Serpent's Kiss

by Ed Gorman

  Just now, watching her audition reel whip by, Chris Holland made a judgement. In her earlier days, she had definitely come on as a bimbette. Oh, nothing crass and obvious like blowing kisses at the camera or hanging an AVAILABLE FOR OCCUPY sign on her back. But little things, teeny tiny things, a fluttering eyelash here, a kind of sexy inflection there, had definitely been a part of her news presentation. And while she was not one of those feminists who wore cast iron chastity belts and threw darts at posters of Burt Reynolds, she did have enough self-respect to see what she'd been doing. Just too cute and too coy by half.

  She rewound the tape, took the reel off the editing machine, put it back in its box, shut off the machine, shut out the light, and left the editing room for up front where, at this time of morning, the Channel 3 reporters gathered to get their assignments from Heinrich Himmler's illegitimate son, a fat Irishman named O'Sullivan.

  O'Sullivan had been here six years, had survived three changes of management, two changes of consultant groups, an ex-wife who still believed that adultery was okay if you didn't get caught, a teenage daughter who was dating a biker she insisted on calling 'sensitive,' and a group of nine reporters who felt he was exercising a personal vendetta against each one of them.

  Chris knew all these things because two nights a week she went bowling with O'Sullivan. Most of her co-workers saw this as nothing more than her sucking up to her boss, but in fact, she liked O'Sullivan and considered him one of the few men she could talk to. Behind the ketchup stained neckties, the dandruff flaked shoulders, the beard stubbled chin, and the extra thirty pounds was a man who knew about Baudelaire as well as boxing, about Degas as well as de Gaulle, and about Edward R. Murrow as well as MTV Early on-this was just after his wife had walked out on him and Chris's own main squeeze had started being unfaithful, too-they'd tried having an affair, but it had led to little more than some heavy eighth-grade-style petting, some dawn-sober admissions of loneliness and fear on both parts, and the awesome realisation that somehow, against all odds, a woman and a man had become very good platonic friends. Buddies, even pals, but not lovers. So they went bowling and got beer-drunk and O'Sullivan did the best he could to treat her just like all the other reporters on his news team- shitty.

  As she approached O'Sullivan's office, she heard a male voice pontificating: "I'm saying we need Joe Six-Pack. Don't get me wrong, but the psychographics of bowling are very different from the psychographics of tennis, and our advertising base damn well knows it."

  This could only be Ron Pendrake, the news consultant. To confirm this, she peeked around the door and there he was inside O'Sullivan's office, Ron Pendrake himself wielding a blue Magic Marker and drawing key words on O'Sullivan's stand-up easel. Every few seconds, Pendrake would throw back a page and start a new one, always being as dramatic as possible.

  Now that he was aware of her in the doorway, Pendrake did what he always did, settled his beady green eyes on her breasts, which might have been flattering under some circumstances, but Pendrake always zeroed in on your breasts to the exclusion of everything else. He still wanted his mama.

  This morning, however, there was something wrong with Pendrake because right after he wrenched his eyes from her chest, he looked miserably over at O'Sullivan. And then promptly quit talking. Ron Pendrake, news consultant, never quit talking.

  It was as if she'd walked in on a private conversation that had been about her.

  And so she knew, of course, that something terrible had gone on here, or was about to go on, and somehow it all had something to do with her.

  "Well, if it isn't the best looking woman in TV news!" Ron Pendrake said as she came into the office. That was something else he never did. Flatter you.

  Oh, my God, what was happening here this morning?

  Then she saw O'Sullivan's face and he took away all her doubts. He kept his head down and wouldn't look at her.

  Oh, yes; oh, yes: something awful was about to happen.

  "Well," said Ron Pendrake, diving for his suit jacket and his briefcase, "I just remembered that I've got to go up and see Fenton."

