Since these stories comprise a series, they are best enjoyed in the order they appear below.

1. The Duke of IHOP

2. Star Finders

3. Telethon Fall

4. That’s a Great Question!

Additionally, in February 2019, The Gainesville Sun printed Dad Music, a slightly-adapted excerpt from my novel. The Gainesville Sun also published a truncated version of The Duke of IHOP in March 2020.

By Garrett R. Hall
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“Do you want to be in a commercial?” my aunt Susan asked me over the phone in her husky voice. She worked for a Fort Lauderdale ad agency. “Your mom said it would be okay. It’s for IHOP.”

“What’s IHOP?” I asked.

“The International House of Pancakes.”

“Oh.” I remembered the large fluffy pancakes my father had made on Saturday mornings. I missed him and those big breakfasts he’d make us. “I love pancakes.”

It was 1984, the year of Van Halen and everything super cool. I was twirling the coiled phone cord around my fingers like the girls in my middle school twirled their hair.

Susan continued. “We’re looking for a kid your age, someone who looks like a young Bo Duke from the Dukes of Hazzard. You’re perfect.”

My stomach flipped with excitement. “Cool. Yes, I want to be in it. What do I have to do?”

“It’s easy, you’d just be saying a couple of lines into the camera. We’re still tweaking the script. Mainly, we need you to look like Bo.”

“I don’t have to be, like, a real actor or anything?”

“You’re a ham. You’ll be great. Do you have clothes like Bo? Your mom says you do.”

I looked down at my jeans, boots, large belt buckle and creamy yellow long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up — the same outfit Bo wore in every episode of my favorite TV show. I wore this outfit at least two days a week. The girls loved it, and I loved that they loved it. They would ask me to “do the pose.” I’d lean against a wall, tuck a thumb inside my waistline and grab my belt, smile big, and sort of casually slouch the way Bo did when he leaned against the General Lee. “You look just like him!” the girls would shout.

”Yeah, I’ve got clothes like Bo,” I said.

“Good. Wear them. Put your mom back on the phone so I can go over the details.”

I moonwalked across the tiled kitchen floor, stretching the phone cord so far that it yanked the phone from my hand and smashed it against the refrigerator. I picked it up quickly. “Sorry, Susan. I dropped the phone.”

“Sounded like a gun shot.”

“Here’s mom.”

That night in bed I envisioned my picture splashed across the cover of Tiger Beat magazine. I thought about the girls who would crowd the magazine aisle in Eckerd Drugs and giggle hard while thumbing through the teen rags featuring me hawking pancakes as a young Bo Duke.

*****

My mother and I reached IHOP on a Saturday at seven a.m. The restaurant stood before me like a temple — its triangular, blue-shingled rooftop glistening in the hot morning sun and humidity.

Two gleaming white production trucks as big as moving vans were parked in the parking lot. Strong men and women with tool packs strapped around their waists were pushing and pulling heavy carts full of lights, cables, and huge, black, knobby boxes into the restaurant. I imagined that from up above it must have looked like someone had poked a hole in a huge anthill because people were frantically scurrying around, equipment in tow, nearly bumping into one another. It was synchronized chaos, and it was all for me, the star of the ad. A police officer was even on the set to help with what I hoped would be crowd control.

Susan found us, and together we navigated our way through the crowd and approached a pudgy man dressed in black denim shorts and a black t-shirt.

The pudgy man had a shiny face buried beneath a thick black moustache and beard. He had black wavy hair and John Lennon eyeglasses that had slid down the bridge of his sweaty nose. He wore a cold, industrial and impatient expression that made me think he was a hard man to please. He was breathing heavily. From the look of him he was all business. A cigarette badly in need of an ash tap dangled from his lips.

As Susan spoke into his ear he placed his hand on her back, leaned in close and nodded edgily. She pointed in my direction, he looked my way, and then he threw his head up and down in sharp agreement with something she had just said. His expression then mellowed from impatience to mild interest. I waved and started to walk toward him, but he turned back to Susan, said a few quick words, and darted toward the restaurant, where the production fray swallowed him whole. He was Peter, Susan said, the director of the IHOP commercial.

Susan motioned for me to follow her, and the two of us pin-balled our way through the human current into the IHOP, which was closed for business that day.

Inside the restaurant the crew was hard at work turning the place into a full-fledged television set. Thick black cables snaked across the tiled floor in every direction. Bright lights hung from scaffolding. And people — all very busy, intense and focused — occupied every corner. The buzz of drills and the banging of hammers created a deafening clatter.

A short time later Peter and three slender women dressed in black t-shirts and black jeans stood over a plate of eggs, bacon and hash browns, regarding it with great concern. Peter threw his stubby arms up and down and must have uttered some angry instructions, because one of the women fretfully began to sop up extra fluid on the plate with a cotton swab. Another woman, apparently also mightily swayed by Peter’s weighty directives, anxiously wiped crumbs and other debris from the rim of the plate with a white hand towel.

I heard Peter ask one of the women to “turn the plate to the left, no, back to the right, wait, back to the left again,” while he looked through a monocular lens. Then he asked for another swab and wipe of the plate’s rim.

Despite the plate’s flawless appearance, Peter was mortally dissatisfied because he kept shaking his head and flailing his arms in spasms and fits of disgust. He snapped his fingers, which sent crew members scurrying to their various posts.

It was time to roll the cameras.

For the next few hours plates of breakfast and lunch food were dressed and filmed from various angles. The din of television-industry speak between the crew members was like a foreign language. They shouted things to each other:

“Splash a cookie….”

“Clear the slate….”

“Creep the dolly….”

“Truck the camera….”

“Drop the baby….”

“Close the barn doors a bit and Hollywood a flag….”

It was like they were speaking to each other in some cryptic code. I loved every word of it. They were speaking the language of celebrity, of fame.

Peter hollered words to the crew, and the crew hollered words to each other, yet nobody had spoken a single meaningful word to me. I was the star of the show, but I felt like was like I wasn’t even there.

The worst part was that no matter where I stood to watch the action, I was in somebody’s way. Crew members constantly asked me to step aside, or stand over there, or not to get too close to this thing or that.

Susan sidled up next to me. “Sorry I’ve been neglecting you. These shoots can get really busy. I’ve been putting out fires. I just spoke to Peter. He handed me this and told me to go talk to you. These are your lines.”

She handed me a piece of paper with a simple script that read:

Talent: The International House of Pancakes has something for everyone. What are your favorites? [Action: Aim microphone at camera to close.]

“Why don’t you go outside and practice,” she said. “They’re going to have you stand in front of the camera outside in the parking lot in a little while.”

“Sure,” I said, exhaling relief and excitement.

“I’ll come get you when they’re ready.”

“Cool.”

My thoughts brightened. Soon I would be standing in front of the camera for all the passers-by to see. The IHOP was nestled in the middle of a sprawling strip mall parking lot filled with Saturday shoppers of all ages, including young girls.

I walked outside and caught my distorted reflection in one of the restaurant’s exterior sash windows. I told myself that I looked like Bo Duke despite the wobbly imperfections in the glass.

I read the two lines of script to myself and then spoke the words out loud as eloquently and clearly as I could. Not bad for an initial read, I thought. I tried again, toning down the hard consonants and overemphasizing the second line, “What are YOOOUURR favorites?” As I slowly spoke the word “your” I elevated up onto the balls of my feet and pitched forward, foreshadowing the action I’d do after completing the line, which was to aim the microphone at the camera. I spoke my lines again, this time pausing just slightly between the words “pancakes” and “has” and looked off camera for a moment to create the illusion that I was searching for just the right words to complete the sentence. I had given it real dramatic flair.

The crew had set up the camera, lights and reflectors in the IHOP parking lot for my scene. A crowd of gawkers gathered. There were a few girls my age. I felt their energy penetrating me. I drank in the moment. It was a glorious feeling. I was lighter than air. I wished my father were there to see me.

Susan rushed to my side. “Are you ready?”

“Yes. I memorized my lines.”

She gave me a reassuring smile. “Of course you did.”

My mother was behind the camera and lights watching me intently. I smiled at her, and she smiled back.

Just then I noticed a tall, tan, clean-shaven and handsome man dressed in a navy-blue suit and red tie come from around the back corner of the restaurant. He stood near a production truck, ran his manicured hands up and down his pressed lapel, fastened the top button of his jacket, sprayed something into his mouth and then smiled at one of the female crew members. His smile was alluring and she giggled nervously while playfully slapping his arm.

His brown, tightly-curled hair was neatly trimmed. His high, strong cheekbones and prominent jaw formed a face that would not be denied a second look by any woman. He was the best-dressed man on the lot. He was about the size of my father. I wasn’t sure who he was but he commanded my attention, and as I looked around at the other crew members it seemed apparent that he commanded theirs, too.

Susan called to me. “We’re ready for you.”

I nearly closed the twenty yards of distance between me and the camera with one giant, clumsy leap.

A crew member motioned for me to stand on a large “X” marked by black tape on the asphalt. Peter was standing behind the camera wearing a headset and working on another cigarette.

Susan handed me a microphone. “Take this. Hold it about here, and look into the camera when you’re talking, okay?”

“Okay.” The microphone was solid and heavy. I brought it to my lips and crooned, “Testing, testing, one, two. Testing, one, two.” A few crew members smiled uneasily at me.

“Okay,” Susan said. “Let’s go ahead and give it a try. Ready?”

“Ready.” My stomach leaped.

“Go!” Peter hollered without warning. He never looked up from behind the camera.

I stared into the camera holding my microphone chest high. I breathed in deeply, then delivered my lines fluidly, just like I had rehearsed.

When it was over, Peter said nothing. He nonchalantly adjusted a few knobs on the camera. He said something to a young crew member standing next to him.

He offered no praise nor criticism, just silence. The crew members were busy with their respective tasks and seemed just as nonchalant about the whole thing as Peter. The crowd of onlookers didn’t react.

Susan was jotting down some notes; the handsome man in the navy suit was reading some papers. I suddenly felt invisible again.

At length, Peter said indifferently without looking up, “Okay, let’s get it again.”

I delivered my lines a second time. But when I aimed the microphone toward the camera I did it more slowly and deliberately than I had done the first time. Yes, that was the take!

Peter fiddled again with some knobs. I wanted the handsome man in the suit to notice that I had performed my lines expertly, but he was still busy reading his papers.

“Okay, got it,” Peter said as he pulled his headset off and hung it on the camera.

I held the microphone in front of me like an ice cream cone. “So, I’m done? That’s it? How’d I do?”

Peter ignored me and walked briskly to the handsome man, who greeted him cheerfully and revealed a smile so sincere and powerful that it could have melted all the butter pats in the IHOP. Peter, for the first time all day, flashed a smile of his own and eagerly shook the handsome man’s hand. They exchanged words, but I was too far away to hear what they were saying.

“Nice job,” Susan said as she approached me. “Let’s have you and your mom come into the truck for a minute.”

On our way to the production truck we walked past Peter. I could hear him thank the handsome man for agreeing to be there. Then Peter asked him how he liked Las Vegas. The handsome man said something about it being the “best,” a little hot, that he was busy shooting episodes of his new game show, and that he was excited to host it. Peter then launched a bunch of flattering words at him, some of which were, “…the next big thing….”

Susan, my mother and I entered the production truck’s side door. It was dark and cool inside. Three men were seated in front of a wall of monitors, knobs, tape reels, and switches illuminated by all sorts of colors.

There I was on the wall monitors frozen in mid-sentence. I didn’t remember squinting when I was delivering my lines, but I was squinting from the sun, even though I had been standing beneath a large, fabric shade that kept the direct sunlight off me.

One of the men spun a small dial with his finger, and my image flew backwards at top speed. The sound of my voice on tape made a squeal. He let go the dial and my second take began to play back in real time.

“The International House of Pancakes has … something for everyone.” My voice sounded higher-pitched on tape.

I sat there watching myself, cradling one arm against my chest while dully chewing a fingernail, as if I did this sort of thing every day.

The robotic men in the truck never stopped to acknowledge me.

I watched the men rewind and play the tape back a few more times, and each time they did they adjusted some knobs and sliders. One of the men kept glancing at a lot of bright green waveforms on a small monitor. “Still too hot,” he said. “We’ll need to patch the audio through a different compressor.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but I took it as a compliment that he said my voice was hot and that they had to use special instruments to tone it down some.

