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CounterPunch
October
5, 2002
Concened Citizen: a serialized novel
by ANTHOHNY GANCARSKI
Click here to read
Episode One: Friendly Games.
Episode 2. "Helpline
Operator".
Script and Summative Comments
['70s cop drama, 30 min, color]
[Opens with standard montage of sedans,
blue and brown, tailfinned and otherwise, gliding over federally-funded
blacktop. Then the obligatory shots of people having evenings
out; white folks speaking, each to each, in bistros with virgin
white tablecloths and deferential brown waitpeople. The opening
theme, the jazz-fusion "Horehound's Groove", chikka-chikkaing
mid-tempo and mid-range as the familiar deadpan voice of TV's
Brock Horehound intones gravelly, secure in his poses as omniscient
oracular figure, director, and producer of the series.]
Horehound: There
are times when a man has to stand up for what he believes. Sometimes,
that willingness to risk your neck gets it cut off though. But
no matter. When times get tough, you go inside yourself and make
the best of things. I'm not on the force anymore, but I can still
do my part. I can still be a concerned citizen.
[IN KEEPING WITH THE FEEL OF THE SERIES,
which often is similar to that of a civics class filmstrip, we
start off with a slide show presentation. A number of pictures,
each spaced out in four-second intervals: a ghetto child, African-American,
staring bleakly out of windows streaked with grime that predates
the child's existence; a black and white shot of a row house,
windows boarded up as one might expect; a superannuated pick
up truck, bumpers rusted to where one can safely say they couldn't
actually bump much of anything without becoming dust, balanced
on blocks on a patch of dirt in front of an archetypal sharecropper's
cabin.]
Horehound: This...
is the city. Los Angeles, California. A city of material wealth
and good times--for some.
[More shots, but this time of people
in more felicitous circumstances. A white toddler in a pink dress
tonguing what could be her first ice cream cone, her parents
beaming toothpaste ad smiles behind her. A tanned, thin boy,
smiling much like the parents or the sugar-glutted toddler in
the previous shot, capped and gowned and shaking the hand of
some anonymous educational authority as he collects his diploma.
]
Horehound: But what about the others, the forgotten ones
who don't know where their next meal is coming from? What about
those who linger cold, hungry, forgotten? Those whose pulses
flutter in anonymous rooms, what about them?
[A shot of a bedridden female, seventy-five
if she's a day. Her face contorted in apparent anguish, as if
cold in spite of the blankets that shroud her desiccated form.
This would be her last Christmas. This would be her last Easter.
Her relatives would bitch to each other about lugging her highboys
and footstools, her sofas and player pianos, down her stairs.
The bitching would come sooner than later, and it would linger
through many days and nights like the pitter-patter drizzle from
a stalled out cold front. There would be fights and recriminations,
and the stories from the parents to the children would render
her demonic in action, but with a caricaturist's edge in the
manner of cartoon robber barons.
A frame featuring a newborn child, resting in a bed of collard
greens in an unsullied metal garbage can. I question the veracity
of this shot.]
Horehound: When
you've been on the force as long as I was, you see it all. The
pimps, players, and prostitutes.
[Disturbingly feminine in the manner
of Gomer Pyle USMC's Frank Sutton wearing eyeliner in certain
of the color episodes of that popular homespun series, the voice
of the self-styled Concerned Citizen--as with all these episodes,
they are produced and directed by series star Grant Cameron--lilts
upward on the "tutes" in prostitutes. To counterpoint
his assertion, the viewer is treated to an African-American entrepreneur
in a wheelbarrow-red crushed velvet suit, huddling with a pair
of non-ethnic pubescents in a street corner's mistridden twilight.
This frame lingers for a beat or two
longer than those which preceded it, as if to call attention
to the contrasts that flash out from the cathode glass as if
the glass were kaleidoscopic. Black and white. Male and female.
Dressed and undressed. Power and whipped. Destroyer and the fruit
of his labors. Caretaker and slaves.
I hasten to add here that I do not share
the oft-atavistic viewpoints of the oeuvre of Grant Cameron.
I find his philandering and his Nixon/Reagan toadyism contemptible.
Those who know me, who have learned from me, know that I am a
scholar of high repute, with prestigious publications and a record
of highest achievement.]
Horehound: You
see those who have been abused, and their abusers.
[I would like to add that I am a member
in good standing of the Association of University Professors,
who is very seriously considering legal action against my former
employers. When under the employ of my former university, I was
also a trusted member of many a committee.
It had been said that I was in line for
a Department Chairmanship if I just stayed the course. Thus,
I don't feel it necessary or even humane to have to justify my
political beliefs in this document.]
Horehound:
And sometimes, you see strides being made.
[Here a black boy, waiting for a permanent
front tooth to come in, smiling gleefully over a bowl of oatmeal
in what appears to be an institutional setting, if row tables
that stretch to infinity and walls tinted in the familiar foam-green
of evacuation shelters are any indication. Undefined are the
parameters of the neglect that placed this boy in this situation
to begin with.
