The Culture Bunker
Goes To New York
by William Ham
illustration by Rob Zammarchi
As both faithful readers of this column are aware, your humble verb-serf is rather a reclusive cat. How reclusive? Well, I used to get letters from Greta Garbo and J.D. Salinger telling me I should get out a little more often. Furthermore, common knowledge has it that only two things will motivate me aboveboard – the release of a new Lou Diamond Phillips film and the dangling carrot of egregious self-promotion. So when word came down from head office that I was chosen to go to New York City to lend my studied indifference to the x/s channel’s Let’s Talk Quickly program, one could say I was intrigued. Although “incontinent” might be closer to the mark. “This is a key assignment,” Our Fearless Leader said through his megaphone as he lowered the basket containing my train tickets, hotel reservations, $23 per diem and cyanide gelcaps (just in case). “We want you to go down to the x/s studios, make your appearance, thrill them immeasurably and leave. Your mission – to obfuscate.” I packed my overnight bag, sent my pants out to the dry-cleaners, and hopped the 4:22 ArmTrak (“We’ll shoot you up… the coast!”) train bound for the Big Pomegranate or whatever they call it.
To while away the hours, I studied the dossier I had been issued over a six-dollar can of Sprite from the bar car. It seemed that this was not your ordinary search-and-annoy mission. The x/s channel (channel 451 on your local cable system) was founded by a man named Gui Fox, who had been chief executive in charge of coaching Montel Williams’ audience in the proper method of moving their heads from side to side accusingly, until one day he suddenly and unaccountably disappeared. His whereabouts remained a mystery until about six months ago, when the trade papers frenziedly reported word of a new cable channel located on the Lower South-by-East Side, staffed by various vagrants, miscreants and disgraced spokesmodels, dedicated to sundry varieties of inane banter interspersed with reruns of Hello, Larry. The articles never made it explicit, but it was widely understood that Fox was the twisted mastermind behind it all. And I was to infiltrate their headquarters. It was obvious that I might not come out of this alive, but even if I didn’t, I’d be set for life.
I emerged from Penn Station at just after nine o’clock. As if on cue, the first cab pulled up to a stop right in front of me. I knew I was receiving special treatment from someone, since the driver was a Caucasian and the name on his license was easily pronounceable. “Where to, pal?” he asked.
“That’s classified,” I replied. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to blindfold you until we get there.”
He readily complied (used to it, I’m sure), and we quietly merged with the bustling labyrinth of this most forbidding of metropolii. As we careened through the city, I tried to ease my apprehension by utilizing the meditation techniques taught to me by one of Nebraska’s foremost Hindu scholars. The combination of deep breathing and chanting “OM-aha… OM-aha…,” coupled with the soothingly rhythmic thump of the pedestrians we passed over, calmed my frazzled nerves, but I could not escape the question that nagged at me like a rabid ferret gnawing at my brain stem (it’s happened before, that’s how I know). Why was I sent on this mission? Am I keeping an appointment with destiny? Is their makeup hypo-allergenic? What’s that smell? My train of thought was derailed as I saw the x/s studios loom before me. I thanked the driver, tipped him 75 cents, and leapt from the still-moving taxi into a perfectly-executed body roll onto the sidewalk that would have done Starsky and/or Hutch proud.
And there it was, the dilapidated styrofoam-peanut factory turned narrowcasting giant, nestled uncomfortably in a neighborhood that apparently had pretensions of someday achieving the renown of, say, the Bowery. Odd enough alone, I’d say, but the sight of the muscle-bound natives flanking the entrance, stripped to the waist and covered in the ceremonial regalia and body-paint of their native Peekskill, was enough to make me realize that I had indeed coasted into the left ventricle of darkness. And I thought it was only Avenue C.
Cautiously, I approached the door. Without hesitation, they stepped aside and blocked my entrance, muttering strange imprecations. Luckily, I was in a part of town that was predominantly subtitled, so with the aid of my reading glasses I was able to translate what they said. “No admittance, freakoid,” it read.
I weighed my options. Do I attempt to shove them aside and risk spoiling my cable-television debut by getting a Swiss Army Spear inserted in my prothorax? Do I bribe them? Do I try to hypnotize them with a shiny object? Finally, I screwed up my courage and opted for the final gambit of the desperate man: I told the truth. “Hefflon sent me,” I rasped.
