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Bittersweet Symphony
by Feech
to Bear, with Love
Do you ever get the feeling that the world is
just humouring you?
You hear that things are getting better. You
hear what you _want_ to hear. They'll tell you
anything.
Who will? Anyone will. Honesty isn't really
as popular as people make it out to be. If you
just show a little sensitivity to the truth,
people will protect you from it.
Tell folks that SCABS are discriminated
against, and they'll tell you that before SCABS it
was gays, and before that women, and that people
learn over time. Mention that _gays_ are
discriminated against, and the humouring takes one
backwards step into racism. "See!" They say,
"African-Americans used to be treated as lesser.
The time will come when homosexuals, too, are
regarded fairly."
Talk about the time last year in Texas when
you saw a Norm man beat up for his color, and the
comforting backtracks to the past treatment of
women. "See..."
Yes, we see, but we want to believe it will
get better, and the humourers want it so much they
will comfort you with falsehoods that in the next
moment they must retract in order to defend those
who are being abused _now_. For the world that
actually cares is the world that pretends things
are better than they are.
"Think what you want. People are generally
_good_. Do what you want to do. It's your
_right_. Everyone is an individual.
Individuality is valued. Someday someone will
appreciate you for it."
When? When that someone, someday, reads a
pamphlet or diary left behind and says, "This man
was far ahead in his thinking. If only mankind
had known then what it knows now."... And then
that someone publishes that pamphlet or diary and
it is banned in the schools in twenty states?
I'm not talking about myself, either. Oh, I
will. Give me long enough and I will. It is the
nature of my job, to pretend I am somebody, to
make-believe that I have some sort of effect, that
I make a difference.
No, I'm talking about so many great men from
so many different societies... And so many
not-so-great, but so well-meaning, men from any
given time in our history. Humans will _ever_ be
racist, or clannish, and will _always_ separate
into factions of some sort or another.
It's the nature of man as the Beast. Man is
not _meant_ to be able to comprehend the teachings
of the acceptance of all, the teachings of the
best philosophers in every day. Man _is_ a
clannish creature, and those who do not behave
this way will tell you it is not so. Why do they
tell me what I want to hear? Because they want to
love everyone around them, and maybe they would be
just a little too afraid to do so if they admitted
that, deep down, their neighbors _were_ hopeless
cases.
I appreciate the humouring; if I didn't, I
may as well never have worked so hard to be with
Christopher.
Christopher is a champion humourer. If his
soul weren't so open and kind he might be able to
look darkly upon his situation, but as it is it
falls to me, when I am not with him and missing
him and getting into these _moods_, to recognize
the true nature of man and why it is that if there
_is_ some natural goodness to us all, it is sure
as Hell not going to be witnessed here.
Christopher is one of those men who somehow
manages to see past the majority of the truth and
sight only that portion of the population who
desires to see as he does. I can be like that,
when I think about Chris. It's easy to give back
to him what he gives me. Which only proves what a
selfish bastard I am.
I sit up here in the radio station and
make-believe that words I say affect life stories
throughout the range of my station's signal.
Of course, where I work now that signal
doesn't reach very far. Perhaps a little finger
of my show touches LaCrosse, beyond the bridge
that connects Minnesota to Wisconsin. The
mountain that cuts us off to the south interferes
to the point of obliteration. I should drive,
sometime, north with my car radio tuned to this
signal, just to see how long it lasts in that
direction.
Of course, that would mean that this place
can contain me even on a real day off.
Christopher, Christopher. There are nights I
_wish_ he would not be able to sleep so he would
call me and I could comfort him and in so doing
get myself the Hell out of this funk.
This place isn't so busy as at our old home.
Tonight, in fact, there's just me. Sandra the
secretary slash back-up-phone-answerer and
mail-checker disappeared an hour ago and the room
still has that change in the air as if the door
just closed.
The novelty of wheeling in my captain's chair
from console to computer wore off long ago. Now I
just feel like my legs are being overworked.
Someone once told me that everyone has an
image in their head of what the DJ's on any given
station look like. I asked what they had thought
of me before they met me, and they said they
hadn't listened to my station.
If a man sends out songs in the dark and
nobody listens, does he have a face?
You will excuse me. It is two AM.
You know, I really think I am the only one
who matters to me who _sees_ my face any more.
Christopher's eyes aren't so good since the Flu
shifted his form.