But a lot of things go unsaid, don't
they?]
Horehound: An
interested party on the force suggested that I might get a second
chance if I did some community service work, to prove my goodwill
toward mankind. After considering a list of options, I settled
on working as an incall operator at a Helpline right here in
my Silver Lake neighborhood.
[Exterior shot of red-brick one story
building, centered in an unwavering expanse of blacktop punctuated
by white parking lines. This could be a bomb shelter, a grim
joke of a playroom for a Dakotan protestant church, a front for
any number of sinister operations. ]
Horehound: The
Miracle Cure Helpline is a non-denominational initiative brought
forth by concerned parties in the Los Angeles area. It is estimated
that over six thousand people call the Helpline weekly. The Helpline
has five branch offices that work in concord to respond to manifestations
of emotional, mental, or behavioral sickness.
[Here a lingering, almost pornographic,
still frame of a telephone. A multi-line job, with a couple of
extensions flashing a hold signal and a lone line solidly lit.
]
Horehound: Occasionally,
the Helpline works in tandem with the Los Angeles Police Department
to remedy the most severe situations, some of which are criminal
in nature.
[Two uniforms haul a smacked-up junkie
out the front door of a modish split-level. Incredible restraint
shown by the series producers here as they resist the temptation
to leave the spike in the horseman's arm.]
Horehound: The
director of the Helpline, Sam Stevens, was once a Los Angeles
policeman. He knew my situation, and was more than willing to
lend a former brother of the badge a helping hand.
[A shot of Horehound here flashing teeth
and shaking hands with a short, porcine white man with a distinctly
inkwell-black combover.]
Stevens: Brock,
old boy! Great to have you aboard!
[Stevens smiling unctuous, in the manner
of taxcutting politicos the world over. Yet there's a certain
distraction about his manner.]
Horehound: Sam.
[Horehound nods curtly here, as if telling
Stevens to cut the bullshit. I know this look, as my experiences
in academia caused me to give it to more than a few phonies and
malingerers.]
Stevens: You're
going to have to forgive me, but we're a bit shorthanded today.
There's been a wave of LSD use in this area, and we're getting
a lot more phone calls than we can handle.
[Here Stevens makes a sweeping gesture,
intended to encompass all of the phones in the room. Horehound
nods in his direction.]
Horehound: You
can only do so much. Let me get started-
Stevens: Not
so fast, Brock. First I think you should read this pamphlet,
if for no other reason than to become familiar with our protocols.
It shouldn't take you too long--then we'll get you started.
[Stevens hands a chapbook sized pamphlet
to Horehound, who sits down at a table and begins what, judging
from the upcoming dialogue, appears to be an admirably spontaneous
close reading of the text.]
Horehound: The
OPM, or Operator's Procedure Manual, is a document that equips
the Helpline tenderfoot with the practical knowledge necessary
to provide able and timely assistance to a diverse and unpredictable
range of callers.
[In a motion that certainly defies all
credibility, Horehound brandishes the front cover of the book
to the camera, shamelessly, without any notion of accounting
for the fact that there simply is no one in his midst in the
shot itself for him to be making this absurd explanation to.
Of course, all of us involved in American
Studies both here and abroad understand why jingoists like Grant
Cameron--the producer/director/star of this series--insisted
upon making these vapid stabs at hyperrealism. They intended
their shows as works of social programming, as direct slaps in
the faces of those brave souls who dared to attend Woodstock,
who dared to participate in a quest for peace, love and enlightenment,
who dared to try to do something about the hegemonists and misogynists
and nationalists who dominate/d the domestic political scene.
In short, those of us involved in American
Studies understand the primacy of our educational mission as
deconstructing the power struggle and letting them know, in the
words of 80's punk rock group AV-DV, that we aren't going to
take it anymore! They can cut our funding, but they can't force
us to compromise our educational missions!]
Horehound: The
manual provides helpful tips to the reader, tackling many topics
that are part and parcel of working the Helpline. With its convenient
distillation of personality disorders into simple, easy to understand
graphs and charts, the OPM makes it easier for virtually anyone
to provide capable Helpline assistance with a minimum of training.
[I would like to add, however, that there
is much to be said for the succor of a relationship with a department
hospitable to academic pursuits that seek to make sense of the
challenges of our culture. For those of you in positions to hire
an eager young hand, I am willing and eager to adapt to what
any department might ask of me.
I've done it before, after all. In ways
you can't imagine.]
Horehound: In
some cases, a bare minimum of training. Before I had even read
the entire OPM, I received a tap on my shoulder.
[Horehound makes a startled face--hey,
your chocolate's in my peanut butter--and turns around to see
Jayne Mansfield minus some of the hard end-of-the-road miles.
A dress, clingy and blue like the Pacific on a schoolroom globe.
