Time and Chance (3 page)

I was familiar with
the story—known about it for a week. Other TV12 staffers had learned of it, at
a meeting in Studio B, this past Friday morning. The move concerned an event at
TV12 that the world, at least mine, was not ready for.

I looked, below the
newspaper headline, at a 4x6 color photograph with the caption—L-R: Berry
Frazer, Joe Galbo, Jack Carr.

As I focused more
closely on the photo, it came to mind that I looked like a lightweight standing
beside two Happy Valley giants. I studied Berry—carrot-colored hair (most of it
a rug), blue eyes, long thin nose, small mouth, pointed chin. Just turned
thirty-seven, the photo didn't show his plumbing problems and bad back. His
plumbing problem is what is called “hyperhidrosis”, i.e. excessive
perspiration. He also has a chronic drippy nose which he blames on the Tylox
medicine he takes for his back pain. An avid amateur photographer, he likes to
take, I had heard, pictures of women in their knickers, on their knees, or
both, from various angles. He is also into big game, as in hunting wild
animals, which he kills, has the heads stuffed, and mounted on his office
walls.

The other
distinguished gentleman in the photo, Joe Galbo, looked like a Mack Truck
crossing the white line and coming at 60mph. His passion was intimidation and
he loved goose liver.

I flipped to page 1D
and read:

TV12's General Sales Manager Joe.
B. Galbo has been named Assistant General Manager of local CBS affiliate, WBFN-TV12.
On making the announcement, Berry Frazer, owner, President, and CEO of WBFN,
commented, “Joe is a dollar-a-holler salesman, started his career selling radio
advertising at WDTF in Chattanooga.”

Galbo, a native of Chattanooga,
before moving to Nashville three months ago, was General Sales Manager at WATT-TV
Atlanta. Joe said, “When Berry called, I had to think about it. Then when he
came up with an unbelievable package, I couldn't turn it down. It's hard to say
no to Berry Frazer.” Joe assumes his new duties as Assistant General Manager
immediately (More at 3D).

I took a deep breath,
rubbed my head, clicked my silver Zippo, lit a Salem, turned to page 3D, and
read on:

Once a Nashville broadcasting
giant, WBFN-TV12 lost its founder, Lamar Frazer, last year. As Berry said,
“Daddy bought the farm. Momma gave me the TV station to run. Then, God rest her
soul, she died six months after daddy.” Berry went on to say, “I had worked in
the family business all my life, part-time then taking over as General Manager.
Love to sell. So TV, it comes natural to me.”

With the announcement of Galbo's
appointment, Berry added, “With Joe Galbo's Atlanta 'big market expertise', we
hope to get our overall numbers back on top.” He added, “Our news is gold,
solid as a rock.”

Channel 12 News Director, Jack
Carr (third from left in photo) was not available for comment.

I read on:

TV12 was put on the air by
Berry's father, broadcast pioneer Lamar Frazer. Originally WNAS-TV (Lamar
signed on WNAS-AM in broadcasting's infancy) when Berry took over, he changed
the call letters of the TV station to WBFN-TV (BFN for Berry Frazer Nashville),
revamped local programming, and began
The Sizzle
promotion campaign.

Regarding the recent changes,
local advertising agency movers and shakers have speculated openly that the TV
industry behemoth (popularly known as TV12) is charging blindly around, looking
for an identity, when it doesn't need to. A TV12 insider, who wishes to remain
anonymous, contends that Berry's changes have hastened the sudden drop in the
station's sign-on to sign-off ratings. The insider added, “It's all since the
Kid [Berry] took over.”

As to sign-on to sign-off
ratings, NBC affiliate Channel 3 has overtaken TV12 and is now number one in
Nashville. ABC's Channel 5 comes in second. TV12 is third while FOX's Channel 8
is fourth.

One silver lining, a main stay,
has been Channel 12's news ratings that have stayed on top mainly due to the
strength of weather icon Luther Mays.

100% of the stock of TV12 is
owned by Berry Frazer. The TV station is a subsidiary of Smoky Mountain
Broadcasting, Inc., which recently expanded its portfolio when Berry opened The
Berry Inn, a 100 room hotel which features the gourmet French restaurant The
Pheasant & Grouse.

