“He was a real vet, really was on Roosevelt when the suicide glider hit it, and he lost an arm fighting the fire—I verified that. And the tear was real. And my fucking story was real, Cletus.”
“Oh, yeah, real. Real. So real we had to bring in two editors to fix it and grab all your unused feed so we could show just Norcross’s face, which is what I fucking told you to shoot, just that and the empty corners of the room—”
“There weren’t any empty corners. It was packed.”
“Fuck you. If it wasn’t for the fucking lawyers, I’d have trashed your whole file, but we have to keep that piece of shit on file now for twenty years in case we get sued. Asshole. Now, listen, I’m telling you. Don’t stick us with more stuff we can’t broadcast—you know that’s what I mean. Now, one goddam camera, on Norcross, get his speech, don’t get anything more.”
“Cletus, what do you have against good video, anyway? You cut things like that hot girl losing it at the Save Our Nation rally—”
“Yes, I did. And I’ll do it again, and I cut that damn stupid huge African-American family all waving and grinning, and the old lady doing the Pledge of Allegiance with her hand over her heart. We are not giving Norcross one more thing than the minimum. What do you want, an Emmy for covering some jackass who will destroy our industry? You think someone’s going to thank you for that?”
“You keep shitcanning my best work,” Chris said. He set his cell phone down, put it on speakerphone and full vid, then turned to dress so that as he swiftly whipped his pajamas down, the camera pickup would point straight at his anus. Of course, this may be too subtle for Cletus.
Chris snatched his working suit from the closet. With just one guy on the job, thanks to the wonders of tech, every so often he had to be the man talking in front of a building.
He listened while Cletus screamed at him; it was the same fight they had every other day. Chris only prayed that when the campaign ended, ten days from now, 247NN would reassign him as far away from Cletus as possible, so he made sure these fights got plenty nasty.
After all, nothing else was at stake. Anyone could see that Pendano was gliding to reelection as smooth as if he had glass wheels.
Word was, even from Norcross’s own people, that since the ’pubs knew it wasn’t their year, with a popular Democrat running for reelection, they’d thrown the nomination to Mr. Jesus Guy just to hang the failure on that wing of the party.
Chris Manckiewicz knew all about how large organizations shaft enthusiastic people. One thing he really hated about this beat was that everyone who worked for Norcross knew that that they had no support, and, no matter how hard they worked, they’d been positioned to fail. I hate having so much in common with them.
Okay, maybe it was weird, even scary, that more than a third of the population was jumping up and down and wetting its Wal-Mart panties for a guy who wanted to add ten amendments to the Constitution to “make Jesus the Supreme Law,” whatever that was supposed to mean. Chris wasn’t going to vote for Norcross—but he wasn’t going to hate him, either. All he really wanted to do was report him.
He hadn’t said anything, being busy getting his tie on straight and running a fast suite-check on his gear, so Cletus felt ignored, and was screaming, “Listen to me, Manckiewicz!”
“I’m listening,” Chris said. “That’s why I’m not talking.” If he could just show everything about the Norcross campaign, Norcross would be understood—and then for sure he wouldn’t be elected. Did Cletus think the viewers were stupid, or what? Just last week he’d had some blond-maned teenage psychobitch for Jesus raving about killing all the gays, standing right in front of some weather-faced old farmer type, looked like a stock illo for “Farm country shot to hell,” who was obviously checking out her butt. If they’d broadcast that—
“Manckiewicz, you just remember to do your job when I tell you what it is. I need to deliver one thing to 247NN every day: twenty seconds per day of Norcross moving his mouth, to make things balanced. That’s all I need to do.”
“Well, you need to do that, and stay away from the bottle you’re thinking about right now, and not think about your ex-wife with a mouthful of that football player’s dick.”
That drew a long scream, and Chris reached over and hung up the phone. Two true shots. Okay, I’m a mean bastard. What’s a guy got to do to get fired anyway? I’ve got all my clips for my good work, I can hustle a new job in zip flat, especially because that asshole won’t talk about the things I say to him.
Besides, one time recently, he’d provoked Cletus into falling off the wagon, and a story had gone out just the way Chris wanted. This might be the biggest story remaining in the campaign and Chris was all they had.
Bottoms up, Cletus, he thought. Come on, after I was so rude to you, you deserve a drink, bucko. And then drunk dial your ex and violate that restraining order.
He was down in the front lobby three minutes before official go time. The other six network guys weren’t there yet, so Chris had his choice of spots. Just this once, fuck Cletus, fuck 247NN, and do it right.
Norcross actually waved at him, and said, “Hey, Chris,” and he was alarmed at how much he enjoyed that. Jeez, I wish I could just send them the story the way I want to, use it or have nothing. It would be so—
Hunh. Only three reasons he didn’t send out live stories just the way he wanted them, with everything locked. One, it made him nervous because live mix in the field was hard. Two, it was rare that they carried anything Norcross did or said live, even when they had him give them live feed. And three, because if he did it, he’d definitely be fired.
Hunh.
He set up the last of his six wireless remotes, scattering them widely; he was set up for some real reaction shots of the press corps, and some nice side angles that would really show emotions from the hastily-assembled audience—a few supporters who had been holding a post-rally party, about fifty people who had been at the bars or doing some late shopping, maybe another thirty businesspeople and traveling families who had been told history was happening and to come downstairs to see it, and a great number of hastily-dragooned hotel workers.
Three reasons why I can’t do this right, the way I want to do it, Chris thought. One, I’m not sure I’m good enough; two, it doesn’t usually go out live; three, I don’t want to be fired.
Hunh. I’m good enough, it’s going live tonight, and I’ d enjoy getting fired.
He checked his remotes, checked his main camera, smiled when Norcross announced they’d have to start a few minutes late to accommodate the other networks. All the time I need to be ready. Here we go, lock the structure, send only one camera at a time, lock the audio over the video I send…
ABOUT THE SAME TIME. WASHINGTON. DC. 10:42 P.M. EST. MONDAY. OCTOBER 28.
Whack! Crash! “Uh, um, damn.” Thud, thud-thud. Heather smiled, visualizing Graham’s awkward, startled fumbling as the secured handset plunged to the end of its cord. “Heather. What’s up?”