Lips, red and O'Keefian in their suggestiveness.]
Horehound: How
can I help you? And what can I call you?
[Our protagonist, as they say, turns
on the charm here. His face is almost contorted into the courtly
smile of the English Department suck-up, the deferential supplicant
who always knew how to wheedle his way into certain "considerations."]
Gladys: I'm
Gladys Collins, and I've been on this job for some time. I'll
be your trainer, so to speak, showing you the ropes and helping
you get your feet wet.
[I knew this Department toady type only
too well. All smiles and backpatting. Kind words to your face,
thrusting blades to the meaty part of your back. Oh, sure, he
wants you to get what you deserve; a schedule that is somewhat
convenient, with classes that don't meet before dawn in some
auxiliary air raid shelter they call a "portable".
But his qualifications always merit that he get first suck at
the teat of the Department. And I mean teat literally--our Department
Chairperson, a so-called feminist who let her clit drive her
like some Seven Habits book.]
Horehound: Well,
I'll say this. You're certainly a step up from Stevens.
[His smile takes on a more familiar,
almost combative, grim edge. His smile is a Just Say No! t-shirt
on a sixth grader, or the fixed thousand-yard-stare of housewives
with Election Day signs at congested intersections.
His name--the lackey, that's all you
can call him really--is Matthias Carlos. Don't let the Hispanic
surname fool you--he had an Ivy League doctorate and a host of
five hundred dollar suits. And he could charm the skin from snakes.]
Gladys: Well,
Brock, we all do what we can here. Though I appreciate the flattery.
[Here she smiles at him, coquettish,
and I reflexively find myself trying to see if there's a ring
on her finger. Not that a ring is a reliable indicator, if the
job interview that procured me my last job is anything to go
by.]
Horehound: It's
no flattery. Let's just say that I appreciate the warmth of your
manner, and can see how it might translate into success on the
Helpline.
[My first thought when I stepped into
the office of [University Name Withheld] Department Chairperson
Sarah Clancy-Allinger: she ain't much to look at. The Streisand
nose was almost a deal-killer, even though her body was long,
thin, and--if the short skirt and the calf-squeezing thigh-high
boots were anything to go by--willing.]
Gladys: Oh,
are we talking about the Helpline? I had no idea you were interested
in such things.
[Gladys dropping the hankie, so to speak,
triggers only more memories of my interview with Sarah.
Sarah set the terms of discourse, as
they say, by stretching her legs in the direction of my feet,
occasionally deigning to let her spike heel or her soft toe brush
against my shin or my calf. She wooed me with all the right words:
Deleuze-Guattari, Derrida, Foucault. She spoke with passion about
exciting developments in Theory, and in spite of my efforts to
remain professional, I could see where the lines were becoming
blurred.]
Horehound: I'm
very interested in helping. I'm what you might call a concerned
citizen.
[We had long since stopped considering
the power of discourse or whatever by the time our three hour
interview had concluded. Sarah intimated that she felt a powerful
professional connection with me, and hinted that connection would
lead to me being on a faster track as far as Intradepartmental
advancement than some other, lesser lights.
Sarah named names. Priscilla Dock, a
retired schoolmarm with a stick up her ass for mechanics and
such. Carolyn Brannon, another old bat who taught in t-shirts
and always seemed to have some leafy treat lodged between her
teeth. And others; the superannuated, the malcontented, those
who stood athwart the path of cultural criticism.
When I left the meeting, I assumed that
Sarah Clancy-Allinger and I had forged an understanding. She
had left me with the impression that I might just be able to
slide into an Instructorship that had been vacated at the last
minute, telling me that she would, and here I quote, "know
more at the meeting."]
Gladys: Concerned,
huh? Well, why don't you tell me what you're concerned with in
particular?
[I of course played it cool. I didn't
call Sarah before the Pre-Semester Departmental Meeting. Far
better, I figured, to just impress her with my acumen and my
no-nonsense approach to pedagogy at the meeting.
As a general rule, though, when I've
played it cool in my life, I've miscalculated. I've watched grounders
trickle through my legs and girls fling themselves into the arms
of inferior men, time and again. I should've known better.]
Horehound: I'm
concerned with the sick, the hungry, the malcontented. I'm concerned
with doing the best job here that I can to show....
[Horehound trails off, as if oblivious
to having practically talked this woman into his bed. Of course,
the home viewer knows why he trailed off. The confrontation of
embarrassing facts is not conducive to picking up trainers at
telephone helplines, or for that matter conducive to much else.
I know all about the confrontation of
embarrassing facts. I certainly don't need to footnote that,
either.]
Gladys: To
show what, Brock?
[Horehound just stares in her eyes, bleakly,
blankly, and it's obvious here that he's not even thinking about
Gladys anymore. He's considering empty cupboards, holsters unmoored
by the ballast of revolvers, days stripped bare of purpose, in
which each stray moment lingers and becomes part of a body count
of moments, stacked against all doors, windows, and vents like
malevolent snowdrifts.
