by Joseph Fink
I looked up at Mayor Cardinal in her loge box. She was staring straight at the stage, focused and stony. And despite all my anger at my old friend that she had presumably bought me at a Sheriff’s Secret Police Auction last year and had been using me for the last several months against my will to protect herself against the five-headed dragon Hiram McDaniels and the Faceless Old Woman. Despite all of that, I looked at Dana’s face hoping she would see me pleading for her safety. I want to trust and love my friend. And for that moment, I did. And I was sorry that the Faceless Old Woman had restrained me so that I could not help her, even if this time I had wanted to.
I followed the Mayor’s gaze toward the stage. The house lights dimmed and the curtain split open. I saw normal human Frank Chen, center stage, each of his heads huffing and snarling, preparing for his aria. (As an aside, I am told this was to be opera’s first ever quintet aria, but honestly, I don’t know what either of those words even mean.)
Actually, only four of Frank’s heads were snarling—the gold, grey, green, and blue ones—but his purple head was looking right at me and I felt something familiar but at the same time something that I didn’t understand. My hand strained against its chain but there was nothing I could do.
As the orchestra, led by and comprised entirely of Lee Marvin and a slidewhistle, swelled and Frank Chen continued to belch fire and hiss, we all knew something was wrong. I mean it’s possible that an aria is just a bunch of roars and flames. I’m no expert. But it didn’t seem likely.
Frank Chen then tore off his bowtie, and in doing so revealed he was not five-foot-eight-inch, middle-aged human Frank Chen at all, but Hiram McDaniels, an eighteen-foot tall, five-headed dragon. Hiram leapt into the air above the orchestra seats. I heard a muffled scream from above. I looked to the mezzanine and saw Trish Hidge, Deputy Assistant to Mayor Cardinal, trying to quickly escort the mayor away, but it was too late.
I caught a brief glimpse of someone I had never seen before. Or had never seen in my waking life. She was standing just behind Trish and Mayor Cardinal. It was a woman I had once seen in a dream. In my dream she had been underwater, among coral, young and whispering and faceless. And now, in this world that is very likely not just a dream, I saw this same woman, and she was old and shouting and faceless.
Hiram flew up, past the chandelier, toward Dana in the mezzanine, all of his heads focused on their target, teeth bared and angry, except the purple head, which twisted away as though trying with just its neck to deflect the course of its body.
At that moment, I felt myself rising against my will. There I was, Lot number 37, being called into use once more. I looked up at Dana but she was not looking back at me at all. She was preparing to defend herself alone.
And then everything went black. I saw nothing. Felt nothing. I was nowhere. I heard a voice. It was whiny and panicked. It told me it was sorry to keep using me, that it had bought me at an auction two years back just in case. You never know what could happen. Nothing can be trusted
The voice told me it especially didn’t trust the other heads it shares a body with, who are always scheming, always making new plans. Plus it was tired of having to commit violent crimes and constantly living life on the run. The voice just wanted to settle down. Maybe start a family. “Night Vale’s such a nice town, don’t you think?” the voice asked me.
And I asked, “Hiram? Is that you?”
And the voice said, “Not all of Hiram. Most people call me purple head, but I prefer Violet.”
“Why me?” I asked.
Violet said, “One head couldn’t work against four, I’ve known that a long time. I needed another body. Lot 37 was put up for sale and the other heads were distracted by Lot 38, a normal human disguise, so I bought you.”
I was furious of course. I told Violet that I thought Dana had been doing this the whole time. I blamed her over and over. “I have lost a friend because of you, Violet,” I said. “And do you have any idea what it’s like to have you control me this way?”
“Yes,” Violet said. “I only have control over my own body. This is my life all of the time, carried along against my will by the foolish plans of those closest to me, betrayed by my own limbs, by the beating of my own heart. But I am sorry. I really am.”
“You need to fight your own fights,” I said.
“I will, Cecil,” Violet said. “I’m giving you back Lot 37. I transfer ownership back to you. You are yours once again. And whatever else happens tonight, I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” I said.
“But,” Violet said, “Don’t blame me for losing your friendship with Dana. You were the one who didn’t trust her. That was you and only you.”
Then his voice was gone.
I woke up, on the floor of the opera house, which was dark and empty. I was still handcuffed to a scorched armrest that had been completely burned off of the chair itself. Most seats and wall sconces had been heavily scorched and destroyed. I wasn’t sure if it was Hiram who did that, or maybe that’s just the standard aftermath of an opera.
I walked outside to the curb watching the rain in the streetlights. I saw the drops flickering in a puddle below. I do not like reflections that flicker. I thought of my mother for the first time in a long time. I missed her. And, same word, different meaning, I missed the opera, and the afterparty, too. And, same word, both meanings, I missed my friend Dana. I wished I could have saved her. She was gone and I had failed her. No one was around to help with the weight of my guilt or to unchain me from the armrest.
A huge storm was coming through, a rare weather event for the desert. Let’s have a report on that night’s weather now.
