Radio Activity (The Rick Shannon series)

by Bill Fitzhugh

  Rick looked around, trying to control his own. He saw himself standing in the parking lot of a small town radio station in the middle of the night. Someone had smashed the windshield out of his old truck. And he couldn’t shrug it off anymore. He was too old. He’d call the Auto Club if he made that kind of regular money. And he’d call a friend if he had one. But he was new in town and broke to boot. And this wasn’t the first time. Maybe not this exactly, but like it. Worst of all, Rick knew there was no one to blame but himself. He wondered, Is this the best I can manage? What the hell am I doing here? What can I do to change that? Or should I just lower my expectations? He found himself asking more rhetorical questions the older he got.

  He took a deep breath and waited for the moment to pass. Then he walked to the back of his truck, opened his tool box, and grabbed his tire iron. He pried the busted windshield out in two pieces and tossed it in the dumpster on the side of the building. He brushed the glass off the seat and hood and started the engine. While the truck idled, Rick put the tire iron back in the box and rooted around until he found an ill-fitting pair of plastic safety goggles. He figured he’d be pelted by all manner of insects drawn to his headlights on the ride home and, as unpleasant as it would be to take a few bugs in the teeth, a big one in the eye at forty miles an hour would probably blind him. Go right through to his brain. And who needs that?

  Rick got back in the cab of the truck and was about to let off the brake when he had a notion. He got out again, reached back into his tool box and grabbed the tire iron. He tossed it on the seat next to him. Just in case the vandal was keen on following. He put on the safety goggles, pulled the straps tight, and put the truck in gear.

  On the drive home, Rick made the mistake of yawning once without covering his mouth. He discovered that certain insects of the family Bibionidae had a nutty, almond-like flavor. He choked and coughed as he spit heads, thoraxes, and abdomens, not to mention all the legs. By the time he got back to the trailer, his goggles were smeared with a greenish yellow goo. Rick climbed out of his truck fighting the urge to reflect any further on the state of his life. He brushed a couple of tenacious moths from his hair then went inside looking for his cigar box.

  19.

  Rick woke up early the next morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. What the hell, he thought. Might as well start the day. He poured a cup of coffee and went outside to sit at the big wooden spool. He glanced at his truck and wondered how much a new windshield was going to cost.

  Rick sat back, propped his feet up, and surveyed his pastoral surroundings. Except for the driveway that cut a corridor through the trees, the trailer was surrounded by woods. It was mostly pine, with a few hardwoods here and there, black gums, oaks, poplars. Rick knew Mississippi had once been a magnificent virgin forest, but when the lumber reserves of the northeast ran out, the lumber industry moved south and worked feverishly to deflower her. Like a lot of small towns that popped up around the lumber mills in this part of the state, McRae was founded during the timber boom that started in the late 1800s.

  Rick turned to look when he heard the tap-tap, tap-tap-tap of a woodpecker. He scanned the trees but never saw the bird. But he noticed some movement out of the corner of his eye. Looking closer, he realized it was a deer. In fact it was large buck, eight points, maybe ten, which was unusual for this part of the state. The trophy bucks were up in the Delta and the Big Black River bottom. Still, Rick figured by this time next year, that bad boy’s head would be stuck on somebody’s rec room wall with a New Orleans Saints baseball cap hanging off his rack.

  Rick watched as the buck wandered leisurely into the woods and he thought he should do the same. He had told himself he needed to get outside more and this was a perfect opportunity. He had time before he had to be at work so he finished his coffee, put on some boots, and took a hike.

  As he crossed the tree line into the cool woods Rick took a deep breath. The air smelled like it had been scrubbed clean. Squirrels chattered and leaped overhead and he could still hear that woodpecker somewhere. Each step crunched beneath his feet as he walked over the bed of dry, brown needles. He stopped for a moment to take it in. The beauty and stillness reminded him why he had wanted to do this in the first place. It was like the woods near his house when he was young, when there were still all sorts of possibilities. Possibilities that were gone now. Rick and his friends had built forts and fought wars in those woods. They had blasted down paths on Stingrays with banana seats and sissy bars and five speed gearshifts. They were daredevils then, wild and reckless and indestructible. And sometimes they stopped and laid the bikes on the ground and sat with their backs against the trees. And they talked about things they didn’t understand and they tried to figure it all out and the memory of those days was sweeter remembered in a place like this.

  The woodpecker was closer now. The tap-tap-tap pulled Rick back from his reverie and he moved on. A little deeper in the woods he came to an old forgotten fence. Sage green lichens, ruffled and cracked, grew on hand-split cedar posts linked by weary barbed wire. It looked to be an old property line but, long neglected, its line was broken here and there. Rick noticed some hair snagged and dangling from a barb. Long, coarse, and black, he figured it was from a mule’s tail or maybe a horse. But it could have been a wild boar. There were still some out here. Big Russian razorbacks.

  Rick walked along the fence line until he came to a clearing. The contrast where the shade and shadow of the green trees gave way to direct light on the exposed red-orange clay was startling, like pop art in the middle of a Renaissance gallery. Rick ducked between the barbed wires to the other side. He looked down. The tracks of heavy machinery in the sandy clay brought to mind skidders and haulers and Rick figured someone was in the process of selling off a little timber. The clearing was surrounded mostly by longleaf yellow pines though there was one large white oak that stood near the banks of the creek Rick had been hearing.