  He was a little guy, Pendrake, always dashing and bouncing and diving, and for some reason she'd always wanted to call him Sparky. In fact, all news consultants should be called Sparky. There was something callow and adolescent about them, as if they'd always remain the smartest kids in high school, but would never grow up beyond that.

  "Well," Ron Pendrake said, managing to include both of them in the same glance. "You two have a nice day."

  And so, even though his cologne was decidedly still with them, Ron Pendrake himself was not. Now, he was just quickly retreating footsteps down the hall.

  She said, "So what's going on?"

  "Nothing. Why?"

  "I just get the feeling that something's happening."

  "Why would you say that?"

  He had yet to look up. He was pretending to be mightily busy looking for something in one of his desk drawers.

  Finally, when he'd got all the mileage out of the drawer he could, he said, "You really look nice in that blue suit, Chris."

  "How would you know? You haven't looked at me yet."

  "When you came in I looked."

  "Oh, I see."

  He said, "Why don't you go grab us a couple cups of coffee and then sort of hang around my office awhile. I want to talk to you a little bit." He smiled. "You really do look nice in that suit. You really do, Chris."

  By this time, she was trembling. Literally. And feeling a little queasy.

  My God. What was going on?

  Then he virtually jumped up from his desk-still not looking at her-flung an arm in the direction of the hall, and said, "Pit stop. Be right back."

  "Can't you just tell-" she started to say.

  But he'd already dived for the door very much in the manner of Ron Pendrake himself.

  She spent the next fifteen minutes sitting like a dutiful woman in the pea green armchair he kept for visitors. In the meantime reporters, men and women alike, came and went. Those assigned to regular beat-City Hall, the police precincts, the school board-came and went without saying much. They covered the same people every day, knew pretty much what to expect, and only occasionally requested more airtime for a story they felt would be of wide public interest (airtime, the number of seconds a story is actually on the tube, is the most precious commodity a TV reporter possesses). Other reporters really needed to talk to O'Sullivan. These were the folks who needed permission to follow certain rumours down-hints of corruption or some new information about an unsolved murder or the spectre of hard drugs at a posh health spa. These required O'Sullivan's specific approval to pursue and, if pursued, had to be done so on the reporter's own time-the rest of the day being too busy with breaking stories-fires, terrible car pile-ups, missing children. On the rear wall of O'Sullivan's office was this giant sized blackboard. On this was a line for each reporter and the story he or she had been assigned to that day. Careers were made and broken on O'Sullivan's blackboard.

  Some of the reporters who came and went spoke to Chris, some acknowledged her with little more than furtive nods; TV reporting being a singularly competitive enterprise, hard feelings in the newsroom were not uncommon. And it wasn't always just over who got the best story, either. A reporter named Dave Tuska, for instance, was still not speaking to Chris seven months later because Chris had requested Channel 3's neophyte camera person, Jenny Thomas. At the time, none of the other reporters had wanted Jenny and Chris was afraid that if no reporter requested her, the girl would get fired in one of the budget cuts always going on at the station. Well, Jenny proved to be the best camera person in the station-innovative, creative, fun to work with. The rest of the camera people were dull hacks by comparison. It was conventional wisdom that the most important single asset a reporter could possess was a good camera person-one who made you look good, not bad. Jenny became Chris's own camera person. So, Dave Tuska bore a grudge.

  O'Sullivan finally came back.
He sat down behind his desk.

  "Maybe you should close the door, Chris."

  "Will you quit calling me Chris?"

  "Isn't that your name?"

  "Not to you. To you my name's always Holland."

  "Oh."

  "May I have a cigarette?"

  "How many does that make today?"

  "One."

  "Bullshit."

  "Two."

  "Bullshit."

  "Please, Walter, I'm really nervous about this. Something's wrong and I can tell it. Otherwise you wouldn't be calling me Chris."

  She went and closed the door. She came back and sat down across from him. On the desk between them was his pack of Camel filters. She pointed to the pack and he nodded. She took one and lit it and took smoke deeply and luxuriously into her chest. She could hear her lungs screaming mercy. She told them to be still.