<Riiinnnggg>
I hit the button on the first ring. Nothing
distracts me from answering the phone, anyway...
It seems, somehow, that having little to do can be
as tiring as all the slave-driving that went on
with my old show. I think I miss-- no, _this_ is
home now.
"Ninety-six point five All Night, do you have
a request to send out?"
"Hello."
The voice is oddly mechanical, yet not of the
type used in a vodor. It sounds sort of like
those recorded voices on the public service phone
lines. It sounds like it comes from recordings of
a woman's voice.
"Hi, to whom am I speaking?"
Now there is a shift, and suddenly a flash of
recording from that old rock opera: "Kilroy...
Kilroy..."
"I... see."
I get a _lot_ of calls and emails from the
university, but this is certainly more unusual
than most, even on a slow, late night, which is
when I do really tend to get the weirdest. "And
what can I do for you, Kilroy? Do you have a
request?"
"Yep," says a child's voice, cheerfully.
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps..." This last
obviously lifted from the plaintive, polished
strains of the song itself.
"Right," I can't help but chuckle, "You got
it, but it appears that you have the song on
recording already. What does it matter to you if
_I_ play it?"
"I have power over you," intones a deep,
masculine voice. "Play what I tell you to play,
and you care about me."
I check to see that all is going according to
schedule with the songs being broadcast. I decide
to continue this chat a bit longer.
"You _do_ care about me, don't you?" Pleads
another, childlike voice.
"...Sure..." I say, fumbling with buttons
quickly so I can reply. I should be able to talk
and do this at the same time, but the equipment
here still feels new to me. "Sure, I care. You
guys are my fans."
I speak with a grin in my voice and a touch
of sarcasm, but this time an earnest young man's
voice, still with that mechanical, jacketed sound,
answers me. "Fans? _Sure_! How do I know anyone
else is _up_ besides you? I'm your biggest fan.
Anyone broadcasting his alertness in the wee hours
is my best companion in the world. You know,
during the day there are people to _watch_. At
night you care, because you're awake and you
wonder if anyone's listening, and I am."
Actually, kid (I feel sure, somehow, that
this is a kid, a student at Hayden Heath), I know
people are listening because the station would not
have hired me without knowing the stats on who's
listening when and who it's worth paying to be
here. Into the phone I say, "Thanks for
listening. Can't you watch people at night, too?
Don't you hang out with anyone?"
I almost feel sorry about having asked, but
it's out. Sometimes I forget how many around here
have SCABS. Maybe the kid _can't_ go out. But he
seems unperturbed... Although maybe he just
doesn't have a "perturbed" setting in his voice
collection.
"Nobody here at night but me," rasps an
elderly sound. "If there are people here, I watch
them. And I speak to them. Funny thing is, they
never seem to see me."
"Hm?"
"I'm kidding," says another voice. The
effect is beginning to get a tad jarring. "I stay
up here from my own choice. We sound booth
operators are hot commodities. Only one other in
the whole rest of the school. And this way I
don't need a dorm room."
"I... See..." That is strange. Of course,
so is living with a Grizzly bear, but I would
defend it to anyone. It's all in how you look at
it. How do I know what this person looks-- or
even sounds-- like? And what does this person
know about me? Only that I work at the town radio
station and that I take requests. And all that I
know is that this person wants to hear "While My
Guitar Gently Weeps." Well, that I can do. It's
my job.
I really have no _right_ to be tired...
Tired of working nights, tired of knowing that
while this kid is calling me and making some
semblance of contact, my own husband is sleeping
soundly in our bed across town.
Sleeping _soundly_. No, I have no right to
complain. But it all comes down to protection
again. We hole ourselves up in this little town,
and everything's alright. What about when
something happens and we have to leave?
Sometimes in this room, at night, I feel
young and vulnerable all over again. Maybe it
comes from moving into a college town, but I get
the fear that there will come a requirement, a
changing, a time when all of a sudden some voice
of authority will charge us with returning to the
lives of responsible members of society... Men
who work not for each other but against the
increasing pressure of Society versus... Take
your pick... Gays, SCABS... I don't feel
responsible sitting here sending out sounds. With
Christopher's job, I can afford to think of this
as supplemental, if I _really_ need to. No, I
feel like we've been getting away with something,
and as if pretty soon we're going to be found out.
