Wizard of the Wind

by Don Keith

"Ain't life great? You got rock and roll in stereo, free for the taking on Nashville's WRIV...the River...one-oh-four-point-one. Turn it up now for Yessss!"

  The headphone gain was on "ten," the speakers on the wall above him cranked up so high they threatened to jump off their hooks. Jimmy had his head back, laughing and singing along with the music, ignoring the puzzled stares from the junior high school class field trip, now passing the studio window. If they did not feel the power of the music now, they soon would. Feel it all the way to their adolescent little souls.

  Jimmy Gill knew for certain that once it had a grip on them, it would never let go.

  Nineteen

  Jimmy Gill had the car seat reared back as far as it would go. He was trying for as much sleep as he could before the session with the money men and the owners at the Atlanta radio station. Detroit drove smoothly and, for once, was not constantly punching the buttons on the Buick's radio, criticizing signals and formats and audio processing. He was so quiet, in fact, that Jimmy opened one eye every so often to look over at him, to make sure he was not dozing at the wheel.

  In the glow of the first rays of sun through the windshield, it was clear that Detroit was wide awake, apparently deep in thought. When Jimmy looked at him, he was struck at how Dee had suddenly become a man. How serious the lines in his forehead had become. How his dark brown eyes had become even deeper and carried more practical intelligence than anyone else he had ever known. How distinguished he looked in his navy pin-striped suit, pastel button-down shirt, and paisley tie.

  The party the night before had been a late-night hoot that almost ended disastrously. Detroit Simmons saved the day, as usual.

  Dee had been in the background so long at WRIV, it was Jimmy’s pleasure to finally introduce the president of the company to everyone who counted. This had been the first chance to acknowledge what Detroit had contributed to the technical side of the business. All night, advertising execs and representatives of WRIV’s sponsors sought him out, grabbed his calloused hand and congratulated him. He soaked it all up like warm sunshine. Jimmy had hoped all night that Detroit would not start spouting off about wavelengths and transistors and vector currents in front of someone important.

  The station’s sales manager, Jerry Morrow, moved through the crowd easily, pounding backs, shaking hands. He had been a godsend, coming over to WRIV merely on “blue sky.” He had quit the town’s number one station and signed up with Jimmy and Detroit before WRIV aired its first test transmission. He loved their concept and maybe he simply craved the risk and danger, the possible rewards, of a start-up station in an untried format on an untapped broadcast band.

  Morrow also brought with him instant credibility for a salt-and-pepper pair of too-young-to-be-true owners. He also brought an account list that had WRIV’s commercial billings in the black months ahead of Jimmy’s most optimistic projections. And he also brought with him Nashville’s largest accumulation of exotic-animal-skin cowboy boots.

  Lulu Dooley was at home at the party, sampling everything on the buffet tables and chiding the hotel help when they let a chafing dish go empty for too long.

  "I could teach these pecker-heads a thing or two about biscuit-makin,’" she told Jimmy, as she swept past him and back down the serving line to fill another paper plate. She stopped back by and thanked him for the tenth time for her bus ticket and the room he had arranged for her upstairs in the King of the Road Hotel. Jimmy thanked her in return, but she just shushed him.

  "But you're a part of all this, Lulu," he reminded her. "You helped make it happen."

  She only waved and danced away.

  Greta Polanski and Clarice George emerged, fresh off a bus tour that wound past the homes of the country music stars. They told Jimmy and Detroit about Webb Pierce's guitar-shaped swimming pool and Little Jimmy Dickens's musical-note mailbox. Jimmy merely smiled and hoped the music business big-wigs and station sponsors did not overhear the members of the board of directors of Wizard Broadcasting gushing like awed tourists from Paducah.

  The women finally caught up with Detroit and Lulu at a table in a corner of the banquet hall. Jimmy once again marveled at what good friends this odd assemblage of people had all become through this venture. One he had put together from nothing but a dream and got it going at a Krispy Kreme. At the same time, he was relieved they were temporarily out of circulation. He wanted them somewhere they would be less likely to do or say something inappropriate.

