Is There Someone Yet Who Got That Wish?

Broadcast

Part III

[Scraping sounds]

[A beep]

[Silence]

DORN: I think the one thing we can all agree on, guys, is that the tone throughout this show has been very uneven.

MALIN: Shut up, Mark.

LOFTIS: The high for the day is 41 degrees, a warm winter day, with a low of 18 tonight; you’re listening to Malin and Loftis on KCMI.

MALIN: Thanks, Irv. For those of you who have been with us since early morning, and were concerned about the half-hour silence, perhaps inferring we were in fact killed by a charging assault team of some kind, rest assured we are still very much alive.

KLEPTOR: More alive than ever before!

LOFTIS: Shh. Too much. Too much.

MALIN: If you’ve noticed the format of the show has somewhat diverted from its usual, this is for a very good reason. The reason is that Irv, Dr. Kleptor, and I are making do with mikes on the floor of the studio. Without the ability to leave for lunch, we pooled together random tidbits of food we each had in our suitcases. We’ve assembled an apple, two Jolly Ranchers-

LOFTIS: One green and one red, but I call dibs on the red.

MALIN: -one claimed Jolly Rancher and one up-for-grabs free-for-all Jolly Rancher, a half-eaten tuna sandwich, a wild cherry Capri-Sun pouch, and what’s this? A bubble-gum-flavored…

KLEPTOR: Condom. That’s a bubble-gum-flavored condom.

MALIN: Seems dangerous, Pavlovian-response-like. Anyhow. Brownby, our intern, is unable to partake of the feast as, in the outer booth, he was the instigator of this standoff, by finding a way to work the broken-down computers and keep us on the air after he pushed a giant piece of machinery – what is that, a computer server or something, and three file cabinets in front of the door to keep security from getting in.

BROWNBY: Thumbs up, guys.

MALIN: Which is also the reason we’re on the floor. To avoid any kind of rubber-pellet guns or other crowd control slash disbursement weapons to get used on us through the windows, outside of which our producer and station security are in the control room, looking pissed. A few police officers are with them, looking even more pissed that they have to waste their time, with this bullshit.

LOFTIS: Don’t tase us, bros.

MALIN: That about sums it up. Am I missing anything?

KLEPTOR: All of you young men will probably spend several of your best years in jail now, when this is all over.

MALIN: Yes, thank you, Doctor. Though Brownby is really the only one who can claim to be in his best years-

BROWNBY: It’s downhill from this?

KLEPTOR: Very much so, yes.

MALIN: I wish I didn’t have to sum things up like that when we come back on the air each time, as it seems really trite, but the fact that this is a radio show you’re listening to pretty much pre-empts more interesting solutions.

DORN: Lazy creativity is what it is.

LOFTIS: Shut up, Mark!

DORN: You guys do know you’ve created some kind of Dog Day Afternoon standoff over absolutely nothing?

MALIN: We got carried away. What’re you gonna do?

DORN: S.W.A.T. is coming.

POLICE OFFICER: S.W.A.T. is not coming.

DORN: S.W.A.T. is not coming?

POLICE OFFICER: No, Absolutely not.

DORN: (Heavy sigh)

LOFTIS: This Jolly Rancher tastes very old and wrong.

BROWNBY: Dr. Kleptor.

KLEPTOR: Yes.

BROWNBY: We’ve got an email here from your son.

KLEPTOR: My son. Which son? Heinrich or Klaus?

BROWNBY: Um, not sure from the address. Why?

KLEPTOR: Klaus hates me slightly more.

BROWNBY: Should I read it?

KLEPTOR: I don’t see why not.

BROWNBY: “Decrepit Old Man-”

KLEPTOR: Yes, that’s Klaus.

MALIN: He’s the one who would actually address you that way?

KLEPTOR: He’s the one who would actually know the word “decrepit.”

