Time and Chance (19 page)

I went up and told
Berry. He exploded. Called in Bobbi, wanted to sue Luther, his dog, his wife,
his grandchildren, dig up his dead parents, sue them all, sue Channel 3. Bobbi
told him he would be wasting his time. Berry threw an ashtray, couple glasses,
then cooled when Bobbi explained what a law suit might cost: the chances of
losing were excellent; morale at the station, already poor, would suffer even
more. Then, when she mentioned that the pending sale of TV12 to S&W
Broadcasting, with a lawsuit, might “get fucked up,” Berry asked how The Berry
Inn's business looked.

“Easter Sunday whorehouse
slow,” she said.

* * *

I went back to my
office, conducted the morning news producers meeting then, at a little after
11:00 A.M., an urgent page came over the station P.A. system: “
Galbo, Carr,
Speaker, front office, immediately. Front office immediately, Galbo, Carr, Speaker,
front office.”

 
Joy, as I stepped past her desk to answer the
page, remarked, “Good luck.”

* * *

Ten minutes later,
Galbo, Jay, and I gathered in Berry's office. Joe wore a charcoal suit, white
shirt, gray tie, black wingtips. Jay, hair cut short, wore a light brown sports
jacket, blue shirt, and a paisley tie. Berry, leaning again his window’s sill,
was decked out in a white three-piece suit, blue polka dot tie, red candy
striped shirt, looked like Uncle Sam ready for the Fourth of July. I was in
shirt sleeves and had loosened my tie.

Berry, smirking at my
attire, ambled over to his desk and asked, “We all squared away for the weather
show, Carr?”

“Squared.”

He sat and looked at
Joe, “Peggy's Dillards outfit here, ready to go, commercial all set?”

Closed eyes nod from
Joe.

Berry looked at Jay,
“Speaker, I didn’t see many promo spots last night, this morning, for Peggy’s
weather, we should be running the hell out of those things, every break, what
happened?” He made a note on a yellow legal pad which he had taken from his
middle desk drawer (in meetings off-record he hauled this pad out and made
notes for future executions).

Jay said, “We were
waiting….”

“Waiting for what?”
Berry said.

“To get the okay from
Joe to take some commercial spot time.”

“Wait a minute.” Berry
looked at Joe, “Didn't I tell you to go ahead with extra promos two weeks ago,
free up some commercial time?”

Joe said, “And I told
some bozo down there in promotion that same day to go ahead.”

Joe glanced at me. I
could read lie all over his face. He shrugged a
so what

Jay leaned forward and
addressed Joe. “Who in promotion did you tell to go ahead with preempting
commercials for promo spots, Galbo?”

“One of those Daffy
Duck grunts you got running around down there.”

Jay said, “I'm certain
no one passed the go-ahead to me or anyone else….”

“You calling me a
liar?” Joe started to stand.

Berry said, “Sit down
Galbo, take a chill pill.” He made another note on his legal pad. As he wrote,
he said, “The point is we haven’t been running enough promo spots for Peggy.
Who cares who told who?”

Jay said, “I'm certain
that nobody was advised to go ahead with….”

“Can it.” Berry
sneered and made another note. “Procrastination is the thief of time, Speaker.
Better get on the ball, boy. Time and tide wait for no man.”

I looked at Joe then
Berry and saw, opening like a new book, the lie at work—crackling with promise
but, after the first page, drivel. And I saw that Berry saw it and I saw that
Joe saw that he saw it and I recognized the universal grab and I saw the sign
that confirmed it—Joe's cheeks twitched. Then I sensed a presence rising in the
room, around ankle high, like nasty stuff in a cesspool. And there was a sound
like gnawing rats and I smelled spice and sweet perfume and something rancid
mixed in with the rotting paper and waste. I felt a sick grin covering my face.
Then I heard words looking back at me that I had said, “If I'm wrong, fuck
right!”

Berry looked
surprised.

Joe said, “Jesus
Christ.”

I felt some other
person getting up, going for the door.

Berry said, “Where you
going, Carr?”

“I forgot something.”

“Sit goddamn down!”

I sat.

Berry made another
note, shook his head, said to Jay, “You messed up again Speaker. Day late and a
dollar short.” He glanced at Joe, shook his head the way my math teacher did
when giving me an F.

Berry stood and said,
“That's all I have.” He looked at Joe and me. “See you two guys at 4:00.”

* * *

Leaving Berry's
meeting Jay intercepted me at Otis. We went to my office. He seemed distant,
outside of time. He kept saying things like: “One day you wake up and realize
you might never be anything more than what you always feared you'd only be.

“Biggie wiggie went to
market and biggie wiggie found the market had been sold. Sold to a hog butcher
blood red and dripping. Greed begetting greed in a sea of sameness.”

Then, from a long long
way off, he said, “The thing of it is, Jack, you just can never go back and
yell ‘olly olly’ in free.”

He touched my desk
with his fingertips. “You ever get the urge to just leave it all, go to some
place where you could be plain you and others could be plain them.”

I said, “If you ever
find that place let me know.”

“I think maybe it's
not a place but a time and maybe we'll never get there because we lived it and
we lost it.” He went to the door, looked back, and said, “Thanks for
listening.”

I noticed, very small
and thin as a dime, time seemed to stand still and something didn't fit. Then
there he was, flushing up out of Jay. The creep had been feeding on me too.

I stood. “Jay, let's
talk some more.”

“Why?” He left.

* * *

Noon-ish, driving to
Krystal for lunch, Sago filled me in on the latest S-Stuff. “Some Chuck guy out
of Houston has his fingers in a chinchilla pie.”

Arrived Krystal, Sago
had a double cheese, large fries, and a root beer. I had a chicken sandwich and
a cola.