  The room had been packed early. Some of the invitees were drawn only by the free food and drinks. Most knew the necessity of being seen at this get-together and the importance of being identified with WRIV and Wizard Broadcasting.

  Later, Jimmy turned from a fawning group of ad people and almost collided with a couple of identical shaggy characters. The two had ridiculously long, oily hair, wore dirty bell-bottomed jeans and tie-dyed t-shirts. Amid all the suits and party dresses, Jimmy thought, these two stood out like June bugs in the punch bowl. They were hovering at the side of the bar and were fishing beers from a garbage pail full of ice.

  Then, with a start, Jimmy recognized his scraggly guests. Duane and DeWayne George.

  "Jimmy! Jimmy Gill. This here is one damn fine party," the one on the left burped.

  "How much is all this costing us?" the one on the right asked gruffly, nodding toward the piles of shrimp cocktail and roast beef on nearby tables.

  Jimmy knew then which was which. The first was Duane, the simple-minded one. The other was DeWayne, the ill-tempered one. He was the one who sometimes scared the hell out of Jimmy.

  "Not a thing, boys. All trade-out. We'll just run them some commercials somewhere between midnight and six in the morning until we get it all paid for. Enjoy!"

  Jimmy had not taken a dime from the twins in three years. He had repaid every cent of the original seed money with generous interest. But in the last year, he had sniffed a hint of curiosity on DeWayne's part. As if he might want to be more than a silent partner in such a profitable, legitimate business. Especially since it was “show” business.

  Against his better judgment, Jimmy was going to have to tap the twins’ tainted money supply one more time in order to pull off the Atlanta deal without putting WRIV in hock. Detroit and Jimmy had already fought that battle with each other. Jimmy had won. But barely. Now, he could only hope their party guests would mistake these two characters for rock stars or disk jockeys or a couple of weirdoes who had wandered in off the street. It could not be known that they were the benefactors who had provided initial financial backing for Wizard Broadcasting.

  "I need to see you before the night's up, DeWayne," he half-whispered, hoping no one would observe him spending time with someone like the Georges. "I think I have an idea that would clinch the deal in Atlanta tomorrow."

  DeWayne grunted and swallowed most of a bottle of beer in one noisy gulp.

  Distracted by the twins, Jimmy almost did not notice someone else who was coming his way, the crowd parting for her. Blonde hair, long and straight. Red dress fitted as if she were born to it. And a presence about her that captured the attention of everyone in the room. Yet, her manner was such that she seemed unaware of the stir she was causing. Jimmy rudely turned his back to the Georges and admired the woman as she approached, hoping she was headed for him.

  She was.

  Her handshake was cold and damp from the drink she had just shifted to her other hand, but it quickly warmed as she lingered.

  "Cleo Michaels," she sang. "Brother James, I'm a big fan of yours."

  "So am I. Of yours...I mean you...you and yours."

  She laughed naturally, in a nice kind of way, and it sounded like perfectly shaped piano notes. He tried to avoid her gaze, to look past her to Detroit Simmons and the bunch gathered at the corner table, but she kept him captive.

  "No, really. I've listened since you first went on the air. I write and sing country music, but I sure love the rock and roll you play on The River. And I love your voice, too."

&n
bsp; Cleo Michaels was one of the biggest new names in country music. Maybe the biggest female star. Jimmy did not have to be a country music fan to know who she was, but he was a fan. She had boldly taken the gimmicks out of female country songs, writing and singing strong lyrics that spoke of far more than keeping her man at home and satisfied. Jimmy had several of her albums next to the stereo system in his new home. They were welcome relief from his constant diet of rock and roll.

  "Listen, I don't want to tie you up, but I'd love to have lunch with you one day next week," she told him. Her amazing eyes never left his. "I don't know how much longer this music ride's going to last and I've got a chance to buy into a radio station in Dallas. I'd appreciate some advice from an expert like you."

  Her smile seemed to dim the lights in the hotel banquet hall. But then, Jimmy realized the lights had actually flickered in the room. Then they went out entirely for a second and back on again, followed by a quick clap of thunder from outside. A storm had blown in.