BROWNBY: “Decrepit Old Man, in the thirty-five years that I’ve had to suffer your occasional presence in my life, I’ve been appalled by the complete disregard you have for others, the cavalier arrogance with which you’ve sold out any affiliation to actual ideals or honesty, and the uncaring selfishness with which you forget any loyalties you might have.”

KLEPTOR: When he’s right, he’s right.

BROWNBY: “What you’ve done today, admittedly in a small venue for a small audience, as far as I’m concerned, is the one redeeming act of your entire life, and for that I congratulate you.”

KLEPTOR: He really said that?

BROWNBY: “This doesn’t mean that I forgive you or like you, but at least if, after years of estrangement, the first time I hear of you is for violating several FCC regulations and local laws to decry your own bullshit, I suppose that’s better than nothing. May you rot in a somewhat less painful hell, or perhaps even an ambivalent purgatory of some kind. Sincerely, Klaus.”

KLEPTOR: That’s the nicest thing he’s ever said to me.

MALIN: It’s just that kind of day.

[A loud crack]

MALIN: Holy shit, what was that?!

BROWNBY: Motherfucking rubber bullets! Stay down! Down!

[Crack! Crack!]

MALIN: Sweet mother!

LOFTIS: I was just stretching! I was stretching!

BROWNBY: What part of staying down is so hard for you to understand?!

LOFTIS: I’m sorry!

BROWNBY: God! Seriously.

KLEPTOR: My blood pressure is rather suffering at this point.

LOFTIS: You can have the apple.

BROWNBY: I’m just going to let them in. Is that what you want? You want me to just let them in? They will beat us all.

POLICE OFFICER: It’s true.

BROWNBY: They will fuck up our shit.

DORN: They will not fuck up your shit!

POLICE OFFICER: We might.

MALIN: Rick, is that you?

POLICE OFFICER: What? Hey! John! I didn’t know it was you. What’s up, man?

[Crack! Crack! Crack!]

[Thud]

MALIN: Jesus Christ!

POLICE OFFICER: (Faint) Hey! Cut that shit out for a second, guys. Seriously. (Near) Sorry about that, John. You alright?

MALIN: Oh my God! My fucking arm!

POLICE OFFICER: Oh, jeez, John, don’t be a fucking pussy. It’s a rubber bullet!

MALIN: God! Oh my God!

POLICE OFFICER: Just take off a sock, tourniquet that shit up.

MALIN: I thought we were friends!

POLICE OFFICER: (Chuckling) I didn’t fucking shoot you. One of the snipers did.

MALIN: Snipers?! Fucking snipers, Rick?!

POLICE OFFICER: Stop being a douche, man. Seriously. I’ve seen you take a hundred times worse. Seriously. How did we meet?

MALIN: My arm! Oh God my arm!

[The sound of Rick rolling his eyes and pretending to jerk off]

MALIN: I am shot!

POLICE OFFICER: (Proddingly) Come on, how did we meet? Tell them. Tell them.

MALIN: (Sighing) My house was on fire.

POLICE OFFICER: (Proddingly) Why was your house on fire, John?

MALIN: There was a flare…

POLICE OFFICER: Flare gun. Flare gun.

MALIN: My ex-wife and I accidentally shot at each other with flare guns. So what?

POLICE OFFICER: You were yelling “Suck on this flare-dick since you love sucking dick so much you cocksucking-”

MALIN: “- cocksucking whore, let’s see how good you suck dick when you’re on fire from me shooting you with my flare-gun in your face,” yeah, yeah, we all know the story.

POLICE OFFICER: Only she shot you with a flare-gun first! And she didn’t even have a flare-gun in her hand! She actually went on the unlikely search for a flare-gun and then she shot you first and yours went flying wildly into the furnace. It was crazy! Where did she find another flare-gun so quickly? Crazy.

MALIN: It’s been a bad year.

POLICE OFFICER: Anyway, we showed up to this bastard’s place like three or four more times before that divorce was final. Ha ha. Oh man. Good times.

MALIN: Yeah, so listen, do you think maybe you can just let us go now?

POLICE OFFICER: I don’t know, why don’t you stand up and ask me?

