Who's a Good Boy?

by Joseph Fink

  The City Council has already registered their opposition to the mayor’s plan to help Desert Bluffs. The City Council issued their own statement which was to stomp into their room, slam the door, and play Rihanna really loudly.

  I have to say I agree with the City Council on this issue, listeners. I understand Mayor Cardinal’s concern about Desert Bluffs’ struggling economy, and she is a very kind and sympathetic person. But as the poet Robert Frost once said, “Good fences make good neighbors. Really strong fences with razor wire and turrets. Keep those neighbors out.” And Frost was right.

  I support Dana on most issues, but I say save your sympathy for your own town’s people.

  An update on the stranger standing in our lobby: The stranger is still standing in our lobby. Lance approached them but grew scared. The stranger stood so still that it became impossible to derive context from motion or activity. Any sound or movement the stranger might make would be completely divorced of linear narrative or conventional meaning. At any moment the stranger could suddenly lurch or shriek without apparent cause. Thus the clenching terror Lance felt as he neared the person in the lobby.

  Lance mentioned he could hear breathing. It wasn’t labored, but it also wasn’t quiet. It was a person breathing, Lance confirmed. But I’m not entirely sure how Lance confirmed that. I’m also not entirely sure how anyone can confirm anything, so let’s just go with what Lance says.

  Listeners, if you’ve been trying to call in to the station, I apologize, as Lance is too frozen in fear to do much of anything. He thinks he sees the stranger moving, but he also thinks he does not. He is desperate for some explanation of this person’s presence in our lobby. But he has received none. Lance is now crying but without tears. He is screaming but without sound.

  He wants to gain the courage to touch the stranger. To hit the stranger, to punch and punch and kick and claw at the stranger. He wants to feel the relief, a release from the madness of mystery. He would rather experience actual pain than wait any longer in anticipation of the unknown.

  Lance wants to sigh but he cannot. He doesn’t remember the last time he exhaled. He is not sure of what is real. So he is sorry if you keep getting our voice mail here at the station. It’s been a rough day. More on this soon.

  But first, let’s have a look at this week’s community calendar.

  Thursday afternoon, there is a free ice cream social for all members of the Illuminati. If you are Illuminati, please go to the secret underground bunker. There will be ice cream, streamers, and, of course, a bocci ball tournament. If you are not Illuminati, please disregard this notice. Maybe just stock up on some bottled water and bullets and hope for the best.

  Friday night, Dark Owl Records will host a ’90s fashion night. Everyone is required to non-ironically wear T-shirts and hats from the 1990s, which were originally ironically worn T-shirts and hats from the 1970s. Owner Michelle Nguyen asked that everyone be as sincere as they can be. Irony will not be tolerated, only studied, museum-like, on puffy truck hats with clever witticisms like “HEY, BEER” or “I LIKE HIGHWAY” or “DOG,” along with airbrushed pictures of rattlesnakes, eagles, hot-glue guns, and screen doors. Nguyen asked that I not invite the public to this event. Oh. Ooh. I should have read the whole press release before reading tha—— AAaand, I just received a new press release from Dark Owl owner Michelle Nguyen announcing that the event has been canceled because people know about it. Sorry, Michelle.

  On Saturday, StrexCorp—formerly a Desert Bluffs corporation, and now a Night Vale business owned and operated by beings who are definitely not angels—will be the headline sponsor of a new program called Free Opera Day, a weekly community event where anyone can hear opera at no cost. In fact, you don’t even have to go to the new Old Opera House to hear it. Opera will be broadcast from the municipal loudspeakers which are located on every residential block in the city and within most residential homes.

  On Sunday, the Night Vale Opera will be running their most popular weekly program, Opera-Free Day, where citizens are relieved of all opera for twenty-four hours. No one is allowed to play any opera at all. Armed soldiers from a private armed soldier corporation will walk the streets making sure no one is playing any opera. “What is opera?” one armed soldier will ask the others. “I don’t know,” another will reply. “Could that be opera?” another will ask. “Let’s go check it out,” they’ll all say, lifting their rifles and approaching what will appear to be an automated car wash.