  “Is that okay with you, Brother James?” Cleo was asking.

  "Sure! Call me a give. I mean give me a call one day and let's do it," he yelled over the quick burst of noise from the startled crowd.

  Before he could recover from the wonderful presence of Cleo Michaels, there was quick movement of some other kind to his right. Detroit was sprinting toward the exit.

  "We got that balloon floating two hundred feet up and this storm will blow it all the way to Kentucky in a minute!"

  They had bought a huge helium balloon with the station’s logo painted on its side for station promotions. The party was its debut. Detroit had it tied off to a portable trailer sign in the hotel parking lot as a guide to the ball room for guests.

  When Jimmy got to the door, curtains of rain and hail were blowing across the entrance, and a wicked stroke of orange lightning licked at a flagpole across the lot. Through the deluge he saw the dark form of Detroit Simmons chasing the portable sign as it rolled crazily away across the asphalt. He was wading in water up to his knees. His new gray suit was already soaked.

  The two-thousand-dollar balloon with "The River" emblazoned across its sides bounced happily along in the windstorm, right in the middle of Murfreesboro Road, the city's busiest stretch of highway. Cars were backed up in all directions, horns bleating over the pounding rain and roaring thunder. Thank God there had apparently not been an accident yet. Jimmy had no idea if there was insurance coverage for such a thing, but he doubted it.

  A blue-lighted police car had pulled up closely to the bouncing balloon. The cop in his yellow slicker looked as if he was contemplating shooting the balloon to death, if he only knew where he needed to aim to kill it.

  Jimmy hesitated for only a moment before diving into the downpour himself, chasing Detroit and the scurrying, escaping portable sign. There was no choice. He had to help. The guests and the party would simply have to get by on their own.

  Together, they were able to run down and stop the sign's mad progress across the lot before it rammed into somebody’s car or crashed through the chain link fence and onto the main highway. Then they began wrapping the balloon’s tether around the sign base as they tugged it slowly back out of the traffic and away from the murderous cop. The gusting wind tried to pull the massive thing away from them. They both expected another bolt of lightning to strike them dead any second. Their arms ached but they kept wrapping and pulling, wrapping and pulling, slowly bringing the bouncing blimp closer and closer.

  When the balloon was near, Detroit pulled it downward until he could reach the valve and let the helium spew out and mingle with the rain and fog. The flat, wet heaviness no longer caught the wind. It lay depleted, covered by the water at their feet, the station logo wrinkled and crushed.

  The rain slackened. The lightning and thunder grew more distant. Jimmy and Detroit looked at each other as they leaned, exhausted, against the sign. Their dress clothes were soaked. Their faces were filthy. They were panting like a pair of ‘coon dogs.

  “Man, that was a trip,” Detroit said.

  “Sure as hell was!”

  Laughter overcame them. Their voices were munchkin-tight and high-pitched from inhaling the helium from the balloon.

  The president of the country's most successful new radio station and Nashville's number one radio personality stood in the middle of a downpour, sounding like the Chipmunks and looking exactly like a couple of drowning gophers.

  Twenty

  The situation with the Atlanta AM and FM stations was exactly what Jimmy Gill and Detroit Simmons had expected. The high-powered AM station carried the bulk of the commercial billing with its middle-of-the-road music and an expensive-to-maintain news department. The FM had a big, beautiful signal but few commercials amid its mish-mash of big band and easy listening music and pre-recorded preachers' programs. All the programming came from huge, impersonal reels of audio tape, racked up and played back on a bank of machines hidden away in a dusty back closet at the AM studios.

  The receptionist answered the telephone with the AM call letters only. The big sign out front of the run-down building had only the AM call letters on it. The FM was a well-kept secret.

  The Boston banker, Sol Goldberg, turned out to be more than a foot shorter than Jimmy, three times as big around, bald, a chain smoker, and maddeningly fidgety. The station’s general manager was a senile old engineer who treated his properties like a couple of ham radio stations, on the air for his own amusement and constant tinkering. He had a difficult time even remembering the names of the New York physicians whose depleted money contributions kept the stations on the air.

