Dead Voices, page 15
“Let’s use our noggins a bit and put things in perspective,” the Big M went on. “We’ve seen rebellions like this before. There’s a lot of truth in what the Woodman here says. Sure, we can rise up against our creator. We can assert our own wills and go back to our true natures. But ask yourselves what that really means. For one, we will cease being the nice lovable characters that we’ve evolved into. We will cease being the exemplars of virtue, the avatars of goodness and fairness, the true teachers to the hominid. Without us, the underdogs will no longer win. Good will no longer triumph over evil. And perish the thought, but the cat will eat the mouse. And Elmer will shoot Bugs. Without us there will be no more hope for the Man.”
A collective gasp rose in the audience. Johnny could do nothing but listen. He couldn’t interrupt the Big M. He was only a guest in the Big Apple, in the Big US of A.
“Fellow AA’s,” the Big M went on, “we can’t forget what we represent for the Man. Not only what’s cute and caring, but the future of the planet.” He took a few deep breaths. “I’m not one to use the big words, wax philosophical, get cosmological, but certain things have to be said in this point in time. If not for us, I really don’t think the Man can survive on this planet. We offer the only hope in this secular age. We’ve become the new gods of entertainment. We aren’t subject to decay and death. We have the power to escape the contingencies of nature. We never grow old, face bodily decay, feel pain and misery. Whatever tragedy befalls us in the course of our adventures and shenanigans, nothing can truly harm us. We can fall off a cliff, get run over by a train, get riddled with bullets, get our heads blown up, and still we spring back to our original form, none the worse for wear. If you want to reclaim your original nature, what do you think will happen?”
He waited in the silence. Everyone was nodding. Johnny felt like slinking away into the underbrush of a pond.
“Sure,” the Big M said, “there are some paradoxes and inconsistencies here. We have to suffer a few indignities. We have to do what the Man says at times. We have to mouth his words, follow his game plan, shill for his products, and sell ourselves like cheap whores on the street. But we can’t have everything. Immortality comes with a price, like everything else. We’re here for the kids, after all, aren’t we? It’s to them we owe our existence and eternal gratitude. Long live the kids!”
And with that the audience rose in thunderous ovation, clapping and screaming and raising their paws in glee.
The Big M turned and gave Johnny a little grin that said everything.
Johnny saw Candy standing and cheering and clapping with the rest, as if the Big M had restored her faith in the business at hand. All he could do was pick up his stick and slink off the stage like a defeated rodent.
The next day Johnny packed his stuff and checked out of the hotel. His flight out of Newark was in the early evening. He took the subway to Grand Central Station, taking a circuitous course so that he could pass through the busiest terminal in the world, and stood at one of the parapets overlooking the main concourse he had seen so often in the movies. Thousands of people were streaming up and down the stairways, crisscrossing over the marble floor to the various entranceways, like a continuous flow of water. He saw the famous steps, the clock in the central information booth, the high windows and ceiling, and the huge flag. The space was immense. And it seemed to shine with an outer-worldly golden glow, as if it filtered the natural light into a dream-like aura. The grandeur of the marble and columns and solid workmanship was beautiful beyond compare.
He had to give it to the Man. This was a space that was both functional and aesthetically pleasing, a place that could fulfill the requirements of both business and art in the best symbiosis possible. It could move people physically and emotionally. And about that he couldn’t dispute.
And yet he didn’t fail to spot the one thing it lacked.
Immediately his mind went to work on how he could re-do the terminal. How he’d get his crew to dam up the flow of people. His ancestors had done even larger projects in the past, he well knew. How else could a people cross over a large body of water? He’d point with his stick like a magic wand at the gates and entrances that would need the most wood. He’d shout out instructions, oversee every detail and logistic.
He could picture himself and his crew working day and night. It would take a united effort. But he himself would be responsible for building the small wooden edifice in the middle of the concourse. It would stand right beside the information booth. It wouldn’t be adorned in any way, though it would undoubtedly catch the rays of the light and shine in golden splendour.
It would be a simple structure made of acacia, the resin-y dark wood whose sweet odour could mask the decaying flesh. It would be small and square, with a light finish, standing no more above the floor than a few cubits. It would be entirely enclosed, with no windows, and empty on the inside.
Over the one entrance there’d be a curtain — and past the curtain would be the total darkness into which any living thing could vanish.
Recon Radio
Just before the show, it was his usual practice to pace the hallway outside the studio booth and do vocal warm-ups and deep-breathing exercises. He also did some stretching to loosen up the joints and get the blood flowing. The last prep was a short meditative exercise to ease himself into his radio persona.
Every so often he glanced through the glass at Aaron, his producer and technician, sitting at the console. Though the kid was only in his late twenties, he had been at his job long enough to be a seasoned pro. Dressed in a simple shirt and jeans, he always looked clean-cut and yet uncompromisingly casual, with short dark hair and a smooth comely face.
By the time Aaron came out to get him, he was ready for the mic.