  Monday morning doesn’t really matter. Nothing ever did. Be silent and look upward to the sky as if it had your answers. It does not. The sky is as dumb as rocks. Really dumb. You’ll figure that out early Monday morning as you passively choose to experience the day in spite of its pointlessness, mumbling “Nought else remains to do” while brushing your teeth.

  And now a word from our sponsor. Today’s show is sponsored by . . . well, it’s sponsored by Your Mom. She’s really nice and she mailed us a ten-dollar bill to sponsor this show. That’s well below our usual advertising rate here at the station, but Your Mom was just the sweetest. She also wrote a letter saying that she hopes you’re having a fun time listening to this show—she knows it’s your favorite radio program (awww)—and wants you to know that she loves you very much (awwww!). Your Mom also wants to know if you’re still seeing that boy. He’s bad news and she doesn’t like his tattoos. Not that people with tattoos are bad. That’s not what she’s saying. “But what do you think his skin will look like when he’s sixty?,” she added. “What do you think anyone’s skin will look like when they’re sixty?,” she said repeatedly. She asked several quiet, sad questions about the process of aging. Then she said she cares for you no matter what. She just wants you to be happy. This message has been brought to you by . . . Your Mom.

  Good news, listeners. I’ve just learned that the stranger standing in our lobby has finally moved. Unfortunately, the stranger has begun walking slowly toward Lance. The stranger raised one arm, imperceptibly at first, but by the time the hand was nearly brushing Lance’s neck, Lance realized it and leapt out of the way. Lance is currently standing behind his rolling chair watching closely for the stranger’s next move, even though the stranger is moving so slowly as to appear motionless.

  It’s like the old adage about the frog in the frying pan. They say if you put a frog in a frying pan and then turn up the heat very gradually, then you’re a sociopath who takes pleasure in the torture of innocent animals.

  Go easy on frogs, okay. They’re adorable and ecologically important but also easy to trick into dying.

  [distant screaming]

  Oh my goodness. Lance! Listeners, I must check on my colleague. But first, I must take you to the weather.

  WEATHER: “Meet You at the Gate” by Jayne Trimble

  Listeners, we found Lance. He was curled into a dark corner of the storage closet, his eyes dull, his jaw slack, his gray maw unnaturally long. The stranger—who had stood so quietly, so nearly still in the lobby before—is now nowhere to be seen. Likely they are still in this very building, ready to show themselves again at any moment.

  I bent down and took Lance’s hand. He was always a good receptionist. Well, he wasn’t that great. I mean there’s no National Receptionist Ranking system. How am I supposed to know? I’ve never done it myself. He could have been a receptionist savant for all I know about the field.

  But Lance was a good man. He loved movies. He always dreamed of moving to Hollywood and becoming a makeup artist for major motion pictures. He loved doing makeup. But it was a dream deferred as he could never figure out where Hollywood was or how you were supposed to get there. Most airlines and bus drivers would stare blankly at him when he tried to buy a ticket. It’s not on any map I’ve ever seen. It’s possible Lance just invented it to take his mind off of the tedium of daily life.

  Either way, his makeup skills came in handy, as he did himself up just like that poor girl in the closet from his favorite documentary: The Ring. Plaid skirt and white
shirt, long hair, and a grotesque corpse face. He really nailed it. I told him good job. He climbed out of the storage room and said thanks.

  I told him one day someone will find out where Hollywood is, and he’ll go there and be a super-famous makeup artist. He didn’t say anything. We stood in silence for several minutes.

  I’m taking a continuing education class at the community college about the art of conversation. They said every good conversationalist should try to find five to seven straight minutes of no speaking, in order to let others talk. Lance is taking that same class. So we both gave the other person room to speak for those long, silent minutes.

  Finally, our intern Kate entered and told us her roommate called to say there’s a stranger standing just outside their apartment door. The stranger isn’t moving or speaking and won’t leave. Kate said she needed to take off early to deal with this. She said this several times, each iteration slightly louder, slightly more strained.

  Have a great rest of your day, Kate!

