Radio Activity (The Rick Shannon series)

by Bill Fitzhugh

  “You’re gonna love this. Grand prize is one thousand twenty-nine dollars.” Clay cocked his eyebrows. “As in one-oh-two-nine? FM? Get it?”

  Oh boy, Rick thought. Big time Charlie. “Yeah,” he said. “I get it. So when’s payday?”

  Clay smiled and scratched the side of his head. “Two weeks from yesterday.”

  “Naturally.” Rick and Clay both knew who had whom by the whats. Rick knew his only option was unemployment in a place where he lacked residency and could not, therefore, file for benefits. For that he’d have to drive back to North Dakota.

  “Well, okay,” Clay said with a glance at his watch. “I gotta get going.” He walked Rick out of his office on his way to the parking lot. Stopping in the lobby, Clay reached a hand out to Traci. “Any calls?”

  Traci held up a fist of pink message sheets. “Mr. Dribbling called,” she said. “Wants you to call back.”

  Rick tried not to react when he heard the name. Bernie Dribbling was the main player Clay talked about on the tape. He wondered what the call was about but switched his attention instinctively to the overhead speaker when he heard the DJ segue to The Band from Rock of Ages. Rick nodded. This was the first interesting music selection he’d heard since he arrived. Allan Toussaint’s horn arrangement on the Holland, Dozier, Holland classic Don’t Do It had only improved over the decades. Rick imagined the guy in the control room was a balding Sixties relic in tie-dye.

  Clay took the phone messages from Traci then shook Rick’s hand again and said, “Welcome aboard, buddy.” Then he breezed out to the parking lot, the glass door closing slowly behind him.

  Rick stood there, looking after Clay, shaking his head.

  “We call it gettin’ Stubbled,” Traci said from her desk. She wrinkled her nose and said, “It’s a little rough at first but you get used to it.” She flashed a welcome-to-the-club smile. “Guess I should’ve seen that coming,” he said.

  “As long as you’ve been in radio?” She nodded. “Yeah.”

  Rick smiled and sat on the corner of the reception desk. “You would’ve warned me if you’d had the chance though, right?”

  “Oh, if I knew then, what I know now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh yeah, I’d’ve given you the heads up.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “True,” Rick said. “But in theory you would’ve saved me some trouble.”

  Traci held her right hand out and looked at her fingernails. She said, “I don’t care much for theories.”

  Rick gave a nod. “You’re more practical.”

  “Exactly.” She picked at a cuticle. “I prefer the concrete to the abstract.”

  “Concrete like, for example, dinner?”

  She paused before saying, “Maybe.” The phone rang. Traci held up her finger. “Dubya-ay-oh-ahhr.” Her voice lapsed into Southern Belle every time she answered the phone. Rick wondered if she knew she did that. “Mmm. Hold please.” She connected the call then looked at Rick, more wary than anything else. “Where were we?”

  “Maybe at dinner.”

  “Right,” Traci said. “Now what, exactly, did you have in mind?”

  Rick conjured an innocent look. “I was just hoping you might be able to help me out since I’m new in town. You know, the whole kindness-of-strangers thing. Show me the local hot spots, help me with my accent, fill me in on who’s who in McRae, that sort of stuff.”

  “Oh. And that’s it?”

  To Rick’s dismay she still sounded more suspicious than disappointed. “I tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you think about it?”

  “Think about having dinner with you?”

  Rick cocked his head and said, “What else would you think about doing with me?”

  Traci smiled and adjusted her headset. “I guess I should’ve seen that coming.”

  Rick stood up. “Long as you’ve been beautiful?” He nodded. “Yeah.”

  When the phone rang again, Traci pointed down the hall. “Don’t you have a job?” She punched a button. “Dubya-ay-oh-ahhr. Mmm. Hold please.”

  Rick turned and headed for his office, intrigued and infatuated. He liked how Traci switched from Southern Belle to screwball comedy flirt and back at the drop of a hat. He knew about the dangers of office romance but some things are stronger than mere knowledge.