After a few moments one of the men picked up a walkie-talkie and said, “Tell Peter we’re good with audio. There’s a little shadow on the building in the background, but the sun’s moving and it should trail off in a second. Tell him to roll with the talent.”

I beamed, “They need me again?”

Susan took me by the hand. “Let’s give these men some privacy.”

We departed the dark production truck and went back out into the bright Florida sunshine. I squinted hard while my eyes adjusted.

The handsome man was standing in exactly the same spot I had stood just a few minutes before. He was holding the same microphone and smiling his dazzling smile. The crew members trained their admiring gazes on him. Peter, too, was all smiles.

Susan put her hands on my shoulders and tried to steer me into the IHOP. “Why don’t you go sit down inside. I’ll get you a soda. Hurry on in.” She patted me on my rump.

Just then Peter yelled, “Action!” A production assistant casually leaned in front of the camera and hollered, “Hodges, take one!”

I resisted Susan’s attempt to move me along. She moved in front of me to block my view, but I looked around her. My mother stood next to me.

The handsome man drew himself up into a heroic pose, hoisted the microphone and spoke in a clear tenor, “I’m Noel Hodges, and I’m here to show you what people love most about the International House of Pancakes.” He paused for a couple of seconds, then said, “The International House of Pancakes has something for everyone. What are your favorites?” He finished by aiming the microphone at the camera and winking.

Peter shouted, “Cut! Noel, loved the wink at the end. Really drew me in. That was a brilliant touch. We’ll get a couple more for safety, but I think you nailed it. I love working with one-take wonders.”

I looked around confused and distressed. The crew members were congratulating themselves.

I called out softly to Susan, barely able to form my questions. “Why is he … those are my lines. What’s … why’s he saying my lines?”

Susan looked at my mother, who looked at me. My mother looked like she had just run over a puppy with her car by accident … twice. Susan pulled me aside and knelt down. She could barely look at me. “Honey, I’m sorry. I was going to tell you. These things happen in this business. Things can change like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Noel’s about to be very popular, so that’s who they wanted. And they were able to get him. It was all last minute.” She ruffled my hair. “This is how it goes sometimes. But did you have fun? It was neat to see yourself on camera, wasn’t it?”

The truth crashed over me like a black, angry tidal wave. The energy drained from my legs. A crushing mix of embarrassment and sadness welled up in me. I lowered my head and slunk back across the lot toward my mother’s car, my vision obscured by the tears puddling in my eyes. I clenched my fists and blew tremendous, snotty blasts from my nose, fighting like mad not to let my emotions show.

As I passed by Noel Hodges I heard him laugh and say to the woman standing next to him, “That kid looks like an angry Bo Duke.”

By Garrett R. Hall
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“Zeus, come check this out!” said Ray, a fellow busboy at Chili’s Bar and Grill in Fort Lauderdale. He called me Zeus because of my longish and wavy golden locks, which resembled the God of Gods’ hair, at least in caricatures. I had just finished racking several dirty mugs. Ray pulled me by the arm through the restaurant’s kitchen. “Lawrence is on a billboard!”

I felt jealousy rising. “You’re kidding.”

“No, you gotta see this.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the lounge. Everyone’s in there with Lawrence.”

The lounge at Chili’s was packed on Friday nights and this Friday night was no different. It was always the hardest area to bus on busy nights because I had to wedge myself in between uncaring bar hounds and tall hexagonal tables that were too close together. Additionally, the second a table cleared, the next patrons arrived and sat as immovable hindrances while I tried to do my bussing work. Often, they grabbed the towel slung over my shoulder to wipe down the table themselves. It was annoying.

Journey’s Faithfully was piping through the sound system but was nearly drowned out by the hearty laughter, shouting and glass clanging from all the young, aspiring business folks tossing down a few to start their weekend. Everyone was dressed nicely and loaded with gold jewelry. The men wore enough styling product in their hair to make the place go up in flames in an instant if anyone plied a lit match to one of their heads.

That’s how things were in 1988, when I was a junior in high school.

There, sitting in the center of the lounge a head taller than everyone else, was Lawrence, one of the servers at Chili’s, who was off that night, but decided to pop in to show everyone a picture of the billboard he was on.

Lawrence was six-feet-four-inches, lean and muscular, with a chiseled face carved by the world’s finest craftsmen, silver-blue eyes, short and curly brown hair, and eyebrows that looked as if they were drawn on his face by Michelangelo. He wore a turquoise short-sleeved shirt with the collar flipped up. His teeth were straight, full, and polished to a bright white. He looked a little like Noel Hodges.

He never stopped smiling as other members of the wait staff gathered around him. The ladies — many of whom I had often tried to make laugh with stale jokes to win their affection — pressed in against his flanks.

He was holding a color picture of a Coca Cola billboard. A blue 1957 Chevy Bel Air convertible was aimed at a golden sunset hanging above a lush ocean paradise. Svelte bikini-clad girls were tossing a Frisbee to each other on the sand in the distance. A mom and dad were wading in the surf with their newborn. A German Sheppard was jogging with his master. The scene was idyllic, and taking it all in while reclining comfortably in the Bel Air’s driver’s seat wearing a pair of black Rayban sunglasses, no shirt, stonewashed blue jeans and flip flops was Lawrence drinking a bottle of Coke. One leg dangled outside the driver’s side door while the other was propped up on the car’s dash. The position in which he lounged, along with some creative lighting, made his abdominal muscles look like rows of unwrapped Twinkies nestled in a baking pan.

The questions came from the giggling ladies:

“Was it fun?”

“Did they pay you a lot of money?”

“Will this be on I-95?”

“You’re gonna be famous! Guess you won’t be working here much longer, right?”

Lawrence smiled easily and brimmed with confidence as he answered with a volley of happy yesses while the ladies draped themselves all over him.

I turned away and went back to bussing tables huffing with jealousy.

The next Sunday morning I rushed to my driveway to retrieve our Sun Sentinel. I took it inside and shook out the classifieds to hunt for modeling opportunities in Fort Lauderdale. I found one quickly. A local modeling agency, Star Finders, was running a portfolio special. “Stop living the lie,” the ad said. “It’s time to start living the dream. We’ll make your dreams come true. Call anytime! We’re waiting for you.” A man and a woman — two of the most beautiful people I had ever seen — smiled out from the ad.

I called Star Finders.

The woman’s voice on the other end of the line was pleasant and reassuring. “Hello, Star Finders, how can we make your dreams come true?”

I tried to sound older than I was by deepening my voice. “Uh, yes, hello. I’m calling about the ad in today’s paper.”

“Oh good! You’re ready to make your dreams come true?”

“Yes, yes I am.”

She emitted a lighthearted chuckle. “You sound sexy, like you’d be a great model. How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Fantastic. Let’s get you in here immediately! Bring a lot of clothes. You never know what the photographer will want to see.”

The following Friday night — the night before my photoshoot — I rummaged through my closet and dresser drawers to find the sharpest and hippest clothes I owned.

My father had walked out on my mother and me when I was six, but he had left behind a grey houndstooth jacket that my mother kept in the back of her closet. I wondered if it was the one thing of his she couldn’t let go, that maybe he had worn it before things had gotten bad. It was too big for me, but I hoped that the photographer could compensate for the bagginess somehow.

I set up the ironing board and iron in the kitchen, which attracted my mother’s attention. “What on earth are you doing?” she asked while smoking a Merit.

“Ironing.”

“For what? Tomorrow’s Saturday. And you never iron.”

“Going to get some pictures taken.”

“For school?”

“No. Modeling.”

“Modeling?”

“There’s a guy at work who models. I thought I’d give it a try. Looks easy.”

“Is there a cost?”

“This place is running an ad for a good deal on a portfolio.”

“What place?”

“Star Finders.”

“What’s the cost?”

“Like sixty bucks or something.”

My mother looked at me skeptically. “You’re driving your car, I hope?” She had bought me a 1979 silver Dodge Aspen from an old lady when I had gotten my driver’s license.

“Yes.”

“So you have the money to pay for this?”

“Yes. I’ve been saving my tips from bussing.”

“Well, it’s your money.”

I ironed everything I planned to bring to the photoshoot, even my jeans. I buffed my black Capezio dress shoes into a glorious shine. No wrinkle or smudge would foil my chance at fame … or girls.

*****

Star Finders, like the IHOP, was nestled in the middle of a south Florida strip mall filled with shops and fashion boutiques that catered to tourists. Because the mall was so close to the beach, it was a bit older and more weather-beaten than most of the others farther inland, closer to where I lived.

I reached the main entrance, where a hand-written sign directed me to an entrance in the back. That meant a laboriously long walk around the entire strip mall carrying my clothes, and then through an asphalt alleyway littered with debris, battered and chipped cement parking curbs and big green dumpsters sprayed with graffiti.

The metal back door to Star Finders was dented and propped slightly ajar with an empty milk jug. I swung it open and was greeted by an oscillating floor fan blowing wind down a dimly-lit, tiled hallway. At the end of it sat an old, fat and raddled woman at a messy wooden desk in a windowless, dingy office. Her head was engulfed in an ashen column of cigarette smoke and she wore a frumpy, garish green and brown house dress that draped on her like a curtain.

“Are you Star Finders?” I shouted loudly over the noise of the fan.

“Yeah.” She savagely stamped out her cigarette in a clay ashtray, then coughed violently into her hand.

“I’m Zeus. I have an appointment.”

She spoke with a hoarse voice. “Oh yeah. Come in.”

I wondered if she was the same woman who had answered my original call.

I walked the hallway toward her desk, hearing beach sand crunch beneath my feet. It was hot, and I knew that the fan was the studio’s unsuccessful attempt at making the place a bit more temperate. But the fan served a second purpose. On my left was a damaged bathroom door with a rusted deadbolt and hinges. It was slightly ajar and attempting to hide a reeking commode. I held my breath as I went past.

The woman fumbled through an appointment book and tracked a pencil across some of the entries. “What’s your name again?”

“Zeus Hall. I have an appointment. My real name’s Garrett, but everyone calls me Zeus.” I said it proudly, as if it should mean something.

“Yeah, I’ve got you down here. Portfolio, right?”

“Yes.”

She snorted deeply and then swallowed. “Why do you have all those clothes? This ain’t the Salvation Army.”

“The lady on the phone to bring as much as I could.”

“Yeah, well, how many pictures do you think sixty bucks will get you?”

“I don’t know. I just brought what I had.”

“We don’t have any place to put all that crap. You’ll have to just lay it on the couch behind you.” She pointed to her left with the erasure-end of her pencil. “You can use the bathroom down the hall to change between shots. And what the Hell kind of name is Zeus?”

I pointed at my head and smiled. “It’s because of my hair.”

She glanced at my head, snorted again, then looked back at her appointment book.

I fished a roll of cash from my pocket. “Do I pay you now or after the pictures are taken? I’ve got cash here.”

“No, you pay later.”

The photographer happily bounded down the stairs with a camera in his hand. I wasn’t sure what to make of him right away. He had energy and he seemed amicable, but his brown polyester pants fit a little too tightly, and there was one too many buttons unbuttoned on his shirt, which was a bright shade of lavender. His hair was blonde, straight, thin and sparse, and his tortoise-shell glasses were too big and wide for his, slender, boyish face. A small scar ran down his left cheek, and judging from his unfortunate pock-marked complexion he must have battled against severe acne as a teenager. His one wandering eye made it difficult to keep eye contact with him. He was about thirty-five and he was barefoot.

“Who’s next, Bermuda?” he asked.

“This is Zeus,” she answered. “Needs a portfolio.”

“Portfolio? Beautiful. Zeus, huh?”

Bermuda broke in. “On account of his hair.”

“Ah,” the photographer said. “I’m Randy. How’s it going?”

“Fine.” I smiled at him.

He studied me intently. “You sure do have a great smile. Let’s get you upstairs. Did you bring some clothes?”

“Right here.” I motioned to the couch.

“Super. Let me see what you have.”

Randy thumbed through my wardrobe and stopped when he came to the grey houndstooth jacket. “Nice. Let’s start here. I see you’ve brought some black slacks and shoes. Go ahead and change into a dinner-wear outfit. I’ve got a couple ideas.”

I dreaded the bathroom. I gathered up all the necessary pieces of the dinner-wear outfit, took a deep breath, and made my way back down the hall to the unpleasant place.