I too am familiar with that manner of
consideration. I find myself moored to it throughout the entire
commercial break.
The commercial comes and goes, and we
are treated to the hopeful string progressions, the highway cloverleaf,
the water tower, the Hollywood sign. We linger on the impassive
red brick building, and soon enough we are back with Horehound,
leafing through the pamphlet yet again.
His voice surges forth even as his lips
remain still.]
Horehound: Gladys left me to the OPM and my thoughts,
and eventually I circulated around the room and listened into
some phone calls, with an idea toward understanding the techniques
used by the more seasoned veterans on the Miracle Cure Helpline.
[Though the Departmental meeting mentioned
above was supposed to start at 9 AM on a Monday, I took it upon
myself to arrive at Sarah's office at 8:30. I wanted to thank
her for the opportunity to teach, in whatever capacity I would
be able to labor for her. In case the decision hadn't been made
yet, I wanted to stress my credentials. As those who know me
can attest, I have performed with distinction any task asked
of me.
I wasn't prepared, however, for the scene
that greeted me when Sarah answered my knock on her closed door.
Not one coffee cup on her desk, but two. Her face was contorted
in mirth, as the bass-plagued "hearty chuckle" of her
partner in conversation punctuated her face's contortions.
I could smell him from where I stood;
not a cologne smell, but something more pheromonal. As he stood
up in a white suit borrowed from either Thomas Wolfe or Ricardo
Montalban, and shook my hand in a way that conveyed something
approaching respect. Not because I was anything special, per
se, but because he respected me as a person, or a fellow scholar,
or as a partner in the same educational enterprise.
Sarah was actually the first to speak. She wanted me to meet
Matthias Carlos. Matthias Carlos had just agreed to accept an
Instructorship. What she left unsaid was my position.
I was to be an adjunct. Not a teacher
of Cultural Studies, but instead of something more odious. Composition.
Not the subject for which I had specialized in school, or the
subject I had interviewed with Sarah to teach. Composition. The
ass-end of any school's educational mission.
I was better off having stayed in Montana,
teaching at the technical college. Educational backwater or no,
there were advantages. Local trim was cheap and plentiful, and
my publications conferred upon me an air of scholarship that
couldn't be present in a mere "adjunct" situation.]
Horehound: After
a short period of observation, I was permitted to man a phone.
Because of the manpower shortages alluded to earlier by Sam Stevens,
I was immediately thrust into the fray. I was to fly solo, and
offer what help I could.
[I smiled. I shucked. I jived. I grabbed
a top hat and cane, and went Ted Danson Blackface. I staved off
unmanly tears.
I told Matthias Carlos that we should
observe each other's classes, and provide constructive criticism
to each other. I told him that I was quite interested in reading
the article he wrote about the University Student and the Learning
Curve, in which he posited that students learn composition at
a rate that is independent of what the teacher might suggest.
I congratulated Matthias on his impending book deal; a collection
of stories to be put out by a University press.
After a few more exchanges of that ilk,
Sarah asked me if I could leave the office. Matthias was to make
a presentation at the Departmental Meeting, and she wanted to
discuss it with him. Unstated but implied was that I would be
vestigial, at best, to that discussion.]
Horehound: Not
very long passed before the phone rang.
[After being kicked to the curb, as guests
on daytime talk shows seem fond of saying, I was left to walk
to the meeting. A solitary figure trudging a solitary path on
an unfamiliar campus, casting woebegone reflections off all the
windows I passed.
Though the walk was but a few minutes
long, it provided me with a much-needed opportunity to regroup.
To deal with the unfortunate incident that had just happened,
and to attempt to refortify myself, to buttress my position and
my standing in the department.
Though there was rage, to a degree, on
my part, I kept it well-hidden, attempting to use the negative
energy to summon forth positive outcomes.]
Horehound: Miracle
Cure Helpline. Brock here.
[One wonders if the terseness of that
greeting would be countenanced if the MCH or the OPM actually
existed.
When I walked into the classroom where
the meeting was to be held, I was still licking wounds, so to
speak. Nonetheless, I maintained the bearing and the carriage
those who know me would expect from me. I wore pressed khaki
pants, a shirt of deep indigo, and a whimsical lavender tie.
I could feel the eyes of all the women in the room--the neglected
who pulse like flowers breezed to and fro; the broken-in, who
have been pulled and pushed and stretched beyond recognition;
the heartsick, who suck in their stomachs in front of mirrors
in a motion as reflexive as it is repulsive and sad--taking hold
of me in one place or another place. Some women focused on my
body. Others on my "accessories". Still others, on
my eyes.
Women who focus on my eyes can see things
about me I dare not tell anyone. I am convinced of this as an
essential fact.]
Horehound: What
seems to be the trouble?