  Rick walked into his new office. Mail was piled on the desk: Radio & Records, Hitmaker Magazine, Billboard, and promotional CD’s. He sat down and was about to start reading the charts when Don’t Do It began to fade overhead. Rick wondered what the jock would play next. It turned out to be Clapton’s Lay Down Sally. Rick thought, could have been worse. Could have been Cocaine.

  He tossed the Billboard onto his desk and headed for the studio. He stopped at the double-paned window and looked in. The guy in the chair was facing away, looking at the albums on the far wall. Rick tapped on the glass then walked in. The guy wheeled around to see who it was. To Rick’s surprise, he wasn’t a leftover hippie. He a wide-eyed kid, fifteen or sixteen, young enough to be Rick’s son. He waved tentatively and said, “Hi. Can I help you?”

  “I’m the new PD,” Rick said. “Who are you?”

  “Oh!” The kid jumped up and held out his hand. “Mr. Shannon. I’m Rob North.” He pointed at the microphone. “Mr. Stubblefield said I could do the morning show ‘til you got here.” Rob started gathering his stuff.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting of your way.”

  “Shouldn’t you be in school or something?”

  “Oh, I dropped out.” He tried to say it in a way that sounded cool.

  “So you could work here?”

  He nodded. “Mr. Stubblefield said I could just get a GED. Said I didn’t really need college if I was going to work in radio which is what I want to do.”

  Rick pointed at the turntable. “Your record’s running out.”

  “Oh!”

  Rick figured the LP had about five revolutions before the song was finished. No way the kid was going to pull this off. Rob yanked an album from the wall. In one smooth motion he slipped the LP from the sleeve, eyeballed the song list, flipped to the other side, slipped it onto the spindle, dropped the needle perfectly in the groove between tracks two and three and brought the level up to the applause leading into Space Captain from Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Rob looked at Rick. “Is that okay?”

  Rick nodded, impressed. “Fine.”

  “Not too obscure?”

  “No, in fact we’re going to start playing more stuff like that.” Rick reached for the album cover. “Where’d you learn the music?”

  “My dad mostly. He had a pretty good collection. It’s mine now.” He paused for a moment before he said, “And I grew up listening to a New Orleans station that played all this stuff.”

  Rick gestured at the board. “Turn it up.” Leon Russell, Rita Coolidge, and a dozen others attending Joe Cocker’s finest moment. It was enough to make Rick forget for the moment that he’d been conned by Stubblefield. It sounded so good it reminded Rick of what he loved about radio and he suddenly saw the bright side of his circumstance. Someone had just given him the keys to a fifty-thousand watt rock and roll radio station. A laboratory to create the perfect ‘classic’ format. True, you couldn’t get a loan against that, but it was something.

  Rob checked his program log and pulled the appropriate spot carts for the upcoming break. Then he grabbed Goat’s Head Soup and cued Dancing With Mr. D. “Listen, Mr. Shannon, uh, I know I’m not that experienced or anything but like I told Mr. Stubblefield--”

  “How much is he paying you?”

  “Paying?”

  “Yeah, like minimum wage?”

  Rob shook his head. “Mr. Stubblefield said he couldn’t pay me but I could work for free, for the experience. For my resumé.”

  Rick narrowed his eyes. “You dropped out of high school to work for nothing? They didn’t teach you much before you dropped out, did they?
How long’ve you been doing this?”

  “Working for free? About a year, but mostly overnights. I just dropped out a week ago so I could do mornings after Captain Jack stopped coming to work. This is the first time I’ve done a morning shift. Traci said I need to talk more, but I figured nobody’s tuning in to hear me talk so I’ve been concentrating more on music than the whole, you know, personality thing.”

  Rick folded his arms and looked at Rob. “You’re aware that Stubblefield is a USDA, Grade-A weasel?”

  Rob laughed nervously and glanced down at the turntable. “Traci calls it gettin’ Stubbled, but he’s okay, I guess. I get free CDs and stuff. Plus it’s cool to work here. I mean I wanna work in radio for a career and all, so--”

  “You want a paying job?”

  “Yeah, but Mr. Stubblefield said nobody’d pay me since I don’t have any experience so he--”

  “--Stubbled you.”