  Lance has returned to his work, feeling better. I asked him to check for missed calls as the light for the voice mail was rapidly blinking to indicate it was full. We apparently received dozens of calls from Night Vale residents reporting strangers standing, silent and unmoving, in their homes or sitting in the back seats of their cars. A few residents were in their beds, in the middle of the night, when they turned and found a stranger there lying beside them, empty eyes staring at nothing, not moving.

  Listeners, maybe take a moment to check outside your front door. Check for a silent, strange face in your window or just around the corner at the end of a hallway. Perhaps take an agonizing look into your shower, just in case.

  Make sure there is no one there. If there is, well, be patient. They move pretty slowly, it turns out. You know what? Maybe hide until the stranger leaves. It’ll be fine. But maybe hide or run away. Maybe just huddle down, close your eyes, and hope one isn’t near you right now.

  Stay tuned next for the sound of human breathing, which is probably just your own breathing. Probably.

  As always, good night, Night Vale. Good Night.

  PROVERB: I’m a single-issue voter. If a candidate is not a baby polar bear, I straight-up cannot support them.

  Episode 78:

  “Cooking Stuff: Thanksgiving Special”

  NOVEMBER 15, 2015

  GUEST VOICES: WIL WHEATON (EARL HARLAN), MEG BASHWINER (DEB)

  I WATCH A LOT OF COOKING SHOWS. AS A CHILD, I WATCHED RERUNS OF The Galloping Gourmet with my grandmother. My mother would sometimes watch Paul Prudhomme, and I would always stop down to watch with her. These days, my wife and I watch quite a bit of Chopped. (Alex Guarnaschelli is our favorite judge because we’re not assholes.) I’ve noticed, though, that I rarely watch cooking shows alone. Food is only exciting when I’m with those I love.

  In this episode, Earl Harlan is back on the air to help Night Vale with the perfect Thanksgiving meal—a time often associated with homecomings and family. Yet here is Earl struggling to deal with his son, Roger, and Roger, in turn, struggling to deal with his father. Neither seemed to know how they got to this point in their lives, nor why their relationship began in media res.

  I love Earl as a character. He’s smart and talented. He’s likable, and in some ways both heroic and helpless. Wil’s performance adds an extra layer of practicality to Earl, and for me, this is where he becomes fully human. The world, for him, is a how-to to be learned and mastered (as a chef, how to cook a turkey; or per his old job as scout leader, how to set up a tent or start a campfire). But there are no instructions for being a father or a family member. He can only try doing what he has seen elsewhere.

  Football, to Earl, seems like the keystone of any good father/son relationship. Dad needs some way of connecting with his boy that involves toughness and competition, but here it falls flat as Earl doesn’t seem to know much about football (or parenting) at all.

  Contrast this with Cecil. Earl and Cecil were close childhood friends who drifted apart. Cecil is unquestioning about this (unquestioning about a lot of things in Night Vale, really), but Earl is starting to understand he and Cecil experienced time quite differently than others. Earl was nineteen for a long time and is now uncertain about how old he is and who this child is. Earl keeps trying to let Cecil know that something went wrong. Cecil, though, is just glad to have an old friend provide a popular segment on his radio show.

  Earl approaches life like a problem to be solved, and right now he’s stumped on what to do about Roger. Though while Cecil has neither solutions nor answers for Earl, he may be able to offer something Earl doesn’t have in his life at all.

  —Jeffrey Cranor

  Cook a feast no family could fully eat. Recite prayers no family could fully believe. And acknowledge a frightful history no family could fully comprehend.

  WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE

  CECIL: We have a treat for you today, Night Vale: a Thanksgiving edition of Cooking Stuff with Earl Harlan. Our guest, of course, is Earl Harlan, sous-chef at Night Vale’s most celebrated restaurant, Tourniquet. Thanks for being here, Earl.

  EARL: Thanks for having me on, Cecil.

  CECIL: Earl’s going to be talking us through preparing and cooking a basic Thanksgiving meal. I know a lot of you out there have your ancient family recipes still on their original cave walls, but Earl might have some new techniques to help you spice up those old dishes. And there are a lot of people, like Carlos and me, who have never cooked, or even seen, a Thanksgiving turkey. It’s intimidating. Where do we begin, Earl?