  She said, "Just say it."

  "Just say what?"

  He was actually, even despite the excess weight, a nice looking guy, prematurely grey hair, a noble nose, intelligent and wry blue eyes.

  "Whatever's bothering you. God, Walter, you should see yourself. You look like hell."

  "Thank you."

  "You know what I mean. You look hangdog and afraid. You're not going to tell me my little puppy's been run over by a car, are you?"

  "You don't have a little puppy."

  "But that's what you look like, Walter."

  He reached over and helped himself to one of his cigarettes and then he said, "You saw Pendrake?"

  "Why doesn't he go over to Channel 5? They're not an empire anymore, in fact, they're a joke now. All those fat greasy salespeople and that joke of a production department. They need his help. We don't."

  "Ron's been doing a lot of focus groups and-" He shook his head. "Well, you know how things can happen in focus groups sometimes."

  There were maybe half a dozen television consultant groups in the country. They were hired by TV stations to improve the ratings, particularly in the area of local news, which is the single biggest money maker for most local outlets. Consultants are not a beloved group. First of all, management-only too eager to have supposedly wiser heads make the decisions-gives the consultants enormous power. Many times, consultants have the authority to hire and fire both on air talent and key administrative people such as news directors. They are constantly shaping and reshaping the look and substance of news shows in order to attain higher ratings. One of their primary tools in all this is focus group testing-taking a theoretically average group of people-and having them sit around looking at videotape of various on air news teams and making comments. Based on what they hear in these groups, the consultants then make sweeping recommendations to the stations about which air person is popular, and which is not. So not only do reporters have to worry about the regular TV ratings, they also have to worry about what a doctor or garbage truck driver or minister might say about them during the course of a focus group. It was widely suspected by reporters and media observers alike that these focus groups were often dishonest-you carefully select a certain group of people who will say exactly what you want them to say-but if management suspected anything, they kept their suspicions to themselves. They were too busy thanking the consultants for taking all this responsibility off their backs.

  "And?" she said.

  "And-" He looked at her for the first time. "And you're going to be reassigned."

  "Reassigned?"

  "We're starting a new segment."

  "A new segment?" She realised she was repeating everything he said; she also realised she was semi-hysterical (her world was about to come crashing down) but she couldn't stop herself.

  "Holland on the Town." He smiled but it was a sad and defeated smile. "I kind of like that, don't you?"

  "What the hell is Holland on the Town?"

  "Events."

  "Events?"

  "Yeah, you know, stuff that goes on in the day. It'll be on the six o'clock strip three nights a week"

  "It's a community bulletin board, isn't it?"

  "Huh?" he said, feigning stupidity.

  "It's a goddamn community bulletin board. That's what you're talking about, isn't it, Walter?"

  "Now, Chris, I wouldn't go that far. I-"

  She stabbed out her cigarette. "Maybe you haven't noticed, Walter, but I'm a reporter."

  "But this segment-"

  "I report news, Walter. I don't report on DAR meetings or bake-offs or garden clubs."

  "But, Chris, I-"

  She held up her hand like a traffic cop in the middle of a busy intersection. "Don't say anything more. Please. Not right now."

  So he didn't. He sat there and stared at her and looked ashamed of himself.

  After a time she said, "You got me the Holland on the Town thing, didn't you?"

  He said nothing, just stared at his folded hands riding on his stomach.

  "The consultants told you that you had to fire me but you came up with this dipshit community calendar so you could save my job, didn't you?"

  He still said nothing.

  "I'm not going to start crying," she said.

  He said, "Good."

  "Look at me, Walter."

  He kept his eyes down.

  "Walter, goddammit, look at me."

  Like a chastened little boy, he raised his gaze to meet hers.

  "Now tell me the truth, Walter. You came up with the On the Town thing, didn't you?"