They gasped in unison and reverted to postures of submission as I glided by them and entered the lobby, astounded at their response. It wasn’t until much later that I discovered that in their native tongue, “Hefflon” roughly translates to “Stand aside, you drooling zoophytes, before I gore you with an oyster fork.” The Fates were on my side thus far. I was in.
The security guard in the lobby quickly sussed my importance, and without inquiry festooned me with colorful beads and a laminate that allowed me access to all parts of the x/s compound except for the firing range and the elevators. I was to report to the Let’s Talk Quickly offices on the nineteenth floor post-haste. Intuitively, I recognized that this was a test. Who knew what horrors lay waiting for me in that stairwell? Battle-feral cable commandos with AK-47s, perhaps, or shambling Romeroesque zombies with razor-sharp claws and an encyclopedic knowledge of probate law? No matter, I was here for a reason, and even if I wasn’t sure what that reason was, I knew that nothing, neither rain nor sleet nor large spiky clubs tipped with curare and Worcestershire sauce, was going to keep me from achieving my objectives.
Ah… perhaps I was jumping the gun a little on that whole death-struggle-in-the-stairwell scenario. Turns out that the elevators were simply not running that day, and the only real threat that lay waiting for me was that one of the steps between the tenth and eleventh floors was a trifle wobbly. I’d just like the opportunity to apologize in print to the guy who passed me on the way up, for pushing him up against the wall, twisting his leg behind his head and shrieking, “IS IT SAFE?” into his bad ear. Just send the medical and therapy bills to me c/o Lollipop. I kinda, y’know, overreacted. Now, where was I…
The nineteenth floor, right. The Let’s Talk Quickly offices were a corporate shambles. Traumatized desks and overturned production assistants were strewn about the floor. Several of the secretaries were tossing office supplies into a bonfire in the middle of the room, around which certain key members of the technical staff cavorted, chanting the lyric to “My Sharona” and playing rudimentary air-guitar runs. I gazed at the mélee, flashing back to the similar scene at my great-uncle’s retirement party, when a thirty-ish woman in a smart Armani suit and a moth-eaten Tina Turner wig approached me.
“Hi, I’m Julienne Frye, executive producer. Are you Phil Spam from Polyglot magazine?”
“Close enough,” I said. “Am I interrupting something?”
“This?” she asked. “Oh, no, just the bi-weekly end-of-the-month party. Can I get you something? Coffee? Mescaline? Diet Pepsi?”
“Um, no thank you, I don’t drink coffee. I’m here for the show. I trust I’m not too late.”
“Well, I’m afraid there’s been a slight snag. Our host had kind of a bad reaction to the blowfish sorbet in last night’s cooking segment and he’s been in convulsions ever since. Nothin’ to worry about – our head of programming is working on a new program proposal for him, kind of a variety/seizure show – but Let’s Talk Quickly is, as of now, on temporary hiatus. Excuse me for a second.” She beckoned to her assistant, who was similarly dressed except for the spiked collar around her neck, with her Donna Karan bullwhip. “Take a memo, pig. I’ve got an idea for a pilot – Celebrity Hernia Exam. Get me Throckmorton in Development on the phone, and when you’re done with that, you can buff my ankles with your forehead.” The assistant scurried off obediently.
“So I came here for nothing?” I asked with as much indignation as I could muster in the presence of an upwardly-mobile dominatrix in a frightwig.
“Oh, no,” she chirped. “I just got a call from Gui’s office. He’s taken a very… special interest in you. You’re to be at the Chat Kennel studios in seven minutes. My toe-licking lackey – I mean assistant – will show you the way.
As I was being led downstairs, being briefed by the assistant (that is, if “please please please please get me out of here” technically constitutes briefing), my thoughts were a muddle. The twists and turns of the last few hours coalesced into an unguent mush. The only thing that stood out clearly was a single, disquieting phrase playing in my head like a mantra. Five words that struck terror into the hearts of man, woman, beast, and Editor alike. Three of the most feared words in the English language:
TO BE CONTINUED.
