Season 2 Chapter 4

My mother calls it the Sunday Sadness.

When she was growing up in a dry county, you were shit outta booze and luck once a week. There are plenty of things to turn you off religion: the mindless allegiance, the subconscious placement of guilt, the ritual, the proselytizing – not to mention getting rapped on the knuckles or having your junk diddled. But Mamma couldn’t stand giving up her savior for another, so eventually she gave up the holy ghost and sought greener, wetter pastures. When I was older, I understood what she meant, and I found I had my own version of it.

Even though I worked whenever I wanted to, or had to, for the most part it was Monday to Friday gig, and the weekends were free to sleep off gin benders from Lakers games or dodge phone calls from my ex-wife. And because I knew I was going back to work on Mondays and that glorious, self-indulgent time was coming to an end; it always put a damper on my Sundays. I have the same problem when I’m on vacation. Once I’m past the halfway point and time is running down, it’s the same feeling. Reality starts to creep in, schedules reform and routines reappear. Sometimes, when I’d wake up in the morning, it would hit me and ruin the rest of the day. If I was distracted enough, I’d forget about the pressing issues there and it wouldn’t hit until maybe dinnertime, or if I was lucky nine or ten.

There’s a little picture frame I keep by my desk that I got as a gift from this very hip gal I dated way back when my waist and age were roughly the same number. It’s not a picture, although she was a gorgeous little number. I bet she still looks damn good now. Like Marisa Tomei-you’re-forty-plus-and-you’re-still-getting-naked-and-convincingly-playing-strippers good. It’s a piece of art, and while modern art to me is basically bullshit, this is a photo print of Jenny Holzer’s Bench # 16, which is just the following words:

SOME DAYS YOU WAKE AND
IMMEDIATELY START TO WORRY.
NOTHING IN PARTICULAR IS WRONG,
IT’S JUST THE SUSPICION THAT
FORCES ARE ALIGNING QUIETY
AND THERE WILL BE TROUBLE.

I love that because it’s perfectly that feeling. In fact, when things are not tinged with that underlying tension, it actually worries me. When you're so used to things being one way - even if they're not necessarily good, to have it be different is bad.

Anyway, It was going pretty well so far. This cholo gangbanger’s mattress at the bagel shop undercharged me for the coffee and toasted everythings with vegetable smear. Clearly she spent more time getting “PACO” tatted in majestic Old English letters on her neck than in the remedial math class at her continuation school. Then I got a glimpse down that hippie-whore Apuri’s loose poncho top, and even for popping out a pair of kids, her thin frame snapped back to pre-parental form and her tits looked pretty good. But those perky apples left my mind the minute Melissa called and said that Fran suffered an myocardial infarction. He was going to be at St. Gloria’s for another couple of days while they ran tests. Now I was going to have to shoot the Lone Ranger without Tonto. Spurred by the sad news about my cohort, it was full blown Sunday Sadness.

---

The office was buzzing with the news about Fran, which elevated the mood to slightly above suicide bombing witness. Rather than watch everybody mope about and stuff their fat fucking faces as they confronted their own mortality with the false comfort of doughnuts and sticky buns, I packed my shit up early and headed over to St. Gloria’s. Melissa was sitting in his room, and while she was clearly struggling with the situation, she smiled and was genuinely glad to see me there. I filed that image away for safe-keeping, since it was rare. What, you don’t think I’m acutely aware how fine that like is of being liked and tolerated? Melissa told me to spend a few minutes with Fran and went to the lobby kiosk for a bottle of water to give me some time alone with patient zero.

There were tubes and cords and wires all over him, and he looked like an oversized, pale Muppet getting cyber-tentacle raped. Not his finest hour. Fran’s eyes were closed and if I didn’t check the EKG monitor, would have questioned he was breathing. I sat beside the gurney bed and thought for a moment about how much the segments were going to suck without him on the other side of the camera.

“You stubborn bastard,” I said softly to him. “I would have given you the window seat.” For the first time in a long time I felt anxious about covering a segment. “Don’t spend too long in here. Me and the rest of the taxpayers would rather pull the plug and give the money to an illegal immigrant to have another child at County.” He didn’t open his eyes or move. “You let me know how your exposé on the American health care system goes. And then get your ass back to work. They’re counting these a vacation days.” Still no response, so we just shared the room in silence for a little while.

