All About Lulu (29 page)

Nate did not object to my progress. Good old Nate. It wasn’t in his nature to feel threatened. If anything, he was relieved, content to punch carts, leaf through records, sweat through spot sets, content to leave all that yakking to me. And maybe it was just my imagination, but his own performance seemed to be improving as the days progressed, as if by osmosis, or perhaps by scholarship. His pauses were becoming measured, he was breathing, I could see his teeth more when he spoke. He was still terrible, but at least now he was self-conscious about it.

I soon found that I had in
fl
uence. Eugene Gobernecki was not the only lonesome schlub in the greater Los Angeles night who found fellowship in my voice as it surfed the crest of those twenty-thousand-watt radio waves. The very Saturday that Hot Dog Heaven was set to open its doors (or its hatch, as it were), just two scant weeks after the debut of “the voice,” Phil Spencer, the program director himself—apparently an insomniac or a baker—called me personally at
fi
ve-thirty in the morning and told me that he’d been
tuning in
and that he
really
liked what he was hearing
.

“That choking thing was a gas. Did you plan that?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I guess not. So you write the jokes? Like the one about Tad eating the left side of the menu at Barney’s?”

“I just open my mouth and they come out.”

“Yeah? What about the cat haunting your house? Frank the cat?

That’s yours? You made that up?”

I was tempted to tell him it was true, but somehow that seemed like the wrong thing to do. “Yeah, I just made it up.”

“It sounds true. Funny stuff.”

“Thanks.”

“Have you got any prior on-air experience?”

“No.”

“So, you’re just a natural?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Big family?”

“Kind of, I guess.” I had wanted to ask him how he knew, but before I could get the
fi
rst word on my tongue, he was on to the next question. He was sort of like old Pitts that way, always one step ahead.

“You the baby?”

“The oldest.”

“Humph. I’m surprised.”

“Why?”

“Just surprised. Had you pegged as the baby. So, off the record, what do you think of Nate?”

“Well, I think Nate really loves the music.” Of course that was like putting a sunbonnet and perfume on a gorilla.

“How would you like his shift?”

I paused. “His
shift
? Well, what do you mean? Is he leaving or something?”

“Depends. I’m just asking you how you’d like his shift.”

“I just think
…
well, Nate really loves the music.”

“You afraid of success?”

I knew why he asked, because once again I’d formed an attach-ment to the competition. I’d come out shaking hands after the bell had rung. I hadn’t the strength to capitalize on anyone’s weakness unless the stakes were personal.

Waxing philosophical, as had become my habit anytime I didn’t know the answer, I told Phil in so many words that I wasn’t sure whether I was afraid of success, or if I just didn’t believe in success, having no
correlating impression
of success. Lacking any
immediate
data
from experience, the idea of success was patently not demonstrable in my case.

Phil laughed at that, and there was something about the way he laughed—benevolent, but patronizing—that suggested he understood everything about me; that my psyche, my will, and possibly even my future were visible to him.

“Okay, I see,” he said. “Well then, how does weekend overnights sound?”

“Uh, yeah, sure, I guess. I mean, of course, Mr. Spencer.”

“Spence. Call me Spence. And just one thing.”

“What?”

“Keep doing what you’re doing, but don’t get too personal. Familiar, yes, but not personal, not self-indulgent. Keep the reins on the personal stuff.”

“Got it.”

“You wanna get better, listen to Balance, listen to Owens, the guys with substance. Don’t try to be Rick Dees, don’t try to be Mark and Brian, be yourself, but don’t rely too much on one part of yourself. Be a whole person. If you want to be persuasive, listen to your callers. Don’t get wrapped up in what you want to say before they’ve spoken.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“And always,
always
listen to your air-checks. Sit down with them and take notes. See what works, where there’s room for improvement—and trust me, there’s always room for improvement—read books, educate yourself, books about everything, practice framing your thoughts and subjects, practice seeing all sides of an issue, hearing all aspects of a song, and laugh with yourself, don’t depend on the listener. You’re a good talker. Spin words like Nate spins records.”