[After some pause, in which we get Horehound
staring pensively, he says this. The implication is clear. In
this scene, the caller gets no voice, no face. Horehound might
as well be reacting to the plastic of the phone, though given
his trademark deadpan mien, it would seem that is what he's reacting
to.]
Horehound: Your
voice is very weak! Again, what's going on?
[Very well, then. I found myself a seat
in a homely student desk in the back of the room. There was no
way that I was going to put myself out, so to speak. No way that
I was going to Teacher's Pet it up front. No way that I was going
to give Matthias and Sarah the satisfaction of watching me raise
my hand or take attentive notes in orderly cursive.
I exchanged pleasant smiles with the
women on each side of me. One an elderly heifer, who wouldn't
be relevant to any narrative I was the center of. The other,
a bit younger, a bit more relevant.]
Horehound: So
what exactly happened?
[At first, there were just glances. She
would throw me one, I'd give her a couple back. I noticed the
blue eye make-up, caked around eyes that were pretty, even soulful,
amidst the crows' feet that framed them. But I felt myself responding
to the swell of her breasts--expanded due to a recent bearing
of child, it turned out--which pressed against the cheap fabric
of her blouse, fabric loosened only slightly by the top three
buttons of her blouse remaining defiantly unfastened.
Horehound: Uh
huh.
[She knew what those breasts did. They
did what they were meant to, what they had always been meant
to. Breasts that scored middle-aged erections in high-school
English classes from humpbacked teachers. Breasts that were tickets
to honor rolls, to valedictions, to Jacuzzi sex at post-grad
parties, to daterapes in frat houses, to more high marks from
those with gradebooks and so-called power. Breasts that felt
hot as embers when they pressed against men on the cramped mass-transit
cars of DC, Boston, New York. Breasts that promised love but
delivered something far short of it. Breasts that made you come
and then stole your wallet as you caught your breath.]
Horehound:
Yeah. But that's not answering the question.
["The question." I like girls
to be a little younger, a little less obviously housewives with
SUV's and subscriptions to insipid women's magazines. That said,
she was a co-worker. More likely than not, there could be something
there.
I was unable to introduce myself to her
before the proceedings began. However, I was able to cast more
than a couple world-weary glances in her direction, as if to
say that here we were, and weren't we above this all.
She smiled back at me, as if to say yes.
Completely, yes.]
Horehound: Uh
huh.
[By the first coffee break, I felt emboldened
to talk to her. To see if we were just captives to chemistry
or pheromones, or if there was something more there.
Myself, I've never been quite sure how
attraction works. I prefer books to people. I always have. And
when I have gone for women, at least those of my own age, I prefer
the easy shots. The plain, lumpen gal, who will see that I have
a good personality, at least for a while. The halitotic, the
limping, the sad-eyed.
Angie was her name. She put sugarcubes
in a Styrofoam cup for me, then poured coffee on it. As she handed
me the cup, the sleeve of her blouse grazed my wrist, and the
hairs on my back were set on edge.]
Horehound: So
what happened then?
[The obvious thing to do, really, would've
been to grow a set of balls and ask Angie to lunch. But that
wasn't what I did. I watched her walk out of the room, not looking
back, but slowly enough to where I could get out of my desk and
catch up with her. But no. I remained seated until the room was
cleared, until people had split off into pairs or trios and made
their cliquish ways to lunch, ad hocing a grocery list into my
memo pad: onions, green peppers, salsa.
I was thinking of making quesadillas
for myself, as a way of cheering myself after that morning's
debacle. Adjunct. The bitch made me an adjunct.]
Horehound: I
understand, it is hard.
[On my way out of the office that morning,
Sarah handed me a key to the adjunct office, suggesting it was
finally time for me to see my new professional home. I had to
see it some time, and lunch hour had to be killed somehow.
On the floor, chipped, sullen tile; it was as if someone had
uprooted the floor from The Blackboard Jungle and transplanted
it into this homely "planning space". Mix and match
office desks in pairs throughout the room, six rows deep. Each
of these desks was separated by a filing cabinet as dented as
a junkyard Cadillac.
Posters on the wall, of course. Some
anti-drug propaganda, which I found jarring in a college environment
supposedly populated by adults beyond the reach of such paternalistic
bilge. 8x10 pieces of paper, with a picture of some US historical
figure (Frederick Douglas, Thomas Jefferson, and Susan B Anthony,
for example) coupled with a few paragraphs about their accomplishments,
sanitized for your protection by the middlebrow perspectives
of mainstream historians.
And then, of course, the corner of the
room with amenities. A coffee machine that dated from sometime
in the mid 70s; imaginably, it boasted a faded signature from
dead Yankee Joe DiMaggio. Some random sweet treats on a metal
TV tray; honeybuns and Little Debbies scattered on the flat surface
like refugees on a Miami-bound raft. A telephone; a multi-line
job curiously like Horehound's, though I knew from looking at
it that there wasn't more than one line. Not in this office.