* * *

Contemplating what
gourmet really meant, I put the paper down and remembered what Terri had many
times told me, “Two plus two does not always equal four.” She also said, “Truth
is not cheap.” She was a gem. Anyway, I conjugated two plus two. It came up
three. Berry didn't work in the business all his life. His mother, Libby, had
brought him in just a year ago, after his father's death. Then, this past
January, his mother died. Before that, Lamar had actually thrown Berry out.
That was the scoop anyway, pretty much confirmed by a couple of people, one
being my right-arm assistant, Joy Lambert. Joy had been with the station for twenty
years. The way she put it, Berry worked in the family business, part-time,
while he attended high school. Then, when he flunked out of Memphis State, he
took over as General Manager. Then, ten years ago, in her words, “The you-know-what
hit the fan”. Evidently Berry had gotten himself into, in Joy's words, “a pinch
with gambling”. Turns out, somebody was putting the pinch on Lamar to pay off
Berry's gambling debts. The payoff, Joy said, was reported to be “a pretty big
wad … in the neighborhood of a million” (she said she heard some days he
wagered thousands). She also said, it was rumored, about the debt, that Berry
might find himself the ingredients in a can of Puss & Boots cat food. She
explained that Lamar and Berry argued off and on for weeks over the payoff.
Then, Joy said, Libby told Lamar to pay the debt or else. At the last family,
what Joy called, “come home to prayer meeting” in Lamar's office, Berry threw a
coffee cup at his father, called him a dumb hillbilly. Lamar booted Berry out,
paid off the debt and that was that. Joy could not know for sure, but she had
heard, after that, Lamar disinherited Berry but, her only son, Libby never did.

I believe Joy. What
she said coincided with what I, in my six year stint at TV12 (Lamar had hired
me, liked me, promoted me to News Director, we saw eye to eye on many things),
had read between the lines.

To wit, I knew that
Berry, before his father died, had been selling cars at Bobby B's
Ford Auto
World
. Berry would come to the station when Lamar was out of town, pass out
his business card, and relate how he left the family business so he could be
his own man, strike out on the world. He related that it was the best thing he
ever did; around the showroom of Bobby B's his nickname had become “Close
Frazer”.

I sipped some black
coffee and again conjugated two plus two. Came up five this time. I thought,
newspaper is wrong or Berry lied, or both. And, one other thing the newspaper
forgot to mention: the rumor that Berry was looking to unload TV12, as in sell
the farm. One company said to be interested in purchasing the station is
S&W Broadcasting, a media giant out of Denver. The deal is reportedly for
about fifty million, plus a contract for Berry to stay on as General Manager
for, sources said, five years at $200,000 a year plus goodies. The negotiations
had started last month, would need to be finalized, then get FCC approval. From
what I had heard, a goodly chunk of the fifty million would cover Berry's
venture into the hotel business. You see, his new hotel, The Berry Inn, is
reported to be in a red hole falling in on itself.

I took a puff, flipped
back to page 1, and pondered another Tennessean news story:

RAIN RAIN RAIN

Nashville has been hit by the
worst deluge in recent memory. Some predict thirty year flood levels. Many
streets are impassable. On the brighter side, ever optimistic TV12's senior
meteorologist, Luther Mays says the worst is over, his left shoulder is back to
normal. Luther added in one of his patented remarks, “We only had five days a’
rain and people are starting to build arks.” He chastised other Nashville TV
weather casters for spreading what he called “Giddy rumors of a thirty-year
flood to fetch a rating point or two”.

* * *

FYI, Luther reports
our Monday through Friday 5:00, 6:00 and, 10:00 P.M. weather casts. Nashville's
native son and TV12's granddaddy weather person emeritus, Luther attends every
PTA bean supper within fifty miles of Nashville and some beyond. He belongs to
Lions, Rotary, and Kiwanis civic clubs. Silver hair—icon, advertising movers
and shakers consider him “the rock of local broadcasting”. Luther had started
in radio with Lamar forty years ago.