I put my hand on his shoulder as I got up and leaned in a little closer. I could smell ammonia, the faint hint of disinfectants, the stale fabric of sheets laundered daily for years, and the unwashed musk of a man. Fuck hospitals. They’re depressing as shit. “Hurry up, young man, so we can get back to business,” I said sincerely. I passed Melissa coming back up the stairs, and she looked at me surprised I was leaving so quickly. “Since he’s sleeping, I don’t want to bother him.”

“That’s odd…we were talking, and when I saw you coming down the hall and told him, he said he was excited you were here.”

I winced, but have to admit I was impressed. On my way out I ducked into the nurse’s station and saw his chart. What? There was no bowel exam scheduled for Fran? I guess they forgot to put that in the notes from their last shift. Yes, colorectal examination needed due to concerns of bowel obstruction. Patient prone to spastic jerking of the limbs and petite seizures, so please restrain and provide mouthguard.

Enjoy your tangeremons.

---

The flight put me in at La Guardia before the locals woke up, which made me happy that there’d be only the slightest of traffic getting out of there. Our travel coordinator told me that one of the local cable system affiliates was lending us a crew and driver given Fran’s new condition. In the baggage area I saw a kid holding the CNC logo on a paper, scanning the travelers herd through and past. Somewhere in upstate, there’s a field missing it’s scarecrow.

"Order some golf shoes," I whispered. "Otherwise, we'll never got out of this place alive..."

Another brilliant Hunter S. Thompson quote wasted on the young and stupid.

“Listen up, Shakespeare – do you know where were going,” I quizzed him? He nodded, so I followed his lead, and by the time he pulled the car out of the airport, I was laid out in the backseat. I came to in the parking lot a spit shot aware from the interstate, and the boy wonder was gone. I saw him inside the diner taking a token for the restroom, so I figured if we we’re taking a break I’d get a cup of coffee. The elderly lady behind the counter fixed me up as Kevin came out of the crapper. “Want some coffee, Kevin?”

“My name’s not Kevin,” he protested.

“Sure it is, Shakespeare. It’s Kevin.” Point to me.

Wisely knowing not to pursue it, we resumed our trek, which was barely five sips of coffee down the road. The Poughkeepsie neighborhood looked as though it barely changed from the first time television cameras captured Wes Kitney.

I asked Kevin, “How long until the crew arrives?” and he replied “they’re here”. Yet I saw him rummaging through the trunk. Kevin pulled out a boom pole and a small camera bag. “Oh don’t tell me,” I whined. Kevin smirked. Point for him.

“Okay, here’s how I like to do things. Lav me up and just keep the camera rolling. A lot of this is one-take stuff, but a little goes a long way as long as it doesn’t look like we’re all stuck in one spot. Signal me if you’re running out of battery or space, otherwise don’t turn it off. Cool?” He understood and put the wireless lavaliere on my coat pocket, and we went down the gravel drive way at the Kitney household. Before we got to the door to knock, it was already open. Apparently ol’ Wes really wasn’t using those rubbers, because standing before us was a nearly identical looking man, with only a slightly updated wardrobe and hairstyle from the one in the old footage.

Randall Kitney introduced himself, as I extended my hand and exchanged mine and Kevin’s name. Not that he wasn’t polite, but I was unhappy to be dealing with Son of Condomball, though he did have a fairly good story.

“Pop’s got neurosyphilis.” Apparently, somebody bought the illusion and lined up to be one of Wes’ conquests.

Junior led us around the house towards the freestanding barn-door style garage. Kevin did pretty well for being the president of the high school AV club, moving around us as we made our way, clearly trying to make it seem like 13 cameras were involved. He’d run around with the boom pole wrapped in one arm craning above him and the other hand operating the camera, and even with the battery pack and portable recording gear, Kevin was both graceful and silent. It’s nice when people actually listen to what you say rather than just be waiting to speak. Randall was telling me how ever since Wes got sick, he’s taken care of his father and kept the raincoat boulder a very minor local attraction.

