Episode #3
I Am Wrong About Everything.
When I actually come face to face with someone who wants to go out to me, I get very nervous, like he's going to stuff me in a bag and keep me there. I was a little rattled when I came to work the next day, a little scared about seeing Julian. And that was even though I liked him, or especially because I did. That's why I didn't really pay much attention to the new girl sitting in Julian's chair. We're always getting new production assistants, as the ones we have keep quitting to lick envelopes or sell hot dogs on street corners for much better money. This girl looked no better or worse than most of them. Her bra strap was showing.
There was a lot of news that day, and a lot of complex news, at that. When I worked in newspapers, it was always good to have a complex story, because you could spin it out for days without bothering to go out and get a new one. But writing for TV, complicated stories are more trouble than they're worth. You have to gather all the facts, tell people what they're looking at in the video, identify everybody in the video, and then boil it all down to 50 words in 20 seconds, which is basically like trying to fit the work of John Dos Passos through the eye of a needle. It's hopeless.
I started on the day's top story, about a prominent local politician who'd been arrested for stealing rings off patients in the hospital coma ward. He was all full of tortuous explanations, but after some work I got the copy down to 25 seconds. We had no fresh video, and I figured that was as long as anyone wanted to look at Roger Snoble.
Julian came in, all pink-cheeked and smiling. He'd been outside . He smiled at me, and I smiled at him, bravely. I was trying to conjure up the composure not to say something stupid.
"Okay, so it's fixed," he told the girl in the chair. "Glory, this is Lana Oceola. She's going to be working with us."
"Hello," I said. I thought it good strategy to be nice to his friend.
I brought in the day's stories to Roger Snoble, who was brooding at his desk. He always had more luck telling us about his novel than actually writing it. Through the glass window of his office, I could see him start to rewrite my work instead.
"When am I going to be on TV?" I heard Lana say as I walked by.
"You're just going to help out until you know your way around. It takes a long time to be on TV," Julian said. "Even I'm not on TV yet."
Lana looked at Roger Snoble, who was emerging from his office.
"If I walk back and forth across the backdrop while that old guy is talking, would I be on TV?" she said.
The tape editor gave her some tapes to run to the playback room, and then walked along with her when she said she couldn't find it. Roger passed by on the way down to the set, dropping a few pages of heavily-marked copy on my desk.
"I'm improved this story about the coma ward," he said. "You left out a lot of things."
I looked at his version. "It's three times as long," I said.
"Just ax that dull story about the earthquake in California," Roger said.
Julian was sitting, adorably forlorn, at his desk, and I thought for a moment about asking him to have a breakfast coffee with me after work. That would be a bold move. I tend to feel better about things when I'm being aggressive.
But then I remembered I had to leave on time that day - I'd browbeaten an early appointment out of the hair salon, where I get my red hair toned down so it doesn't scare people. There'd be hell to pay if I missed it. So I went down to the control room by myself, although Julian followed me in the very next elevator.
Usually production assistants didn't get a chair in the control room, but Julian got one for Lana Oceola. She sat beside him, watching the monitors intensely.
I saw Roger start the story about the politician. "Cue file tape of the coma ward on 63," said the director. "Roll 63!"
While the tape was rolling, I looked over at Julian. He was holding Lana Oceola's index finger, holding it in his fist like a baby holds its mother's finger. I watched them for a long time. He was gazing at her so intently that his lower lip hung loose.
I looked up. Roger was still reading the piece about the politician.
"Do we have just one story on this newscast?" said the director.
I walked out of there before the show was over and took the elevator upstairs, all one inch of me that was left.
At the beauty salon, the colorist was late. The salon owner apologized, and she put me in the hands of the shampoo boy, who was young, handsome and indubitably homosexual. He had no other clients at 9 in the morning. He took his time, massaging my head in a very tender fashion.
I was so tired, and feeling so awful, and frankly, that massage was the closest I'd gotten to a man in a long while. I thought, I'll have to give him a big tip. Then I thought, God! maybe I should just pay for it all the time. Avoid all this heartache.
My God, I thought, the production assistants! They need money. But I lay back and let the shampoo kid soap that disgusting thought right out of my head.