MALIN: What?

[Crack! Crack!]

MALIN: Jesus Christ, Rick! I’m already shot! I’m motherfucking shot!

POLICE OFFICER: Ha ha ha. I love that shit.

MALIN: Fucking A!

POLICE OFFICER: Ha ha. Seriously, though, we can’t let you go because you’re still broadcasting. Your little friend in the booth there hacked the computers or something. We can’t turn it off. I mean, you’re going to get arrested regardless, but we can’t even get inside with his little barricade and shit.

MALIN: Turn it off, Brownby.

KLEPTOR: Wait!

MALIN: What?

KLEPTOR: Wait. One more thing. Before… Before we get arrested. Before we go off the air. There’s one more thing that I want to do.

MALIN: What?

KLEPTOR: Well, I… I have to do this while I have the resources to do so! (A wild cherry Capri-Sun pouch being slammed like a shot). Karina. Karina Deschanel, the odds that you or someone who knows you can hear me at this very moment are slim, but I have only this recourse. You were my wife for several years, long ago. You were the love of my life. I won’t say that I let you go, or that you let me, but we’ve been gone. I haven’t heard from you in over twenty years. And I want to now. Only to say hello. Only to hear your voice. If anyone who knows her can find her, can get in touch with her, can hear me, tell her for me now. I want to hear you now. I’m going to jail soon, after all.

BROWNBY: Jesus. We have to stay to find out what happens with this shit.

DORN: You do not have to stay to find out what happens with that shit.

MALIN: Shut up, Mark!

LOFTIS: I say we stay.

MALIN: Your wisdom has been unparalleled heretofore.

BROWNBY: Come on, John. We stayed this long.

[Silence]

MALIN: (Sighing) Fine, I guess it doesn’t even matter anymore.

POLICE OFFICER: You the man, John! You the man! High-five! Up high!

MALIN: What?

[Crack! Crack!]

LOFTIS: Hey! Come on!

POLICE OFFICER: It was worth a shot.

MALIN: Anything’s better than coming home to another poison-laced letter from my ex-wife. “Congratulations, you have SARS.” Now that I’ll have no alimony check to send, I’m useless to her alive.

KLEPTOR: Why does she hate you so much?

MALIN: We weren’t right for each other.

KLEPTOR: Why not?

LOFTIS: You’ve bled through your sock-tiquet. Here, try this one. It’s argyle.

MALIN: Thank you. Ow… Yes. Well. My wife. What you’re looking for is always in the last place you look, isn’t it?

KLEPTOR: Listen. I want to thank you gentlemen for the opportunity-

[Crack! Crack! Crack!]

MALIN: Shit!

KLEPTOR: -thank you gentlemen for the opportunity. I think this is the first time in the past twenty years that I’ve actually felt like I wasn’t faking every single word and action. Like I was actually myself, as embarrassing and sad as that is. Myself in general, I mean.

MALIN: I think I know what you mean.

KLEPTOR: Our day-to-days are all fairly routine, and it’s normal not to remember the time in between the days that matter. What isn’t normal is when you get only one day in twenty years that is actually worth remembering. Or at least, if it’s normal, it’s what isn’t right. It gets hard to tell what is real and what is fake, when you only get a chance to feel one of them once in every so long a time.

MALIN: When’s the last time you saw her, Karina?