He went to wheel his invalid father out for the program and I gave Kevin some ideas that were developing at the same time as the words formed on my lips. I like to narrate over the shots and cut to the Q+A for more impact, so without Fran knowing my style, there was only so much instinct I could expect Kevin to react upon. It’s a little something I felt gave the stories an extra dimension, with the direct reporter’s interaction as well as a narrator’s perspective. I’m not even bitter that the Datelines and 20/20s of the televised news magazine world adopted it for their programs…I like to think of that as my unsung heroism and contribution to this industry. Kevin was trained well, and he obediently nodded in understanding, agreeing with my directorial and pre-editing choices. I suspect he would have made further praise for my plans, but didn’t want to be kiss-assy, which is also okay. Nobody, least of all me, likes a suck up.

Wes Kitney rolled in like diseased royalty on his wheelchair chariot. As the son resembled a past copy of this man, the future version was not something he’d be looking forward to. Wes wore a leather headband but it was lost mostly in a torrent of stringy long white hair, which where it ended sprouted a bountiful beard. He wore a kaftan or wrap – I don’t really know (or care) what the actual name was, but it was like Gandalf appearing. The Lord of the Cockrings spoke:

“Have you come to come to see it? Are you ready to gaze upon its awesome majesty? Let it be a warning to thee!” He planted his feet and stood beckoning, like Moses, wide armed, waiting for divine light to shine on him. Wes was out of his fucking mind, and that makes the most interesting television. Randall pulled the doors open, and there it was – 10 glorious feet in diameter, made of dry, worn latex, lambskin, and polyurethane. The years had been equally unkind to the ball as they’d been to it’s creator. Had the roof not exposed it to sunlight and water, it would look more robust, and there wouldn’t be a small tangle of sticks forming a bird nest near the rear of the equator. But there is was, the eventual bane of Wes Kitney’s existence.

Wes pulled his garb off, and standing there now in only the shirt he wore underneath, started yelling at the sex monolith. I swear I almost got an erection as the viral video clip of it spread around the web. Then I saw the shirt. The E logo. The big fucking block letters. Ephimria. Son of a bitch.

Kevin was covering the ranting madman condemn promiscuity and I pulled Randall aside. I’m trying to look cheerful, but I’m kinda pissed. But with as much sweetness as I can sprinkle on it, I ask, “What’s with the old man and the powder?”

“My Dad has been a tier 3 manager for a while now. We don’t make that much from the gift shop, so most of our income comes from supplying our territory and adding new distributors,” Randall grinned. The look they get on their face when they talk about their organization and products is the expression I picture before they put on the track suits, drink their magic juice and launch off heaven’s catapult.

In a rec center or Elk’s Lodge somewhere, Mason Burnett is greasing the wheels of commerce, pushing his way up the Ephimria executive ladder by overseeing barnstorming tours across the countryside, and he looks at the travel schedule. For some reason, his eyes are drawn to the date in lower New York State. Weeks later he arrives and a partially-crippled father and son who are just starting with the introductory pack of handbooks and 2 weeks of supplements share their background and faith in the Ephimria program, which resonate with him. At a holiday dinner, he pitches the company to his father, who agrees to open his vast network of resources to promote the product. One day, Mason opens a portfolio of investment opportunities generated by their financial analysts, closes his eyes, and finds his finger has come down on a boutique channel, which he turns on and finds a charming program that revisits the odd and obscure news of days past. He decides that will be his Omaha Beach.

I’m certain this is how it went down.

We try and do a little more history since the first story, but each time Wes goes down memory lane to lookout point with the girl next door, he inevitably ends back at his adamant safe-sex stance, which I think is a positive message to put out there. I just wish he didn’t have to keep insisting “everybody wrap your prick” each time he tried to advance his point.

After, we shoot a short segment where Kevin pretends to be a tourist, and Randall woodenly reforms a sale in the storage shed that has been renovated of its shelves to house various useless shit. I don’t like to add things that aren’t natural or real, but any boost they can get off selling their crappy wares instead of that fairy powder and brainwashing pamphlets I’ll support. Kevin looks like an absolute idiot wearing a too tight powder blue tee shirt with a smiling condom running away from what looks like a ball of yarn but is supposed to be the dickbag orb, and spilling out from all ends is his red and brown flannel long sleeve. Even though its a goof as far as I’m concerned, Randall insists that Kevin take the souvenir, which pains him to have to wear as much as it delights me.