  “Well, I didn’t think of it like that.”

  “You want a paying job now?”

  “Here?”

  “Right here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re hired.”

  “Really? Overnights?”

  Rick shook his head. “Morning show.”

  Rob’s eyes popped wide. “For money?”

  “Yeah, but not enough to quit school for.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Shannon. The money’s not important.”

  “Good,” Rick said. “With that attitude, you’ll go far in radio.”

  7.

  Rick returned to his office with a sense of satisfaction. Not only had he made Rob’s day but he’d stuck it to Stubblefield, at least a little. He couldn’t believe the moron had told Rob to drop out of high school. The kid had some talent and what he needed was someone to nurture it, someone to encourage him to pursue his education. What he didn’t need was Stubblefield’s advice.

  Back in his office Rick looked at the employee files. He found the name of Rob’s high school and placed a call. The principal and the guidance counselor were both busy so Rick left a message. He was about to start working on the spots for the big cash giveaway when he heard someone coming down the hall singing, “Meet the new boss! Dat da dah! Same as the old boss! Dun du duh!”

  Rick looked to the door just as J. C. Whalen, the mid-day jock, entered playing air guitar.

  “Hoodang howdy y’all! J.C. Whalen reporting for duty.” He gave a salute and said, “You must be Ricky Dicky Shannon.” With a big drooping mustache and weathered face, J.C. looked like the cowboy on the cover of a Pure Prarie League record. He sat across the desk from Rick. “Got any do’s and don’ts I should know about, kemosabe?”

  Rick smiled and shook his head. “I’m pretty easy to work for, J.C.”

  “That’s what they all say, Ricky Dicky.” J.C. fluttered his hands as he said, “But next thing you know I’ve crossed some invisible line and then I’m working overnights for a beautiful music station in Tulsa wondering where I can get my hands on a gun and wondering if I should put it in my mouth or to my temple, so just go ahead and tell me now what I’m not allowed to do or say and everything’ll be beautiful in its own way.”

  Rick grinned and said, “Okay.” He leaned across the desk gravely. “Two rules.”

  “Name ‘em.”

  “Okay, first rule. No dead air.”

  “I’m down with that,” J. C. said. “What else?”

  “Second rule is this. If I catch you playing anything by Yoko, I’ll dock you a day’s pay.”

  J. C. fussed with his mustache and said, “Shit, boss, if you catch me playing Yoko, you can hang my nekkid ass from the transmitter tower.” He held out his hand to shake. “I think we’ll get along just fine. Now if you’ll excuse me.” J.C. stood and headed for the control room. “Won’t get fooled agaaaaiiinnnnnnn!”

  The phone rang. It was the principal from Rob’s high school. Rick talked the guy into re-enrolling Rob and turning his radio job into a work-study program for credit. The principal agreed and worked out a schedule for Rob’s remaining requirements.

  After that, Rick phoned the rest of his jocks to introduce himself and to call a staff meeting. He spent the rest of the day getting acquainted with station routines and paperwork. He also met the afternoon jock, a bubbly product of Central Mississippi University’s Radio, Television, and Film department. She called herself Autumn Brown and swore it was her real name. She was competent on the board and had a perky presence on the air, though she knew precious little about music before Duran Duran. But she was adventurous and willing to play anything requested, no matter how jarring the mix. Thus did Rick have to explain why she shouldn’t follow the synthesized prog-rock of Yes’s Roundabout with the Southern boogie of the Marshall Tucker Band without something transitional to soften the blow.

  All in all, though, Rick was pleased. Now that he’d hired Rob for mornings, Rick could take the gig he’d signed up for in the first place. He could start his day mid-afternoon and leave after his evening air shift, resulting in minimal contact with Stubblefield. The programming wouldn’t take much time, and the extra money would be good. Of course that assumed Stubblefield would actually come through with the raise and wouldn’t fire him for hiring Rob. And if the prick does fire me, Rick thought. There’s always the tape.

  8.

  On his way home from work, Rick was tempted to stop at Kitty’s for some more Tater wads or to try the biscuits or the tomato gravy on grits but he figured there would be plenty of time for that. Instead, he stopped at the grocery store, then drove back to the trailer to make dinner. Afterward he sat down to listen again to the tape of Clay’s phone conversation.

