*** Below, I'm offering the first chapter of a novella I'm writing called Billy Get Angry, Billy Get Sad, for your consideration. I'd like to know, based on what you read, whether or not it whets your whistle enough to want more. I appreciate it...
Bubba
Billy Get Angry, Billy Get Sad
The rain, having begun as a benign shower, now took on a sheet effect, producing an audible rush as the sudden torrents battered buildings and pavement outside. Billy looked out the window, dreading the ever-nearing morning commute. How many mornings had he dragged his ass out of bed—loathing everything in his presence— just to complete the daily ritual that somewhere along the line had become second nature? In Chicago, only two seasons existed, plain old vanilla summer and winter, and it was pick’em which he loathed with greater exuberance. The winds off the lake howled during both seasons, and always from a direction contrary to his wishes or needs. In fact, to William Franklin Bowman, most everything in Chicago existed as polar opposites-- black or white, in or out, hot or cold, rich or poor. Only scant shades of gray filtered through, except for the skyline-- and that was very gray, indeed.
Is it mere coincidence that Monday and mundane sound so much alike? This morning, he half-sat, half-lounged at his desk, attired in his usual uniform— faded Levis, Chuck Taylor’s (he wouldn’t dream of wearing Nikes), and whatever tee-shirt happened to sit on top of the clothes basket at O-dark-thirty. After a cursory smell-check of his armpits, he’d taken the A-train to the Loop. Did I take this shirt out of the dirty laundry? Who can tell at that God-awful hour? No matter... it isn’t like I have a real job. Billy B (as he was known on the air waves) lacked the true commitment to filth that he preached, but he made no apologies for his lack of pretense in either his appearance or demeanor. In the world of sports-talk radio, the ability to let emotion flow like water off a duck’s ass had become a survival skill, a manifestation of true bunker mentality.
Eight years ago, soon after arriving at WFAN, everyone told him he wouldn't last six months. The City-With-Broad-Shoulders would eat up the kid from Billings. His survival (forget prosperity) became a matter of honor as much as literal necessity, just so he could tell all his big-mouthed detractors to put it where the sun fails to shine. Billy B, constantly amazed by the arrogance of these big-city types, nevertheless started to wonder if the world really did revolve around Chicago, as his callers would have him believe. All the warnings in the world could not have prepared him for the life he now lived, but he steadfastly tried to keep from becoming one of them.
Sometimes, Billy wondered if he was the only one who felt this way, or if there was a shared outsider dynamic. Did a form of invisible symbiosis suddenly possess emigrants at some point in their self-imposed tenure after being transplanted into a megalopolis? Were evil forces of Karma still punishing him for four years of Navy revelry by imposing upon him the soul of some asshole from Cicero? Certainly, fate couldn’t be that cruel... Nevertheless, he constantly guarded against becoming a homer, even going so far as to come in after-hours periodically, to play back tapes of his shows. Sitting alone in the Pit, Billy listened intently, pausing occasionally to sip a little tepid coffee or puff on a Cohiba (no straight man ever smoked Swisher Sweet’s anymore... hell, even the name sounded gay). The Cohiba… Cuba’s gift to humanity; despite the cigar’s obvious quality, it was, nonetheless, illegal and would, he mused, at some point cost him his freedom when the g-men raided the studio and carried him off, kicking and screaming to Political Correctness Prison. Often he took notes or replayed some tape if he heard himself say something that Mr. Objectivity would red flag. Better to be over-critical of one’s work than to get the security-escorted visit to see The Suits on the 16th floor.
The Arbitron people became less and less a factor with each passing week, but, when it comes to ratings, every radio guy knows it's a matter of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately. It is a given in the business that you’ve got to have a gimmick and some original shtick to present, or you’ll become the best-informed dude in the unemployment line. However, Bill steadfastly refused to allow himself to be perceived as Howard Cosell, some urban hack who never played the game. No, Billy B needed to be taken seriously, but he was realist enough to know that Bob Costas and Al Michaels slept quite well at night, largely unaware of his presence. Yes, he needed good ratings, but not at any cost. I was looking for a job when I found this one.