KLEPTOR: Before Toronto, before my first book, before the … fame, if you can call it that. What passes for fame with a psychologist anyway. I was forty-five. We went to the theatre. Broadway. All dressed up. A suit and black dress, you know. Wool coats. Well-tied scarves. It was January. Cold enough you could see your breath but warm enough you would not expect to. If you know what I mean. One of my friends was there; we ran into each other at intermission. Dr. Jennings. Not a close friend, just someone I’d had fun with in graduate school. Which made it more interesting, I think. We went over to his house after the program, where his sisters and brothers were staying after New Year’s. We played old Beatles songs on the radio and got drunk off champagne. Which took a lot of champagne for the lot of us, I’ll tell you. They forced us to take home a casserole. I was carrying it under my left hand, this huge rectangle glass pan with green cellophane, and had my right hand around her waist as we walked, back to my car. We slipped on the ice as we were coming down the driveway, and I put my foot out onto the grass just in time to hold the dish up in one hand, like a waiter, but she slipped down my coat and there was that moment, you know, she had one foot up and anywhere she stepped in that second, she would go falling on her head – not that it would’ve been a big deal. But I said, “Fall back,” just like that, and without even thinking about it, without the second’s hesitation, she fell backwards, into my arms, just like that, and I caught her. Not a moment’s hesitation. She giggled then, and kissed my cheek. Probably because she was drunk. Of course, I saw her later, when she left the car, after I dropped her off. But that’s the moment I remember. The last time that I saw her.

LOFTIS: We must find this woman.

BROWNBY: We will find this woman. Email. “To: KCMI Morning Show. My name is Robert Bertram. I am the pastor of First United Church on Heller Avenue. I come from a long line of proud, conservative, religious family. I vote pro-life, away from government in economy, and, always, for stricter regulations on radio, television, and other communications methods, to protect our children from inappropriate language and exposure to inappropriate subject matter. I have been tuned in to your station since the early morning, and my initial reaction to the events which transpired was one of horror, disgust, and outrage. I planned to file an official complaint, of course, but like a car accident, it was also hard to turn away from. Only as, offensive as it was, I kept listening, I eventually tuned out of how often you were recklessly dropping words such as ‘fuck’ and ‘cunt’ and was reminded of how often the words I hear coming from my colleagues, as pious-sounding as they might be, are much dirtier in hypocrisy and intent. Yesterday morning, while watching television, I stumbled on some televangelist selling what amounts to a pyramid scheme as the word of God. In encouraging viewers at home to spend their money on his profit system, supposedly investing in the Lord, he twisted scripture and truism alike to serve his selfish scam. It was sickening, but unlike you in your own way, I lack the whip with which to overthrow their tables. The courage you’ve shown in exposing your own false words and replacing them, rather than letting them infect others and lie them into a false knowledge, is something I have to commend. While I can’t agree with your method, I think what you’re trying to say is something better than what most people say. Good for you. Signed.”

KLEPTOR: My life’s horrible failures have spanned across the political divide and garnered praise from a Republican minister.

MALIN: Well, that’s something.

BROWNBY: I’d like to buy the world a Coke.

DORN: Alright, gentlemen, this has gone on long enough. This never should have happened. You all came in here this morning prepared to do a normal show – with the possible exception of Brownby-

BROWNBY: I was pretty drunk at the time.

DORN: What are the odds that this would happen? This is fucking ridiculous. This is against all reason and reality.

MALIN: Once you got all of us together in this room, Mark, it was fairly inevitable.

KLEPTOR: Kindred souls in proximity are apt to intersect. The collisions are always defining, even when unforeseen.

BROWNBY: We’re not leaving until we find Karina, Mark. That’s just the way it is.

LOFTIS: I’m not going anywhere.

DORN: This isn’t going to end well.

KLEPTOR: It’s already better than if it hadn’t happened. Whatever happens. It always already was.

LOFTIS: You mentioned something earlier, Doc. You used a word I haven’t heard, when you were talking about what people expect out of love. Overdetermined.

KLEPTOR: Overdetermined, yes.

LOFTIS: What does that mean?

KLEPTOR: It means, basically, when something takes on more meaning for you than it inherently has. Or at least, more than it has externally, without you. In old psychology, something like a symbol in a dream, or an important event. When it can be interpreted endlessly, analyzed for meaning.

BROWNBY: And this is good? Or bad?