It’s a quiet drive afterwards on the way to Greencastle. Kevin is still wearing that awful shirt because I said so, and while he sulks, I’m engrossed in my own battle plans. They all end up like outtakes and derivations from the movie Nine To Five, but mine are less successful, and Mason Burnett is too sharp to be played like Dabney Coleman. Beyond that I keep getting stuck between 80’s Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton for who was hotter, so I reject any of those scenarios, except the ones with Fonda and Parton, which I plan on delving deeper into before I go to sleep. Kevin is nowhere to be found after I take a few minutes to settle into my motel room. The man behind the front desk has to think hard, but figures out who I’m talking about and tells me that I’m the only room booked, which is even more interesting to me when I realize I don’t have any way to contact Kevin. He knows the schedule for the interview, so I hope he’ll be back by then.

Guess that makes us even for the shirt.

---

It’s Thursday morning and I’m watching and rewatching the raw footage after it’s been dumped onto my computer back at the office, taking notes what ADR needs to go over the parts that look goods but are non essential. Fran is now going to be enjoying extended medical leave now that he’s been discharged, which leads me to believe that with the right amount of milking and finesse Fran can ride that wave of checks and compensation into the sunset of retirement. Good for him. Cutting through the usual scent of coffee and despair was Jasmine Noir by Bulgari, which let me know that Sadie was behind me, and that she was meeting with somebody important, because that was her preferred “power odor”. Yeah, I heard her telling that to some of the other office girls once.

“Go away.” That always started the conversation for me at a more controllable point.

“What are you doing,” Sadie pressed on by saying. As if it wasn’t obvious.

“Kidd Video actually did a decent enough job, but it wasn’t Fran. And who knows when it will be.” I kept watching the screen and jotting timecode down. I also liked having conversations when I didn’t want to have them engaged in the thing I was more interested in. “I just did what I felt was right, what was in my heart,” I say along with William Bryant Cumberton IV, who is in full Union battlefield regalia and on screen. I turn around to look at Sadie, and lip synch his words, “It’s my calling, and what I was meant to do. And that’s why it doesn’t feel like work.” She’s less impressed than I think she should be for memorizing his responses after going through it that many times, but mustered up a flash of her teeth just so she could dismiss it and get to what she wanted to say. But I wouldn’t let her have the floor that easily, and turned back to the video clips.

“The night prior, he took off and must have been helping the girls celebrate. Never thought there were too many straight fans, but I guess he’s one of them.”

Confused, though uncaring, Sadie politely asked “Who,” and I figured she meant who the gals, not who Kevin.

“The Lady Blue Devils. PIAA Class AAA state softball champs. And I thought Willie would be into them, even more than Kevin there, because they’ve both got the uniforms, the culture, organization. But you can‘t make generalizations, because in his anachronistic mind, only men played baseball back then, so he can barely appreciate the accomplishment. But I can. And for that, being the youngest practitioner or using the theme for, of all things, greeting cards, it just diminishes the rest to pointlessness.”

“Wow, Shel. You’ve not only advanced women’s lib but also put a dress up geek in his place. Please shower me with more of your keen insights into human nature.

“All I heard were the words ‘shower’ and ‘me’, so if there’s more you better repeat it.”

“I just came by to see when you’re going out for your next segments. I don’t need the play by play of your trip.”

“Are you telling me this guy isn’t interesting?” I paused the frame where Lieutenant Cumberton stood with his boot on a pile of artillery, looking attentively through the binoculars of his day. “I see a woman in the future, who does not find my moustache and tasseled gloves sexy. At least there’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ amongst the Yankees!”

“Just let me know when that’s going to be…I’m just getting involved as a favor.” What was she talking about?

“What are you talking about?”

“Cami Theroux, Regional Food Network?” Okay. So what?

“So what?”

“Gonna be your shadow the next time you go out.”

I turned back around again. “And why the hell would that be?”

Sadie shook her head. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty, cuz you’re not so bright,” and blew a kiss off her hand to me as she headed down the hall. Shit. Shitty fucking shit shit. They’re bringing in a goddamn co-host. Or worse. I stuck my head out into the hall. “Five to ten,” I yelled at her. “It was five to ten…you said it yourself.” So much for their wait-and-see attitude before turning everything upside down on me.

I was getting odd looks from the rabble, so I turned to the neared one, a middle aged woman who handled something with clearances. “Statutory rape,” I said deadpan. “You’d think a young man would look forward to an experienced older lady, but it can be scary. She can be scary. The little guy never had a chance. She deserves the full ten.”