  Rick walked along the creek following it back the way he had come. He eventually reached a bend near the tree line and he could see the trailer. He checked his watch and decided he might as well go to work. It was payday and he had to get his windshield fixed. And he was curious if Traci might tell him what she had come so close to saying last night.

  He went back to the trailer and grabbed a few records. Then he got in his truck and strapped on his plastic goggles.

  20.

  Rick walked into the station brushing something from his shirt. Traci looked up and said, “Hey. I listened until eleven last night, then I fell asleep, no offense.”

  “None taken,” Rick said as he admired the devilish sweep of eye shadow Traci had applied that morning. “Did you hear your song?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “Was it the Larry Raspberry song, Dixie Diner? You know, since we ate at Kitty’s?” She handed him a couple of phone messages. “That’s my best guess.”

  “Mighta been.” Rick glanced at the messages, record reps returning his calls.

  “Ohhh,” Traci said. “So it’s gonna be like that? An international man of mystery sort of thing.”

  “What do you want me to do, play Tracy by the Cuff Links? That’s no fun. Besides it doesn’t fit the format. Might as well play the Archies.”

  “So what did you--” Traci’s eyes went wide and she shrieked. She pushed back from her desk while pointing at Rick’s head and saying, “Get, get, get, ooooooh!”

  Rick ran his hands through his hair and quickly found the problem. It was a bee. Rick made a noise that was less masculine than he might have wanted. He shook his head like a wet dog trying to get the thing out of his hair before it stung him. After a moment the bee landed on the carpet, stunned and staggering. Rick bent over to look, but he couldn’t see where it was. He stomped blindly all the while saying, “Where is it? Where did it go?”

  Traci came out from behind the desk. “Don’t step on it.”

  “What do you mean, don’t step on it?”

  “It didn’t hurt you,
why do you want to hurt it?”

  “You’re suddenly in the society to prevent cruelty to venomous insects?”

  She pushed Rick away then grabbed a sheet from a memo pad and scooped the bee onto the paper. “I can’t believe you screamed like that,” she said, barely hiding her laugh.

  “You screamed first,” Rick said.

  “That’s different,” she said, without explaining how or why. Traci went to the door and tossed the bee outside. She was turning to come back in when she did a double-take on Rick’s truck. “Ohmigod.” Her hand went to her mouth. “What happened to your windshield?” There was something about her expression and the way she asked the question that went beyond mere surprise. Rick detected a vague sense of responsibility in her tone. He got the feeling Traci wanted him to say it wasn’t what she thought it was.

  “I came out after my shift last night and found the windshield smashed,” Rick said. “My first guess was beer-fueled miscreant who wanted some Billy Idol but then it occurred to me it could just as easily be a local auto glass replacement place out to drum up some business.”

  Traci’s mouth opened with some reluctance. “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Oh, jeez.” Traci went back behind the reception desk and pulled out the phone book. “I wanted to tell you last night but. . . I didn’t.”

  “Tell me what?”

  Traci flipped through the phone book and said, “My ex-boyfriend.”

  “Billy Idol fan?”

  “Well, yeah, but he’s also real jealous.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “So, I don’t know. Maybe he saw us at Kitty’s.”

  “Did you see him?”

  “No, but. . .” She pointed feebly at the phone book. “I’ll call these guys, they’ll come out and replace your windshield. And I’ll pay for it, don’t worry.”

  “Wait a second,” Rick said. “How ‘ex’ is he?”

  “We broke up about a month ago.”

  “You were the breaker and he was the breakee?”

  She nodded. “He just, he’s got a real bad temper and I’d had enough of it. I should’ve told you last night. And I thought about it, really, but, anyway, I’m real sorry he did that.”

  “Well, look, we don’t know he did it,” Rick said. “And even if he did, it’s not your responsibility.” He looked down at the calendar on Traci’s desk. “Today’s payday, right? It’s my problem. I’ll pay for it.” Then he pointed at the phone book. “But if you’d call and have ‘em come out I’d appreciate it.”

  “Are you sure? I’ll split the cost because--”

  “Traci?” He shook his head and said, “Forget about it.” He turned and headed for his office. As he walked down the hall Rick wondered if Traci was right. A jealous ex-boyfriend was as good an explanation as any. The bad news was that they tended to hold a grudge longer than disgruntled head bangers so, if Traci was right, Rick had to wonder how many windshields he was going to have to replace.

  21.

  Back in his office Rick spent some time on the phone calling the record reps, trying to get some back catalog to fill out the library. As he figured, a lot of what he wanted just wasn’t available on CD. Fortunately between Captain Jack’s and his own record collections, and a CD recorder, he could fill in the blanks. Rick was making a list of the albums he needed to burn onto disc when Clay stepped into the doorway and said, “Hey, those promo spots you did are pretty good.”

  Rick glanced up. “Glad you approve.”

