isn't making its way to the air. The Allman Brothers, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles songs that weren’t big hits...great stuff that nobody is playing on AM top-forty radio. None of this teeny-bopper crap! Led Zeppelin, the Animals, Bob Dylan, the Who! Damn, there's so much great rock and roll out there that nobody gets to hear unless they buy the records! We can do it, Dee! We can do it!"

  Jimmy realized that he was almost yelling, pounding the table with his empty coffee cup. The waitress was giving him a scowling, worried look, assuming this was another drunk or druggie on the verge of freaking out right there in the middle of her shop.

  Detroit glanced up, but he did not look Jimmy directly in the eye. Instead, he watched a spot somewhere over Gill’s right shoulder when he spoke.

  "Where the hell are you going to get the money to file for the license? Or to pay for all the legal stuff and the engineering work? And then, where are you going to get the money to actually build the station if, by some freak accident, you do get the license grant? Who'd run the thing? Who would handle sales? And look at yourself, Jimmy Gill. You’re not exactly corporate America, you know. No offense, but you are a freak, man. What makes you think that you, of all people, can even get a radio station license? Then be able to run the damn thing if you did?"

  Those were the easy questions. Jimmy smiled.

  "Because I have you, Dee. And you are a black man, in case you haven’t noticed lately!"

  Detroit gave him a look then that Jimmy had come to know so well. The one usually followed by: "You are as crazy as a bessie bug!" He finally looked Jimmy in the eye and grinned crookedly at him.

  “What the hell have you been smoking?” To Detroit, that was the only explanation for such carryings-on.

  "Congratulations, Mr. Simmons! I’m surprised you haven’t heard already. The board of directors just yesterday named you the president of Wizard Broadcasting Company, Incorporated."

  Detroit sat back in the booth quickly, knocking over his towering, sweet pyramid, and stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. A red-faced construction worker in the booth behind him twisted around, glared, and grumbled when the sudden bump caused him to spill a bit of his coffee.

  "We're sure to get the license when our top corporate officer is a bona fide, full-bloodied, certified Negro. You know the F.C.C. is very partial to minority ownership these days. And just to make double-damn sure, your Aunt Lulu Dooley is already on our board of directors. And Mrs. Polanski and Mrs. George are voting members, too. They are both putting up some of their own money. A few dollars each, for sure, but that’s not the point. With all of them, that gives us a board made up of a black man, two women, and one director that's both female and black! It's in the damn bag, Dee!"

  Jimmy thought Detroit was going to keel over face first into the white pile of spilled sugar packets. He seemed to be gasping for air, like a man awakened in the middle of a dream. The construction worker was cocking an ear their way now, trying to hear, while an elderly couple in the next booth stared disapprovingly at all the commotion and arm waving Jimmy was doing. But they did their best to eavesdrop, too.

  "You still won't have enough money to get it going," Dee finally stammered. “Not from that bunch of folks. They don’t have the kind of money it will take. A tower, transmitters, studios, operating capital, real estate. You would need a quarter-million dollars or more just to start, and lots more to make a payroll, utility deposits...you know."

  Simmons seemed to have suddenly run out of steam, just thinking about the financial mountain they would face climbing with such a venture.

  "We actually need a half-million to seven-hundred-thousand do it right, I figure, but I got it all covered. You can do all the engineering. We can lease most of the equipment. Cash flow will certainly take care of the salaries in a few months unless I’m totally wrong about the potential. And I’m not. We can safely guarantee enough rating points to sell a ton of spots out of the chute and before you know it, we’ll be making our nut and have the whole thing into the black. So to speak.” Jimmy paused and took a deep breath, then plowed on before Detroit could sense that the next part would be spoken with a little less enthusiasm, spit out hurriedly to blunt the effect. “And we have one more ace in the hole. Duane and DeWayne George have agreed to bankroll us, no matter what it ends up costing. We’ve got a blank check from the twins, Dee."

  Detroit Simmons stood up so abruptly, so violently, that he jarred the construction worker behind him hard, sending his just-refilled coffee mug and his half-eaten sweet roll skidding off the table and into his lap. The old man at the table next to them was so surprised by the sudden movement that he choked on his doughnut. His wife jumped up and began pounding him on his back before he could choke to death. The waitress behind the glass case made a move toward the pay-phone on the back wall, set to call the law if the two freaky looking men started to pummel each other.

  But before she could do that, Detroit twisted out of the booth and stormed out the door. The waitress watched him wide-eyed, relieved that the trouble makers might be leaving, taking their scuffle out into the street.

  Jimmy ignored the construction worker’s threating looks, left a dollar tip on the table and sprinted after his friend. Detroit was taking such big steps that he was a half-block away before Gill could even get out the door and onto the crowded sidewalk. Jimmy ran hard to catch up, calling his name, shoving aside window shoppers and office workers who got in his way.