Signs over the telephone: Five (5!!) Minute Limit For Calls--We
Share This PHONE; PLEASE take Messages from phone and put message
in box of person called. A Florida Gators football schedule from
a couple of years back interested me especially, and I immediately
recognized why; its garish orange-and-blue provided the only
hint of color in the entire space, in its hideous aggregate of
sullied earth tones. And that schedule coupled with the fatuous
Great People In History poster assortment made one thing perfectly
clear: nothing of any import, drama, or heft could happen here.
Not in this backwater, declaimed the decor. Not by you folks,
the desks and the battered office chairs added.
Exhaustion overcame me as if someone had slipped me a sedative.
I sat down at a desk and put my head down, then jerked it up
with alacrity. The desk was sticky, as if jelly or some other
sugary confection had dried on it, had made the surface its own.
Horehound has remained silent for an
inordinately long period of time. The wall behind him, bleak
like that of the adjunct office, makes me ask myself what kind
of director would choose such bleakness to cast in a sympathetic
light. The wall makes me ask what kind of educational institution
would force its bright young talents to labor in such aesthetic
indifference. The wall stands, as stoic as Horehound, and I can't
help but think Grant Cameron knew full well the consequences
of the aesthetic he glorified on Concerned Citizen.
Extreme Potato Chips. Extreme Cola Drinks.
Extreme SUV's frittering away our nation's finite resources.
A billion lurid corporate reactions to grimness, drabness, and
purposeful, institutionalized irrelevance. Talking dogs on skateboards
eating pieces of deep-fried fat and drinking kerosene, as the
nation's voters adjust the steel plates in their heads and beam
in their votes, reaching consensus on all the issues, consensual
or otherwise, before taking the bus to Jupiter for ether and
strychnine cocktails.
All at once, Horehound pulls a shit-eating
grin as malevolent as a draft notice.]
Horehound: Right,
sir, all right. Just go ahead and sleep it off, and stop worrying
about the Martians bombing us.... Yes, sir, ain't no one going
to bomb America.... Right, sir, we have the best military in
the world. Good night, now.
[The "comedy" bumper, that
of the classic whaa-wha-wha sound, plays as Horehound rolls his
eyes, as if completely dismissing the voice on the other end
of his phone. The implication is unavoidable: that weakness is
the province of fools, and that fools find themselves set up
for ridicule.
I remember my father demanding complete
silence in "his" living room whenever any Grant Cameron
program was on television. Whether it is this, the short-lived
Concerned Citizen or the show that Cameron is truly known for,
his 1951-1962 Badge and Gun, he would insist upon not being disturbed
as Cameron went through his wooden, hokey paces. Father would
watch these shows in a state of reverie, as if convinced somehow
that these shows were the antidotes to his menial job and his
nicotine-clogged lungs and heart.
The scene shifts to a suburban home,
where a tidy, trim housewife walks through the house turning
off lights, darkening rooms one by one.]
Horehound: America is the greatest country in the world
for many reasons. Freedom of expression and material abundance
are just two of the reasons. One of the keys for us maintaining
our primacy on the world stage is safe and effective conservation
of natural resources, while alternative fuel sources--solar power
and natural gas being just two of those--are developed. Do your
neighbor a favor and turn off the lights!
[Nixon. Ford. Carter. Reagan. Bush. Clinton.
Bush. If the show were being developed today, Horehound could
give the same speech.]
His lines are finished. Exterior shot
of Helpline building. Then a shot of Horehound wrapping up an
animated phone conversation and then making notations on unlined
typing paper in tight script.]
Horehound: Weeks
passed. I developed a reputation for basic competence, at first,
then that reputation gave way to respect for my tact and ability
to defuse awkward situations. My experience with the Los Angeles
Police Department bore a certain weight here, but my ability
to grow into the job had more to do with instincts. With the
ability to communicate, to empathize. To care.
[After I was finished inspecting what
would be my office space, I walked back to the building where
the Departmental Meeting was being held. I thought about the
perks of my old job: blowjobs from strumpet secretaries, free
weed from the Department Chair, who tended it on his ranch, respect.
I had been warned not to shit where I
ate upon leaving my Wyoming employer. I had been told that I
had a good thing there, but that I had blown it. Moving east
without a signed contract was foolish. I replied that so was
living in a cultural backwater.
At that point, I felt tears welling up.
If it was possible, I would've eaten my words, with stir fried
vegetables and chutney. I was lost in my thoughts, rancid as
they were, when I felt a hand tousle the back of my hair, a hand
that felt more like a breeze from some idyllic ocean than hands
I had known. Angie.]
Horehound: Even
as I worked the Line day in and day out, I began to notice staff
turnover. Specifically, I noticed that someone's attendance,
of late, had been sporadic. When I asked Sam Stevens about her
attendance patterns, he seemed evasive--at best.