That was, and remains, the longest one thing anyone had ever told me. And the moment Spence bestowed those con
fi
dences upon me, something happened. I ceased being William Miller Jr., a blob of mashed potatoes, and I became somebody bigger and brasher and altogether grander. I became Will “The Thrill” Miller, a solid mass of probabilities.

Mission Statement for Hot Dog Heaven

Selling hot dogs of highest quality making perfect for consuming on Venice Beach boardwalk for young people and others. Also tourists consuming with families. Offer good deal for setting price and making good customer relations for return customer. Friendly service for wanting to come and eat best hot dog. Building franchise for serving hot dog using same idea for success everywhere. Spreading hot dog throughout China and other free markets once they are fr
ee from communism and other non-
free market systems.

Description for Company of Hot Dog Heaven

Company will have three equal partners that are Will Miller and Joe Tuttle and me Eugene Gobernecki
. Maybe we incorporate for tax
purpose. For gross revenue we split in half and put
fi
rst half for overhead and for paying principal for leasing to ownership. Part of overhead equals hourly wage of six dollars in one hour. Net revenue we split equal three times for Will and Joe and Eugene. For Will he pay part extra from pro
fi
t or have sweat equity by subtracting for hours at six dollars for one hour. All decisions about Hot Dog Heaven made like democracy for making fair.

Strategy for Growing Hot Dog Heaven

First comes high quality and friendly service and from here we grow. Not to overextend when coming time for franchise. Making choices prudent with questions of expansion of Hot Dog Heaven. But also taking risk which is calculated. Always making sure for friendly employee. Not to make expanded menu but keep simple with hot dogs and chili. Also extras for making it your way like from Burger King. Also promoting healthy hot dog of highest all natural quality for consuming. Makes good not only for health but for business also. Hot dog with chili is balanced meal for feeding nations. Having strong brand for global franchise to boost image. Making same everywhere. Hot dog is international language.

Cost Analysis for Hot Dog Heaven

For startup cost needing approximately one thousand dollars for improvements to current Hot Dog Heaven now called Hanks Hot Diggity.

With this we make new sign and menu and buy uniforms and make promotion for new Hot Dog Heaven with balloons and free soda. Also for startup cost needing $402 toward vending license and some money extra for buns mustard relish chili and cleaning supplies.

Sales projections for
fi
rst year Hot Dog Heaven

We selling maybe one hundred hot dogs in one day. Bottom line for operating costs equals one day and thirty to forty hot dogs depending on extras making for sixty to seventy hot dog pro
fi
t for one day or three hundred to three hundred
fi
fty dollars. At seven days makes for seven times. For whole year makes for one hundred nine thousand to one hundred forty thousand depending on extras.

Opening day at Hot Dog Heaven began at 8:00
AM
in a blaze of expectation, with Eugene, Joe, and I dicing onions, loading napkin dispensers, and
fi
lling relish and ketchup tubs as though our lives depended on it. At any moment the
fl
ash
fl
ood of revenue was sure to crash upon us. By ten o’clock we were prepped and poised in starchy white aprons, tongs and buns at the ready. Eugene insisted on caps.

White mesh adjustable baseball caps. Hot Dog Heaven, Out of This World emblazoned upon them in a red and yellow script suggestive of ketchup and mustard. Joe wore his cap backwards. I wore mine tilted rakishly off-center. Eugene wore his straight ahead.

For two and a half hours we stood expectantly behind the counter, monitoring the steam table, turning the onions occasionally, giving the relish a stir. We clicked our tongs and scratched and peered miserably out from beneath our wooden hatch into a thick fog. The boardwalk was deserted; even the seagulls weren’t interested.

“It look like fucking Bering Sea in middle of winter,” observed Eugene bleakly. “Maybe we need foghorn or some bullshit. Motherfuck.” Indeed, a foghorn might have come in handy—you could barely see the surf. Not hot dog weather. But the optimism of Eugene Gobernecki was indefatigable. “Oh well. Zis probably burn off.”