"How long is your shift tonight?" Inquires
the next recorded voice of Kilroy.
"Four AM. You gonna stay with me?"
"You bet! I'll call back later and give
another request. Could you play another one?"
"We'll see how the schedule goes. Feel free
to call back."
"Okay, thanks, I'll be waiting for my song."
As soon as the connection breaks, I no longer
know whether my caller is actually listening.
For all I know, Kilroy will never ring this
radio station again. For all I know, Kilroy
dropped dead there in his university sound booth
and no one will notice that he is gone until the
one other operator finds him... Sometime. And
the likelihood that I would ever hear about his
death is certainly not very high. He, or she,
might be silent forever as far as this radio
station is concerned and I might wonder, at night,
whether something happened to my "biggest fan" or
whether they just stopped listening, or just
decided against phoning in again. What if another
student dies, and I hear of it, and assume it is
the one who was identified to me on the phone as
Kilroy, but it is not, and for the rest of
Kilroy's life there is a DJ at the Hayden Heath
radio station who assumes that Kilroy is dead?
I really _must_ get some other thoughts into
my head. I'm sinking into that funk again; the
one that seems to haunt me, nights, since Chris's
and my move to Minnesota.
Back home, before he leaves to his dream job
and I go to bed, things seem completely right with
the world for the merest moment. I am not an
unhappy person. I can't even tell myself,
honestly, that I am in any way miserable. I have
married the most wonderful man I can imagine, and
now, at last, things seem to be going right for
him.
It is this separation that eats at me and
makes irrational fears grow in my mind when Sandra
leaves and I am in charge of dispensing music to
other awakened souls in the area. I don't _like_
not knowing what's going on with him right now.
Thinking of Kilroy and all the remotest
possibilities sets me to thinking of my husband
and all _those_ possibilities. Leave me alone
here long enough, and it gets very dark indeed.
Where we used to live, I was so used to the house
that I could see nothing other than a peaceful, if
melancholy, image of the big bear spending his
time at home and waiting for my return each
evening. It hurt, it hurt a _lot_, knowing how
helpless he felt and that I was his only real
connection to the outside world. Here, though,
somehow this whole thing has got turned around.
And our new place is still not settled as
permanent in my mind. I keep feeling as if Chris
is blissfully sleeping thousands of miles away,
and it will take days for me to reach him when I
finish here.
That is probably the lightest turn my
imaginings take while I work in the wee hours.
Before, I could always phone him up if I worried
about how he was or whether he was safe and well.
I almost dial, several times a night, and I know
he has the same temptation during his office hours
in the daytime. But in the best interests of each
other, we can't check up unless the other of us
phones first. The last thing either of us wants
to do is deprive the other of sleep.
You know, sometimes I don't even pay
attention to the music. I wish it meant as much
to me as it does to the people listening. I
suppose that must be how other performers feel,
too. Wishing that they could see or hear or feel
it spontaneously, to get the full effect.
Time to get ready for another pause. I lean
forward and turn on my best voice and attitude,
then speak at the right moment. It does seem to
me, at these times, that this may just as well be
done with computers as with human beings. But
this is a late-night,
I-wish-Chris-were-here-and-I-feel-useless thought.
Other times I really do love my job.
"Good morning! My name is Rod Hughes-Swift
and I'm up All Night, taking requests by email and
phone, so if there's anything you'd like to hear
I'd love to hear from you"--Would I ever. What a
_slow_ night--"We have some Eagles, Beatles by
request, Melissa Etheridge, and a whole lot of
great nineties hits coming up. I'll be here until
four when Todd will take over, bringing you a full
album by vote from the past week. Thanks for
listening, stay with us!"
There, that's done. I check to make sure the
advertisements are playing as necessary and then
wheel on over to the computer terminal. I thought
I heard a new-mail blip.
Yes, there seems to be a message. Good,
gives me something to think about. I decide to
read it aloud in conjunction with playing the
song, later. It's going out to someone...
Request sent in from Pennsylvania, according to
the signature. That's kind of odd. They must
have gotten our email address specifically to do
this-- there's no _way_ our signal would be
received out there.
It just goes to show, I suppose... I suppose
some people do try to reach out, and do nice
things for people, like Chris... But how many?
The majority are still just plain human. Someone
like Chris would tell you that "plain human" is
basically good, but I'm not sure. I'm just not
sure.
