Rock 99 - Chapter 4
By H.G. Miller
- Evening -
Dale's alarm went off at exactly 7:43 p.m.
He'd been refusing to set his alarm clock at any of the designated round
numbers offered by the machine since he was in high school. He forgot whether
he did this because he was eccentric, or because he was a rebel.
Lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, Dale Kirby Powell couldn't think of
many reasons for a lot of the things he did. He didn't know why he dropped out
of college. Couldn't recall the rationale behind the break-up with his last
girlfriend. Certainly had no idea why he thought working at a radio station
would give him the “cool” factor he'd imagined it would.
The radio station. He took slight notice of the Guns n' Roses track playing
from his tiny clock radio. Must be some sort of flashback thing.
Swinging his legs away from the bed, he eased himself to the ground and walked
the five feet to the beaded curtain that separated the bedroom area of his
studio apartment from that of the living room / kitchen / dining hall.
He knew
why he called the IKEA brand table and folding chairs a dining hall. It struck
him as funny.
In the past few months, he'd found very little funny about working the
graveyard shift at the radio station. He didn't like waking up when the sun
set. He didn't like dealing with crackpot callers at 2 a.m. He didn't like it
when the regular radio guy quit because of “artistic differences” with the
stations modern rock philosophy, leaving him to man the controls by himself for
a few hours in the dead of night (he'd always imagined himself breaking big as
a comedic morning show sidekick - the kind that eventually escaped radio and
moved on to Comedy Central pilots and bit movie parts).
When nobody had noticed a drop in quality as Dale took over the controls and
the ten-second promotional tags, he was given the title of junior disc jockey
slash production assistant.
There was little fanfare from the other DJs, most of whom thought he was a part
of the late-night cleaning crew before his promotion, and having the longest
title of anybody working at the station meant little as his salary had failed
to increase even a penny.
His mother was proud of him, though. She stayed up late for the entire first
week he was on the air live. She had artistic differences with the music played
at The Rock 99, too, but simply to assumed she was just out of touch.
“I'm going to buy that new Nirvana album,” she told Dale in a phone call. “That
kid's gonna be big. I can tell.”
Dale didn't bother telling his mother about the singer's self-inflicted death
by shotgun some eight years earlier. She was a relatively happy person who
didn't need to be brought down by such things. He didn't tell her about the
insomnia - most people didn't see being awake during the day as a problem. He
also didn't tell her about the crotchety old man who ran the station.
She would tell him about that.
“What's going on at The Rock?” she asked when Dale picked up the phone. (She'd
started calling it “The Rock” when she heard some kids at the grocery store
refer to it that way. It was fun to be in the know about trendy things.)
“What do you mean?” he asked her back.
“Some old guy got on the radio this afternoon,” she told him. “He's been
playing all sorts of different music and he keeps talking about a revolution
being afoot.”
What the hell?
“I-I don't know,” Dale stammered, turning up his radio to listen.
A Limp Bizkit and Prodigy Project - with a Special Appearance by Zack from Korn
- was playing. No big deal. But, then… there was talking. Over the words of the
song. That was a no-no. That was… Mr. Watley???
“…Does anybody else think this sucks,” the old man pontificated over the
airwaves. “I know it's great that all of these young artists are getting forced
by the record labels to work together on tracks, but honestly, do we need a
hardcore rap remake of Elton John's 'Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word?'”
Then the song cut out and the
real
song started playing.
“I like this,” Dale's mom said. “Has there been a format change?”
“I don't know, Mom.” Dale felt an odd tingling in his stomach. Something was
happening. “I have to get to work. I'll talk to you later.”