  He just sort of shrugged. "Well."

  "You came up with it so I'd at least have some kind of job, didn't you?"

  "Well," he said again.

  Abruptly she leaned over the desk and kissed him on his forehead. "I really love you, Walter."

  And then she sat back down and put her head down and tried very hard not to cry.

  "You okay?" he said.

  "Uh-huh."

  "You want a Coke or something?"

  "Huh-uh."

  "You want another cigarette?"

  She shook her head.

  "Why don't you cry?" he said.

  She shook her head again. She didn't want to give the bastards the satisfaction.

  "I really feel bad, Holland, I really do. If I didn't have child support payments and a big suburban house I can't unload, I'd quit and tell them where to put it."

  She had composed herself again. She tilted her head up and looked straight at him purposefully and said, "How come they wanted to fire me?"

  "They said you were too old."

  "What?"

  "They said the men in the focus groups all said they wanted a younger woman in your slot."

  "With bouncing breasts and a wiggling backside, no doubt?"

  "No doubt."

  She made a fist and then lunged for a cigarette and lit it with almost terrifying ferocity. "Those sons-of-bitches."

  "Absolutely."

  "What do they know about journalism, anyway?"

  "Not diddly shit."

  She narrowed her eyes and said, "Are you making fun of me, Walter?"

  "Nope. Just sort of saying that I have this same conversation every time I have to let somebody go. It's sad-the consultants don't know anything about journalism but they get to dictate to us how we should put our shows together."

  "I won't do it. The On the Town thing."

  "I know."

  "I really appreciate what you were trying to do for me, but I won't do it."

  "I don't blame you."

  "I'm serious."

  "I know."

  "Just because I'm two months behind in my rent and because Gil pawned my colour TV set…" Gil was her ex-boyfriend, a would-be actor.

  "He did?"

  "Yeah. He needed a new suit for an audition."

  "Tell him you want your money or your set right now."

  "Can't."

  "Why?"

  "He's moved in with some new girl named Ricky."

  He smiled with magnificent malice. "Gil looks like the kind of guy who'd end up with a
Ricky."

  She slumped in her chair again.

  He said, "You all right, Holland?"

  She said, "Any cut in pay?"

  "In the On the Town thing?"

  "Yeah."

  "Huh-uh."

  She sighed. "God, I'll have to take it, won't I?"

  "If your finances are in their usual state of disrepair, yeah."

  She sighed even more this time. " 'And on Friday evening, ladies, don't forget our city's first all nude bake-off.' "

  He laughed and added his own lewd comment.

  "I'm too goddamned old, Walter? I can't believe that. Aren't I attractive anymore?"

  He smiled and reached across the desk. She put her hand in his. "You're a damn good looking woman, Holland, and you know it. But these consultants-" He shook his head.

  She thought back to her audition reel. She automatically updated it every six months, which is what she'd been doing earlier. Now there was a good reason to box up several dubs and send them out. She'd just been demoted and was lucky she hadn't been outright fired.

  "Too old?" she said again, her ego and her self-esteem both reeling at once.

  He grinned, looking as he always did when he grinned, like a sarcastic little kid. "Haggard, Holland. Absolutely haggard."

  ***

  When Chris got back to her cubicle in the newsroom, one of the Channel 3 sales reps was standing there putting the moves on one of the young studio production women. Like most TV reps, his high opinion of himself oozed from every pore in his body. Also like most TV reps, he was chunky, not very bright, and assertive enough to make most people cringe. O'Sullivan hated TV reps. They were always coming to him and seeing if he couldn't somehow plug one of their clients on the news show somehow; or if one of their clients was involved in some bad publicity, if O'Sullivan couldn't go easy on the guy. All this was particularly galling to news directors because station general managers were invariably chosen from the ranks of reps-meaning the same stupidity, the same used car dealer ethics that kept them in money as reps had now got them ensconced in the general manager's chair.