  Damn! He should have found a better way to bring up the involvement of the George twins. Should have set the hook deeper before he tried to reel Dee in. Not just blurt it out like that. He should have known what Detroit’s first reaction would be.

  When the twins’ mother casually mentioned to Duane and DeWayne about Jimmy Gill’s plans to put a radio station on the air in Nashville, they immediately told her of their need to "invest" some money for "tax reasons." They sent word to Jimmy that they would be willing to put in all the money that was needed, no questions asked. The only stipulation was that they eventually be paid back with generous interest as the business improved, but only by check, and those checks would have to be drawn on a different bank than the one where the original money was deposited. They would establish the operating account with stacks of cash in small bills deposited over a long period of time. The exact source of that investment capital would, of course, have to remain confidential. The Georges wished to remain the most silent of silent partners.

  Jimmy was not naive. He knew the drill and the reasons for the odd requirements of his investors. But it was the only way to accomplish this thing that he had only been able to dream about up until then. He would have to ignore the shadiness of it all. After all, the George twins’ money would spend like anybody else’s. And they seemed to have plenty of it to contribute to the cause.

  But now the most important part of the entire Wizard Broadcasting plan was stomping his way angrily down 20th Street, sending early-arriving office workers dodging in all directions. When Jimmy finally caught up to him and grabbed his arm, Simmons stopped but refused to look his friend in the face. He talked to a street lamp post instead.

  "There's nothing but trouble getting messed up with those boys and their dirty drug money, Jimmy," he sputtered. "I don't want any part of it. No part of any illegal dope money!"

  Two cops walking their
beat nearby looked at them curiously but kept moving, losing interest when a gaggle of secretaries in short dresses passed in front of them.

  "Look at me, Detroit Simmons! We just need their money to get this thing started and then we buy them out. Pay them back and tell them to kiss off. They really have nothing to do with us and the station. They are just making us a loan. That’s all. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nobody else even needs to know they're bank-rolling us. Anybody asks, it’s you and me and the rest of the board of directors. It's the only way people like you and me are going to be able to pull off something like this," Jimmy pleaded. “Look, I’ve tried the bank, the Small Business Administration. You name it. They take one look at me, at our background, and they fall all over themselves to tell me that there’s no damn way.”

  Dee spoke now to a corner stop sign that he was leaning against for support.

  "Look, Jimmy. You are right as rain about what FM radio is going to do someday. And you’re right about the music, too. Somebody’s going to do it and be successful if they do it right. And as stupid as it sounds, unless you really screw it up, somebody like you could find himself a gold mine up there. But what do you know about running a radio station, Jimmy? What makes you think you can make a go of it?"

  "Look. You come back to the house with me and I'll show you exactly how we’ll do it. Give me fifteen minutes. That’s all. Okay?”

  Simmons checked his watch. He was late already. He would have to call in sick.

  They did not say a word to each other all the way back to the west side. Detroit punched buttons on the car radio. The radio he had sutured together from scraps of other radios that had long since been abandoned. And as he dialed around, he kept muttering under his breath about how bad all the stations sounded to him. He flipped a button and then twisted the dial between the only two FM stations in town. One was playing the same thing as its AM sister station, but the music sounded squashed and tinny. It was probably only a radio parked in front of a microphone somewhere. The other FM station was simply broadcasting a whining test tone. It would not begin transmitting its easy-listening music until noon.

  That morning, for the first time ever, Jimmy Gill invited Detroit Simmons to come into his home. They walked right past Grandmama, in the living room in front of her new RCA color television set. Jimmy had bought it for her when her old set finally went out with a pop and a sizzle and a smoky finale one day. He took the old set to Detroit to look at and Dee pronounced it DOA, totally worn out.

  Grandmama did not seem to notice Jimmy or his house-guest. She half-waved at them and kept fussing at the green-faced soap-opera characters on the dusty screen.

  Jimmy retrieved a big leather satchel from under his bed and returned to sit at the cheap dining room table. He pushed aside Grandmama's dirty breakfast dishes and produced a pile of paperwork from inside the bag.

  It was time. Time to actually show Detroit Simmons that he could accomplish something major without his help, without him even knowing what he was doing.

  Thankfully, Detroit seemed impressed already with the volume of work Jimmy was stacking on the table in front of him.

  "I’ve been talking with the engineering consultant who was working for the old codger in Nashville. The one who’s trying to get the license. The consultant was willing to sell me all the old guy’s studies because the bastard hasn’t gotten around to paying him for the work yet. And Duane and DeWayne introduced me to one of their lawyers here in town. He drew up the incorporation papers for Wizard and helped me with the application for the station license. The Georges paid for it all. The lawyer here has a good friend who practices communications law before the FCC in Washington, D.C. It seems that this particular attorney has a fondness for smokin' Alabama-grown, too, and that only helps our cause."

  A cloud passed over Detroit's face. He was distracted as he looked in amazement at the mountain of documents on the table, touched the piles of exhibits and papers, and thumbed through some of the bound volumes, trying to read upside-down.

