John Timm
The HR director at the radio station called on Friday, said she needed me to sign some kind of non-disclosure papers tied to my severance agreement and health insurance. I told her I’d be there Monday morning. So it’s already Tuesday. Big effen deal.
###
Bert Novak is tempted to reach beneath the bed for what he likes to call the hair of the dog that bit ya’, holding back more out of pain than willpower. Lifting his head more than a few inches off the pillow produces an agony he can not only feel, but see. Bright flashes, disorienting flashes so brilliant they light up the otherwise darkened room like summer lightning.
He finally sits up, swinging his feet over the side of the bed, struggling to be positive, hoping to shake the off the lightning and the physical vestiges of the previous day—or was it days?—a shower of dandruff scales, hacked up phlegm, haunted breath. More traces deeply embedded still circulate through his veins and arteries as he fights to steady himself on the way to the bathroom.
Bert has been trying. Practicing patience. Hoping to cope. No one can deny him the effort. He’s sought counseling and rehab before. Many times. Now he is back at it again, back trying to restore the Bert Novak everyone knew and idolized, the Bert Novak that used to be. This is just a temporary setback. As they say when you’re in recovery, “Live one day at a time.”
###
He had been many men to many people. There was Bert Novak the husband, a man two women had loved and who once carried his name. There was Bert Novak the father, six children in all. Five girls and Donnie. And there was Bert Novak the entertainer, the informer, the unseen companion to thousands—millions over time—in an extended family that listened to The Bert Novak Radio Show Monday through Friday mornings 6 until 9 without fail.
On days when the pain permitted, Bert Novak would relive those twenty-five years he was the king of morning drive time radio, when the phone never ceased ringing with requests and song dedications, offers of paid endorsements and television appearances, countless propositions, even marriage proposals, never once letting on over the air that he was a family man after his own fashion, giving his all to his profession on weekdays, but tending to the flower beds, mowing the lawn, skimming leaves off the surface of the pool on weekends like any other respectable suburbanite.
Bert would often ask himself what had happened to the man who was not just a radio personality, but the personality of an entire city, rewinding, re-cueing, replaying the question again and again. At first, others asked the same question, but like the theme music at the end of his daily show, in time it did a slow fade to silence.
###
I’m one for six with my kids. Only Donnie’s ever kept close. I can’t blame my exes. I suppose they have a right. I haven’t always been that easy to live with. But what about the rest, the other five children who bear my name, my DNA? I mean, what the hell? They never visit, never bother to call. I get a birthday card from a couple of them—when they remember it. Maybe a brag letter Christmas. It’s the only chance I get to see my grandchildren. Pictures of them having fun in the snow up in the mountains, or at Sea World with people I don’t recognize. Whatever happened to “honor thy father,” a father who needs their love and understanding, their forgiveness now more than ever?
But that Donnie, he was always my pal, always loyal. He used to come with me on weekends to the live remote broadcasts. From little on, that kid really knew how to work a crowd. He loved helping me set up the equipment, loved talking with the listeners. They’d come in droves. He’d line them up so I could sign autographs. I remember one time some young thing in her twenties—and really good-looking—wanted me to autograph her bra. Afterwards I cautioned Donnie, “Nothing to your mother about this, got it?” I knew, of course, he’d never say a word.
I’m proud of Donnie for following in my footsteps, starting out at a small station in rural Kansas, and now he’s making waves in the medium-size markets, climbing that ladder, one rung away from where his dad hit the top. I just hope he doesn’t stumble off it like I did.
At his last gig, they made Donnie change his name. He told me the consultants thought the name sounded outdated. And Novak? Who knows? Maybe there’s a stigma attached to it. Anyway, nowadays he’s Frankie J. Foxx, a name born not of man, but out of many hours of focus group testing.
###
They called Bert into the general manager’s office right after he got off the air—on a Monday morning, of course. Mondays, that’s when the big things happen at radio stations. Larry Davis, the program director, was already seated on the long leather couch, legs crossed, a legal size manila folder on his lap. In an awkward gesture, Larry patted the cushion next to him, signaling it was okay for Bert to join him. The GM was sitting behind his desk, seemingly occupied, oblivious to the other two. The couch, strategically situated at a level below that of the GM, forced its occupants to look up at the big desk in a supplicating way that Bert had always hated. After a few minutes, the general sales manager, Stanley Greer, walked in, apologizing as he took a side chair over in a corner of the spacious room, a little out of the line of fire. “Weekly sales meeting. Ran over a little. Gotta’ get the team revved up.” Stanley carried his own manila folder. Two of them, in fact.
The GM looked at Larry Davis. Larry looked back at the GM, then over at Stanley. The ball bounced back to the GM who finally broke the silence. “There’s some issues we need to go over, Bert. We need to have a frank and open discussion.”
“Fine,” Bert said. “Go for it.” Bert had no illusions about this meeting. It just happened sooner than he expected.
“We’re worried about the direction of your program.” The GM looked to the other two to nod their approval. From there it became a round robin as they each took turns, opening their manila folders and launching into their issues, backed up by the latest Nielsen ratings, audience trends and ad sales figures for the past six months.
Larry Davis went first, going over the audience numbers in detail. He wrapped up, saying, “It’s pretty clear. We’re losing ground in the younger demographics where it counts.”
