Chapter Five
I meet with Lou, but I don’t tell him my plans for tonight have changed beyond what he already knows from my early morning e-mail to him before I left home. I’m still interviewing the constitutional lawyer in my A-block, but my cold open is going to run longer than I originally planned. Which is fine. I can lead with what I’m going to say, carry it over to the startof A-block, and then begin the interview.
But as the day drags on, my migraine doesn’t improve. One of our assistant producers returns to the studio, where she solemnly plays the taped interview she conducted in the hospital with Dayonte Ramone’s family and friends.
He’s still in critical condition. The only good news thus far is that his brain scans are showing activity, so there’s hope that,once the swelling goes down, he might be okay. How much brain damage he suffered remains to be determined.
Of course the other shows on our network—except for Lauren’s—run video of the two fuckers being arraigned this morning, followed by B-roll of their college yearbook photos, tearful interviews with perky, perfect little sisters, everything but showing puppies and kitties and rainbows, andglossing over the fact that the men picked up bricks and tried to bash in the skulls of two gay black men.
My rage…blossoms.
Volcanically.
As my migraine worsens, I grow angrier and revise my monologue again. I don’t let Lou or anyone else see it. I’ll hand it to the control room right before air time on a flash drive, so they can put the file on the teleprompter.
I’ll be damned if I’ll letthose racist motherfuckers be painted as “boys will be boys” men who didn’t mean to almost kill those two men.
I won’t let interviews with their grandmas swearing the men have black and gay friends and therefore can’t be racists or homophobes sway public opinion and once again fuck someone over by playing three-card monte with justice.
I’m sick of fighting for my party and trying to call outand eliminate the racist and bigoted members and still having to vote for Democrats or Libertarians most of the time because I can’t guarantee a GOP candidate who claims he’s a social liberal still won’t do something jacked up like try to pass some sort of LGBTQ-targeted law that will strip them of protection and rights.
But with less than an hour until air, I can’t tell what’s worse, my migraineor my rage. Last time I went on the air feeling this bad, I fucked up my interview with Owen Taylor and had my ass handed to me.
I make a mental note to leave my IFB out at the start of the show so I can’t hear the control booth. The cameramen will count me down to live and will count me out to the first commercial. I’ll put it back in right before we return from the first commercial break.
I’ve worked with my office door closed for most of the afternoon. My staff knows to leave me alone when I’m in full-blown migraine emergency mode. We communicate via instant messages on our internal server, because I can close one eye and type while holding an ice pack to my forehead to try to drive back the pain while huddled over a garbage can. I’ll meet with them at twenty ’til to firm up any looseends about tonight’s show.
I still haven’t shared my monologue with them, and I don’t plan to. If this goes bad, I want them to have plausible deniability.
Then my personal phone buzzes with a text.
Lauren. Her message consists of two emojis—the thumbs up and thumbs down icons. One of our old shorthand codes.
I send her a thumbs up. Five minutes later, she lightly raps on my door before openingit. “I come bearing peppermint oil. I heard you had a migraine.”
“Thank you, sweetie.”
She steps inside and closes my office door behind her, wincing as she gets a look at the ice pack I’m holding to my forehead. “Bad one, huh?”
I keep reusable cold packs in the small fridge behind my desk for just this occasion. “Yeah.”
She’s wearing jeans and a black T-shirt with a pink unicorn emblazonedon it. The unicorn has a scalpel taped to its horn, and the caption reads,I WILL CUT YOU.I gave it to her for her last birthday, because she loves unicorns and the sentiment sort of describes her. She’s cute and adorable, but has a wicked brutal wit and doesn’t hold back in interviews. Her ashy blonde hair is pulled back into a messy bun, her face is scrubbed free of makeup, even street makeup,and she’s wearing the red cat-eye glasses I love on her instead of her violet contacts the network has her wear.
“You sure you’re okay to go on, Kev?” She removes a small bottle of peppermint oil from her back pocket, uncaps it, and dabs oil along my forehead and temples, meaning I have to move the ice pack. When I put it back, it feelsamazing.
I tip my head forward so she can dab some on theback of my neck, at the base of my skull. It doesn’t take the pain away, but for the first time since I woke up, I don’t feel like puking.
“Yeah. I’ve had worse.” Which is sort of a fib. I’ve had worse but I’ve never tried to go on-air with one this bad. It’s officially worse than the one I had the day I flubbed the Taylor interview.
Lauren holds the bottle under my nose, cupping her hands aroundit, and I take a long, deep inhale before she caps it and tucks it into her pocket.
“Just help me with my tie before you leave, huh? Please?”
“Sure.”
I’ve already pulled on my dress shirt, managed to button it, and the tie is looped around my neck, but that was as far as I could get.
I’ll make sure to have a garbage can and an extra bottle of water sitting behind my desk on the set in caseI need to puke during commercial breaks.
