Who's a Good Boy?

by Joseph Fink

  MICHELLE: I’ve been thinking lately about loneliness. Not because I’m lonely. I just like to be ahead of the curve when it comes to thinking about things.

  Obviously I’m not lonely. I’m Michelle Nguyen, owner of the coolest and only record store in town and I’m not lonely. I’m just, like, a performance artist, and my medium is solitude.

  I’ve been listening to a lot of hop-core lately. It’s my new favorite genre. It’s recordings of a person hopping. Thump, thump, thump. But soft. Thump, thump, thump. Totally great. You wouldn’t have heard of it. Because I made it myself and I’ve shared it with no one. It’s a recording of me hopping. I recorded that and I’m listening to it. It’s the new thing.

  Maureen came by. Nervous, jaw clenched, hair parted, hands fluttering, stomping, restarting, sighing Maureen. She was looking for something new to listen to. Said things were stressful at her internship, she had to lead an army. Or whatever. And she needed something that would relax her. I suggested easy listening, like Slayer, or some silence, but she said that she was tired of all the Top 40 stations playing no sound at all. Silence is too mainstream, and she wanted something new.

  I’ll be honest, I actually like silence. I shouldn’t. It’s, like, so popular. But my favorite silence is the hum of a dryer from the next floor down. I also like the swish of a highway that you thought was too far away to hear but now that it’s so quiet, you can hear it, distant and dissipating, like the sizzle of foam on a wave.

  I gave Maureen Leonard Cohen’s new album, the one where he talks in a gravely voice and women sing along behind him. She rolled her eyes and walked out. I think she liked it.

  Hold on.

  [off mic] Welcome to Dark Owl Records. Hey, Larry. Oh, you want the new album by the Beatles? How original. Well, all the dubstep stuff is upstairs.

  [on mic]

  It’s like that old joke. I listen to Bach often but never the Beatles.

  Thump, thump, thump. I love this hop-core recording. I made it on the old beige carpet of the back office here at the store. I did it in socks, so it would be extra quiet. You have to hold still, like, even hold your breath to hear it. But it’s there. Thump, thump.

  You have to really pay attention to notice me. But I’m there.

  I don’t actually listen to Bach often. What a sellout. Did you see his HBO special? Ugh. I didn’t, but I bet it was bad.

  It’s a quiet time for record sales. Usually it’s really busy, which is annoying. I hate it when people are like, “Please, I want to pay you a lot of money for physical albums.” It’s like, get in line, you know? Get in that line. The one leading to the cash register. I’ll ring you up when it’s your turn.

  But I’ve let the temporary staff dissolve back into mud for the season, and I won’t have to mutter the incantations to bring them back to life for another month or two. It’s just me, behind the counter. Me, like always. I’m all I need. I’m the ultimate underground hit. No one’s heard of me. No one’s listening. Just the way I like it.

  [off mic] Yes, I know this is a one-story building, Larry. I was being metaphorical. I don’t actually have any Beatles albums. It’s like that old joke. I listen to Bach often, but . . .

  [on mic]

  He left. His loss.

  Maureen came by. Steady, jaw-tight, hair-loose, hands-swinging, shuffling, restarting, sighing Maureen. She said she liked Leonard’s album, but she had heard it enough now. What else did I have? I never thought I’d do this, but I gave her some of my favorite recordings of bees. I love those recordings, but I’ve listened to them enough times that I don’t ever need to hear them again. It’s like, the sound became part of me, and I know it better than the recordings do, you know?

  Maybe you don’t know. Probably not. You’re probably still listening to that Woody Guthrie single on repeat because you just listen to whatever big music tells you to.

  Oh this is my favorite part of the hop-core recording. It’s the part where the thump of my hopping gets so quiet that it isn’t any sound at all. It’s a silence, and you have to know I’m there to recognize me in the silence. That I’m still hopping even though you can’t hear it. Listen.

  [long silence]

  That’s me in there, in that no sound at all.