I noticed my phone
ringing. The answering machine on, after two rings, robot said, “Hello, no one
is available to take your call at the moment, please leave a message after the
tone.”

A beep, then Joe
Galbo's voice, “Carr, ya there, pick up.” Heavy breathing. “Carr.” Mumbling.
“Carr, this is Galbo, call me at home.”

Click
.

I lit another Salem
and clicked on my television to check out our 6:00 P.M. News. The set, tuned to
my favorite station, Channel 58, Turner Classic Movies, Bogart, in Key Largo,
had just shot E.G. Robinson. I waited until Bogart safely headed Santana back
to the Largo Hotel then surfed down toward Channel 12. At Channel 46, a
preacher caught my eye. I stopped. Tenth Baptist Church of the Mount of Olives,
Jimmy Ray Carter, huffed like a Hooterville steam engine:

“…and what if Noah, ah haa, listened to his
neighbors, ah haa, had not built that ark, ah haa, ten cubits long and twenty
cubits wide, ah haa, we'd all a been up the creek, somebody say hey—men, ah
haa. Shum da la mum mum. All in my new book,
Big Water Coming
, donation of $5.95 or more….”

I said to Jimmy Ray,
“If Noah had heeded his laughing neighbors, none of this would be necessary,
now would it.”

Jimmy Ray continued:

“For $10.95, we'll include this prayer towel
dipped in Jordan River water … shum da la mum, go la tha ka, shum da la mum mum….”

I said to Jimmy Ray,
“You're cashing in. Wonder how God is doing?”

Jimmy into more shum
da la mums, I muted the set. His speaking in tongues brought back the evening
when my Aunt Jane persuaded Terri and me (we were at the grasping-at-anything
stage, they had stopped treatment, taken three month old Francesca) to go with
her to a healing service at her Pentecostal Church. Reverend Ray Molino, five
foot two, black hair (gray eyebrows), inky eyes, played a ruby red Gibson
guitar, sang Beulah Land. After the singing, Molino, chanting the same shum da
la mum gobbledygook, opened a wooden box and pulled out a six foot rattlesnake.
Terri whispered to me “Let's get the hell out of here.” I held her hand.

Looking the snake in
the eye, Molino rolled his eyes back and shouted that he had the faith of Paul
of Tarsus. Aunt Jane took (actually sort of dragged) Terri up front to get
healed. Molino laying hands on Terri, proclaimed her whole. Tarsus Paul
evidently out to lunch, the snake bit Molino. He died quickly. After the
meeting Aunt Jane quoted her favorite time and chance Bible verse from
Ecclesiastes. I know it by heart:

“The race is not to
the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet
riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and
chance happens to them all.”

Back then I didn't
understand. Now, I figure the time part has to be God's. I believed that, still
do, like the moon is made of green cheese and frogs eat man legs. Look around.
Three fourths of the planet lives on mystery and water. The other fourth lives
off mystery and miracles. I mean, time, I can understand. But chance … is that
like luck? I mean, what is luck? And what was God doing as Molino died,
laughing or crying?

Six month after the
snake got Molino, Terri died. Aunt Jane told me she had passed on to be with
Jesus. I wanted to go too. I should mention, Aunt Jane was my ‘parents’ since I
could remember. Another long story.

I clicked to our news,
watched thirty seconds, snapped the TV off, and started to think of what-ifs. I
often try to analyze the little what-if jokes from above, which invariably got
around to free will, which is always a mistake.

A blast of lightning
hit pretty close to my balcony. I glanced at the time, 6:35. Then the thunder.
“I need a drink, maybe two.”

Thinking of a good
place to analyze things, I remembered what Sago had said yesterday about
Snakebite Walker and S-Stuff. So a logical analyze site seemed to be
Snakebite’s joint, Felix The Cat. I could not only analyze what-if but also do
some sniffing around.

Quickly I showered,
shaved, and pulled on a pair of jeans, my sienna cowboy boots, a white polo
shirt, brushed my hair, noted, in the brush, a few more threads of silver,
grabbed my white London Fog jacket, and headed for the door.

On the way out, the
phone began ringing. I went back and checked caller ID. It was TV12.