At one o’clock we were still socked in. A few people were walking their dogs. A speeding bicyclist passed now and again; twice it was the same guy. Somebody was bouncing a basketball somewhere in the distance. Occasionally the rim thrummed, and the chain net rattled. A guy in a
fl
eece Patagonia stopped at the counter and asked for directions to Windward Plaza. He didn’t order anything. But Eugene’s faith was unwavering.

“Sings starting to pick up,” he said. “Put on cassette of Springteen with ‘Born Running.’”

Around one-thirty the fog
fi
nally burned off. The basketball courts began brimming with chatter. The foot traf
fi
c began
fl
owing in broken streams, and Venice began to swell with color. And though it was a far cry from the Muscle Beach of the early ’50s—a Muscle Beach buzzing with acrobats and strongmen and human towers and teen spirit that wasn’t canned but rather trumpeted by the wholesome likes of Joe Gold and Bill Trumbo and Jack LaLanne and Big Bill Miller—though it was a far cry from all that, still, if I listened carefully, I could intimate the clanging and grunting of Muscle Beach in its modern incarnation from my post in Hot Dog Heaven. I could envision the new generation of bodies assembled there, rippling personages in neoprene shorts and torn T-shirts, heaving and pounding their chests, paining and gaining, paining and gaining, until their hearts beat in their biceps and their jaws hung agape. Nike swoops everywhere. Bottled water. Women with fourteen-inch biceps. A different kind of prosperity.

By two o’clock boom boxes were competing up and down the boardwalk. The current had started to eddy in places. The henna tattoo lady was out. The qigong massage guy, even the shaved ice guy was out. A few tentative souls began contemplating hot dogs, but only at a distance. Finally, a homeless guy with dreads and a shopping cart purchased an all-beef dog. Eugene waited patiently as the full balance was paid in nickels and dimes. The dready guy heaped inordinate amounts of sauerkraut and relish on his dog, and though Eugene smiled politely through the ordeal, he could not belie a wince when the guy went back for his third helping of relish.

Fifteen minutes passed before a few Korean gang members bought foot-longs, and a few teenage girls lined up, along with a black guy in a cowboy hat. And suddenly, we were slammed. The torrent of revenue crashed upon us at last, the steam table lid rang like a
cym
bal, and the ketchup bottles splurted and belched. Orders arrived three and four at a time. An hour elapsed in an instant, then two.

America was alive and well. The beleaguered masses were ravenous for hot dogs, and Hot Dog Heaven provided them. By four o’clock we were exhausted, disheveled, spattered with ketchup. The coolers were empty. The garbage can was heaping with soiled napkins and foil wrappers. And Hot Dog Heaven grossed three hundred and eighty bucks.

We rang four hundred and sixty the following day. The third day we broke
fi
ve hundred, which soon became the standard. Within three weeks Eugene had his bronze medal out of hock. Success was empowering. One afternoon a sun-kissed goddess arrived on roller blades, with pale blue eyes and a cleft chin and a chest that may or may not have been real—I didn’t care. She ordered a foot-long and ate it at the counter. She talked with her mouth full. She said she was an actress. I said,
Aren’t they just calling everyone “actors” now?
She said that she still preferred actress. Then she dribbled mustard down her cleavage, and I boldly wiped it off with a napkin, and gazing down into the golden valley, I felt a lu
mp in my throat and a slight ar
rhythmia in my chest, and for a few precious moments there existed another woman in the world besides Lulu. The actress didn’t object to any of it. In fact, it seemed to amuse her. When I recovered suf
fi
ciently, I told her that being a restaurateur was just one of my business ventures (this, as orders were backing up and Joe was shouting
C’mon, ass-munch
). I explained to her that I was a radio personality (
C’mon, man, who’s got my back? I need three foot-longs and a medium
Coke!
), in fact, I told her, she could tune in that very night and hear my voice sur
fi
ng the radio waves anywhere in the L.A. basin, a fact that seemed to impress her somewhat, but not enough to make me good-looking. I didn’t get a number, or even a name. But I was making progress. I’d had a chance with her. There was a palpable moment, a brief window of opportunity when it could’ve gone the other way, when the future might have ceased conforming with the past. Perhaps if I’d let my radio voice do the talking.