  "Dee, you only need to sign your name in several places...here where it says 'president'...in front of a notary public, and we'll have the application for a construction permit on file with the FCC in three days. Grover...that’s our attorney in Washington...says the license should be granted within three months. Depending on how quickly we can nail down the real estate for the transmitter and the studios and offices and you can get the equipment together and the studios built, we can maybe have the station on the air within six months after that. Within a year, tops. Then, we'll be covering Nashville like the dew!"

  For a second, he thought Detroit was going to jump to his feet again, maybe storm out of the house, stomp away again in anger down Wisteria Street all the way back to Ishkooda. Or maybe that he would flee in fear at the momentous project that was being proposed. His hands on the edge of the table gripped so tightly Jimmy was afraid he was about to flip it over, sending his carefully laid plans flying all over the kitchen.

  Dee seemed to relax and began thumbing through the bound books of engineering exhibits, tracing with his fingers their swirling drawings of towers and their tables of cryptic figures and sweeping coverage maps with circles and measurements filling the pages like strange hieroglyphics. His lips moved as he unconsciously calculated power and height-above-average-terrain and micro-volts-per-meter of signal and Jimmy knew then, for the first time, that it was a done deal. Detroit Simmons was in his element. He was sucked into the scheme, head over heels, totally engulfed.

  Wizard Broadcasting had its figurehead. The plan was complete. Soon, Jimmy Gill would have himself a signal in a medium that would allow him to blanket the landscape farther than the eye could see. A signal that would fan out at the speed of light. A one-hundred-thousand-watt way to tickle the ears of all who cared to tune a receiver to his frequency.

  And if they did try him, he would make sure they listened. All of them. No doubt about that. Finally, everyone would willingly listen to Jimmy Gill.

  Seventeen

  It was obvious Jimmy Gill was pushing his mutt of a car much too hard. But he had to. There was too much business that had to get done to take it easy with the car. He and Detroit Simmons were in a damned big hurry to get to Nashville and get to work. They were businessmen with important business to do. And that was what they were talking about all the way up U.S. 31.

  When they drove over the bridge across the Tennessee River at Decatur, Jimmy felt a quick twinge near his heart. All it took was a short lull in the big talking they were doing, a quick glance down at the swirling and muddy river water below the bridge. A door opened for an instant’s memory to sneak into his head as his mother floated in the brackish backwaters upstream a hundred miles from where they were crossing that morning.

  He shook his head and tried to concentrate on budget and game plan. He shoved the old heap’s accelerator harder.

  The heater hose could not take it, gave up the struggle, and ruptured with a spray of white steam and rusty water. They pulled to the side of the roadway, climbed under the car, and wrapped the hose back together with Detroit's ever-present roll of duct tape. Then they climbed up and down the brushy river bank, bringing water to re-fill the thirsty radiator in a couple of Pepsi bottles.

  The car’s thermostat went next. It stuck fast just south of Franklin and they had to get out, raise the hood, take loose some hoses, and poke a hole in the thing with a screwdriver. This time, they made many trips up and down the chalky bank of the Duck River, bringing Pepsi bottles full of water to again refill the radiator.

  As they sat down to rest in the shade of the bridge, they turned to look at each other and laughed like a couple of drunks. Two high-powered media executives, nursing and patching together their old jalopy all the way to the scene of their coming broadcasting triumph. They changed into their new suits under the bridge while the car cooled down enough to nurse it on to Nashville.

  The completed station license application required that they go to N
ashville and conduct interviews with community leaders and government officials. This was supposed to force the licensee to determine how the new station would best serve the interest of the public with its programming. It was just a formality because the programming had long since been decided. They were going to play lots of rock and roll music and sell as many commercials as they could for as much money as they could get for them.

  Grover White, their attorney in Washington, had explained to them that they had to go through the motions of doing the interviews and filing all the legal papers in a timely fashion to make absolutely certain that they would receive the license. The strength of their integrated ownership and management and the fact that the two of them were going to relocate to the city of license and run the station made it almost a sure thing. Another applicant, totally unaware anybody else was slipping up on him, had filed a weak application.

  But there was no sense taking any chances that another last minute applicant might pop up and throw a wrench into the works.

  “Dotting the T’s and crossing the I’s on this paperwork makes it a damn lock for us,” Grover told him with a conspiratorial laugh. Jimmy could hear him over the telephone line, taking another toke before lapsing into a coughing fit.

  At a phone booth beside the highway somewhere south of Nashville they began confirming appointments, feeding dimes to the phone, closing the door against the passing traffic, and dropping their voices to try to sound older, more business-like and serious. Detroit would take the black people. Jimmy got the white guys.

  The mayor gave Jimmy three minutes, the city council president four at the most. When they first saw him, each of them seemed instantly put off by his age, his ponytail, and the cheap, baggy suit. It could have been worse. He had taken out the earring and shaved off the beard for the trip.

  They seemed unimpressed with his plans for an FM station.