Here we are, in Hayden Heath, Minnesota,
miles and miles from home, making a new home where
nobody cares what my husband looks like. The very
length of the drive to get here only emphasizes
how rare these places are. Chris tried for years
to get employment somewhere. When Hayden Heath's
staff reached out to _him_, it was the answer to
everything he needed, rebuilding his faith in
humanity... And somehow eroding mine.
It seems to me that if people were as nice as
I can be when Chris brings it out in me, there
would not be such an obvious line encircling
Hayden Heath. I almost want to send out warnings
on the airwaves every night: Don't graduate!
We've been out there! Stay here and _hide_ in
your sound booths and computer labs and biology
rooms and dorm commons. Pretend this is all there
is. No matter how prepared you _think_ you are,
you _can't_ be. There is no preparation for the
rest of the world for you kids with SCABS.
Chris has had to come here to hide. In order
to reach out, he has had to enclose himself in
this town.
And I along with him, spending nights in this
small station and worrying that something will
happen to take away my husband's happiness. This
seems to be the _only_ place. Coming here wasn't
_progress_. It was a stroke of good luck that
will fade if the slightest change in the fortunes
of this town takes place.
It reminds me of something, but I can't think
what. All I know is that, from two to four
o'clock in the morning, it looks too good to be
true.
I want to calm down. I want to settle in and
believe we have found what we are looking for,
here.
I know I have not yet, though. When I lie in
bed with his pillow hugged tightly in my arms
where I can smell it, I know this is not any kind
of solution unless we are together. It seems
sometimes that his work makes him more distant
from me in his eagerness to teach and help. When
I could be seeing his classes, getting to know the
students and what he does and _understanding_ his
days here, I am sleeping so I can earn money all
night.
What gets to me the most is that the he
_cannot_ tell me of the students who affect him in
the deepest and most meaningful ways. He tells me
some of what they say, those that he volunteers to
counsel, but I have no idea at the end of his day
who else he has felt the touch of since last I saw
him.
Jealous... Isn't the right word. It is that
I am his _husband_, and everything that matters to
him matters to me. He tries to tell me, but it's
not the same. I know he's helping those kids, but
towards what end? What _does_ happen when they
leave here?
On the other hand, there is this message that
the sender claims is from Pennsylvania...
I suppose there could be other places that
accept people like Chris. Like the students here.
But we have yet to experience any of them. Not
that I've looked, I have to admit to myself with a
touch of shame. I was too busy making our living
while Chris battled with discrimination and
loneliness and the constant search for that magic
place that it seemed never would appear...
It is easier to shed the effects of
discrimination when you're actually working. My
enthusiasm helped him, and now he helps these
kids, with his office door always open and his
time given freely. I have no _right_ to complain.
But it is human nature, when overtired, to be
weighed down by doubt and worry and things that go
bump in the night.
He has been worried about a certain student.
One whose name, of course, I do not know. I know
about some of the students in his regular classes,
but the ones that come to him for counseling could
walk up to me and introduce themselves and we
would never know each other from Adam.
"It's a terrible case," Chris said to me,
wearily, one weekend that we shared, allowing his
great, furred bulk to sink with a loud
<crreeeaaak> onto the sofa. "I'm really not
qualified. But she has no money to gain
counseling elsewhere, and she and a friend and
some of the staff from her high school have told
me the whole story. For some reason, she trusts
me."
"I can see why," I told him, settling next to
him and rubbing his fur in circles with a
massaging pressure. "You _are_ the world's
largest Teddy bear."
He grinned with his flews, then sobered
again. "That's actually pretty accurate, Rod.
The poor girl has as much as said that she's
_glad_ I don't smell like a man. She has only
been comfortable with a few men in her lifetime."
I never know how much it is all right for me
to ask in these cases, having been reminded many a
time that these things are confidential, and I
found myself choking on all sorts of questions.
All I could say was, "Well, if you... I mean,
whatever you _can_..."
"I know. I know, Rod. Thank you."
"I love you."
"I love you, too."
There was a pause. I swivel in my captain's
chair now, letting the memory of the conversation
surface so I have something to cling to of the
awake Chris, the Chris I have been with. It makes
him seem closer, somehow.
"I don't know what to do for her except be an
ear."
"You _excel_ at that, Bear," I told him.
He sighed and turned slightly onto one side.
