This section sets up my main character and what he does for a living.
Hanson West looked at his watch. A few more hours to go. This Friday shift, by himself, putting tapes in the machines at the right times. He couldn’t wait to get off, to get the hell out of here just for a night. There was an itching in his belly to get on the craps table, to make up for a bad night a week ago.
He looked around at this “Command Center” at Channel 2. He worked a console that had half a dozen slots for video tapes to play. To his right was a small sound-proof booth, about the size of a closet, for voiceovers. To his left was the door to the hall. Directly in front of him, past his console and through the big window was the studio itself, with its three cameras and a small set of risers upon which an audience could sit. Right behind him was the phone.
The Command Center could accommodate 4 other people--during the filming of shows there could be a director (someone to call the shots--literally), someone to operate the character generator (to put words on the screen) and someone to work the phones (because people in this town loved to call the station and swear over the air and it was the screener’s job to prevent this) and West’s job, the master controller (to sit in the big Captain Kirk chair). But during the week, or during the slow times, it was usually just West, all by himself, drinking his coffee and playing the tapes.
West had finished the Awesomebucks 20-miler coffee a while back, and now it had worked its way to his bladder. He checked the time--still another 10 minutes to The Ronald Ronaldson Report. He got up while the tape ran.
“And you know what else? I think that the meter maids give out more tickets to white people, just out of spite for the misery that they endure!”
Down the hall, past the studio, was the lobby, and then the boss’s office, just across from the only bathroom in this one-level facility. Most days West never saw the boss. If he ever did, it was usually not for anything good--this was not an easy business and he was usually stressed out about one thing or another. Sometimes it was a wonder this station was still afloat.
Hanson West eliminated the contents of the 20-miler and washed his hands and then closed the door behind him. He looked at the door to the boss’s office. It was closed, as usual.
He returned to his chair back in the Master Controller room, just as the show was finishing up. He prepared to run the next tape, which would require a simple flick of a switch, done just at the right moment so that the people of Hartsburg, who may or may not care if the next show went on in time, would have no reason to complain. Even though the common wisdom was that no one ever really watched this stuff, one would be surprised at how often people would complain when he didn’t do his job right.
It was time--West flipped the switch to make the change to the next program, and The Ronald Ronaldson Report was over for another week. He sat back in the chair again and watched as the new program came across the monitor. The phone stayed silent: a successful switch.
West sighed. Just another day in the paradise that was Cable Access, Channel 2 in Hartsburg, Massachusetts.
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