I gingerly pushed open the bathroom door as if I feared I might see a dead body lying on the floor. The door answered with shrieks and screams.

Shrinking, I flipped a switch on a wall and it took a few seconds before the light from a dangling, naked bulb flickered to life.

The sight of the place was equally disastrous as the smell. It looked like it hadn’t been cleaned … ever.

I methodically slipped on my dinner wear — white button-down dress shirt, black slacks, black Capezios and the jacket.

My next step was to subdue my red necktie into a double Windsor, but it defeated me at every turn. There was no sharp and tidy knot at the neck, only a chaotic series of loops and wrinkles, leaving the thing dangling clown-like far above my waistline. I didn’t have a father to show me how to properly tie a necktie.

In trying to loosen the tie and start again I yanked at it so violently that I nearly strangled and pulled myself to the floor. I slowly undid the tie and tucked it into my pocket.

I exited the bathroom.

Bermuda, filing her nails, looked up at me wide-mouthed. “Is that your jacket?”

“No, I borrowed it.”

“It’s too big! You can’t wear that.” She hollered for Randy.

Randy popped out from the top of the stairwell with a camera slung around his neck and looked down at her. “What, Bermuda?”

“Look at this kid’s jacket. He can’t wear that.”

“Is that your jacket?” Randy asked while looking down at me.

“Well, no. I borrowed it. I don’t own my own jacket.”

“My, my,” Randy responded. “We could fit two of you in there. Tell you what, I’ve got some clothespins up here. We’ll see what we can do. C’mon up.”

I mounted the iron staircase two steps at a time and entered the studio.

The studio wasn’t much larger than the waiting room. An earth-toned, ten-feet Muslin backdrop that looked like it had been run over by a tank was waiting for me in the center of the room. Lights with tattered soft boxes stood like armed guards all around the thing. Perched in front of the backdrop was a plain four-feet-tall Grecian column with a flat top that looked like it had been exhumed from a redneck’s back yard. It would be my first modeling prop.

Randy wasted no time. He grabbed a hold of my shoulders and fiercely spun me around. He pulled in the slack from my jacket and clamped a few wooden clothespins to the bulging fabric to give my torso a more appropriate shape.

“No tie?” he asked. “Well, never mind.” He worked fast and all of a sudden seemed to be in a major hurry. Once he got the jacket to cooperate he got right to business. He held his camera to his left eye and gestured toward the column. “Zeus … heh heh Zeus … why don’t you go ahead and kind of lean with an elbow on that thing there. Here’s a pair of eyeglasses. Hold them in your hand like this and look over at that wall. Start by looking like you’re out to dinner. Do you like dinner?”

“Dinner? Yes.”

“Good. Now go over there and show me how much you like dinner.”

“You mean … do you want me to pretend I’m eating? Do you want me to smile?” I suddenly felt very nervous.

“Do you smile when you go out to dinner?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t go out much.”

Randy came out from behind his camera and slowed his speech to a crawl to hammer home his point. “Well, here’s your first tip about modeling. Get to know yourself. You’ve got to be in touch with your emotions if you want others to be in touch with you. You need to be in control. Confident. Like nothing or nobody is better than you. And when you believe that, you sell, the product sells, and everyone’s happy. Why should I believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself? Let’s move. I want to get a couple more looks after this one.”

I scurried over toward the column, leaned an elbow on the top of it like he had asked, held the glasses in midair, squinted my eyes as if I were looking at something a great distance away and pretended like I was chewing substantial chunks of food. I tried to look confident, like I was better than everyone else, like I was entertaining the world.

I was doing something right because Randy immediately raised his camera and clicked pictures with incredible speed. He swarmed around me like a pollinating bumblebee, snapping shots at various angles, focusing and refocusing his lens with brisk, flicking twists of his wrist. Flash bulbs inside the soft boxes popped all around me.

Randy was not in one place for more than a split second. He knelt down in front of me, jumped on a stepstool to look down at me, and shouted instructions: “Good, okay a little less chewing. More smile. Okay, now you’re chewing again. Lower that arm. Turn your back shoulder out just a bit. Cheat a little this way. Fine. Now give me some more attitude. Yes, perfect. Okay, now you’re at a fancy restaurant and you’re picking up the tab for your friends. You’re a big spender. A big tip is nothing for you. Pocket change. That’s it! Yes, I’m loving that. Keep doing that. Hey, who’s that lovely lady on your arm? Why don’t you shake out her napkin. You’re glad to be seen with her, aren’t you? Excellent. Oh, and now where did you put those car keys? Dang, you can’t find them. Search your pockets. Wait. Ah! Here they are, right in your pocket. Now you’re the Thinker. Get a leg up on that column. Ponder something. You’re Socrates. You’re in the public square. Share some wisdom! Awesome, Zeus!”

As Randy belted out orders like a drill sergeant, I felt myself jerking clumsily and empty-faced into each position like a rhythmless man awkwardly trying to dance at a wedding reception.

Mercifully, Randy had to pause to replace the film in his camera. He spoke fast and breathlessly while he worked in a new roll. “Zeus, looking good. Have you done this before?”

“No, this is my first time.” I dragged my jacket sleeve across my sweaty brow. “But, I mean, I’m in marching band, so I, you know, know how to perform.”

“Well, you’re doing great. A real natural.”

I relaxed a little.

Randy continued. “Tell you what, let’s set up for another look. Do you stay in shape? Work out?” He squeezed one of my biceps and removed the clothespins from the back of the jacket.

“Um, sometimes I do push-ups.”

“Good. Good. Let’s do some bathing suit shots and get a look at your upper body. Did you bring a suit?”

“I did, it’s downstairs.”

“Hit the bathroom, go change.”

Once downstairs I grabbed my bathing suit and forged valiantly ahead to the bathroom. I was about to exit the bathroom in my bathing suit when a thought pierced my mind. Randy was about to take shots of my shirtless upper body. I thought it would do me good to pump up my pectorals and deltoids.

I lowered my body to the bathroom’s reviling floor and began a series of push-ups as fast as I could. When I finished I stood up and flexed into a streaked, square mirror which hung crookedly over the sink.

I returned to the studio barefoot. Randy had removed the Grecian column and raised a set of white, aluminum Venetian blinds in its place against the backdrop. He was tinkering with his camera and didn’t immediately notice that I had returned. I cleared my throat.

“Oh, Zeus, you’re back,” he said. “Okay, good.” He studied me at length. “I might be able to mess with the lighting to give your upper body a little more definition and meat. You’re a bit thin.”

“I try to keep in shape.”

“No, that’s good. Thin is fine. Thin is in.” He pointed at my torso. “Are those your ribs sticking out like that?”

“They’ve always been like that. But, look, when I suck in, look.” I drew in the deepest breath possible and my chest ballooned out magnificently as my stomach retreated into my back, subduing my pointy ribs.

Randy grimaced. “I have some ideas to hide those things.”

He aimed a couple of soft boxes at slightly different angles. “There, that’ll probably do it. Okay, Zeus, I want you to stand in front of those blinds and look right at me. You’re tough. You’re a tough guy. You’re the God of toughness. Let’s see it.”

“You want me to flex?” I started to fan out my lats like a cornered cobra preparing to strike its victim.

“No. Well, yes. I don’t know. Whatever. Let’s just see what happens. Hit it.”

I lowered my arms and stood in front of the Venetian blinds. The image of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Conan the Barbarian came to mind. Slowly I bent my knees and slid my feet out to shoulder width. Then I carefully drew Conan’s heavy Atlantean sword from an imaginary scabbard around my waist. I wielded it in front of me, poised and ready to attack with a horizontal cut. I squeezed my fists together tightly around the sword’s grip, ensuring that every sinewy muscle in my forearms rippled to Randy’s delight. He again began snapping off pictures with dangerous speed, and he bounded from one position to the next like an Olympic gymnast in a floor exercise. He shot me from the front, the sides, below and above. At one point he even laid on his back and shot straight up at me.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” he said, then let his camera hang low against his chest. “That was terrific! Where did that come from?”

Breathlessly, I said, “I’ve seen Conan the Barbarian more than ten times on HBO.”

“Well, you had me convinced. And more importantly,” he gently tapped his camera like he was burping an infant, “you convinced the camera.”

“I did?”

“I think so! We’ll know when we get the pictures developed, but I think you’re going to be real pleased.” Randy looked at his watch. “What do you say we get one more look in? Something casual and poppy, like what Duran Duran would wear.”

“I watch MTV, like, all the time. I’ve got stuff like that.”

“Let’s do it.”

I flew down the stairs, past Bermuda, who was typing something on a typewriter, and grabbed from my pile of clothes on the couch my red Members Only jacket, a white t-shirt, silver parachute pants, and Velcro high-top sneakers. When I changed, I hardly noticed the smell in the bathroom. I zipped my jacket halfway then pushed the sleeves up to my elbows. I wore two complementary and decorative Swatch watches on my right wrist.

I shot back up the stairs like I was launched from a cannon. Randy was there waiting for me. “Very cool, Zeus. That’s what I was looking for. Love the Swatches.”

He had erected a silver backdrop and brought a large, industrial fan onto the set. He turned it on to the highest setting and a stiff wind blew straight at me. I put my hand up in front of my face to deflect its powerful force. The noise from the fan nearly shattered my eardrums.

“What do you want me to do now?” I shouted.

Randy shouted back. “I want you in the city, walking to the clubs. You’re cool, you’re hip.” He tossed me a pair of aviator sunglasses and I was on my way.

The wind was in my hair, the lights were hot, Randy was darting around me like before with his trigger finger fully employed, and life was good. I ran my hands through my hair, I lowered the glasses to the bridge of my nose to peer over them inquisitively, and I gyrated like a rock star.

I’m not sure what possessed me, but I thought it would be a good idea to hold an imaginary microphone and burst out with Duran Duran’s The Reflex. I was intimately familiar with the tune and I really let go, sounding like a Mexican caterwauler when the lyrics came around to “Why-y-y-y-y don’t you use it. Try-y-y-y-y not to bruise it.”

I surprised myself at just how easy it was to brush aside all the awkwardness of the dinner-wear photo series. With each passing moment my confidence grew.

Randy was ecstatic. “Zeus, you are Simon LeBon! Dude, you’re him, right in front of me. That’s sweet music!”

At last Randy stopped clicking pictures. He was exhausted. So was I. He demanded from me a high-five. I reciprocated gladly.

Panting, I asked, “Did you get what you needed?”

Randy replied, “I got more than I needed. You’re done, dude. That was incredible.”

“So, when should I come back to see the pictures?”

“I should have your shot sheet ready by Thursday. That’s what we’ll use to make your portfolio. Call first, though, to make sure it’s ready.”

I turned to exit the studio still dressed as Simon LeBon and was just about to leave when Randy’s voice stopped me. “Zeus, you became a male model today. You’ve got real potential. You may have found your destiny. Nice job.”

I gamboled back down the stairs in a dream. Bermuda may have said something to me as I collected my clothes, but I didn’t hear anything at that moment except Randy’s voice telling my how terrific I was.

I walked back down the hallway, and the bathroom stench was practically fragrant. But right then someone could have lodged two rotten eggs into my nostrils and they would have smelled like a field of summer heather in the Yorkshire Dales.

*****

The days leading up to Thursday were difficult because I was excited. My stomach churned so much that I could barely eat. Wednesday night I slept poorly, like a guard dog. Deep restfulness escaped me because one eye stayed open throughout the night and stared ahead at the fame I’d have after appearing in my own billboard along I-95. Fame looked something like this: I stepped from a black stretch Limo in New York City as an impeccably-dressed celebrity, with a bright smile and gobs of money spilling from my pockets. I walked through uptown Manhattan with the paparazzi trailing close behind. A covetous throng of screaming fans — mostly cute girls — were shouting praises at me. The fans couldn’t get enough of me, and if it weren’t for the burly body guards and hoards of NYPD’s finest surrounding me, my clothes would have been torn to shreds, and my cheeks and forehead tattooed with red lipstick from my many female admirers. But being the charitable celebrity, I paused just long enough to absently sign a few autographs, then turned to strut into the chic Manhattan restaurant where my table, agent and the journalist from the gossip rag were waiting. My agent was going to toss a few movie deals at me. The journalist was there to help tell the behind-the-scenes story of my life; how I rose to fame out of the ashes of horrific and brutal abuse. As a final consolation prize to the rabid fans lining the streets, I blew them one last kiss before I ducked inside the restaurant.