  They say music is made up of the spaces between the notes. And that life is made up of the moments where your eyes are closed because you’re blinking. And that books are made up of blank pages that everyone pretends have words on them so they will seem smart. I’m the blink and the space. I’m the pause. I’m the gap.

  Hold on, I have a customer.

  [off mic] I don’t actually have a customer. I just need a moment to myself. This is me greeting someone. This is them feeling like just because they’re in a record shop they’re entitled to like, music or whatever.

  [on mic]

  Ugh, that person is the worst. Hold on, someone is actually coming in. Oh, it’s . . . I’ll be back.

  [long pause]

  Maureen came by. Satisfied, jaw-loose, hair-up, hands-idling, striding, stopping, restarting, sighing Maureen.

  She said she loved the bees recording. She wanted something like it, but even more so. Similar, but so different that it would startle her. I knew exactly what she meant with that thirst but I didn’t know how to satisfy it. There’s only so much music, you know? And there’s so much human desire.

  Well. You’re not going to believe this. Probably, like, you won’t even understand.

  I gave her the recording of me hopping. I know that, like, ruins it, because now someone else has listened to it. But somehow I don’t mind if Maureen hears it. I think maybe even I’d like that. I hope she comes back soon. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love it when the record store is empty, when there are none of those annoying “customers” clamoring for music to listen to. Being alone is the best. But I also kind of like it when Maureen comes by. Her being here is cool too, I guess.

  I just have to figure out what album to show her next. Only, there’s so much good music, you know?

  CECIL: This then this then this. Each leads to the next. The seasons are a corridor we proceed through, and the door at the end of the corridor is black and depthless. Appreciate the warmth of this narrow corridor. How small this world is, and how small we all are for living in it, and how joyful a smallness can be. So let us return for one last time, for one last small time, to the April Monologues.

  STEVE: I try to be helpful. I know I can’t always fix everything. I know my limits and they are many, but still, I try to be helpful.

  So when the kid came by, I did my best.

  He was scared, sure. Because he could see them, too. The glowing arrows in the sky. Dotted lines and arrows and circles. The sky is a chart that explains the entire world, and he could see it. That’s a terrifying thing, if you aren’t prepared for it.

  He was shaking so bad. His ball cap was pulled low over his face. Steve, he said. Steve Carlsberg. I know you can see them too. Help me.

  And I tried. I tried to be helpful.

  I like in the evenings, when it’s quiet. Parts of the world, the big cities, things don’t change much from morning to afternoon to evening. The same even light. The same people in a hurry.

  But here, every time of day has a different tone and shade. In the mornings, before anyone else is up, the desert is golden, and the horizon light illuminates every detail on the mountains to the west. I feel bad for the folks who don’t believe in mountains, who won’t see even when shown.

  Then the birds come and hop around outside the kitchen window. I like to watch them as I make coffee. My brother-in-law, he never sees the birds on account of he likes to grind the coffee himself and the pounding of his coffee hammer keeps all the birds away. But me, I don’t mind the prehammered stuff. It’s a soft trade for the birds.

  And then the afternoon, where the light deepens and widens, and the mountains turn to blue cutouts against a white-blue sky. And then the sunset, loud and fragrant, like sunsets usually are.
And then the evening, a vast, quiet empty. Just me and Abby and Janice, floating, an island of a family, in the rich darkness of the desert nothing.

  The kid was so scared. Oh boy. But he had it in him. He tries to be helpful too. I could tell. And so it wasn’t enough to know. He wanted to do something about it.

  He said that he had been sent to a sporting goods store—that they thought might have been a front for the World Government. I know that place. The World Government isn’t the half of it. Go in that sporting goods store, you’re gonna find a real racket. Ha! I love puns. But yeah, that place holds the core of it. And this kid, he goes in there and he sees it. And once you’ve seen it, once you know, you can’t ever not know.

  Can’t become who you once were after you’ve become what you are now.

  Glowing arrows in the sky. Dotted lines. He understood, like I understand.

  The folks that run Night Vale, they think they have control. But you can’t control what a person knows. The more you think you have that contained, the more it eludes you. Might as well try to control the weather.

