Chump Change (27 page)

Frizell leaned back in his chair, made his hands into a steeple formation. Finally, he said:

“There’s no doubt you are different, Dave,” he said. “Frankly, I get more comments from people around this newsroom about you than about anyone else, both good and bad. But ultimately I think it’s a good thing. We need more people like you. I’ve got plenty of journeyman writers out there” — he gestured towards the newsroom, where everyone was sweating bullets and working at top speed as the various supper-hour newscasts approached —” but a writer like you comes along only once
in a while, so I’m willing to make some special allowances.

“I already knew all about your fight with Colin Kelly, and frankly there are some people who would like to see me fire you. But I’m going to give you another chance. Anyone could make a mistake. But lie low for a while, try to build up some trust. Don’t make any more mistakes for awhile. Then we’ll see where we can take this thing from here.”

Frizell gave me another chance, but after my double débâcle on the news desk, Hans didn’t trust me any more. He gave me no news stories to write. The only thing he gave me to do every day, was write the “Hellos” and “Goodbyes,” as in: “Good evening, I’m Colin Kelly, and this is the
Noonday News,”
and “And that’s the news for today. I’m Colin Kelly. Have a nice day.” It took me about five minutes every morning. The rest of the day, while everyone else was running around churning out the news, I sat reading the paper and watching TV. It was humiliating. I was a public embarrassment, a nag put out to pasture before everyone’s eyes, waiting for the cart to the glue factory. I was given the lowest and most menial of occupations, a job a trained monkey, a pair of electrified frog’s legs, could do.

And do you know, I even managed to fuck that up?

I was a bit distracted that morning, I admit it. The night before, over drinks at a cheesy bar called Rowers, Lola had said to me: “Listen, I’m sorry, Dave, I’m just not attracted to you.” Turned out she wasn’t so much off sex as she was off sex with
me
— as she had discovered the previous night, when she got drunk at an after-hours party and wound up sleeping with the good-looking, long-haired, 19-year-old busboy. She apologized, but said there was nothing to do about it. I could see it in her eyes, how they sparkled and seemed a bit far away. I was no longer her boyfriend; he was
“Never drink to chase away a mood,” they say, but fuck it — I bought a bottle of shitty scotch and stayed up late, drinking on my balcony by myself, watching the late-night stragglers stagger down Augusta. Thinking: great, my first taste of old age — having to fight for young women. With a pang of regret, I said goodbye to Lola, and hello to a new phase of masturbating to memories of her.

I showed up to work late, frazzled, stubbled, and troubled, grabbed a double-double at the coffee machine, and sat down at my desk. I wrote the hellos and goodbyes, tossed them in front of Hans. Hans gave them a quick glance, yelled “Split!” and an E.A. scooted over to grab them. I settled in to read the paper. I’d finished my work for the day. Now all I had to do was kill the other seven hours and fifty-five minutes somehow.

The first newscast went smoothly. The last story was an item about a magician in California who was buried in cement when one of his escape tricks went horribly wrong. There was footage of people frantically trying to dig him out, but in vain. When Colin came back on camera, his face had assumed its most serious and leaden “isn’t-it-a-tragedy-folks” expression.

“That’s the news for today,” he intoned gravely. “I’m Alison Bartlett-Jones. Thanks for watching.”

There was a horrible pause. Colin blinked, his brow furrowed as he stared at the Autocue.

“I apologize. Obviously, I’m not Alison Bartlett-Jones, I’m Colin Kelly. And…that’s our program for today.”

I checked my script and there it was: I’d written the wrong name. It was a world-class fuckup, my worst ever.

Colin came storming out. He cast a stony eye in my direction, then took Hans Kohl aside. Together they went into Frizell’s office.

I sat in a stew of fear. It was all over for me, I saw that immediately. Sure enough, a few minutes later, after Colin and Hans had returned to the desk (neither looking in my direction), Frizell called me from his office. I could see him with the phone in his ear.

“I’d like to see you after the last newscast today, David.”

“O.K.”

“Frankly, it’s not good news, I’m afraid.”

“I figured.”

He was going to fire me, I knew. Within the hour, everyone else knew it, too. They don’t call them “newsrooms” for nothing. After the lunchtime newscast, I decided to head outside for a smoke. Halfway through the cigarette, Sheldon came out. He didn’t smoke, so he was obviously looking for me. He spotted me and came over.

“Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure.”

“Walk with me a little ways.”

We walked away from the clutch of smokers in the doorway, through the parking lot, towards the street.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, Dave, but Hans has offered me your job,” he said finally.

My blood ran cold.

“Well, for Christ’s sake, take it,” I said. “It isn’t doing me any good. Maybe you’ll have better luck with it than I did.”

“If you don’t want me to…”

“I appreciate the sentiment, Sheldon, and I appreciate you coming to tell me. But think of me as a dead man, one of the grateful dead. I don’t give a damn what happens after I’m gone.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

“Are you going to be O.K?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’ll be terrific. I think I’m just going to take a little walk.”

I walked around the Cosmodemonic block, haunted by horrible thoughts. Everything was turning out disastrously. What had become of me? Whatever became of David Henry?

“I’m fucked,” I muttered aloud to myself. “I’m a fucking fool.”

“Who says?” someone said.

I looked up. It was Les. Her grave, knowing eyes surveyed my face.