KLEPTOR: Who ever said it was either? Overdetermination. A person. A place. A day. Whatever puts you into your mind and emotion so fiercely that it becomes more real than real – can that be good or bad? More real than real. Meaning isn’t good or bad. It’s like sex. Is sex good or bad? Plenty of people will tell you adamantly one or the other. Everyone, in fact, will probably tell you adamantly one or the other. They’re full of shit. There’s no such things as sex, a concept. There’s only each individual place and time and person. Things are as they are for you. The meaning comes from you. Everything comes from you. An act, objective, outside, is nothing but arbitrary motion. Think about writing a book on a computer, or having a conversation on the internet with a friend. What are you actually doing, objective, outside? You are sitting. You are pushing little plastic buttons in objectively meaningless patterns, again, and again. Someone decided what each button would do, what it would mean for the machine. But most importantly, are the actual words – these black marks on blank white – they have no objective inherent anything, but they are not meaningless. Because of you. The difference between typing a grocery list and a loving poem. You you you. It’s all in you. That’s overdetermination. That’s sex. That’s a relationship. Make your choices.

MALIN: That’s good.

LOFTIS: I’d like to point out the question: How often is sex good the first time with someone, anyway? Time and change bring things together.

MALIN: Is that gnomic?

LOFTIS: I think so.

BROWNBY: Email from a botanist in Vancouver, Doc. Touched by your story, appreciates honesty, so forth. Would like to inform you that cherries do not survive into the winter months in Canada. The red berries you saw frozen in ice on the trees outside your apartment were probably Evergreen or Winterberry hollies, or another of the Ilex bulb family, which have a similar appearance.

KLEPTOR: Perfect spheres of ice around them, Jeff. It was beautiful, and sad. And more beautiful because of it.

BROWNBY: Ilex verticillata.

KLEPTOR: Cherries, Jeff. That’s how I remember them. That is how they’ll always be.

MALIN: Everything that is deeply beautiful here is deeply flawed.

KLEPTOR: People are savage, you know. Every one. Savage. We all have things that we want, and they’re never exactly the same as anyone else’s. Only we pretend. We lie. In order to get something, anything, that we can hold on to. It’s better than being alone. It’s better than running that risk. We all diverge a million different ways in the ways we want, but we look each other in the eye and say, “Your way is like mine.” So that we don’t have to go it alone.

[Pause]

BROWNBY: And?

KLEPTOR: And?

BROWNBY: And so, what?

KLEPTOR: And so nothing. That’s all. When you find someone who’s worth it, you stay. As far from your intention as it takes you. That’s all.

MALIN: Everything that is deeply beautiful here is deeply flawed.

[Pause]

LOFTIS: How’s the arm?

MALIN: It’s better.

LOFTIS: Good.

BROWNBY: Doctor… I’ve just gotten an email from someone listening in Rock Falls, Illinois.

MALIN: Rock Falls?

LOFTIS: We simulcast on the internet. I think there’s been some level of infamy at this point.

BROWNBY: They sent a link to the newspaper archive from December 2003.

KLEPTOR: Yes?

BROWNBY: There was… an obituary listing on December 19^th, for Karina Deschanel. She passed of natural causes, at home… I’m sorry.

KLEPTOR: She passed?

BROWNBY: About four years ago. I’m sorry, Doctor.

KLEPTOR: She passed.

MALIN: I’m sorry.

LOFTIS: Fuck.

[Silence]

KLEPTOR: Well… That’s that then. That’s that.

DORN: I’m sorry, Doctor. Sincerely, I’m sorry. (Long breath). Come on then. Let’s get you guys out of there. Let’s go home.

POLICE OFFICER: Come on, guys. No bullets this time. Just time to go.

MALIN: Yeah. Let’s get that shit out of the way there, Jeff. Let’s get him home.

KLEPTOR: No. I’m not finished.

MALIN: Let’s go home, Doctor.

KLEPTOR: Listen to me, John.

MALIN: What is it?

KLEPTOR: It would be trite and stupid for me to say, don’t end up like me. Diminutive as well. Nonsensical. You couldn’t if you wanted to. Your own life, like everyone’s, is so unique a composite of experience and perception that your whole world is one of a kind. But we learn from each other, because we only get one run. So you can get something from me, just as Jeff in the booth-

BROWNBY: What’s up.