On Thursday during school I was present but absent. Each class period lasted an eternity and I just couldn’t wrestle with history, algebra, English, biology, and band. My mind was more agreeably engaged on a shot sheet and the memories of Star Finders. Teachers called on me in class to answer questions, but I avoided speaking by claiming that I was nursing a painful canker sore on the inside of my lower lip. I exaggerated my excuse each time by dabbing my hand tenderly at my mouth and wincing a bit.

The final bell rang and I sprang from school at lightning speed. I drove home, bouncing my left leg nervously the whole way. I ran in a full-on sprint from my car to the front door, threw it open, tossed my books into a pile in the foyer, dashed straight for the phone in the kitchen and dialed Star Finders.

Bermuda’s voice was velvety and rich. “Hello, Star Finders. We make your dreams come true.”

Catching my breath, I cried, “Bermuda, is that you?”

Her pleasantness evaporated, and the familiar deep-voiced hoarseness returned. “Who is this?”

“Zeus. I was in there on Saturday.”

“For what?”

“For my portfolio shoot.”

“And?”

“And Randy said my shot sheet should be ready today and that I could come in to see it. Is it ready? I can’t wait to see it!”

“Hang on.” Bermuda’s prevalent pneumonic malady reasserted itself and she about blew my eardrum apart with a paroxysm of racking coughs. When she regained her composure, she croaked, “When did you say you were here?”

“Saturday. This past Saturday.”

“Wait, is this it?”

My stomach leaped. “You found it?”

She must have put a cigarette in her mouth because her speech suddenly became more muffled and garbled. “You said your name was Paul, right?”

“No, it’s Zeus.”

“Well shoot, then. That ain’t it.”

I heard her shuffling through papers. I was beginning to lose hope.

“I’ve got a million of these stupid things on my desk,” she said. “Look at this one. Idiot’s got clothespins hanging off his jacket. Look how huge that thing is.” She hacked and cackled into the phone.

“Wait, did you say clothespins?”

“Yeah, a whole line of ‘em down the back of this clown’s jacket!”

“That’s it. That’s gotta be mine. Grey dinner jacket?”

“How am I supposed to know? These pictures are black and white.”

With the cunning of a detective I asked, “Is there a series of me in a bathing suit on the shot sheet?”

A grunt, then something like a burp. “That and a jacket with the sleeves pushed up. This must be yours. Yeah, says your name on the back. Bring in your sixty bucks and you and Randy can go through it to make your portfolio.”

“I can be there in thirty minutes!”

*****

Bermuda was at her desk typing. A cigarette lay smoldering in her ash tray. She never looked up. “May I help you?” Her voice was as hoarse and deep as ever.

“I want to see my shot sheet.”

“I’m sorry, you are?”

“I’m Zeus. I called thirty minutes ago. I was in here on Saturday. Here’s my sixty bucks.” I plunked a crumpled wad of bills down on her desk and she looked at it passively.

She looked past me. “Randy’s upstairs in a session. He’ll be down soon. Take a seat.” She began to peck away on her typewriter as I sat on the couch.

At length Randy came out from the studio and down the stairs with a simple looking, forty-ish woman dressed in all black spandex. She looked like a wrinkled version of Olivia Newton John.

The woman passed by us and made her way out the back door without saying anything. Randy caught my eye. “Ah, Zeus. Hey man, what’s up?”

“Hey Randy.” I stood to greet him.

“Is your shot sheet ready?” he asked me civilly.

“Yes.”

“Bermuda, you got it over there?”

Bermuda held it out without looking at us. The swaying roll of fat on the underside of her arm brushed a few papers onto the floor. I stood up and snatched the shot sheet from her hand. I squinted at it with one eye and kept the other one closed hoping that the pictures wouldn’t tell me any bad news. The pictures were in black and white and very small. There must have been forty of them.

“Zeus, wait,” Randy interrupted. “Use this.” He handed me a magnifying loupe so that I could zoom in closely on each shot.

There I was, in the splendor of the oversized jacket, in that series of poses that felt so awkward. Bermuda was right, you could see the clothespins in many of the shots. The jacket clearly wasn’t laying right on my torso; one side was higher than the other. And my hair? On one half of my head it was sculpted and tight, but the other half bulged out in clumps and erratic waves. Why hadn’t Randy fixed it?

In many of the dinner-wear pictures I looked surprised. In a few of them my eyes drooped and my smile looked forced as it bent at a funny angle, making it appear as though I was working on a wad of gum. In others I looked like a goofy, waxy mannequin.

And my ribs. The shots of me in my bathing suit wielding my imaginary sword exposed them. My bare arms and legs were disproportionate to the rest of my body. I looked like I had been pieced together from parts of different teenagers. My body was covered in peaks and valleys that didn’t make any sense.

And the Simon LeBon shots. The aviator sunglasses nearly covered my entire face.

“Well,” Randy asked, “what do you think? I haven’t looked at it yet.” He spoke quickly and I remembered just how quickly he had spoken the last time I was there.

I didn’t know how to answer him.

“Let me take a look.” Randy grabbed the shot sheet from me and held it up to the light as if it were an x-ray. “Hmmm,” he murmured.

“What?” I asked anxiously.

“Well ... it’s, um ....” It was almost as if he were trying not to laugh.

“Do you ... I mean, is it good?”

He set the shot sheet on Bermuda’s desk. “Zeus, how old are you?”

“Sixteen. Why?”

“Hmmm, sixteen. You’re still young. That’s good.”

“What do you mean?” I was on the verge of panic.

“Let me show you something.” He grabbed a folder from Bermuda’s desk and opened it, staring at contents I couldn’t see. “I’ve got a friend who’s a professional photographer in a big agency. Just did a big shoot with a real male model. Look at this guy. Now that’s a model. Knows how to use every muscle in his face, his abs. Study him … how he smiles, how he poses. The camera loves him. Then maybe come back and see me in a few years. We can try this again when you look more like this. You don’t owe me any money. Check this out.”

He handed me a picture of a Coca Cola billboard, one I had seen before in the lounge at Chili’s Bar and Grill.

By Garrett R. Hall

In the hotel mirror I noticed that parts of me were growing faster than other parts. I was tall and broad, my arms were long and strong, but my hands and wrists were bony and I had weirdly thin ankles. As a high school senior, I was almost about as big as my father was at my age, and he had become a professional pitcher.

My mother and I had flown to Las Vegas earlier that day to spend time with my uncle, Herman, who had become a very successful freelance cameraman and director since moving to Vegas when he was twenty-four. He had filmed and/or directed it all — title fights at Caesar’s Palace, documentaries on the Mojave desert, concerts, pageants, commercials and conferences.

That evening we dined at an all-you-can-eat buffet inside The Sands Hotel where my mother and I were staying. Reverberating through the restaurant was the circus music from the adjacent casino. It sounded like one-hundred ice cream trucks were parked inside my head. People everywhere where slinging coins into machines, pulling at levers, drinking cocktails, smoking cigars or cigarettes, and looking like they hadn’t slept in a long, long time. The place was an assault on my senses. But it was exciting.

Herman, who was a stringy man with angular, ancient Greek facial features, hirsute arms, a balding head, and a voice like butter, looked across the table at me and said, “Don’t make any plans for Sunday, Babe.” He cracked open an Alaskan king crab leg as long as a garden hose, pulled a lump of white meat from the socket, dunked it in a small tin of melted butter and deposited it into his mouth. A small piece of meat clung to his short brown beard. He wiped his hands in his napkin, fixed his dark eyes on me and commanded laconically, “You’re coming with me.”

I lowered my fork, which was brimming with a generous pile of wild rice pilaf. “I’m coming with you? Where are we going?”

Herman reached across the table for the salt and pepper shakers. “I have to direct part of the Vegas Jerry Lewis Telethon. A three-hour segment. Thought I’d take you behind the scenes and give you a chance to answer some phones on camera. Local, live TV. Your mom thought you’d enjoy that. Says you have a thing for show business.”

I played it cool and coy. “Oh, she did?”

I looked at mom, who swallowed a bite of fettuccine Alfredo, then wiped her mouth and said, “Herman offered.”

The familiar wave of elation welled up in me: I had another chance to be on television. I steeled myself, emptied the forkful of rice pilaf into my mouth, swallowed, and said, “Sure. Sounds fun.”

*****

On Sunday around noon, Herman and I drove to the Channel 5 Action News studio, site of the Las Vegas Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon. Other than the large black, red and yellow Action 5 logo painted on the west wall of the white building and the towering antennae rising from the roof, the news station was fairly nondescript.

We made our way down a long hallway cluttered with shelves of electronic debris, at the end of which was a set of double doors. Above them a sign in black capital letters read “Studio A.” To its left was another sign lit up in red letters: “On Air.” Behind those doors the telethon was taking place, and I knew that hundreds of thousands of people throughout Las Vegas were ravenously taking it all in on their television sets at home.

I strode confidently ahead, passing Herman, and lunged for the double doors that led into the studio.

“Wait!” Herman barked from behind me, stopping me in my tracks. “Don’t open that door. We’re not going in there yet. Plus, look up there.” He pointed to the “On Air” sign that was lit bright red. “When that’s lit up, you can’t open these doors. They’re filming. That’s live TV happening in there. You open that door and it’s all over.”

“Oh.” I looked at the “On Air” sign longingly.

Herman used a firm parental tone. “I need you to stay with me. I don’t want you doing your own thing. I need you to wait for me to tell you what to do. Got it?”

“Cool.”

“Good. I’ve got to meet with some people to talk about shooting the next few hours. You can sit in on the meeting. But stay invisible. Keep a low profile. I don’t want you doing anything that’s going to draw attention to yourself. Got it?”

“Got it.” I sarcastically saluted him.

Herman threw open a door opposite the studio and I stared uncomprehendingly at a room filled with many people, all meaning business, and all sitting in tall leather chairs around a large, polished conference table. Piles of papers lay before each one of them and they were scribbling notes furiously while they spoke to each other in that same glorious TV production code I had heard on the IHOP commercial set years before.

“Remember,” Herman reminded, “stay invisible. Keep your head low.”

I nodded.

“Oh, good. Herman, you’re here,” said a grey-haired, fatigued man in a wrinkled blue dress shirt and low-hanging red neck tie. “I’ll let Lenny know he’s off the hook. You ready to direct the next portion?”

“All set, Frank,” Herman said confidently as he patted his thin production notebook.

Herman took his place at one end of the table and immediately and effortlessly merged into the rush-hour of conversation. Industry speak rattled around me fast and furious like machine-gun fire.

I walked with my head down toward the far end of the room, found the last remaining empty seat at the end of the large table, and made myself comfortable in my own reclining leather swivel chair. The seat was a little too low and I felt minuscule against the table. I never looked up or around me. I fixed my gaze squarely and stolidly on the table in front of me, just like Herman had asked me to.

A man’s deep and soothing voice to my right cut into my ear through the clatter. “Hi there, son. I’m Noel Hodges, host of That’s a Great Question! Perhaps you’ve seen the show and heard of me?”

I froze. Did I hear that right? Is Noel Hodges sitting next to me? Couldn’t be. Impossible.

I turned slowly to my right and there sat Noel Hodges — the man who had stole my thunder on the IHOP set — in a fine tan suit and brown tie. Adrenalin shot through my body and I blinked a few times to make sure I wasn’t seeing a ghost. The thick, caterpillar-like auburn mustache he had grown during the previous season of That’s a Great Question! looked even more becoming in person. His brown eyes, set in that wide, well-composed, colorful face, twinkled at me. He extended a large hand for me to shake. As his suit jacket sleeve drooped open at the wrist an emerald cuff link the size of a walnut seized my attention. He spoke softly. “You must be one of the talent, one of the teen celebrities starring in the telethon. Are you one of the talent?”

I reached out my hand to shake his, and his meaty hand completely engulfed mine. And though he didn’t mean to hurt me, his naturally strong grip was like a crippling vice around my feeble hand. I whispered back, trying to disguise my pain, “You’re … I know who you are. I—”

“No wait, I know,” Noel giggled softly. “You’re … what do the kids say these days? You’re the next big thing, right?” He broke out in a subdued laugh while still crushing my hand into a fleshy pulp.