  EARL: It doesn’t have to be intimidating. On today’s show, I’ll walk you through the five easy steps for the perfect Thanksgiving turkey: Kill, Clean, Gut, Stuff, and Cook. Also some essential dishes like mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.

  CECIL: That sounds great, Earl. But before we get started, let’s get a news update about the trial of Hiram McDaniels.

  Things are coming along in Night Vale’s Trial of the Century. Judge Siobhan Azdak has been assigned this case. Siobhan is not actually a judge. She’s a theater writer for the Night Vale Daily Journal. But given that Night Vale has never had a trial, we just didn’t have many judges around. Since Siobhan has such a nuanced understanding of contemporary stagecraft, but with an acerbic and unforgiving critical voice, she seemed a pretty good fit for deciding the fates of likely criminals, which is who she’d be dealing with. I mean, what innocent person gets arrested and brought to trial? No innocent person I’ve ever heard of.

  Hiram McDaniels, a literal five-headed dragon, has been charged with the attempted murder of current mayor Dana Cardinal, as well as conspiracy, assault, and willful destruction of private property. The trial will be held just as soon as they can find a jury of Hiram’s peers. So far they have found a salamander, but it’s tiny and cannot speak human languages, let alone hold still long enough to listen to the lawyers discuss jury selections. Also it’s an amphibian, not a reptile, so that’s pretty insensitive.

  They did find another five-headed dragon available to serve on a jury, but it turns out she is Hiram’s sister Hadassah, and she was none too happy to be called in for jury duty, let alone at her brother’s trial. The prosecuting attorney, Troy Walsh, has been toying around with the idea of just dressing people up like dragons, so that Hiram feels like he’s getting a fair trial. This seems like the most equitable thing to do, since everyone knows that justice is less about what the law says and more about how everyone feels about it.

  More on the Trial of the Century as events develop. Now let’s get right back to Cooking Stuff with Earl Harlan.

  EARL: Thanks, Cecil. So let’s cook a turkey. First step: Find a turkey and kill it.

  CECIL: Yum.

  EARL: I shot mine. But you can use a knife, a bow and arrow, a heavy wrench, your teeth, whatever is easiest for you.

  The next step is to clean your bird. Pluck all of the feathers from its lifeless corpse. Cut off its head and all six of its hooves. (Adventurous
culinary experts out there could pickle those hooves and serve them with ice cream for a traditional Svitzish dessert!)

  Next, gut the turkey. Don’t be intimidated by the stench. Just stick your knife deep into its belly and allow everything to pour out onto the floor. You won’t need any of that mess.

  CECIL: My mother actually used to cook turkey organs for us. She said they were called giblets.

  EARL: Your mother lied to you, Cecil.

  CECIL: Then what was she feeding us?

  EARL: Let’s stuff this turkey. What do you say?

  CECIL: Okay.

  EARL: I used to make my stuffing from stale bread, but since wheat and wheat by-products can turn into snakes and kill you, I just take old newspapers, wad them up, and shove them into the turkey. They absorb most of the bird’s toxic fluids. So same result really.

  After the stuffing, throw in some seasoning like salt and pepper, thyme, sage, a fistful of grass, anything you find lying around. Just put it in a pile on top of the turkey and slide it into the oven.

  While you’re waiting for it to cook, maybe catch a football game on television.

  I plan on watching some games this year with my son, Roger. Last Thanksgiving we watched football together, but at the time, I had just come into awareness of myself as an adult, and suddenly had this son that I didn’t know at all, so I didn’t know his name. It was awkward. Plus, neither of us had heard of football, let alone its byzantine laws and restrictions on dancing. We both sat silently waiting for it to be over, wanting to speak to each other, unable to find the words.

  CECIL: Not talking can be a blessing, Earl. Thanksgiving Day football games are my favorite, because my brother-in-law doesn’t talk to me for hours. Carlos likes watching the big parade, but I don’t deal well with gore, so I cover my eyes and have him describe to me how they all die.