[Angie. We might as well have been alone
on a soundstage. She smelled of fresh fruit, of soft summer rain
falling outside your window on a day when you don't have to be
anywhere, when you don't have to answer to anyone.
If she had asked, I would've gotten in
a car with her and driven over borders, as many borders as it
took for us to erase our presents and pasts, for us to be together.
She smelled that good.]
Stevens: Gladys
is a great worker. She communicates well with a lot of people.
But you're right, Brock, I haven't seen her in weeks, it seems.
[She said she noticed me staring into
space, and wondered if everything was okay. If you only knew
what it took me not to collapse in her arms, to slide down the
front of her torso, to swim into her, to meld into her form,
Whitmanian atom on Whitmanian atom.
I asked her to share a drink with me
after the Meeting. I told her I felt we had something in common.
She accepted, and agreed that we might just have common ground
at that.]
Horehound: Have
you noticed anything unusual about her behavior patterns? Her
demeanor? I'm relying on you here, Sam.
[What I noticed about Angie as I waited
for the hours to pass. The way her smile went crooked when she
was working the Class Participation angle. How she looked over
at me when some old heifer talked about how we needed more discipline
in the classroom, as if to say that we were above such well-intentioned,
yet misguided, colloquy. As the sun went low behind the trees,
I could see Angie and I moving pressing against each other under
night's cover.
I felt my pants pockets, to see if the
Breath-a-sure was there. It was. I knew I would have to let it
work its magic before we went to get drinks.]
Stevens: You're
"relying" on me? Brock, you need to let go of the badge.
[Stevens' corpulent visage is wrenched
in amusement, while Brock's nostrils begin their telltale flare.
I also hoped against hope that my car
didn't have that stale smell of mildewed carpet that it seemed
to have more and more that summer. The smell came and went without
warning, and was beyond reprieve or redress.]
Horehound: Let
go of the badge? What do you mean, let go of the badge?
[I found myself able to let go of certain
things, at least for the moment. The coy smiles and sly innuendos
exchanged by dark, handsome Matthias and his boss/lover figure,
Sarah Clancy-Allinger, she of the hyphenated name and the heightened
libido, she who moved me cross-country, transplanting me with
less fanfare than she would a potted fern, and planting me in
barren soil.
Adjunct. I would have to get a second
job, or a roommate, or both. I could see it now: me reduced to
living with a smelly Edith Bunker clone, some native of the festering
boils that pass as Northern Jersey municipalities, some Newarkite
with corns or some Patersonian with the gout. I could see myself
splitting cans of tomato soup with her as she stank up my couch
and solved the puzzle, at an ear-splitting volume, while watching
Wheel of Fortune.]
Stevens: Brock,
let me be perfectly honest here. You rely too much on police
intervention for this job. Not every situation requires a police
cruiser to stop by someone's house.
[And I could just imagine what my job
would be. I could see myself, shelving books in some B Dalton,
clocking eight dollars an hour as my Eurotrash students stopped
in just to overturn displays and piss down my throat.
I would, of course, have to look into
other adjunct gigs. I would become acquainted with all the shabbily-outfitted
adjunct offices in the area; with their discard furniture and
their fecal carpets, with their windows that shed no light into
anything, anything at all.]
Horehound: You
know something, Stevens, the boys were right about you.
[Despite the gloom I couldn't avoid feeling,
I kept a stiff upper lip, as they say. I knew that I would be
sharing libations with the sort of woman who looked much less
timeworn after a few of them. In the spirit of that sort of amity,
I found myself smiling and participating in discussions, even
as the interest of not a few of my colleagues flagged. }
Stevens: The
boys? I'm not following you here.
[Boys in blue, who gossip, who backstab,
who infight and relegate each other to shit detail, who cheerfully
malign each other's reputations. Boys with guns, each sucking
hind-tit, each wanting to be the Chief, to be the man. Boys who
take orders who want to take control. Those boys will kill you
dead as soon as look at you.
I should know. My father was a cop. But
my father, God rest his soul, is not central to this narrative.]
Horehound: The
men you served with, Stevens, they know how soft you always were.
[Horehound is in full-on grilling mode
here, and the lighting is such that Horehound is lost in shadow
(practically) while the rotund Stevens sweats under the glare
of the lights. This would be one of the perks of having complete
creative control over the series; the ability to prevent "your"
character from showing ass.
Would that I had such creative control
over my own life.]
Stevens: You're
calling me soft. I don't get you, Brock.
[Soft, not in the manner of Angie's hand
when I slid mine into hers just to see what it felt like. Soft
as in exhibiting a cowardice I too exhibited at points during
my rendezvous with Angie.
We took separate cars. She couldn't stay
too long, or so she said. We met at a TGI Friday's, across the
street from a shopping mall doing brisk business. On the way
into the establishment, I took her hand and told her she looked
lovely. She rat-a-tat-tatted a tittering laugh and told me to
hush, even though I hadn't said anything.
She thought I was kidding. Me, the big
jokester.]