I leaned toward him and whispered in a shaky voice, “I’m just here with Herman, the guy at the end of the table. He’s my uncle. I’m from Fort Lauderdale.” I didn’t know how I was able to get all those words out.

“Oh, I see. You’re from Fort Lauderdale, eh? I’ve been there once or twice. Shot an IHOP ad down there a bunch of years ago. Hot as an oven.” He turned back toward his colleagues around the table, who were still spraying each other with television vernacular bullets.

I looked straight ahead at the table and started to breathe again. I had never dreamed that I’d be sitting next to Noel Hodges in a conference room on the set of the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. I had practically forgotten that That’s a Great Question! was filmed in Las Vegas and that Noel Hodges made his home here.

Just then Herman launched into the conversation from across the table. “And so, then Noel, you will come on stage to receive your award and we’ll bring Jerry in via satellite to congratulate you live. Jerry will say a few words about you and then we’ll run your segment on national.” Herman looked to the other side of the table at a jaunty woman. “Gail, what are we calling Noel’s segment? I know we changed it since I made my notebook.”

Gail rifled through the mountain of papers in front of her. “Um, hang on, Herman. I’ve got it right here. Okay, here it is. ‘Host with a Heart’.”

“Thanks, Gail. Got that, Noel?”

“You bet, Herman,” Noel said as he scribbled some notes on a piece of paper.

The group moved on to the next topic, a calf-roping demo with Dallas Blogwaller, the Nevada State Junior Rodeo Champion. The conversational pace quickened as if the group were up against some unforgiving deadline.

“Herman, you’re on in thirty,” said a red-haired man who stuck his head inside the conference room door and popped away as quickly as he came.

More chatter, more rifling through paperwork, more references to camera angles, music beds, and lighting. I sat idle and listened, bouncing my legs beneath the table.

The red-haired man flung the conference room door open again. “Herman, your team’s on in twenty.”

Herman replied, “Thanks, Glenn. Time to go, gang.” He slammed his notebook shut, rose from his chair and ushered his crew out the door to their respective assignments.

As we exited the room Herman pulled me aside. “Remember, keep a low profile. Your job is to smile and answer phones. You’ll get instructions on the set. Dig, Babe?”

“Dig.”

Herman and I walked into Studio A. The “On Air” light was off. The cavernous studio was buzzing with activity. Lights of all colors blinded me and I had to shield my eyes with my hand. Herman led me to the place where all the volunteers would sit to answer phones — three graduated risers with rows of chairs, long counters and black phones; about eight people to a row.

I took a seat at one end of the middle row and looked out in front of me. Three cameras the size of bazookas lined the front of the studio and were aimed at me and the rest of the lucky people invited to answer phones. Is this the best seat to be picked up by the cameras? If I sit more toward the middle of the row then I’d be in just about every shot. But Herman’s strong words cemented me to the end seat.

Men and women dressed mostly in black created the same frenetic commotion I had witnessed on the IHOP set. House lights faded in and out, production assistants were unraveling cables, and television speak was the common language all around me.

I looked behind me. Along the entire back wall of the studio stood a plywood cutout of a light blue medieval castle with a crudely drawn brown portcullis and incongruous battlements rising high and majestic to the top of the piece. Why a castle? And why so poorly made? This will look like garbage on TV. But when I turned back around I realized how wrong I was. I discovered a monitor off to my right that showed the entire pack of volunteers and the castle backdrop. From the camera’s point of view the castle looked real and pleasant. Lights were strategically trained on it to cast shadows in just the right places, which made the thing look three dimensional. It was like magic.

I reached up to scratch an itch on my left ear, and a guy in the monitor made the same move along with me. I waved my hand back and forth. The guy in the monitor did the same thing at exactly the same time. I looked to my right to see if the guy would also look that way, but then I couldn’t see the monitor. Was that really me? Sitting against the castle backdrop and lit like an actor I almost didn’t recognize myself. But there I was, on TV; at least in a monitor.

My plain white t-shirt with cuffed sleeves stood out against the castle backdrop. Soon the cameras would start filming and I’d be in the living room of hundreds of thousands of households, maybe more.

Just then something grazed my left foot. I looked down at the carpeted riser and saw a ball-point pen. Somebody had dropped it from the row above me.

“I’m sorry. I dropped my pen. Can you hand it back up to me?” It was the winsome voice of an angel — clear, feminine, and bright — coming from the end seat of the riser behind and above me. When I had looked behind me moments before to survey my surroundings I hadn’t noticed anyone sitting there.

I reached down, grabbed the pen and turned to hand it to the young woman behind me. She was so stunningly beautiful that I lost the strength to lift it to her. Butterflies formed in my stomach. She had long, luxurious brown hair that flowed perfectly over her tan, smooth-round shoulders and ended in playfully-large curls. A dazzling diamond tiara rested on top of her head. She wore a silver, sequined one-shoulder formal gown that sparkled like an alpine lake. A black, satin sash with a white, cursive inscription that read “Miss Teen Nevada” hugged her body.

I had her pen. The thing she desired most at that moment was in my possession. I knew that giving it back to her would make her happy. I actually had the power within an instant of meeting Miss Teen Nevada to make her happy. But I was paralyzed.

Her lambent, hazel eyes met mine and a smile spread across her face, which radiated strength and poise. She creased her brow cutely, inclined her head to one side, and asked me with inquisitive spunk, “Are you planning to keep my pen? It’s a great pen, I’ll give you that. But I really need it back. How else can I take information from my callers?” She held out her soft hand. Her nails glistened from a French manicure.

I caught my breath, then slowly reached out and gingerly placed the pen in her hand.

“Thank you,” she said. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

I was mesmerized.

Thankfully, she spoke again because there was no way I could. “Are you answering phones, too?”

It took some time, but I finally found the strength to answer her with a flat, “Yes.”

“Me too! Every year they ask Miss Teen Nevada to be a part of the telethon.” She paused for a moment to allow me to enter the conversation, but I had nothing, so she continued. “I am humbled to be doing this. I especially enjoy visiting the kids. I’m so moved by their stories, their incredible courage. I’m always in awe of them.” She looked off in the distance, perhaps recalling a recent interaction with a child. “You should see how much love is in their sweet eyes. It reminds me that there’s good in this world.” Her voice grew darker. “It’s easy sometimes to forget that. You know?”

I did know. My father’s disappearance and then the secret abuse that followed from my second-grade teacher made me know. For eight weeks I endured unspeakable things from another man.

She waited patiently for me to say something, tapping her fingers on the table. Finally, she asked, “Do you talk?”

I pushed out, “I like your crown.”

“Good, you do talk.” She reached up to straighten her tiara. “It’s not real. You want it?” Her laugh was effervescent.

For a moment I thought she was going to remove it and give it to me, but she laid her arms on the table, one over the other, and asked, “Are you from Las Vegas?”

I looked at her dumbly.

“Well?” she asked.

I swallowed hard. “No. No I’m not. I flew out here with my mom on Friday.” Why did I bring my mother into this?

“Flew from where?”

“Fort Lauderdale.”

She perked up even more. “Fort Lauderdale? Really? Wow, that’s a long way.”

I can do this. Just relax and concentrate. “Well, actually I’ll be in Tallahassee soon at Florida State University.”

“Florida State? I’m going to UNLV.”

“Are they the Scorpions or Road Runners or something?”

“Are you joking? We’re the Runnin’ Rebels. What are you, the Seminoles?”

“That’s right.”

“Why are you here?”

“I’m visiting my uncle, Herman. That’s him down there. He’s the director.” I pointed to Herman, who was busy talking to some people, one of whom was Noel Hodges. I thought about telling her about the IHOP commercial, but I didn’t.

“That’s your uncle? The guy talking to Noel Hodges? That’s pretty cool. How long are you in town?”

“Um … we leave tomorrow morning. Just here for the long weekend.”

“Well, I hope you get to see everything there is to see in our great city.” I could tell it was a rehearsed line sewn into her from the pageants.

I stepped out on a ledge. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Julianne. And yours?”

“I’m Zeus Hall.”

A snorting blast of laughter erupted from her. She attempted to cover her mouth to keep more from spilling out. She collected herself. “I’m sorry. Zeus? That’s really your name? Like the Greek God?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not a nickname? That’s your real name?”

“Yes. Well, sort of. It’s because of my hair.”

“Ah. It’s not every day you meet someone named Zeus.”

“Well it’s not every day that you meet Miss Teen Nevada. My real name is Garrett.”

“Nice to meet you, Garrett.” She smiled and I melted. Our eyes met again and there was a moment of silence. Neither of us blinked. I was the first to glance away.

Looking down, I asked, “How did you get to become Miss Teen Nevada?”

She shrugged as if it were no big deal. “All the other girls dropped out of the competition.”

I laughed. “No, for real. Were you, I mean, did you have to do, like, the whole beauty pageant thing?”

“Yes, and it was like, ugh!” She stuck a finger down her throat as if she were gagging herself. “I’m only kidding. Well, not really. My mother thought it would be a good opportunity for me, to get a scholarship and maybe even move on to compete for Miss America.” She looked away and bit her bottom lip. “She thought it could help, you know … with … things….” Her voice trailed off, her brow tightened and her skin seemed to lighten suddenly, like a memory didn’t agree with her. Something in her mind made her come briefly unglued. She looked back at me with new energy and bounced in her seat. “Anyway, no, really, it’s been great. It’s an honor to be chosen, and I get to make a difference.” She smiled.

I sensed that emotional control was a trait that had served her well in becoming Miss Teen Nevada. I couldn’t tell which was the real Julianne: Miss Teen Nevada or the girl who seemed to be hiding something she wanted to let out. Something about her felt familiar to me; maybe it was the something she was hiding. I hid things, too.

“So, you’re a real celebrity,” I said. “You’re famous. People must love you.”

“I think they only notice when I get all made up and wear this stuff.” She lifted the sash away from her body with her thumbs to give me a better look. “And to be honest,” she leaned close to the table, looked both ways, and whispered loudly, “it’s over-rated!” She sat back up. “If I’m in my regular clothes with my hair up nobody really knows who I am.”

“I would.”

She looked down and started to blush.

My mouth started drying. “What … what do you think of that castle back there?”

She looked behind her and nodded. “Nice.”

“I think they stole that thing from Mister Rogers.”

She laughed hard and almost gave me a playful slap on the arm, but she held back. “So, Zeus — I can’t believe I’m calling you Zeus — what are you going to study at Florida State?”

I wasn’t prepared for her question. “I’m still sorting all that out. You know, like laundry.” I got the predictable laughter. “But I’m thinking about studying music.”

“Music? That’s cool. You’re a musician?”

“I taught myself piano.”

“No kidding. I had lessons when I was a little girl.”

“Do you still play?”

Her eagerness gave way to the transient darkness again. “Not so much these days. I miss it. I stopped playing after….” She looked away.

“After what?”

The eagerness came back. “Why don’t you ask me what I’m going to study at UNLV!”

“Okay. What are you going to study at UNLV?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Theater.”

“Theater? Really? You like acting?”

“My mother thinks I’d be good at it. I’ve recently done some community theater. I want to get better at it.”

“That’s cool. I’d watch anything you starred in.”

“Oh stop!” Her long eyelashes flickered.

“For real.”

More silence as our eyes locked again. I smiled. She looked away and guided a strand of hair behind her ear.

I swallowed hard again and asked, “So, did something hap—”

“Yo!” Herman hollered to me from the front of the studio. I didn’t immediately respond.

Julianne said, “I think your uncle is calling you.” She pointed to the front of the studio.

Not now, Herman.

Herman shouted again, “Hey!” There was a conspicuous sense of urgency in his voice, so I faced him. He waved his arm at me. “Come down here.” Noel Hodges was standing next to him looking at me curiously.

I turned back to Julianne and sighed. “Will you excuse me?”

Herman hollered, “Move it. We go live in just a few minutes. I need you down here quick.”

I made my way down the riser steps. I hadn’t noticed because I had been too busy talking to Julianne, but all the other seats were now filled with people eager to answer phones. One person was dressed as Elvis Presley. I saw a couple dancers from one of the popular Vegas shows. The rest of the people were a mixture of young and old, attractive and plain. I didn’t care who any of them were except for the one sitting directly behind me in the tiara, gown and sash.

I jumped from the final riser and landed on the cement studio floor in front of Herman. “You called?”

Herman turned to Noel and asked, “Noel, where would you like to stand for your segment?”