Bert asked, “Before we go further, can I say something?” The GM nodded and the others followed suit. “My overall audience ratings have never been higher—and that’s with competition coming at me from all sides. Nowadays, there’s Internet streaming, podcasts, millions of smartphone apps and SiriusXM on satellite. I’d say we’re doing pretty damn good, considering.”
Larry said, “Can’t deny you that, Bert. With total adult listeners, you’re still leading, but you’re losing younger listeners fast. In fact, your only gains are with listeners over 55.”
Stan Greer had sat back in his corner, biting his nails down to the quick like he always did, biding his time. Now he leaned forward. “My salespeople need good ratings to sell. And we’re getting cut out. Or we get the crumbs. Meanwhile, my monthly budgets keep going up.” He waved one of the manila folders.
“As long as we’re being frank and open, Stan, I have a question for you.” Stan stopped biting his nails and looked back over in the general direction of the couch. “We’re an AM talk station. And we have a format that’s always favored older listeners. And that’s what your sales department is supposed be selling, right?” Bert continued, “I’m doing my part. So, why do you hire salespeople who look like they’re fresh out of high school?”
Stan shot back without hesitation, his face reddened. “Number one, the agency people in this town are mostly under thirty, thirty-five max. There has to be an age match. The buyers and sellers need to relate to each other.”
Bert was not going to let Stan off easily. “But do they relate to the format? And to our audience?”
“Maybe not. But pretty faces—girls and boys—get through doors.” Stan and the GM exchanged smiles.
“And grey hairs don’t, right? I suppose that’s also why they don’t take me along on sales calls anymore. Am I right? Tell me, Stan. Yes?”
Tossing both his manila folders to the floor, Stan replied, “Bottom line, my salespeople are having a tough time selling you and your show. It’s that simple.”
The GM intervened. “This isn’t personal, guys. Let’s just keep it that way. Okay?”
The GM looked down at his vibrating cellphone, then looked up again. “Look, Bert, we’re all in agreement around here. You do a great show. You have a following. But we have to deal with the reality of the market, and the station needs to make budget. I don’t know how to make it any plainer than that.”
###
They gave me another six months. It was like a countdown, and from day one we all knew how it was going to end.
There’ve been a couple of guys who’ve followed after me, then hit the trail. That’s even more than I care to know. I’ve long since stopped listening to the station. I don’t subscribe to the trades anymore. I don’t read emails or answer phone calls from my old colleagues, either. The counselors tell me I’m wrong, that my friends and co-workers are part of my support system, blah, blah, blah. Where were they when I needed them? That’s easy—they’ve been busy saving their own necks, worried about the next wave of downsizing, the next swing of the ax.
###
I haven’t heard from Donnie for weeks. Maybe it’s months. He’s probably busy working his ass off somewhere, hoping to please the suits back in Chicago. Or at least keep them off his back. Been there, done that.
###
The Route 47 bus runs right past the apartment and stops within a block of the station. There are benches, with people waiting—you don’t see or care about those kind of things when you have a job, a car and a driver’s license. You just drive past it all. No second thoughts. Not even a sliver of awareness. There’s no need. It’s not your world. It belongs to somebody else, not you. Except now it does. Now it is your world. It belongs to you. And you to it.
There’s a new receptionist at the front desk. I tell her I’m there to see the HR director. She asks, “Is she expecting you?” I say, “Yesterday” and head for the small upholstered bench beneath the station call letters in the lobby. Places look different when you haven’t been there for a while. As I wait for the HR director, I look around at the walls, covered floor to ceiling with awards and photographs. I want to see if there is still a photo of me, and sure enough, in one corner there’s a small picture and a brass nameplate with dates engraved on it. Like on a tombstone.
The HR Director’s office is where it’s always been, right next to the general manager. The GM’s office is dark as I walk past. The big desk, the long couch, the side chairs are all still there. The GM is out on important business elsewhere, no doubt. Life and commerce go on, with or without Bert Novak. There’s no sign of Davis or Greer. They probably don’t work here anymore. As if I should care.
The HR director is new, on the job only a month; the revolving door just keeps on spinning and spinning. To her, Bert Novak is just a name on the top edge of a file folder. I ask, “Why are you bothering me now? It’s been nearly three years.”
Some kind of federal compliance, or so she says. Then, after a few moments, she admits under her breath the real reason, that the station is in the process of being sold. Again. “We need to make sure all the documents are in order. Keep it on the q.t. for now, okay?”
###
I decide to exit the building through the back door. Curiosity? Nostalgia? Who knows? My old office is vacant. Just somebody’s empty U-Haul moving boxes piled in one corner. I head down the corridor towards the studios. The production director sees me at the window of his studio. Ron Turney, one of the survivors, is recording a commercial. We both wave. Then Ron gives me a look I can’t decipher before turning back to the script and the microphone in front of him. I look into the on-air studio across the way. Ron’s reaction now makes perfect sense. There he is, my boy, my boy Donnie. He’s made it. He’s climbed all the rungs of the ladder.
###
Donnie Novak, a/k/a Frankie J. Foxx, looks up. He sees a man standing outside the studio window. He turns to refresh his computer screen. When he turns back, the man is gone, as if he never existed.