"It's such a... You think you have it bad, and
then you meet someone like that..."
It seemed the matter would be left at that,
and in the ensuing weeks of silence concerning the
mystery girl I grew, I admit, even a little surly
with Christopher. How dare he keep from me
something that caused him pain! How the Hell was
I supposed to fix it if he wouldn't, could not,
tell me what was wrong?
I reach a slot in my schedule where I can
play Kilroy's requested "While My Guitar Gently
Weeps," and do so. I wonder if the person is
still listening. Another check on the email, a
few more requests. People must be getting their
second winds.
Ever wonder whether you just tell _yourself_
what you want to hear? I certainly don't have
anyone here to do it for me right now.
When I pause and introduce the show, I can't
help entertaining the idea that I may be
connecting with listeners out there on a
_personal_ level, just through my voice. I can
hear an echo of myself in my mind: Hi, my name is
Rod Hughes-Swift...
I imagine there are those who are tuned in to
the station, suddenly brought to attention by the
beginning measures of their favorite song or, in
this case, by the abrupt sound of my greeting. A
greeting I make without a target, except the
possible listeners who may or may not be awake, or
in the room, or alive. I almost hear the drone of
my station as white noise in some dorm as a
student pays no attention whatsoever to the radio
or to my work, typing diligently at a report due
in the morning. I imagine, though, that some
people turn to the speakers or prick up their
ears, and a few might even be glad it's me. I
mean, the station must have hired _me_
specifically for _some_ reason. Must have.
Maybe.
I imagine a few voices around Hayden Heath
actually vibrate in response, either sincerely or
sarcastically... "Hi, Rod..."
... Before life goes on and the radio fades
into insignificance-- unless a treasured melody
comes on. I wonder off and on whether each song I
play is enjoyed by some one person, or whether
only a select few actually matter to anybody
anymore and we are, most hours, just wasting our
time.
Maybe if I worked during the day, with the
votes for the album of the week and so on coming
in, with other DJ's at remote (sort of-- the strip
mall on the highway) locations broadcasting with
me, I wouldn't think these things. Then I
wouldn't have so much _time_ to think these
things.
I wonder if I'm _afraid_ that we will stay in
Hayden Heath happily ever after.
At that strip mall on the highway, Chris
finally updated me a bit on his student, the one
whose mention always darkened those glittering,
deep-set eyes even further.
He stopped at the display window of a
Christian bookstore, the sappy kind that always
make me cringe. "Look," he said, nodding to a
tray of jewelry in the window.
"What is it, Bear?"
"My student, the-- one with the abusive
father. That's something very different about
her."
"What is?"
In a society where we preface everything with
a name, where our name is who and what we are, it
unsettles me not to hear a name to go with
someone, especially someone so intimately
connected to my husband. She tells him
_everything_. Her only other real, close friends
live elsewhere. I am so proud of Chris, hearing
of this and knowing what he does for people, but
at the same time it makes him that much less mine.
And as noted before, in these moods I am a selfish
bastard.
Well, who wouldn't want Chris all to himself?
Then again, I was the one who told him that
his SCABS just meant there was more of him to
love.
Not that I couldn't love it _all_.
"That," he said, nodding his massive head at
some pins on a corner of the velvet-lined tray.
"She belongs to some kind of computer group. They
talk about-- changing into things. Only it's not
SCABS support. It's all people who _want_ to
change into something, whose desire is to become
physically what they are not."
I heard him almost let out her name by
mistake. He caught himself and went on. A few
customers exited the store, carrying those little
white bags with gold and grey lettering, appearing
serene bacause they were buying religiously sound
merchandise.
"-- She-- talks a lot about wanting to become
a fish, or at least gain the abilities of a fish
of some kind."
"She wants to become a _fish_?" I tried to
say it non-judgmentally.
Chris looked at me. "Fish are a classic
symbol of escape. It makes sense, given what
she's been through. Although she says she has had
some inkling of that desire since she was very
young. Only there was no application for it,
until she met a man who was attracted to her."
I nodded. This was another point where, if
it was okay to tell more, he would. It was not my
place to ask questions. I placed my hand on his
shoulder and leaned on him slightly, which didn't
imbalance him at all. He stood placidly on all
fours and gazed back at the jewelry which he must
have just barely been able to see by holding his
face right next to the glass.
"He evidently helped her to discover that the
idea of-- turning _into_ a fish turns her on."