Noel moved to position a few feet away and stood tall and still. “About here.”

“Okay, thanks,” Herman replied. “Go ahead to make-up. I’ve got it from here.” He called a production assistant over to mark Noel’s position with black tape.

Noel left us.

Herman held out a microphone to me. “Take this and stand right there where Noel was. We need to do a microphone check. Thought you’d enjoy doing that for Noel Hodges.”

Another microphone check for Noel Hodges? You’ve got to be kidding? My stomach churned. Half of me wanted to lodge the microphone in Herman’s ear. The other half of me considered the facts. Out of everyone in the studio, Herman had asked for me and now I was the one standing in front of Julianne looking into a camera and checking a mike. It was a privileged position.

“Everyone quiet on the set for a microphone check,” Herman called.

Everyone immediately obliged. I heard only the hum of the lights.

I glanced up to the top riser and found Julianne. She was watching me intently. She smiled and wiggled her fingers in a kittenish wave.

One of Herman’s cameramen retreated behind his massive camera and put on a headset, just like during the IHOP commercial.

“Okay,” Herman said. “Talk into the mic.”

I found the moment impossible to pass up. I looked into Julianne’s eyes and crooned, “This next one goes out to the lovely Miss Teen Nevada.”

Julianne giggled and turned a blushing shade of red that made her look even more radiant in the glow of the studio lights.

At that moment I was more thankful than ever that I had spent so many of my formative years watching MTV and listening to heavy metal. I knew the lyrics for every rock and pop hit of the 1980s and could recall them precisely. Most of the songs were about how to love a woman. I prepared to sing the second verse of Warrant’s Heaven to the reigning Miss Teen Nevada. To me no greater song about love had ever been written.

The studio was quiet and all eyes were on me. I drew the microphone to my mouth, fixed my eyes on Julianne, channeled Jani Lane, and gushed:

How I love the way you move
And the sparkle in your eyes
There's a color deep inside them
Like a blue suburban sky

When I come home late at night
And you're in bed asleep
I wrap my arms around you
So I can feel you breathe

Julianne sat stock still, her eyes practically popping from their sockets. Her mouth draped open. Some of the volunteers were looking at her, and I noticed one woman wiping tears from her eyes. There was more to the song, and Julianne needed to hear it. I continued to sing with confidence:

I don't need to be a superman
As long as you will always be my biggest fan

I was finished. Three things happened next. First Julianne fanned herself with both hands, then put them over her heart and sighed affectionately like she was staring into a pen of puppies. The second thing caught me by surprise. Noel Hodges had come back into the studio and was leaning against its entrance with his arms crossed, regarding me with keen interest. And third, which I wasn’t expecting, applause broke out throughout the studio. I opened my mouth to sing more.

Herman’s voice snapped me from the magical moment. “Enough! I said we got it! Haven’t you heard me? We’re done.”

I handed the microphone back to him and caught Noel Hodges from the corner of my eye. He was holding his chin in his hand and nodding approvingly.

The cameras hadn’t yet started rolling. I still had live television to look forward to.

I glided back up the risers to my seat as Herman began shouting instructions to all the volunteers. We were to use the forms by our phones to take down information from each caller, then pass each form to our left so a production assistant could keep a running tally of how much money was being raised. He told us to smile and show enthusiasm. He finished with, “We’re going live in five, four, three, two, one, ACTION!”

The action erupted in front of me — lights flashed, stagehands darted here and there, and a blonde Channel 5 Action News anchorwoman dressed in a black gown gabbed excitedly into a microphone. I wanted to turn around and drink in Julianne’s beauty once again, but I was on live television. Finally.

The anchorwoman was effusive and animated, talking up a storm. She said a lot about keeping the phones ringing, how much money had been raised so far during the telethon, the impact that the money would have on the lives of so many kids, and how, in just a few moments, she was going to present an award to Noel Hodges, “Host with a Heart.” She called out, “Before we bring Noel Hodges out here I’d like all of Las Vegas to say hello to Julianne Dowden, Miss Teen Nevada, who’s here with us in the studio answering phones. We can’t thank her enough for the support she gives our kids all year long. What a remarkable young woman, maybe even our next Miss America. There she is, up in the back row!”

Without warning a bright spotlight shined straight into my eyes. I threw a backhand up to shield the penetrating beam as I squinted in discomfort. The light was meant for Julianne, and no doubt she was squarely in its center, but I was blinded.

With my hand still shielding my eyes, I ducked my head down and to the right, and the television monitor I’d seen before greeted me unflatteringly. My squinty antics were in full view of the camera, and worse, they were a distracting menace against Julianne’s elegance. She was doing her best to smile and wave to Las Vegas, but she was distracted by my ocular adversity.

Horrified, I didn’t know what else to do except slide off my chair and get out of the sizzling shaft of light. The problem was I slid off my chair to the right, where the riser ended. I sailed unhindered over the riser’s edge and hit the cold cement floor below with a thud.

“Zeus!” Julianne cried. She stood up and looked over the edge.

The crew reacted immediately. The spotlight angled back onto the anchorwoman, who thanked Miss Teen Nevada, then abruptly changed the subject and started talking about the history of Noel Hodges.

I was lying stunned and prone on the studio floor, hardly able to move while I fought for air. The fall had knocked the wind out of me and I had hit my head.

Julianne called quietly down to me. “Zeus! Are you okay?”

I groaned.

A stagehand came to my side and said something unintelligible. His lips were moving but I could not make out what he was saying. I suddenly couldn’t hear very well. The world sounded like static.

“Hey, kid, you okay?” the stagehand asked. After a moment, I could hear again.

My wind was returning. I shook out each leg and rolled my head around clockwise then counterclockwise. “I think I’m okay.” My stomach hurt like I had swallowed broken glass.

“All right. When we come to a commercial break you can get back to your seat, okay?”

I sat up, then dusted my hands and surveyed my arms and legs. Luckily I was wearing jeans, which protected my legs against any abrasions.

The stagehand patted me on the chest then walked back to his post.

I looked back up at Julianne. She had resumed her seat and was looking down at me. She mouthed the words, “I loved the song you sang. So beautiful.” She raised her eyebrows and whispered sympathetically, “I hope you’re okay.”

“I am now,” I mouthed back.

I caught the tail end of the anchorwoman’s award presentation to Noel. It was difficult to hear everything she was saying, and I had to watch through the risers, but she closed with, “Thanks Noel Hodges, host with a heart.” I heard him reply, “I’m honored.” The volunteers who weren’t currently taking calls applauded him.

The anchorwoman said, “Don’t go anywhere, Las Vegas. We’re coming right back with something you don’t want to miss. Dallas Blogwaller, Nevada junior rodeo champ, is going to show us how to lasso a calf. You don’t want to miss that. So, stay tuned.”

I was on my feet and peeking through the underside piping of the risers. Mostly I saw the legs and feet of the volunteers, but I could see bits and pieces of the front of the studio, including the anchorwoman. I backed away in horror as Herman ushered himself in front of everyone.

He thanked the anchorwoman and then addressed us all. “We’re out to commercials! Okay everyone. Great segment. Noel, wonderful job. Julianne, you looked great. Really, great job everyone.”

I breathed a long sigh of relief. Herman said nothing about me falling off the riser.

Herman continued, “We’ve got three minutes before we’re back in.”

That was my cue to re-climb the risers and find my seat again. The phones were ringing off the hook.

I started to bound up to my seat with a smiling Julianne in my sights when I felt an icy hand seize my arm. “Oh no you don’t,” Herman growled. “Your seat is over there now.” He pointed to an empty seat farthest on the left of the front row, a marathon away from Julianne. I would be diametrically opposite her. I could feel my stomach flip and my spirits flag.

Herman helped me to my seat the same way a prison guard assists a disorderly inmate back to his cell. As he propelled me along I looked over my shoulder back at Julianne, who was watching me with despondent eyes. The worst part was that another man had taken my original seat. He was a swashbuckling young, black-haired prince whom I could tell already had designs on my beloved. The studio lights may have been playing tricks on me, but I could have sworn he gave me the stink eye.

As we made our way across the risers I felt the uncomfortable stares from all the volunteers. It was the same group that had applauded me only minutes before when I had serenaded Julianne.

Herman plunked me into my new seat. I grumpily straightened my shirt and ran my hands through my hair.

“You can’t do much damage from here,” Herman said frostily. He knelt down beside me. “You have one job to do. That is to answer this black phone when it rings. Then take down the information and pass your form to the stagehand on your left. Got it?”

“Got it,” I seethed.

“You blow this and you’re off the set. Don’t make me regret giving you another chance. You dig?”

“I said I got it.”

Herman marched back to his director’s lair.

I looked back up at Julianne dolefully. A piercing bolt of anger ripped through me. The young prince had swiveled around in his chair to face her and was carrying on a delightful conversation. I was in his chair and he in mine. Herman had arranged it all.

The prince was leaning comfortably with his arms folded on Julianne’s riser. She was laughing and nodding heartily. The blood drained from my body when she reached out and playfully slapped him on his arm, acting like she was falsely offended by something he had just said. That was the flirtatious slap I was hoping for, but had not received.

My mood deteriorated even more.

Herman stood in front of all of us once again and said, “We’re on again in five, four, three, two, one….”

Again the blinking studio lights, the continued dissonance of ringing phones and the general tumult. The excitable anchorwoman pranced out in front of the cameras and introduced expert calf roper Dallas Blogwaller, a tall drink of water who wore a plaid shirt, jeans with leather chaps, and dusty boots with steel toes. He was carrying loops of rope and it was about then that I lost all interest in Mr. Blogwaller and felt myself sinking into an inexorable depression. I dared not look back at Julianne.

My black push-button phone rang, snapping me from my mournful trance. The handset jangled like a jackhammer. I stared at it like I’d never seen a phone ring before. The female stagehand to my left gestured, “Answer it!”

I picked up the handset and held it to my ear. “Hello?” I said tentatively.

“Yes, howdy,” came the reply of an old man from the wild west. “This the Jerry show?”

“Yes it is. The Jerry Lewis Telethon.” I sat up with a new vigor, happy to be put to work to take my mind off its present gloom. “Are you calling to make a donation?”

“I s’pose. How much you want?” His voice was rickety and I wondered if he could afford to contribute anything at all. When I pictured him in my mind he was unshaven, leathery, and chewing on a toothpick. His face, with its long, silver prickly whiskers resembled that of a mountain ball cactus. Certainly, he had bad breath.

“Um, well, that depends on you, sir,” I replied cordially. “You can give whatever you’d like. There’s no set amount.”

“Well how ‘bout twenty-five dollars? That enough?”

I grabbed the stack of forms and the pen in front of me. “Okay, sir, twenty-five. That’s a fine amount. Jerry is happy to have any amount you want to give. The kids appreciate it, too. I just need to get some information from you, okay?”

“That’s fine, son.”

“Do you want to do a one-time gift or twenty-five per month?”

“What’s a one-time gift?”

I squeezed the form in front of me, crinkling it like an aluminum can. “It’s, um, where you just give one financial gift instead of a monthly donation.”

“I don’t want to buy a gift. I want to donate money.”

“No, no, that’s what I mean. Never mind. Tell you what, I’m just going to put you down for a one-time gift for twenty-five dollars. How’s that sound?”

“One time is fine.”

I checked the one-time-gift box and jotted down the number twenty-five. I moved to the next item on the form. “Now I need your—”

“Did you see that feller fall off the stage a while ago? Fell clean out of his chair. On live television. Shot straight down like a rock in a pond right in front of that pretty pageant girl.”

I sat there holding the phone, staring up at the studio ceiling. “No sir. I didn’t see that. It happened behind me. I’m sitting in the front row. Now, I need your name, please.”

“Poor feller prob’ly broke his neck. One second he’s there, the next he’s not.”

“Yes, I see. I hope he’s okay. All I need is your name and then we can finish this—”

“Everyone in Vegas must have seen it happen. Prob’ly make the evenin’ news. I’ve never seen nothin’ like it and I watch the Jerry show every year. Did he faint or somethin’?”

In a way I wanted to rejoice that all of Vegas had seen me, but I couldn’t. “Sir, I’m sorry, I don’t know. I’m afraid I can’t help you.” I looked to my right, down the row to see if any of my colleagues were having trouble with their calls. Everyone was scribbling away and smiling as they spoke to their polite and accommodating benefactors.