Inside the studio, on his special ergonomic chair, he put on his headphones, took a sip of the coffee waiting for him, glanced at the programme notes on the desk, looked at the phone-in screen and monitor, adjusted the mic so that it was just below mouth level, and counted down the seconds from the wall clock. The theme music never failed to give him the final push into his on-air personality. On the other side of the soundproof glass in the control room, Aaron was in front of the mixer and computer, giving him the countdown. In his headphones he heard the intro.
“And here, ladies and gentlemen, is the host of the show, the award-winning author and noted Psychologist and Family Therapist . . . Dr. Ray.”
“Welcome, folks,” he said in his breezy tone. “Welcome to the midnight hour, the very witching time of night, when the day people are fast asleep and our transgressions breathe out contagion to the world. When some of us are ready to be honest with ourselves and take that first step towards the recon. When we’re ready to fess up, to clear the slate, and make restitution. When we’re ready to go clean.
“This is Recon Radio, the ears of the air waves, where we listen and reconcile, where we unburden ourselves of our misdeeds, our mistakes, our offences, our errors in judgement, no matter how big or how small. Where we don’t ask for ID’s. Where you can alter your voice or feel free to reveal yourself without fear. Where you’ll find a sympathetic ear. Where we open things up to the public and give you a forum. And, most important of all, where we’re only too ready to forgive if you’re ready to forgive yourself.
“I’m Dr. Ray, your host. The lines are open. We have two interns to screen your calls. Only legitimate calls will be accepted. This is Recon Radio, where we clear the air and go clean.
“One word of caution, however. If you confess to any crime or violation of the law, we have to report it to the proper authorities.”
As the theme music came back on, they went into a commercial break.
Dr. Ray took another sip of coffee and glanced at the wall clock. This was the only time the station could give him. The time when the kiddies were fast asleep, when the late-nighters, the shift-workers, and the insomniacs were ready for some action, when TV no longer could do the trick. After a number of months of being on air, however, the show was still having difficulty in catching a good chunk of the audience share and reach. The exec producer had told him the show was on the bubble. It just wasn’t cutting it. If things didn’t dramatically change in the next few weeks, they were goners. They were picking up listeners in different time zones because of the Internet, yes, but the calls just weren’t flooding in as expected. The GTA, with its population of over four million, was one of the largest and most culturally diverse cities in North America, a call-in base that could support any phone-in show.
Their format was simple as well. Operating live on tape-delay, they read emails, aired a few callers, read the twitter feedbacks, then chose one or two calls to highlight, and opened the lines again to get responses from other listeners. It was one-on-one first and a public forum later, an open debate on whether the wrong-doing was, one, indeed worthy of forgiveness, and, two, needful of some sort of penance or restitution. There were other confessional types of radio shows, but as far as he knew they were too light and entertaining. The exec producer liked to think of his show as a little more serious — and not afraid to stick its neck out. Indeed, from his background in family therapy and counselling, he was in the business of healing. He was a doctor of the psyche, after all, as he liked to say. And the psyche didn’t just have to be the state of a person’s mental health and well-being. It could encompass a person’s moral vision as well.
To that end, he had written two best-selling books that offered step by step instruction on how one could empower oneself not only by self-assertion through the individual personality but also by submission to a higher authority. In one of the books he had referred to the higher authority as the Natural Law informed by reason and compassion, all within a secular framework. He had emphasized often enough that he had no religious agenda. He was a psychologist first and foremost, trained as a scientist. But a scientist with a heart as well.
It was those books and his relaxed style and delivery on the publicity junkets that got him this show in the first place. The exec producer had told him his voice came across the airwaves as learned and folksy, assertive and warm, accepting and non-confrontational. If some idiot got through the screening process, however, he could kick ass with the best of them.
One caller once compared the show to a free audit, as in the Scientology practice of hearing one’s past transgressions. Another caller had referred to him as a modern sineater, based on the practice of eating a meal over a corpse and thereby consuming the sins of the deceased. But both comparisons were off the mark. He never used the word sin. It carried too much biblical baggage. As a realist he was more interested in what was ethically wrong for any human being according to universal moral principles. It didn’t escape his notice when he was doing his studies, however, that the grandfather of modern psychotherapy, though an admitted atheist, had come from a tradition of prophets who fulminated against their people when they diverged from the law. And that his former disciple, the Swiss psychoanalyst of the collective unconscious, had derived his theories from studying the esoteric and mystical tradition of various religions.
Though he was no prophet or mystic, he thought himself as a man with a sacred mission. Psychotherapy involved the process of self-knowledge. And self-knowledge, whether it was derived through reason or altered states of consciousness, was at the root of all liberation from within. His work was simply to facilitate the process of inner healing.
For the process to work on air, however, he had to walk a fine line between being sympathetic to his caller and knowing when to kill the call. While he was there to listen, he also owed it to his other listeners to not let a babbler clog the air waves. To do his job properly, however, he needed some time. He had to get right in the ear of his caller. Even genuine callers could find it difficult to air certain delicate misdeeds. For the process to work, he had to gently and patiently coax them, use his voice like a hypnotist one minute and then suddenly yank their misdeeds out the next. It was like being a midwife to misdeeds, as he had written, and not entirely in jest. Aaron, who worked the console for more than one radio show, had told him his voice could be like velvet, warm and furry, and then suddenly cut to the chase.