"She _tells_ you these things?"
"Yes, she does. She desperately needs to be
told that her thoughts are all right. She spent
her whole life so far believing that sex is a bad
thing. She did not--" he looked at me earnestly,
seriously-- "ever feel any sexual arousal herself.
None that she could define, anyway. Until her new
friend got her one of these."
"Which kind?"
"The fish. I can barely see it there on the
tray, but I'm pretty sure I'm nodding in the right
direction. The symbol for Christ."
"How do you know what that stands for?"
"She told me. And _she_ didn't know until--
he-- her friend told her. She said that he
learned it used to be drawn in the sand by
Christians when they were persecuted, and if the
person they were speaking to also drew such a
fish, they could feel safe in discussing the next
meeting place of the Christian people in the
area."
"Really."
He nodded. "Evidently it turns her on."
"Fish."
"_That_ fish. The Christian fish. A little
gold, generic fish. It's the first thing that
ever put the idea of pleasure into her head...
Sexual pleasure, I mean."
"It doesn't even look like a real fish," I
noted. "I mean, there are no fins except for the
tail, and it's hollow."
"That's just it," Chris explained. I began
to realize how long we had been standing in front
of the shop window, and how nobody had yet given
us a withering stare or even a disgusted glance.
We both have had some strange sensations in
adjusting to the treatment of SCABS around Hayden
Heath. Chris has spent time in the university,
and is probably adjusting quicker than I, who
spend all my time in this radio room. "I think--
she-- has never really had a specific fish in
mind. That could be _any_ fish. It's open to her
mind, her imagination. It's so open that that
fish could be _her_."
"MmHm." What was I supposed to say? Being a
supportive listener is harder than it seems,
sometimes. I hit upon, "Well, that's good, then,
that she is making friends with a man, right?"
He shrugged. "Yes."
"What's-- oh. Tell me if you can."
"What's wrong? Well, nothing, really. But
it occurs to me that if she goes to visit him
frequently, and things progress as they have been,
then, well, then I might miss her."
I ruffled his fur. "If she needs you this
badly, I don't think she's suddenly going to
forget you."
"I don't know." He sighed, his massive
ribcage rising and falling dramatically under his
loose hide. "She met him when they were both
travelling out East. It'll be so far away, and I
won't know how she is..."
"I guess that's what we get for becoming
attached to people."
"Yeah..."
"Is this, if I may ask, the same guy you told
me about who she managed to make friends with
earlier? Or is this a different person?"
"A different person. He seems all right. He
sent me an email, telling about the two months
over the summer they spent together. He tells me
that he has had no sexual contact with her
himself. He is trying to teach her, just as I am,
although more intimately in his case, how to
please _herself_."
I thought that over, and said, "You know,
Professor Bear, it seems this abused child of
yours has collected herself quite a crowd of
benefactors."
He wrinkled his flews in a bit of a smile.
"Sometimes I worry about that."
"That she'll end up in the wrong hands?"
"No... It's the same old thing again. That
she'll end up in the _right_ hands, and that
despite the fact that I'm certainly busy enough
from day to day I will be jealous of whoever helps
her the most."
Busy. Day to day. Jealous.
Well, maybe a little. Maybe I am just a
little jealous of anyone, including my husband,
whose job involves such intimate contact with
others, who really makes a difference.
What if he didn't need me?
But he does. I know he does, and it gives me
the pride I have had in anything I have ever done
right. One of those things, of course, was
marrying Chris in the first place. Then again, he
brought that out of me too. It seems as if
everything I do has been enhanced by him and his
openness, yet I am never really connected to him.
Damn money anyway. Maybe we should _both_
turn into bears and trundle off to live in the
North Woods somewhere.
Heck, there are even some nice forests around
here.
More buttons. More switches. More
commercials. More songs. A time slot open for
requests; going in order, I call up the email
again and read off the dedication.
"Okay, this one goes out to _Laurie_, and
your boyfriend Angelo writes here that you'd
better appreciate it because he managed to get a
dedication to you all the way from Pennsylvania
this fine morning. So, Laurie, from Angelo,
here's Guns'n'Roses and 'Don't Cry'."
I wonder about that as the signals make their
way out. _Do_ these people have a view in their
minds of my face, as I have of theirs? Is it
anything close to accurate? Is mine? I know less
of Angelo and Laurie than I do of Kilroy. Oh,
wait. I know Angelo's email address. I could
harrass him, thereby knowing that I had harrassed
him, and adding to my store of information.