  [brief weather bit]

  And they try to do that too, using cloud-seeding drones and laser arrays, but it never works out the way they planned.

  “What can we do about it?” the boy kept asking.

  Poor kid. I wish my brother-in-law took better care of his interns at the radio station, didn’t send them places they had no right being, like sporting goods stores run by the World Government. But it’s not up to me. I suppose Cecil can run his life the way he wants, and he won’t ever hear from me about it. Not like the other way around, I suppose.

  The kid understood how the world worked. He could see the structure of it, and, oh bless him, he wanted to fix it. To make it right again. And he wanted me to tell him how.

  Not much we can do but understand, I told him. Not much to do but know.

  But he wouldn’t accept it. He wanted to follow those glowing arrows in the sky like they were a map to somewhere, and not a labyrinth in which a monster lives.

  Listen, I said. Listen, Chad, I said. I think in time you’ll feel better. Maybe get a puppy, I told him. We had a puppy infestation back a few years. Hell on the insulation and some load-bearing joists, but it was just the cutest thing.

  Yes, he said. Summon a puppy.

  Well, I said, sure, but more just get a puppy. Like, adopt is probably the word you’re looking for, I said. Adopt a puppy, sure. They smile and wag their tails and roll around. Very cute, I said.

  That is how we will change things, he said. Summon a puppy. The World Government will never see it coming.

  And he thanked me and walked away.

  Oh well. At least he’s not a station intern anymore. I’m sure he’ll be fine. What’s the worst that could happen?

  I sat out on the porch the rest of the day, just thinking, watching the wide light of afternoon narrow back down to the west until I could smell the sunset coming. And then I went inside. It was Abby’s turn to make dinner, and it looked delicious.

  Maybe I should get a puppy too. Add one more to our island of a family. A puppy could be just the thing. Janice would love it.

  But not a puppy like that kid has now. I think, perhaps, that that’s no puppy at all. Maybe it was a mistake, my conversation with him. But what can I say? I try to be helpful.

  CECIL: And so we reach the end of the April Monologues. There is much that could be said. I will say none of it.

  PROVERB: Put your [static] in, take your [louder static] out, put your [even louder static] in, and [a lengthy sequence of buzzes and static] all about.

  Episode 86:

  “Standing and Breathing”

  AUGUST 15, 2016

  GUEST VOICE: MOLLY QUINN (MELONY PENNINGTON)

  MOLLY QUINN HAS DONE SEVERAL LIVE SHOWS WITH US. SHE’S AN ABSOLUTE delight to tour with. I’m always telling people: Work with Molly Quinn. She’s great. I tell this to other writers, baristas, police officers, birds, anyone who’ll listen.

  Last year on our U.S. tour, Molly joined us for a two-week stretch, but the character she plays in the podcast—Fey, the voice of the local numbers station WZZZ—didn’t really fit at all into the story line of our touring script (“The Investigators”). So Joseph came up with the character of Melony Pennington, a supergenius computer programmer who created Fey.

  We did about a dozen shows with Molly as Melony last spring, and it was great fun. We of course really enjoyed Melony as a character. And in our minds (and in the minds of whoever saw those dozen or so live performances), Melony was a familiar part of the Night Vale universe.

  But we realized she hadn’t appeared on the podcast yet. No one outside of those live audiences knew Molly was Melony, just that she was Fey from Episode 42: “Numbers.” So we wrote and recorded a part to tie into the trial of Hiram McDaniels, which is finally in this episode.

  I write all of this while we drive from St. Louis to Chicago as part of our current live show tour. (I’m not driving. Assistant Tour Manager Angelique is. I’m in the back seat of our rented Chrysler Town & Country, which Cecil nicknamed “Vanna White.”) Molly joined us last night in St. Louis to reprise her role of Melony, and we realized as Cecil was introducing her onstage that there were a bunch of question marks over the audience’s heads.

  While Melony Pennington is superfamiliar to all of us, the good folks of St. Louis have almost no way of knowing her. They did know Molly though. The moment Molly started speaking, the question marks straightened into exclamation points. And now St. Louis knows. And now you know too.