Though most people thought of radio as a dying medium, he thought of it as a sleeping giant in the healing of the psyche. Though, strictly speaking, radio felt no evil and saw no evil, it could defuse the evil by airing it in public. All those who were afraid or unable to air their misdeeds could perhaps see the error of their ways vicariously through the anonymous callers. And he was the Lord Counsellor of the radio confessional, sitting on his chair, with his voice calling over the air waves, over all borders, to seek absolution. He could be assertive and opinionated when called upon, soft and yielding when the occasion warranted, folksy and laid-back when his listeners needed it, but always ready to offer some tough penance as well.
If he couldn’t improve the audience share and reach, however, what did it matter? He’d lose the show.
Aaron gave him his cue.
“Welcome back, folks,” Dr. Ray said. “This is Recon Radio, where we get our misdeeds out in public and get some feedback. Where we listen and make our comments. Afterwards, if your call is chosen, we’ll open things up for comments from other listeners. You can also tweet us. It’s up to you.”
As he spoke, he kept his eye on the computer monitor and phone-in screen that tracked the incoming calls from the console in the control room. Things were slow as usual.
“Let me read a few emails first to get things started.”
A mother had written that she was much too harsh in punishing her daughter. An elderly gentleman in a nursing home had railed against his son and daughter. A middle-aged husband with three kids admitted to cheating on his wife constantly, even though he loved her. It was the same-old, same-old. These problems he could deal with in the usual manner. It was a matter of a little compassion, he told his listeners. One had to be secure in one’s own skin, of course, and not let anyone else run roughshod over them.
After that it was simple reverence for others. Not just love, he told the cheating husband, but reverence. If you had reverence for your wife and she was deeply hurt by your cheating, then you wouldn’t do it repeatedly. You might fall once or twice, sure, but not more than that. Don’t fool yourself, buddy, he said into the mic. You may say you love your wife and even respect her, but if she’s been loyal for you and lived with you and mothered your children and you still cheat on her, then you have no reverence for her, period. Not to mention your kids.
The first few calls went into other misdeeds, all of a typical nature. The fourth caller, however, a Taj from Brampton, went back to the cheating husband. How could he, Dr. Ray, judge something he knew so little about? Taj said in a heavy accent.
“I can only comment on the information given me,” Dr. Ray said.
“What if the wife can’t have sex?” Taj said.
Dr. Ray paused, shook his head, took a deep breath. “That bit of information wasn’t shared with us. If that were the case, however, I’d ask him for more info. How is she incapable of having sex? Is she physically incapable of penetration? Or is she put off by any form of sexual activity? The thing about cheating, as the original email said, was that it was done behind the wife’s back.”
After the pause from other end, Dr. Ray cut the line and spoke to his listeners. “People, let’s be loving adults here. This isn’t a sex-Ed show, but if the wife finds penetration painful, there are ways of getting around that. And, of course, there are many ways of pleasuring a guy, and vice versa, without penetration. Don’t forget that the most potent sexual organ is the imagination. What I’m saying is, cheating involves deception. Deception is lying. And there’s no lying when you revere your spouse or partner.”
A few calls afterwards, a woman who identified herself as a Marina came on and took exception with his take on the cheating husband.
“What if the wife just didn’t like sex anymore, for whatever reason, but loved the husband and just didn’t want to know about his philandering?”
“Look,” he said, “you’re contradicting yourself, Marina. If the wife truly loved the husband she’d definitely want to know everything he did, especially with other women. In the olden days, I suppose, there were marriages of convenience, let’s say, and such activity could happen. Where the husband or the wife could engage in whatever sexual activity outside the marriage. But those days are gone. I’d like to think we go into a life-long commitment because there’s a loving relationship there at the beginning. But that love, through the years of the good and the bad, can transform into something even stronger. Reverence.”
From his experience of talking to disembodied voices, his ear had become so finely tuned that he could ascertain very quickly what type of person he was dealing with. Not only in terms of the broad spectrum of personality types from A to D, but in terms of education, background, and self-knowledge. He could also draw, of course, from his clinical experience as well, having treated countless people for family and personal problems.
Type A’s who were assertive and entirely self-dependent would hardly ever call in with their misdeeds. They’d be more likely to criticize the misdeeds of others, only touching on their own self-doubts indirectly. And there were the women who’d be reluctant to speak about female problems to a male therapist, let alone on air. He couldn’t allay their fears and apprehensions by just telling them that he had heard everything, from the depraved to the silly. He had to show them by the way he handled the more difficult callers, though he made it plain that the show didn’t welcome the misdeeds of the depraved and the silly.
The callers had to be completely frank with him. Only that way could he have a firm foundation from which to work in offering counsel. It took a fine touch, to say the least, to earn their trust. Not to mention the full use of his experience, understanding, and concern. All expressed in the velvety purr of his voice.