  “And you know that bitch wanted me to come back to her motel room and piss on her?” Rick was as interested in how Clay said this as he was in the words themselves. Rather than sounding offended at the suggestion, Stubblefield sounded like he was bragging, as if he was proud to possess whatever it was that made a woman invite a man to do such a thing in a Mississippi motel room.

  The other man whispered, “No kiddin’?” He sounded impressed or jealous, one.

  “Hell no I ain’t kiddin’,” Clay said with a chuckle. “And I was ready to go get it, too.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “You know.”

  “Sure. You bet.”

  Clay continued by saying, “That’s thing I love ‘bout these pageants. These gals always trying to get ya to do all kinda stuff which is fine, you know. But I tell you, it’s something. Tch.”

  “Oh, I bet it is.”

  “And she was just one of the gals I met at this last one.”

  “Yeah, what was the deal on that?” The other man wanted to know. “You started tellin’ me at the Booster Club Meeting. This was down on the coast?”

  “Yeah, them promoters got damn pageants goin’ all the time, you know, Miss Collard Green or Miss Central Jones County, or whatever. They all over, but this one was at that new casino in Biloxi, the Gold Coast? Anyway these promoters always need celebrity, so-called celebrity judges, you know, sit up there, make it look official.” Clay sucked a little air through his front teeth. “Tch.”

  “Oh yeah, I gotcha.”

  “And lemme tell you what, those girls are the most ruthless, cut-throat bitches you’ve ever met in your life.”

  “Really?” The other man seemed surprised to hear this.

  Clay sounded incredulous as he said, “Ohhh, my God, they’re just professional whores.” Then he lightened his tone a bit before continuing,“When I say professional whores, I mean they just, they eat up with this beauty pageant shit. They just live, breath, and eat it and would just do anything to win, you know. Anything. They didn’t say,‘I’ll fuck you’ you know, they, they just come over and they’d grab you and they’d just. . . your dick’d be harder’n anything you got and they’d be rubbin’ all over you. They’d just flatter your ego. They’d say ‘I’ve heard so much about you. I am so thrilled to meet you. Damn, you’re good looking,’ you
know, and uh, ‘There’s nothing I like better than a sexy judge,’ and shit like that.”

  The man on the other end issued a strangled laugh. “Oh, ho, ho, hoooo.”

  Rick imagined this guy at his job, sitting behind his desk, hand cupped over the mouth piece, trying to make it look and sound like he was on a business call. At the same time Rick pictured Clay in his office, feet up on his desk and his door shut as he proudly told his tales.

  “I mean just, like Tammy? She was one of the worst ones,” Clay said. “Just them girls all over you. Tch. Well, I went crazy and I had a piece of ass lined up and got drunk there and fucked around and finally left to go get this piece of ass and I was two hours late with this other gal and she got pissed off and stood me up and I came back and all the girls were done sacked up doubled together and I didn’t get nothing but a hand job, you know.”

  The other man said, “Um hmm.” Like it was the gospel.

  Rick stopped the tape. This guy is a piece of work, he thought. Two hours late for a rendezvous and he accuses the girl of standing him up. And the claim about the hand job at the end of the night was pure bullshit. Had to be. Still, the dimbulb on the other end sounded like he was buying it. Stubblefield knows his audience, Rick thought as he started the tape again.

  Clay said, “And then I had a judge, woman named Lisa Ramey, down there that was good lookin’ that I was takin’ care of, so . . .but that’s how I met Tammy.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “So that’s the kind of girl she is.”

  “Ohhh yeah.”

  Rick thought it sounded like two goats talking.

  “She could be had,” Clay said, referring to Tammy. “She just wouldn’t meet you for a piece of ass. She’d go outta town with you, spend a little of your money.”

  “Yeah, you’d have to spend a little money on her.” Suddenly the expert.

  “Yeah,” Clay said.

  “Wouldn’t be none of this wham, bam, thank you ma’am. You’d have to spend a little money.”