  “Yeah, you bet. But listen, I thought you were gonna use that Pink Floyd money song we talked about, the one with that cash register sound effect and all.”

  Rick gave a noncommittal nod. Money was one of those songs that had been so overplayed on classic rock radio during the last thirty years that it had become peeling aural wallpaper. It was exactly the sort of song Rick wanted to ‘rest’ for a while as he recast the classic format. Instead of playing it two or three times a day, seven days a week, as most classic rock stations did, he would move it to an infrequent rotation, playing no more than two or three times a month. “I thought about using Pink Floyd,” Rick said. “But I decided that had been done so many times we should try something else.”

  Clay assumed the expression of a rather bright cave man and said, “Huh.” He seemed caught off guard, as if he had expected Rick to apologize for not taking his suggestion and run to the production room to recut the spots. Clay chewed on the inside of his cheek for a second before he said, “So what was that damn song you used?”

  Rick looked up from his list and said, “Grateful Dead song called Money, Money.”

  “Is’sat right?” Clay turned his head and softly spit whatever it was he’d chewed off his cheek. “So, anyway, I’m ‘onna need you to go ahead ‘n’ cut a new one.”

  Rick looked at him but didn’t speak.

  “Not just ‘cause of the music,” Clay said. “You need to add that the grand prize drawin’s gone be done by the new Miss Loblolly Pine.” He winked and said, “I’m ‘onna see if I can get her to do it in a thong bikini or a wet T-shirt or some damn thing, but don’t put that in the spot yet, ‘cause I hadn’t asked her yet. I’ll let you know if she goes for it and you can just recut ‘em then.” Clay turned to leave but stopped and said, “Oh yeah, and as long as you’re cuttin’ new spots you might as well put that Pink Floyd song in. And don’t forget my idea about saying, ‘Rrrrrreal rock, rrrrreal cash’. That’s good stuff.” There was a pause before he did his, “Tch.” Clay turned and rapped his knuckles on the door on his way out. “Cash and titties,” he said as he walked down the hall. “I’m telling ya, that’ll sell anything.”

  22.

  By the time Rick finished recutting the promo spots -- without Clay’s clichéd tag line or the Pink Floyd -- it was nearly five. It dawned on him that he still hadn’t received his paycheck. He asked Traci what the procedure was and she told him to check his employee mail slot in the break room. He did, but it was empty. So he went to see the bookkeeper.

  His office was just down the hall. When Rick walked in the man was locking the gray metal file cabinet that served as a credenza behind his desk. He had oddly indistinguishable features, like he could stand in a police line-up with no fear of being picked.

  “Hi, I’m Rick Shannon. I’m trying to track down my paycheck. I hear you’re the man to see.”

  The man looked up submissively and said, “I was just leaving.”

  “Well, I won’t keep you any longer than it takes to hand over an envelope.” Rick smiled.

  The bookkeeper didn’t. He stood there for a moment before he took his keys from his pocket. He sat down and reopened the cabinet, fingering through to a specific file. He turned back toward Rick and said, “Shelton?”

  “Shannon. Rick. I’m the new PD for the FM.”

  The man closed his eyes for a moment like he knew what was coming and didn’t want to see it. He said, “Uhhh, exactly how new?”

  “Two weeks,” Rick said. “About as long as the new format, that you may or may not have noticed.”

  The bookkeeper let the file slip back into the drawer. He shut the cabinet and sighed.

  Rick narrowed his eyes and said, “Is there a problem?”

  “It’s the employee handbook.” He pulled a copy from the credenza and turned to a well thumbed page. “A lot of people don’t read it so they’re surprised.” He pushed the document halfway across the desk. Then, with a weak gesture toward one of the pages, he said, “It’s right there.” His eyes stayed on the words.

  Rick looked around for a moment thinking about how he hadn’t read an employee handbook since his third job. He scanned the paragraph. It said the station would hold his first two weeks’ pay in ‘reserve’. This money would be held until the end of his employment, without interest. When his employment was terminated they’d give him his first two weeks’ pay and call it severance. Solid policy. For the station.

  Ri
ck pushed the manual back across the desk. He took a deep breath. Stubbled again, he thought. Get to work a whole month for nothing. “Let me ask you,” he said. “When I do get paid, how much will I be getting?”

  The bookkeeper pulled out a ledger and looked up the number. He wrote it on a piece of paper and seemed ashamed as he handed it over. Rick looked at it for a good moment, his mood growing hostile. He could see Stubblefield in his mind, that first day, saying, “No question we’ll make it worth your while. You can count on that.”

  Rick pointed at the piece of paper with the number on it. “This was the original salary I was supposed to get just for the night shift. Stubblefield was supposed to talk to you about this.”

  The bookkeeper shook his head. “He never said anything to me.”

  23.

  After all of his years in radio, Rick had grown accustomed to being lied to, but he still didn’t like it. In fact he’d just about had it with this kind of crap. Every single bit of it. He’d never been in the business to get rich -- he wasn’t that naive -- but as corporate ownership increasingly sucked the air out of the lungs of a job that once required creativity, turning something he loved into a miserable grind with little to no future, Rick felt he was at least entitled to being treated like a professional.