Horehound: I'm
calling it as I see it. You're unreliable. Everybody knows that.
[We secured a booth, and sat opposite
each other. I kept stealing glances underneath the table to see
if our feet were touching. I wanted ankle-on-ankle action, but
was thwarted in every attempt to pull that off.]
Stevens: Sure,
Brock. Hothead. Everyone knows what you are. A mark for the badge.
[In a different setting, it seems almost
too obvious that Horehound would make it possible for Stevens
to wear his teeth as a necklace. Likewise, in a different setting,
I would've sat next to Angie. I wouldn't have hesitated when
trying to kiss her, giving her an opening to push me away. Giving
her some leverage over me.]
Horehound: I
think you'd better shut your mouth now, before I mark you.
[Almost counterintuitively, their voices
have grown quieter in conflict. Stevens has stopped backing down.
He catches a breath and then issues a directive to Horehound.]
Stevens: Brock,
I've got some business to take care of. When I get back, I want
you gone. Understood?
[Horehound nods. Stevens turns and walks
out of the room. Horehound then makes his way to a Rolodex.]
Horehound: I
knew I had to act fast. I knew Stevens was covering up something,
or at least not cooperating. I knew things I couldn't say. A
cop just knows.
[A cop, as a spurned lover, knows many
things. When a situation gets hinky, for example, a cop knows
when to call for back-up. A cop understands positioning, stroke,
hand, leverage.
Spurned lovers understand those things
as well. But too late. After the drinks. After the hard-on has
subsided and after the waitresses have started whispering about
his inability to sit upright at his table. After the worst is
over.]
Horehound: I
telephoned Gladys, but she failed to answer. All I heard was
a ringing telephone, over and over again, a ponderous ring, a
sad, sad thing.
[You might wonder what got me up from
that table. Perhaps it was my real fear that the waitress, who
I had just sloppily propositioned, would be a student of mine
that semester. Perhaps the alcohol had ceased to have much effect,
and I knew I needed to repair to my abode for some vomiting and
a severe headache. I wonder myself, even now, what drove me to
take a chance like that. No payoff. Just risk.]
Horehound: I
lifted the Rolodex card with the address of Gladys Peterson,
and got in my vehicle. I drove to her home as fast as late-afternoon
traffic would allow. Here I was working on instinct alone, but
I knew--somehow--that I had to get over there.
[Here we get an extended driving scene,
with Horehound adhering to all traffic laws as one would expect.
Would that I had adhered to all codes of professional conduct.
That I had followed what behavioral models existed.]
Horehound: When
I arrived at her residence, a sedan was parked crooked in the
driveway. Her front door was unlocked. I took liberties. I let
myself in.
[A shot of Horehound's face, racked with concern. Then a living
room, strewn with ashtrays and lamps, the debris emblematic of
the breakdown of the straight world, the law-abiding world where
people conduct themselves with decorum and dignity. The camera's
eye shifts to Gladys, cowering in the corner, bruises framing
her frightened eyes.]
Horehound: Who
did this to you? Tell me who did this to you!
[Gladys curls up fetal, here, as Horehound
reflexively lights a cigarette. Implicit in the lighting is the
assertion of his manhood, as he plays the role of replacement
alpha male in the situation. ]
Gladys: It's
over. It's over. It's all over.
[Horehound takes another drag. The incidental
music here isn't incidental at all. It's ridden with purpose,
pumped full of testoteronic horn blares. Horehound moves as if
to cradle her up into his arms, but pulls back, as if driven
by "police instinct."]
Horehound: Gladys,
what are you talking about?
Gladys: In
the kitchen. You'll see. In the kitchen.
[Horehound drops his Chesterfield on
the carpet and stomps it, then makes his way through the door.
A pudgy male form, face down on the tile. Horehound reaches for
the convenient wall phone, and we are left to assume what he's
saying and who he's saying it to as the music continues to play
at full volume.
He walks back into the living room and
casts a look at Gladys, still balled-up and sobbing in the corner.
Horehound closes the front door behind him and makes his way
outside, into the rain, into the darkness. As the credits roll
over his retreating form, He delivers a de facto epilogue.]
Horehound: Sound
and fury, signifying nothing, they say. They would say that it
was life that was lost. They would say that this could be worked
out, given time.
[Horehound gets into his sedan as a squad
car rolls up to the Petersons' home, siren squalling and lights
flashing.]
Horehound: But
there is nothing to work out. As is often the case, there is
nothing to work out.
[And so the episode ends, with a cop
who has outlived his usefulness leaving an investigation just
as it begins. It is important to note here that the ratings fell
drastically between Episodes 1 and 2, and that the freefall would
continue until the end of the show's six episode run.]
THE END
Anthony Gancarski, the author of the
2001 collection of fiction and poetry UNFORTUNATE INCIDENTS,
can be reached at Anthony.Gancarski@attbi.com.
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