The old man wasn’t finished. “When I was a boy I fell out of my grandpappy’s apple tree. Hit the ground like a sack of wet bran. Broke my arm in four places. Bet that poor feller broke his arm, too, the way he fell. Ya don’t fall like that without breaking something. Hey, are ya one of the fellers on TV right now answerin’ the phones?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’ve got the Jerry show on right now. I see a bunch of people on the phone and some young maverick twirlin’ lassos. Which one are ya?”

“Sir,” I said hesitantly, “I don’t think you can see me. There are a lot of us here answering phones. I could be any one of these people.”

“Well I know you ain’t one of the ladies. Right? I know Vegas has some strange fellers, but ya don’t sound like one of ‘em. Just wave yer arm so I can spot ya.”

“Sir, there’s no need to—”

He grew threatening. “You wave yer arm right now son or I’ll hang up this here telephone and you and the kids ain’t gettin’ a cent. Ya got that?”

I sank down into my seat and glanced over at Herman, who had his nose in his notebook. “Okay, sir. Here.” I kept my arm in close to my chest and gave the man from the wild west the most understated wave I could. “Did you see me?”

“Hang on, do it again.”

I waved even less enthusiastically than before.

The old loon starting laughing into the phone. “Well I’ll be. I can see ya right there on the TV. Heh heh! Check that out!”

I couldn’t rejoice. I couldn’t enjoy it.

“What the … wait just a minute now,” he said. “That’s you! I knew it. Yer that feller that fell off the stage. Count my stars! I’m lookin’ right at ya! What, did they move yer seat or somethin’ so ya wouldn’t fall down again?”

“Okay, sir, yes, it was me. But, really, I have to comple—”

“I know, I know. You gotta job to do. Don’t get yer britches all twisted in a knot. Tell you what, put me down for a hundred. I’m good for it! Wish I had more to give ya. You made me laugh so hard. Well, good luck to ya! Goodbye.”

“No, wait! Hang on, don’t hang up. I still need to get—”

The dial tone set in.

Grand. All of that for nothing. I put a big X through the uncompleted form and handed it to the stagehand on my left. “This one’s a no-go,” I said deflated.

The stagehand scanned it, crumpled it up and tossed it into a nearby trash can.

I found myself again alone with my thoughts, which was not a fun place to be. I remembered Julianne and the prince having the time of their lives behind me. I figured she was probably flicking wadded-up notes to him — little sweet nothings that allowed him to cut into my dance with her. I had no doubt that he was feeling like a champion.

My phone rang again. I answered reluctantly. “Hello, Jerry Lewis Telethon. May I help you?”

“Zeus? Is that you?”

It was Julianne. I didn’t know what to say. At length she said, “Turn around, you dummy!”

I practically broke my neck from turning so quickly. Julianne was on her phone wiggling her fingers at me. Insanity overcame me. I dropped my handset and it crashed against the riser. I snatched it back up in a flash. “Julianne!” I cried. “It’s you! How are you calling me from your phone?” I held my handset out and studied it as if the answer to my question would be printed on the mouthpiece. I pressed it back against my ear.

“Pretty sneaky, huh?” she replied.

“No, I mean, how did you do that?”

“I asked one of the stagehands if there was a way to do it and he showed me. It was right after your uncle hauled you away from me. Poor guy. Bet that was embarrassing.”

I wiped my brow. “You have no idea.”

She got quiet and changed the subject. “So anyway, this new guy comes and takes your seat and he’s, like, all into himself. I wanted to throw up. So I thought I’d give you a call. What’s it like down there in front?”

“Well, it’s not like being up there.”

“Why’s that? What’s so special about being up here?”

“I can see my house from up there!”

“Stop it!”

“For real, you. You’re up there.”

“That’s really sweet.”

I looked at Herman, who was now looking back at all of us. “If I don’t take at least one real pledge during this segment I’m a dead man and my uncle will toss me out on my rump. I should go.” I said that to test her. The last thing I wanted to do was get off the phone with her.

“Ouch. That’s sounds painful. But you’re right. I don’t want to see that happen to you. I’ll let you go.”

No! Don’t let me go!

She said, “At the next commercial break I’m leaving. My manager told me I could only stay for two segments and then I’ve got to go. Take care of yourself. And thanks for the serenade. It was the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me. I’ll never forget it. It was nice meeting you.”

Her words punched me in the stomach. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes. You better hang up before your uncle gets a hold of you again. Goodbye, Zeus.” She lowered her handset and started to place it on the receiver.

I shot to my feet and faced the back of the studio. “WAIT!” I yelled over the crowd and the ringing phones. All the volunteers froze and looked at me with astonishment. “DON’T HANG UP!” All the volunteers turned to look at Julianne.

She pulled the phone back up to her ear and wore an expectant expression.

I sat back down and spoke breathlessly fast into my handset. “Julianne! Don’t hang up! I’m as good as dead. I’m sure my uncle’s coming to kill me right now. I don’t care. I gotta make this quick. I have to see you again. When can I see you again? I want to talk to you. You said some things. I’m leaving tomorrow morning. I’ll do anything. I don’t care if it’s for five more minutes. I’m staying at The Sands. Can you meet me there? Tonight? I can’t leave Las Vegas without seeing you one more time. Julianne … please … I’m begging you.” I gripped my handset with both hands, hoping….

She said nothing. Her eyes left me and started tracking someone’s movement along the front of the studio. I turned and saw that Herman was coming straight for me pop-eyed and teeming with indignation.

Julianne looked back at me, smiled sadly, and said in a rushed whisper, “You better go.” She hung up her phone.

I hung up my phone and turned back around. Herman was bearing down on me with lightning speed and thundering force. There was no escape. I sat still and quiet in my seat, prepared to take it like a man. He arrived at my seat and knelt down in front of me, out of view from the cameras, which were still rolling. Dallas Blogwaller was still doing his thing, stepping through twirling lassos of rope to the anchorwoman’s delight. Apparently, my little charade hadn’t flustered the rodeo champ.

Herman was calculated, calm and reserved. “Your day is finished. In one minute we’re going to cut to a commercial. When that happens I want you to get up from your chair and exit the studio, back through those doors, and sit in the conference room we were in before. You remember how to get there?”

“Yes.”

He continued in chilling control of himself. “Good. I don’t want you to talk to anyone on your way there. I don’t want you to look at anyone on your way there. I’ve already arranged for Julianne’s manager to take her out another way, so you won’t have any distractions.” He looked at the ground. “Do you understand everything I’ve just told you?”

“Yes I do. I’m sorr—”

He immediately held up a hand in protest. “What’s done is done. Sit in that conference room until I’m through, and then I’ll drive you back to The Sands. If anything in that conference room is out of place when I return, this will be your last trip to Las Vegas.”

Herman stood back up and signaled to the crew and the volunteers that we were heading to a commercial break, then shouted, “We’re out!”

I wasted no time dashing for the conference room.

While walking the halls of the television studio I searched for one last glimpse of Julianne. But it was as Herman had said; she had slipped out another exit far from me and was gone for good.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, ready to weep, but something caught my attention at the end of the long hallway that led to an exit door. Noel Hodges had his back to me as he was passing through the door into the Las Vegas afternoon sunshine. It was faint, but I heard it distinctly. He was singing familiar words. In his smooth baritone I heard him intone, “As long as you will always be my biggest fan.” The door closed behind

By Garrett R. Hall
—————————-

It was a Thursday night in March 1991. I was in my FSU dorm room ready to watch That’s a Great Question! featuring Noel Hodges, the man who had stolen my fame during the IHOP commercial, the man I had met at the telethon.

The show’s opening theme music—a campy blend of happy disco and funk—worked the audience members into a frenzy as they waited for Noel to pop out from somewhere and take the stage. Fat white question marks and light bulbs superimposed in front of three eager contestants moved in random patterns around the television screen while the theme music played on.

As the music blared, Noel, dressed in a dapper olive suit, ran from the back of the studio through the audience and leaped two steps at a time up to the green carpeted stage while a spotlight tracked him the whole way.

He quickly high-fived the three clapping contestants and made his way back toward center stage smiling and egging the audience on. The audience loved it all and ate it up like Halloween candy. Admittedly, so did I.

As the applause coursed through the studio, Noel, practically laughing with glee, turned to the camera, and that’s when things took a serious turn. The audience, on cue, became eerily quiet. The lights dimmed and Noel’s handsome face morphed into that of a stern professor. “I’m Noel Hodges and I’ve got a great question.” He paused, then shouted as if he were opening a sermon to the hard-of-hearing, “WHAT’S THE BEST SYNONYM FOR TOAST?”

In unison the audience belted out, “THAT’S A GREAT QUESTION!”

Applause again exploded throughout the studio. The theme music piped up again—louder and more triumphant than before—while the show’s title spanned across my television set in thin, dancing white letters surrounded by rotating starbursts.

Noel settled the crowd and then said, “Yes, you know, ladies and gentlemen, that is a great question. What is the best synonym for toast? That’s one of the many great questions we’re going to try to answer tonight. And we’ve got these three lovely contestants behind me to take a stab at answering them for lots of cash. Let’s get to know them.”

The contestants sat in tall chairs around a high, rectangular, shiny chrome table. They smiled as Noel approached. They wore oversized nametags with purple block letters that spelled their names.

“Austin Blistwhistle,” Noel began in a syrupy tone as he stood in front of the first contestant and read from a note card. “Great name. You’re a bank teller from New Jersey with three kids and, it says here, you enjoy doing crossword puzzles.”

“That’s right, Noel,” Austin said smugly. His five-o’clock shadow didn’t blend with his tear-drop, gold-plated eyeglasses.

Noel continued. “You once completed a New York Times crossword puzzle while riding a roller coaster? My goodness. Is that right?”

“That’s right,” Austin said as he tossed his hair out of his eyes. “I actually rode it a few times. They let me stay on it until I finished, but it didn’t take me long.”

“And you didn’t get sick?”

“A little queasy by the last run I suppose.”

“I bet. Well, hey, I once rolled a coaster on top of a crossword puzzle that I couldn’t finish so it wouldn’t stare back at me. Know what I mean, Austin? Not quite the same thing, but who’s counting, right?” The audience laughed. My father, I remembered, did crossword puzzles. He loved them.

Noel spoke softly as he leaned in close to Austin. “Now, Austin, do you think you have the best synonym for toast?”

“That depends. Do you mean the noun or the verb form of toast?”

“Austin, now that’s another great question. What’s the difference? Am I right?”

“Well, Noel, the verb form of toast would probably be a method of cooking or browning using applied heat in some way. The noun form is what I’d eat with my eggs in the morning—”

“Heh heh, Austin. Everyone knows you can’t toast your eggs. Noun or verb, it doesn’t matter. You get to decide. Now, Austin, you don’t have to convince me that you’ve got the best synonym for toast. It’s those good folks out there — the audience — that you have to convince. And there’s a lot of money riding on how well you can do that.” Noel flashed a deferential nod toward the audience and winked.

“Betty,” Noel said as he moved to the next contestant, who was a plump woman with acorn-stuffed cheeks and big, woven silver-blond hair teased into a pouf.

Betty was full of cheer. “Hi Noel. I’m just so happy to be on this show with you!” She clapped her hands, bounced up and down, and smiled so hard that her face nearly split in two.

Noel reached out and held one of her hands, the fingertips of which were coated in bright red nail polish. “Of course you are, Betty. Who wouldn’t be? I like your accent. South Carolina, isn’t it? I’ve been there. Lovely place. I had an uncle who lived in Bamberg. It sure is fun to say … Bamberg.” When he said it, one eyebrow rose higher on his forehead than the other and he pointed at Betty with his forefinger as if he were shooting her with a Pepperbox pistol. “Lovely little place. What do you do there in mighty Bamberg, Betty? Betty from Bamberg. Bamberg Betty.” Noel was firing on all cylinders. I couldn’t look away.

“Well, I don’t live in Bamberg, Noel. I’m actually from Charleston.”

“Ah, home of the chew.”

“The what?”

“So what do you do in Charleston, Betty?

“I’m a real estate agent.”

“As opposed to a phony estate agent? I bet you’re no phony, Betty. Austin here, he’s no phony either. He says he has the best synonym for toast. Do you think that’s true?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Noel. We’ll just have to play the game and find out!”