WEATHER: “Align” by Aby Wolf
The storm passed, and I began my walk home, my clothes soaked, my clogs now several sizes larger. The streets were quiet, and I took it all in, knowing these were my final days in Night Vale, certain I had made the right decision. Then I smelled the sandy earth, wet from the storm, and saw the buildings of what would soon no longer be my town, washed clean by the driven rain and I wavered in my certainty.
Lost in thought, I failed to hear the car tires on the slick concrete or see the headlights swinging my shadow across the sidewalk. I heard, “Cecil, get in,” and, like any citizen of Night Vale when ordered to get into an ominous unmarked car, I obeyed without thinking. Inside the black stretch limo, impossibly large inside, were dozens of opera supporters and local celebrities. Old Woman Josie and her tall winged friends named Erika were there. Waiters passed around hors d’oeuvres and champagne. I hadn’t missed the afterparty after all.
My sister, Abby, and her husband, Steve, and my niece Janice were there. Janice threw her arms around my waist and said, “Uncle Cecil, I loved the opera so, so much. Thanks for the tickets. I loved the part where the dragon flew out over the audience, like whoosh, and then it started fighting itself. The purple head started biting the other heads, and it was really funny. Then it flew away, out of the theater and there was a lot of fire. And I thought I saw an old lady with no face ran out, too, and the mayor was saved, and Mr. Lee Marvin sang a beautiful song about all the animals we can see using mirrors, and then it was over and everyone cheered. Opera is cool. Mom said you were moving away. Why are you moving away, Uncle Cecil? Uncle Carlos says you don’t have to move if you don’t want to. Will you still come to my birthday party?”
Janice continued chattering but I was dizzy at the name she had just said. I interrupted her. “Carlos? Janice, did you say Carlos?”
“Duh, he’s right over there, Uncle Cecil,” she said.
I turned and I saw him, and he was already looking at me. And I started to say . . . and he started to say . . . and then we just hugged. So tightly. And in my ear, Carlos said, “Sorry I missed the opera. I had to let Kevin know I was returning home and staying there.”
I jerked back my head and said, “Staying here?”
And Carlos said, “This is your home. You belong here.”
Then he said, “T
his is also my home. I belong here.”
“Carlos, anywhere we’re together is home,” I said. And I repeated it. And repeated it. And I said, “But Carlos, is Night Vale where we should live? Is Night Vale even worth living in?”
Carlos held my shoulder and said, “Night Vale is just a name, Cecil. Night Vale is just the name for an area where everyone you love lives,” he said. “Don’t worry about the name. Worry about the everyone,” he said.
Over Carlos’s shoulder, I saw Dana, my old intern and current mayor, in the crowd. She looked at me but did not smile. I struggled to meet her eyes, which were wary and gracious. Her deputy, Trish Hidge, circled behind me and removed the handcuffs from my wrist with a small key she had pulled from her jacket pocket.
“Sorry that we had to do that,” Trish said. “But we wanted you to be safe, to not have your body willed by some other force into a fight you were very clear you wanted no part in. We had to physically hold you out of the way so that we could fight this fight on our own.”
From across the impossibly large car, Dana winked and finally smiled. I mouthed, “I’m sorry,” and she did not respond, but, still winking, a slow, strange wink, she receded into the crowd like a distant walker into mist.
At the end of the night, the car dropped Carlos and me back home and I don’t think we slept the whole night, talking about our new old life together. All these memories and plans. We are back together in our home. And I am back with you, in my studio.
My final show as host of Night Vale Community Radio was to be a review of an opera. And that’s still true, someday. But it won’t be this opera. Carlos and I are staying in Night Vale for now. I will be back on the air with you again very soon, with more news, with more stories, with more operas.
I think Carlos is right. Night Vale isn’t a single unified thing that can love or be loved. It’s just the name slapped onto a set of borders and rules that some old bureaucrats wearing soft-meat crowns devised centuries ago. But they don’t live here anymore. We do. I do, and I can make it worth it. I can’t just leave it, I have to live it. Live it and make it better. For myself. For Carlos. For my friends. For Abby and Steve and Janice. For Old Woman Josie and all of the Erikas. For Dana.
And for you, listeners. We will together celebrate another homecoming game. We will together survive another street cleaning. We will together . . . well we will see.
I can’t promise I’ll never leave you. No one can promise that, but until that moment, let’s keep working on this town, this collective idea. This Night Vale, whatever we want that name to mean. We can always start over if we have to, rededicate ourselves, do it right.
To start with, the Secret Police have once again jailed Hiram McDaniels for his numerous crimes against his fellow citizens, although in recognition of the violet head’s valiant struggle against the other heads and his own contested body, they have put a small hole in the wall that Violet can stick through and be outside of the jail walls, since technically he is not under arrest.
Stay tuned next for happenstance, reconstructed into narrative and falsely interpreted as having significance.
And as always, good night, Night Vale, good night.