Driving back to the
station, we stopped at a Par Mart, Eskimo Pie for Sago, he commented that he
hadn't seen much of me lately, nights, Angelo was asking too. The Petes at The
Green Onion were concerned. I told him I had been busy with, ah, ah….

Like I said, he could
see chicken tracks on a concrete road, he knew who the
ah ah
was. He
said, “That's going to blow up in your face Kemosabe, in one of these not to
distant days.”

“Thank you counselor
Yu.”

The gathering at 4:00
in Berry’s office, to view Peggy's premier, started on a sour note. Supposed to
be at the station by 3:00, a little after 4:15 Peggy had not yet arrived.

I sat at the bar, coat
off, tie loosened, and, being an expert in such matters, knew 3:00 meant around
4:00 to Peggy.

But time-is-money
Berry, I guess unfamiliar with Peggy’s time, looking blotchy, a second
Manhattan South in hand, began to pace between his desk and window, fiddling
with his silver TV12 cufflinks.

Mid pace, he stopped,
said, “Is Peggy's Dillards outfit here, Carr, all ready to go on that?”

He asked that this
morning. I said cheerfully, “Yep.”

I glanced to Joe.
Seeming uninterested, his dark blue suit coat draped over a chair, he sprawled
on the sofa and sucked on a can of diet Pepsi.

 
Around 4:25, I noticed Berry's office had
become cold like a mausoleum on a dark winter afternoon and Berry looked like
he might throw up.

As I dragged Salem to
the filter and crushed it out, Berry riveted me. “Well, Mr. Hotshot News Director,
where is your fucking goddamn weather talent?”

After a moment to
catch my breath, loosening my tie another notch, I said, “She'll show up. Trust
me.”

Joe spit a bit of
fingernail to the side.

Berry ambled to his
desk and kicked it. “For your sake, she better.”

I pinched myself.
Yep,
you're here.

A pause in the script,
I sipped and was thinking of another favorite quote of Aunt Janes' from Ecclesiastes:
better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.

Makes sense, I
thought, because this ending, even before the beginning has begun, has ended
and, for the past two weeks, rehearsing, playing games, I knew I knew it. Then
I thought, how funny it is, when we begin weaving a beginning, the end each day
gets further away, and when you hold on it disappears.

The wall clock struck
4:30. Half hour to premiere airtime and still no Peggy.

Berry, sitting behind
his desk, Manhattan South in hand, mumbled, “I can't fucking believe this.”
Then, sweat rings seeping through his underarms, he stood, ripped off his coat,
and slung it to the floor. “Biggest day in this station's fucking goddamn
history and it gets guffawed.” He removed his cufflinks, threw them on his
desk, and rolled up his sleeves.

Big Joe sighed a long
satisfied smile.

Just then the buzzing
of Berry's private line sliced the room.

Berry hiccuped.

Joe looked at me.

The phone buzzed
again. Berry stared at the phone like it might bite him.

It buzzed again.

Picking up, the
speaker on, he slurred, “Flayzer.”

Peggy said, “Hi
there.”

Berry burped: “Where
ares ya darlin?”

“Pulling in the drive
now.”

Berry dropped the
receiver, stumbled to his window, and looked out.

Peggy's voice over the
speaker: “Hello.”

Joe in a loud whisper:
“That broad is so dumb I'll bet she has to have a road map to get home at
night.”

Peggy: “Berry, you
there?”

Emitting an awful
sound, Berry ran to his bathroom.

Joe stood, looked
surprised, walked to the bathroom door and called, “Berry, you okay in there?”

I stepped up and
peeked in. Yep. Kneeling, Berry vomited into his bidet. I said to Joe, “You
want to do tonight’s Pheasant & Grouse presentation?”

CHAPTER 2

Real Time

6:01:00 P.M. CDT

In Felix The Cat's
Kitten dressing room, Gillian readied herself for work. Her Kitten costume,
slightly snug, enhanced her bronze complexion. Turquoise eye shadow deepened
the rum color of her eyes and a new layer of white gloss enhanced her full lips.
She brushed out the blonde highlights in her shoulder-length caramel-colored
hair. A hint of tabu spice perfume on each wrist, four inch heels put her at 6
feet 3 inches. She was getting better at walking on the stilettos.

 
CHAPTER
3

Jack’s
Time

Peggy's premiere
weather show over, I broke the news to her that the scheduled Pheasant &
Grouse presentation party had been cancelled, Berry ill, Joe had taken him
home.

She seemed disappointed,
not in Berry, but the canceled publicity. “What about the news story, the promo
shoot?”

“Guess we'll have to
reschedule.”

“Poop.”

She suggested we go
somewhere anyway, have dinner, a drink.

She hinted that we
take her Cadillac (air conditioned, her hairdo, shoulder length, now platinum,
the consistency of cotton candy, needed to be preserved for her 10:00 o’clock
weather show).

* * *

Her somewhere ended up
being the Rebel Lounge at The Berry, I drove. Her hand on my thigh, sitting in
the middle of the front seat, Peggy's Dillards outfit—navy three button jacket,
matching skirt, white blouse with collar tips that touched her shoulders, white
high heels—didn't mesh with her image, but advertising is advertising. She lit
a Parliament, and asked, “So what happened to Berry?”

“Got sick.”

“Sick? What kind of
sick?”

“I don't know. Just
sick. Flu. I don't know.”

“Did he like my show?”

“He didn't see it.”

“I thought you were
going to watch in his office?”

A little strung out,
“He saw some of it, okay?”

“Jack, don't be that
way.” She rubbed my thigh. “What did he say?”

“He liked it.” I
closed my eyes, opened them. Still here and I almost rear-ended a pickup truck.