  So enjoy the podcast debut of a character that has been around for over a year.

  —Jeffrey Cranor

  I believe the children are our future. They are also our past. And our present. This is how children work in linear time.

  WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE

  Mayor Dana Cardinal announced that last night’s air raid sirens were nothing to be alarmed by. Nor are the missing street and highway signs, nor are the angry people who were assigned to hold the signs and wave them about using the maritime telegraphic language of semaphore and who are now standing around dumbfounded and empty-handed. Nor should we yet concern ourselves with mailboxes which have all been filled with what postal workers hope is just hair gel.

  Following a meeting with the sheriff and the City Council, Mayor Cardinal says she believes this all to be the work of pranksters, perhaps the return of the feral dogs who once defaced several concrete walls with libertarian street art, but the mayor and the Secret Police are not ruling out more sinister activity.

  Sheriff Sam added, while whittling a piece of balsa into a polar bear, that it’s definitely these foreigners moving here from Desert Bluffs. The City Council said nothing. They mostly stood around behind the press conference podium texting and giggling. All of them had fresh haircuts, crisp upturned polo collars, and manicures.

  The mayor said she would work closely with Sheriff Sam to find the culprits, but in the meantime, there’s no need for alarm. Sam added that there was a need to remove all of the foreigners.

  More on this story as it develops.

  But first, an update on the trial of Hiram McDaniels. Unable to find a jury of peers for a literal five-headed dragon, the court agreed to create artificial intelligence to simulate what five-headed dragon peers would be like and then place that AI on the jury.

  For this project they hired expert computer programmer Melony Pennington, who joins us now by phone. Welcome to my show, Melony.

  MELONY: Welcome to YOUR show. I mean Hi. Hello. It turns out you welcomed me. It doesn’t make sense to welcome you. Sorry my mind was, you know, the expanse, the vast, the out there, I mean, my mind is elsewhere. My mind is everywhere.

  CECIL: Wonderful. And how are you—

  MELONY: Do you ever look at the stars? The stars, you know, the stars. Not each star. But some of the stars. I mean every single one of the stars at once. I mean the whole night sky added up. Do you ever look at the sum
of the stars? The night sky as an equation. Beauty as a math problem. Which it is. Everything beautiful is math. Everything beautiful is a problem. What was your question?

  CECIL: Um . . . How are you doing?

  MELONY: Oh, I’m fine.

  CECIL: Melony, you sound familiar.

  MELONY: Do I sound familiar? You just said that so I guess I do. You must have met one of my programs. Or not met. None of them are sentient. You can’t meet things that have no sentience. Well I guess you could be like “Hi, there pile of rocks. I’m Melony” just to see what happens. I suppose there is no set dogma for social engagement. I wish I had a dog. Have YOU ever met a rock? What’s your name again?

  CECIL: I’m—

  MELONY: What I was saying is that I probably sound familiar because all of my programs have the same voice as me, that’s how computer programming works.

  CECIL: Have you ever programmed a computer that broadcasts on a radio station, specifically one that recites random numbers?

  MELONY: Oh, yes. The local numbers station: WZZZ. Yes, that was one of my early programs. And those numbers and chimes aren’t random. They’re encoded messages to foreign spies. Also a few pudding recipes and a funny cryptology poem or two.

  CECIL: So you designed Fey, the voice of WZZZ.

  MELONY: Oh, the WZZZ program has no name and absolutely no sentience. Not every program is sentient. That WZZZ program only recites numbers and tones. That’s all it does and all it will ever do. It doesn’t know it exists.

  CECIL: About that, see, there was a thing that happened a couple years—

  MELONY: Oh, listen to me babbling on. You had me on to talk about the trial.

  CECIL: Yes. Well, I understand there has been some controversy around the ethics of making a jury of peers from artificial intelligence, rather than actual five-headed dragons.

  MELONY: Oh, there are a lot more problems than just ethics. What are ethics even? How can you quantify what is right? I mean let’s assign a number on how ethical a computerized jury is.