PROVERB:You say potato. I say potato. [beat] Potato. [beat] Potato. [beat] Potato. [beat] Potato. [beat] Potato. Yes. This is very good. Let’s keep going. [beat] Potato. [beat] Potato. [beat] P——
“The Librarian”
JANUARY 2015
RECORDED ON JANUARY 16, 2015, AT THE SKIRBALL CENTER, NEW YORK, NY
Cast
Cecil Baldwin—CECIL PALMER
Andrew W. K.—INTERN ANDREW
Meg Bashwiner—DEB
Symphony Sanders—TAMIKA FLYNN
Kate Jones—MICHELLE NGUYEN
Dylan Marron—CARLOS
THIS WAS THE FIRST LIVE SHOW SCRIPT WRITTEN SPECIFICALLY TO TOUR. Jeffrey came up with the idea early on that it would be about a librarian escaping the library. As soon as he did that, I knew what I wanted the climax of the show to be. I’ve always admired the work of William Castle. Not his movies, which, if I’m honest, I’ve never seen. But the theatricality he brought to his presentation. He would park ambulances outside of movie theaters, advertising that they were for people who had heart attacks because the movie was too scary. He offered money back to anyone willing to stand for ten minutes in a “Coward’s Corner” because the movie was too much for them. And, in his most famous stunt, he had a scene where the monster was released into a movie theater. A monster that could only be killed by screaming. And the movie theater had been rigged with buzzers in the seats. So people felt movement on their back as the narrator on the screen urged them to SCREAM, SCREAM FOR YOUR LIVES.
Brilliant.
So I inserted into our show outline the phrase “William Castle scene.” I didn’t know quite what it looked like, but I knew I wanted the librarian to get loose in the theater, and to play with the audience in some of the ways that Castle did.
This ended up giving us the blueprint for how Night Vale live shows work, which almost all involve audience participation in some way. We love to make the audience aware that they’re a group of people experiencing an event together, rather than passive listeners just hearing an episode. This is the magic of theater. And we owe a lot to that master of doing whatever it takes to get a rise out of the crowd. This one’s for you, William Castle.
—Joseph Fink
We become different people after every new experience. We are altered by the people we meet, the places we see, the new things we are excited to try, and those to which we are forced to adapt. In a normal life, this happens gradually but in the life of a touring performer, this happens at a breakneck pace. You are not the same person who packed your suitcase six cities ago and you are now, in fact, very angry with that person for packing like a jerk.
There is a special place in my heart for this live episode. “The Librarian” was our first real touring script. We had done a few one-off live shows but this script was our first real deal tour. I shudder when I think back to about how green I was, how unseasoned. My hands uncalloused from never having hauled a rolling suitcase around the world. My hair still unbroken from the many merciless teasings into a bouffant yet to come. My life void of wild stories from the salty road. This was the tour where the character of Deb was truly formed and where I began to find my feet as a warm up comic and, conveniently just in time, as an adult human.
There is a saying in the touring world: Your worst day on the road becomes your best story. At this point, five years into the game of learning things the hard way, I have some great stories. Stories about bombastically falling down stairs during a performance à la Showgirls, stories about backstage stalkers traveling five hundred miles to find out if Cecil Baldwin was a kid who died in the 80s (wtf?!? creepy), and stories about emergency surgery in foreign countries. I’m not going to share any of those here because I want to tell you instead about my best day on the road.
In the fall of 2014, we were touring “The Librarian” through the UK and Europe. This leg of the tour had been particularly tough. Europe is tough your first time through. Working in a country where you are not accustomed to the language, currency, and culture is exhausting. The travel schedule was not for the faint of heart, we were trying to do as many shows as possible to take advantage of our first oversees tour. We weren’t sure we would ever be back. Most seriously, our tour manager had gotten very sick and needed to be hospitalized. We were all tense and drained. When we rolled into Copenhagen, we were pretty beat down. Joseph and I had about one hour between when we arrived at the hotel and when we needed to be at sound check. We were both hangry. We were both tired, but the hotel smelled like shit and was too depressing to be in for any longer than we had to. So we made our way to the train station to find some food. We aggressively and grumpily ate some fruit and a pastry. When we emerged from the train station and we saw it: the Tivoli Gardens, a wonderful and weird amusement park just steps from our tired feet.
—Meg Bashwiner
If wishes were horses, those wishes would all run away, shrieking and bucking, terrified of a great unseen evil.
WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE
Construction crews are on hand at the Night Vale Public Library today to begin the renovations that were approved last year by the City Council. Some of the improvements planned for the library are a new children’s wing, something called a Knife Pit, an upgraded computer room with several empty desks and a loudspeaker that repeats “technology ruins lives,” and, most importantly, thicker plexiglass to protect citizens from the librarians who were previously allowed to roam freely throughout the building.
City Council said renovations have been delayed for several months because it has been difficult to find construction crews willing to work in such dangerous proximity to librarians. But they finally found a very talented and brave crew to conduct this project: Colston Contractors, Inc. The City Council is asking that no one mention to any of the Colston workers that they’re working near librarians. They think they’re building an elaborate new Pinkberry.