KLEPTOR: -can learn something from you.

MALIN: Maybe.

KLEPTOR: Well, you’ve got a microphone.

[Pause]

MALIN: Yeah. Well, Irv, we’re fired anyway, aren’t we?

LOFTIS: We’re going to jail, too.

MALIN: Yeah, we are. Man… What the hell.

LOFTIS: That’s the style.

MALIN: Something only my family has known until now. My wife and I divorced after an affair that I had, outside our marriage. A relationship that I still have, thankfully. It wasn’t with a woman. It was with a man. Pretending otherwise has been my lie. But it isn’t anymore. My co-host Irving Loftis’s brother, in fact. Who I love. And that’s something you should always be able to say, no matter who you are or where you are or in what way, always, always, you should say who you love when it’s true. Say it. Say it. (Pause) And Irving, best friend that he is, has helped me keep this secret throughout our careers, risking his own, and in the face of scrutiny from management, and God knows who else, without a word of appreciation. Thank you, Irving. It’s inadequate, but thank you.

LOFTIS: I’m not going anywhere.

MALIN: I know. But now we are. Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for tuning in. Brownby-

BROWNBY: Doctor Kleptor? Doctor?

MALIN: Jesus. Doctor?

DORN: What is it?

MALIN: He’s not breathing. Doctor, can you hear me?

LOFTIS: Get an ambulance here.

DORN: Doctor. Call paramedics.

POLICE OFFICER: I’m on it.

DORN: Open the door. We’ve got to get in there.

BROWNBY: (Struggling) I’m trying! The server’s out of the way. Push against the door! Help me get this out of the way! Push!

DORN: (Heaving) Come on. Get over here. Push!

MALIN: (Grunting) Come on!

DORN: (Struggling) Almost got it.

[Crashing equipment]

BROWNBY: There. Get in here. Get in here.

MALIN: Come on!

[Clanking. Shuffling.]

MALIN: We’ve got you.

[Microphone Feedback]

[-End of Broadcast-]

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Epilogue

JINGLE SINGERS: Ooh! Yeah! Adonis and Dimitri! Adonis and Dimitri! Ooh! Yeah!

ADONIS: Welcome back to the Adonis and Dimitri Show on Worldwide Abercrombie & Fitch Broadcasting, sponsored, as always, by Gilly Hicks.

DIMITRI: That’s right, and we are your hosts, Abercrombie models Adonis and Dimitri. Don’t forget you can log onto our worldnet site to view the latest live webcam feed of us shirtless and wearing flamboyant fur coats.

ADONIS: Because that is what we like to do.

DIMITRI: That’s right, and it is Monday morning, so you all know what that means.

JINGLE SINGERS: You could win free bodyspray!

ADONIS: That’s right, and if you’re like me, you cannot get enough of this stuff. I go through like a can a week myself, and even I am sometimes unsatisfied with the potency and distance-coverage of my musk.

DIMITRI: You do not want to be unsatisfied with the distance-coverage of your musk when you’re setting out to score on a Saturday night, am I right?

ADONIS: Absolutely, and you do not want to leave the ladies you’ll wake up next to the next morning unsatisfied with your musk potency, so watch out for that.

ADONIS: Well, our guest today is a Dr. Jeffrey Brownby, author of the best-selling book, Iced Ilex: Flawed Love That Doesn’t Quite Make Sense And That’s All There Is. Have you read this book, Dimitri?

DIMITRI: No, I haven’t. Have you, Adonis?

ADONIS: I have not.

DIMITRI: Yeah, well. We are told the Doctor used to work at this very station, actually, as an intern about twenty years ago. So that’s pretty sweet.

ADONIS: Pretty sweet.

DIMITRI: That’s right. So let’s welcome to our show, Dr. Brownby. How you doing, man? Please have a – hey, stay away from the controls please. Hey! What are you doing?

[Introductory Clip from “Bad to the Bone”]

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