“Oh, hi, Les. What are you doing here?”

“Shopping for props. What’s so terrible?”

“Well, for starters, my girlfriend dumped me last night.”

“You mean Lola? The teenager?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t worry, Dave, you’ll get other women.”

“I didn’t get anywhere with you,” I said, smiling ruefully.

“You weren’t ready for what I wanted.”

“What did you want?”

“This,”
she said, smoothing her smock over her stomach. It was huge. She was at least seven months pregnant. I hadn’t noticed it before — I was too embroiled in my own problems to notice this obvious and auspicious fact. It had an odd effect on me: my Cosmodemonic woes seemed insignificant and two-dimensional next to this imminent event.

“No, you’re right, Les, I’m not ready for that yet. Congratulations.”

“How’s work?”

“Work… sucks. Or, rather, I suck and now everyone knows it. In fact, they’re going to fire me today, as soon as I go back there.”

“All the better. Don’t worry, Dave. You’ll be fine. You won’t
starve. I’m looking out for you. I’m your guardian angel, don’t you realize that?” Then, like a real guardian angel, she said: “Right now, though, I’ve gotta fly. I’ll see you later. Good luck, Dave.”

Seeing the pregnant Les gave me just the jolt I needed. There was a whole world outside the Cosmodemonic gates, a world of sex, love, money, family, friends, dinners. I wanted to return to that world. Fuck the Cosmodemonic hamster-wheel where everyone treated me like some kind of insect!

And as I walked back to the Cosmodemonic hamster-wheel, something started to take shape in my mind. A huge, sinister shape, a caped shape. A plan.

But I’m sure you already know all about what happened. You’ve seen the tape, or at least heard about it. I still watch it, once in a while, just for laughs. I’ll just fill in some of the background, tell you what I remember from my point of view.

Back in the newsroom, I called one of the E.A.s over, a 22-year-old Israeli sex-bomb, and asked to borrow her lipstick and eyeliner.

“What for?”

“You’ll see,” I said, with a big horse-wink.

In the middle of the next newscast, I slipped into the studio and stood next to the cameraman. He smiled over at me, then his smile turned to a frown. No doubt he was wondering why my lips were all made up.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s…”

Just then, Colin launched into a copy story. As if obeying some outside force — this part was all like an out-of-body experience — I hopped onto the platform, leaned over his desk, and planted a big lipstick-encrusted kiss on his forehead. He recoiled in horror, his eyes dancing with anger. He half-stood,
grabbing for me. A couple of buttons popped off my shirt. I jumped in front of the camera and ripped my shirt all the way open, and there, written in eyeliner on my T-shirt, was my message to the entire Cosmodemonic world: I QUIT!

I turned and flew down the stairs, heart pounding, shirttails flying. I sailed through the Cosmodemonic gates, and kept running. I ran and ran, along Carlton Street, block after block, until my torched lungs commanded me to sit down. I heaved and coughed for awhile, then patted my pockets and found a cigarette. No smoke ever tasted sweeter, I can tell you. I sat and smoked for a while, feeling good. The whole thing was so absurd, ridiculous. Oh, well, I’d stuck it to them, eh what? They wouldn’t forget the name of David Henry for a while. I laughed, and the laugh turned into a hacking, barking cough. I coughed until the tears came to my eyes.

“Take that, you assholes,” I said aloud, eyes welling with tears. “You motherfucking, cocksucking bastards.”

So now it’s back to the sardines of poverty for me. Which is alright. Not great, but alright. Better. They’ve been making a lot of improvements to sardines lately. Sardines now come in a dizzying variety of flavours: with hot chilis, with lemon, in mustard sauce, in tomato sauce, and of course, the classic, “in their own juices.” Some of them are almost delicious.

Even if I become a bum, so be it. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time around bums recently — there’s no hot water in my apartment right now, so I have to go to Harrison Baths where all the bums take showers, dry their armpit-hairs in the hair-dryers, etc. I find their company refreshing and relaxing. At least they’re honest. When you’re on the bottom of the heap, there’s no reason to lie, to play a role. You tell the truth: what have you got to lose? They’re humble, too. Once you’ve
hit rock bottom, you’re more sympathetic, you acquire true humanity. Everyone should hit rock bottom at some point, I think.

It’s touching, how they are. Recently, I got my high-tech bike stolen, I had to get a new one. I went to a place called Street City Bikes, staffed and run by bums, as a way of getting them back in the workforce. They get old junk-bikes, recondition them with some new parts, and sell them cheap. They work out of the basement of a church near my house. An old ex-alcoholic made mine, for $100, and when he was finished, I went in to check it out. I turned the crank, tested the brakes, examined the wheels for trueness. Everything was in tip-top order.

“Thanks,” I said. “You did a good job. I can tell you put a lot of work into it.”

“I did, I tried really hard on this one,” he said.

I put my hand on his shoulder, and smiled. The way he said it was so simple, so direct, it almost moved me to tears.

“That’s the important thing,” I said.

Copyright © 1996 by David Eddie

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American

Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

First published in 1996 by
Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Eddie, David
Chump change

eISBN: 978-0-307-36903-1

I. Title.

PS8559.D45C58 1996       C813′.54       C96-930767-5
PR9199.3.E325C58 1996

v3.0