Who else has Angelo sent email to today? His
granny? The President of the United States? Why
"Don't Cry"? Is it because Laurie is here and her
boyfriend is there, and she must be lying awake at
night missing him, or is it just that she tends to
be nocturnal and he knows she likes the song?
I send out a few more requests and wait for
four o'clock. Time slows down the closer it gets
to quitting time, and even though my mood lifts,
knowing that for a short time I will see
Christopher and hold him and get him ready for his
day, this is when my sullenness can also reach its
peak. I'm tired, I've had enough, I don't want
these little lights blinking at me and the
computer screen glowing mercilessly and the
monitor telling me so damned reliably what's
playing.
Playing to a sleeping town. People used to
know me, used to schedule around my show. Now
whole lives revolve around Chris and I'm
invisible.
Alright, that's not fair, _Chris_ loves me
above all else, and anyway my talent isn't exactly
nil.
And who knows? Sometimes I like to fancy
that each minute this station is on the air is a
minute that changes the course of a life, even
though I will never know it. _If_ a request is
played when the intended recipient is tuned in,
what does it mean to that person? If I weren't
working, would Kilroy really be unable to contact
anyone else who is awake at this hour? Somehow I
doubt that, but still... And if a request goes
out, and the intended recipient is no longer tuned
in, does the very fact of that song's airing
affect someone _else_, someone who would never
have thought to ask for it but wanted it very
badly? How many people does a request really
reach? However many it is, I am the medium
between the person with the request and the person
or people it reaches.
Of course, we are just talking about a few
minutes of oldish music here.
I don't really listen to the songs that
often. I make up my mind to listen to the next
request, if another comes in before I go home.
Slow, slow night. I'm all caught up already.
Maybe--
<Rrriiinnngg>
"Hello, this is Rod with Ninety-six point
five All Night, may I play a song for you?"
"Hello."
I'd swear that's Orson Welles. "Kilroy?"
"Play a song for me," a woman's voice
suggests seductively.
"What'll you have? Make it good, alright?"
"Hmmm... Lemme seee....." The child
considers for some time.
"Do you have any idea what you want?"
"Something... Meaningful. Nobody stands
out."
"How do you mean?"
"Ever notice how every year the Box Elder
Bugs gather in the Box Elders, and they _all_ look
_exactly_ alike?"
"Box Elder Bugs?"
A gruff throat-clearing precedes Kilroy's
continuance. "Box Elder Bugs are possessed of red
and black warning coloration, and are the natural
prey of no creature. However, this tends to make
their annual gathering on the sides of houses
something of a menace, as they swarm in the
hundreds and are not decimated by predation. For
a quick and easy Box Elder Bug control, simply
spray your house with a mixture of water and
ordinary dish detergent.
"And they all up and die," says a teenaged
boy's voice, "And you can't even tell one from
another. Don't you think people are like that?"
"People? Why?"
"You can't tell one from another. From up
here in the booth, I could be talking to anybody,
and anybody could be talking to me. And then, if
I were to, say, fade into a crowd somewhere, and
some one of the theatre students decided to
_decimate_ that crowd, with, say, dish detergent,
and I never showed up at school again, they would
never be able to identify me out of all the
crumpled corpses.
"Now would they."
"I... Guess not. Yes, I guess put that way
people are a little like that. So, something...
Meaningful, then."
"Right. We just don't know whether we're
spraying dish detergent and water all over the one
person who did such a brilliant job with the sound
on our last show. We wouldn't know him from Adam.
Yet the whole species, the whole race, is a
menace... At least, we all _look_ the same."
"Do we?"
"If you're not really looking, we do."
"I guess so. What kind of meaningful song,
then, Kilroy?"
"Do you have 'Bittersweet Symphony'?" Kilroy
asks in a voice patched together from what sounds
like several.
"Don't you have _that_ one yourself?"
"No," barks the masculine answer. "It only
counts on the radio."
"Right. I see."
"Can you play it?"
"Sure. Good choice. I'll be sure and listen
with you."
"Hey, thanks. It's good to know someone else
is awake and pondering at this hour."
"Likewise, Kilroy."
My own voice, recorded, comes back at me.
"Thanks for listening."