  They all walked along together through a dark maze of hallways, past racks of ancient equipment, haphazard sales offices, and through dingy, muffled studios that smelled of cigarette smoke and mildew. The staff on duty that morning nodded curtly at them, knowing what was up, though they had been told these were only new investors, not potential new owners.

  Then they all climbed into Detroit’s car, grabbed hamburgers at The Varsity, and rode to the tower site east of town where the FM station leased space for its transmitter and antenna. The studio building was leased also, the equipment practically worthless. As Jimmy already knew, the only real estate the station owned was a few acres of swamp land where the AM tower sprouted amidst frog ponds and cattails.

  "Two-fifty for the FM alone."

  After the tour, Jimmy spoke abruptly, cutting through the bullshit chatter, as soon as they sat in the manager's office.

  Goldberg blanched, his mouth flying open, his cigarette landing in what there was of his lap. The old general manager dropped his cigarette on the carpet. It burned there for a while as he stared at this brash, long-haired young man as if he must be from some other planet.

  "We assumed...that is, we thought...it would be a package deal, both of them...but surely the AM station, James," the banker sputtered. He looked as if he had swallowed something bitter and vile.

  "AM's going to be a dead duck by the end of the decade, Sol. We would only be interested in the FM. And we know it's bleeding badly now. You want me to cite some figures for you. There are no account receivables at all, so that's a moot issue. The equipment's not worth squat, except maybe to the Museum of Broadcasting. The stick value couldn't be more than a hundred thousand, and that’s on a good day with the wind blowing right. We could help stop the hemorrhaging for you and your partners and get us an FM signal in Atlanta at the same time. You know as well as we do that you’ll never get the whole investment back, but we can help you cut your losses and get the hell out of town. That’s a good deal for all concerned. And we are prepared to make the deal right now. What do you gentlemen say?"

  Jimmy wished Detroit would quit staring at him in such obvious disbelief before the other two men noticed. They had already agreed between themselves that they could pay a half million for the FM station, with the George twins' help. That the signal and the old transmitting equipment was worth at least that much with another quar
ter of a million to be invested in upgrading the facility. And they had no interest whatsoever in the dinosaur of an AM station.

  "Mr. Simmons..." Goldberg turned to Detroit, hoping for a life preserver from him.

  "That's our offer, gentlemen," Detroit said, quickly dropping the incredulous look he had worn since Jimmy Gill started talking.

  Then Detroit carefully removed a brown paper sack from his new leather briefcase with his initials embossed on the top. With agonizing slowness for maximum effect, he counted out bundled bills worth fifty thousand dollars in cash onto the manager's dusty, cluttered desk. Both men gaped.

  "Earnest money?"

  Jimmy noticed just a slight crack in Detroit’s voice, but the others apparently did not.

  The sight and smell and power of the new bills turned the trick. Suddenly, they were all talking receipt, contract terms, approximate closing dates, all while the stack of cash money provided by the Georges created a screaming distraction in the middle of the desk.

  They had pulled it off! And saved a quarter of a million dollars in the process! Enough to do the equipment upgrade without having to borrow more from Duane and DeWayne.

  On the ride back out of Atlanta, Detroit and Jimmy scanned the FM band like fishermen searching for a school of red snapper. Even in the thriving metropolis of Atlanta, they heard nothing on the air similar to what they planned to do with the new station.

  Along the new, multi-lane freeways, they stared at the germinating office parks, the skeletons of skyscrapers erupting from city blocks. Atlanta was booming. The FM radio dial was empty but fertile. And the other operators in town were leaving it all to Wizard Broadcasting to cultivate for what amounted to seed money!

  Finally, the two men settled into their own silent thoughts. Jimmy drove. Detroit was apparently near a doze. They were almost in Dalton, near the Tennessee state line, before Detroit spoke again.

  "Jimmy, where did you learn to be such a hard-ass like that?"