“That we will, Betty. And we’re almost ready. I just have to say hello first to this beautiful young lady to your left. Carmella. That’s a lovely name.”

I could almost hear the collective sigh of infatuation from millions of women who were likely drooling over Noel Hodges.

“Carmella,” Noel said seductively. “Who named you that?”

“My parents,” she said with the slightest hint of a Spanish accent.

“Of course, of course.”

Carmella had long, black, wavy hair, bronze skin, hazel eyes, and an attractive figure that she poured into a ravishing red dress. She looked the part of an unwitting drug Lord’s love interest on Miami Vice.

Noel took Carmella’s hand and brought it to his lips to kiss. “Eso es un buen nombre, Carmella. ¿Qué hace usted? What do you do … Carmella?” He spoke her name as if he were summoning a cherub to join him on stage.

Carmella cooed demurely as Noel held her hand, “I teach fifth grade English at an elementary school in San Diego.”

“And Carmella, would you like to say hello to your students, who I know must be watching you right now?”

Carmella blushed and waved tamely with her free hand at the camera. “Hello, boys and girls. Make sure you do your homework tonight before you go to bed.”

“I’m sure they will, Carmella. I’m sure they will. I would do five book reports a night if you were my fifth-grade English teacher. And do you know what book I’d report on? The book of love. What’s this around your neck?” The camera zoomed in as Noel pointed to a beautiful gold necklace and charm inscribed with John–3:16.

Carmella looked down. “Oh, it’s a Bible verse.”

“I thought maybe it was the number of licks it took my buddy Austin over here to get to the center of his Tootsie Pop. Three hundred and sixteen.” The audience laughed.

Noel turned to Austin. “How many licks do you think it would take you?”

“Can’t say that I’ve ever had a Tootsie Pop, Noel,” Austin replied without looking at him.

“You don’t say. Well, oh, what’s this?” A Tootsie Pop magically appeared in Noel’s free hand and he waved it in front of Austin’s face to antagonize him. “Well, Austin, maybe after the show you can let us know how many licks it took.”

Austin snatched the lollipop, then Noel turned to face the camera. “Thanks to Tootsie Roll Industries, the makers of the Tootsie Pop, for sponsoring our show. Their lollipop takes a lot of licks, just like our contestants.” He chuckled at his own bloviated wit, spun around toward the audience and resumed control over the stage. It was time to get the game started.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Noel began. “This is how our game works. We have five great questions prepared for our contestants. So, five great questions, five rounds. At the start of each round I ask a great question and then each contestant has one minute to answer it as best they can. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers to these great questions.” He looked back at the contestants. “If someone steals the answer you wanted to give, well then you’d better come up with a new one quick. We switch up the order of respondents each round.” He turned back to the camera. “It’s a game of quick answers and even quicker thinking. Now, after each round, you, the audience members, vote on who gave the best answer using the keypad at your seat. The winner of each round — which, of course, is the person who gave your favorite answer — wins a lot of money! If there’s a tie, we play a tie-breaker round.”

The audience erupted in applause.

Noel continued. “It takes courage to get up here to answer these great questions, and all our contestants have to be good sports.” He turned to the contestants. “Remember, the better and more creative your answer, the richer you get!”

The camera cut to the three contestants. Betty’s and Austin’s eyes widened with visceral greed. Carmella clapped and looked like she’d be just as happy walking out of there if she had won nothing. It was clear that avarice was not the charm she wore on her necklace.

Noel continued. “Each round the stakes get higher and the money gets larger. One of you guys could walk out of here with as much as twenty grand if,” he held up a finger for effect, “if you win all five rounds. Can you believe we have all this fun in only thirty minutes?”

The audience members apparently couldn’t believe it, judging from the feigned looks of skepticism on their faces as the camera panned quickly across the seats.

The heart of the show finally began and Noel asked his five great questions. What’s the best synonym for toast? What’s the opposite of a haberdashery? If the black and white warbler is at the left end of the avian color spectrum and the scarlet macaw is at the right, which bird is in the middle and why? How would you describe the taste of iceberg lettuce? And finally, should raisins be considered the baseline snack by which all other snacks are compared, why or why not? After Noel had asked each of his great questions the audience responded predictably and rowdily with, “THAT’S A GREAT QUESTION!”

It was great fun to watch the contestants slash and hack their way through their responses, each one trying to outdo the others. Their answers were outrageously creative. Austin won, of course.

Noel dropped morsels of his wit unceasingly throughout the show, and that, coupled with the contestants’ responses, drew repeated laughter from the audience. He proved unequivocally that he was the star of the show by never letting the attention linger on any one contestant too long before he drew it back to himself. The camera followed him around like a lost puppy that loved him unconditionally.

Years ago, That’s a Great Question! had rocketed to America’s number one game show before the first season had even ended. On Thursday nights, Noel Hodges camped out in millions of homes across the world. His show aired in countries I never knew existed.

There was nothing about Noel Hodges that escaped my attention. I knew the way he moved, turned, stood, smiled, held his skinny microphone, and transitioned from one pose to the next. There was fluidity and symmetry in his lines and movements. He commanded every muscle in his face to obey his strictest instruction. I practiced mimicking him in front of a full-length mirror on the back of my door when Dale, my roommate, wasn’t around. I even learned to talk like him.

*****

“Dale, I have an idea,” I said one night. Dale was tall and lanky.

“What’s that?”

“Grab your video camera. We’re going to have a little fun.”

“Doing what?”

“You’ll see. Third floor.”

Kellum Hall’s third floor was a girls’ floor, and I suspected that some girls would answer a few great questions on camera for me.

Dale followed me up the back stairs of the dorm. It was early enough in the evening that the third-floor resident assistant would not kick us off, so long as we didn’t linger in any of the rooms with the door closed.

The third floor was vastly different from the first floor, where Dale and I lived, starting with the smell: cinnamon potpourri. Pink and orange flowers were stenciled on the white cinder block walls. The carpet in the hallway felt soft and warm beneath my bare feet. The carpet in our hallway felt like asphalt.

A few girls kept their doors open so others on the floor could come and go into their rooms as they pleased. Soft music escaped from their rooms and there was a general relaxed and orderly feeling all around. A clear sophistication and maturity abounded, two traits that were noticeably absent from my floor.

“Okay, Dale,” I said, “fire that thing up. Focus on me.”

Dale brought the large camera to his shoulder. “We’re rolling.”

I straightened up, brought my hands together in front of me, smiled and unleashed a gallant introduction. “Hello everyone. I’m Noel Hodges. And tonight, yes this very night, we’ve got quite a show for you. I’d say magnificent. Because right here behind me in the rooms down this lovely hallway are the girls of Kellum Hall. Not just any girls. No, these are the girls from the third floor. And tonight, we’re going to ask them some very important questions. In fact, great questions. And you, the home viewer, will have the chance to decide who answered them best. So, folks, if you’re ready, then come with me. Let’s get started.”

Our first stop was Heather and Jasmine’s room. I knew their names because each name was attractively drawn out in purple and green calligraphy on a poster tacked to their door, which was open.

Both girls were sitting at their double-sided desk reading textbooks and taking notes; things I should have been doing. They were surprised when I entered their room uninvited, yet they maintained measured suspicion mixed with mild interest because they spotted Dale behind me with the video camera.

“Good evening, Heather and Jasmine. My name is Noel Hodges and I have a great question for each of you.”

“I love That’s a Great Question!” said the becoming redhead with glasses.

“Wonderful!” I replied. “Then Heather, I’ll start with you.”

“Actually, I’m Jasmine, that’s Heather.” Heather was plump, short-haired, and very tan.

I looked back to the camera and chuckled. “That’s no problem now is it, Jasmine?”

“Excuse me? That didn’t make any sense. Is that camera recording?”

“It is.” I looked down at my bare feet and cleared my throat. “Jasmine, it’s good to have you on our show tonight. You’re from where?”

“You do a great Noel Hodges. I’m from Bradenton.”

“I’m not surprised. You look like the beach. Watery and sandy.”

A confused look spread across Jasmine’s face. Her eyes darted between the camera and me. Heather smirked.

I chuckled into my hand. “Jasmine from Bradenton. I love the smell of jasmine in the spring. Do you get a lot of that in Bradenton?”

“We get some blooms, yes. Mostly in the spring.”

“No, no. I meant do a lot of people in Bradenton say they like the way you smell?”

“Um, no, not really.”

“Good, good. Are you ready for your great question, Jasmine?”

“Oh, you mean all those questions you already asked me weren’t them?”

“Oh no, Jasmine. Those were the easy ones. The great question I have for you is this.” I pretended to read from an imaginary notecard. “What’s the difference between going out of town and taking a vacation?”

Jasmine laughed and looked at Heather, who shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t know,” Jasmine said. “Maybe one’s, like, longer than the other. Like a vacation is more days or something?” She started pulling at her long strands of silky read hair and stared off into space. She crossed her legs beneath the desk. “I think that when you go on vacation you have to, like, take someone with you or something. Like a family member or friend. Or maybe, like, your husband or wife or someone like that.”

“That’s not bad, Jasmine. Not bad at all. Fine answer. You’re obviously familiar with the show. The audience has heard your answer and will now have to weigh it against Heather’s.”

I shifted my attention to Heather, who was waiting eagerly. “Heather, the same great question to you. What’s the difference between going out of town and taking a vacation?”

Heather was much firmer. “Is there a difference?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

“Um, I don’t know. Maybe it depends on how far away from home you travel?”

“How so, Heather?”

“How so? What do you mean how so?”

“I mean, how far away do you have to travel for there to be a difference?”

“I’d say that going on vacation means you have to leave the state you’re in. Going out of town means you stay in the state.”

“Fine rationale, Heather. Fine, indeed.” I raised one eyebrow. “Okay, ladies. Both great answers. Very solid. Now it’s up to the viewers at home to vote on which one they liked best. Remember, the winner gets ten thousand dollars cash!”

They both laughed.

I looked into the camera. “Well, goodnight Jasmine and Heather. You’ve both been great sports and an absolute pleasure to have on the show. See you next time on That’s a Great Question!”

I pranced out of their room. Dale followed me.

Our next stop was Rachel and Kristen’s room. I wondered if every girl on the third floor had two syllables in her first name. The poster on their door displayed images of horses running free in flowering meadows.

Their door was open and each girl was in her bed reading. I knew which girl was Rachel and which girl was Kristen because Rachel had her name carved in wooden, bubbly pink letters on the bookshelf below her bed. She had Hello Kitty bedding to keep her warm. She was long, lean and serious. Her black hair was tied up in a ponytail, and fuzzy pink slippers were keeping her narrow feet warm.

Kristen, on the other side of the room, slept in bedding covered in horses. Small horse figurines lined the shelves below her bed. She was reading Equus. I couldn’t make out her body type because she was buried beneath her sheets and blanket, but she had short, curly blond hair, thick yellow eyebrows and lots of space between each tooth in her wide mouth.

It was time for me to go to work. “Ladies, please don’t be alarmed.”

They weren’t. They looked at me from their beds like disinterested sales girls at The Gap. Bobby Brown’s Every Little Step rang out softly from a stereo in the room.

“My name is Noel Hodges and I’m walking the halls tonight with my cameraman, Dale, asking girls like you great questions.”

Rachel put her pencil in her mouth and began nibbling the erasure. Kristen dog-eared her book and laid it down on her covers.

“Are you girls up for a round of That’s a Great Question!?” I asked.

“Doubt it,” Rachel said arrogantly. “You’re no Noel Hodges.”

Breaking character, I shouted, “I taught him everything he knows. He’d be nothing without me.”

“I’m so sure,” she snarled.

A glanced back at the camera and winked. A flash of brilliance struck me. I turned to Kristen and put Noel Hodges back on. “Do you know that the first novel I ever read was The Black Stallion?”

Kristen perked up. “Mine too!”

Bingo.

Kristen added, “I love that book. I’ve read it probably five times. Don’t you just love how Alec and the Black learn to depend on one another?”

I was trapped. I had never actually read The Black Stallion, I had only seen the movie. Part of the movie. About twenty minutes of it. I couldn’t stomach any more than that. I said delicately, “It seemed like they were made for each other.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, I agree. So, what’s your great question, Noel? I’ll play your game.”

I shot a bullying glance at Rachel, who shot a more threatening glance back at me. “Okay, Kristen. Thanks for playing. My great question is for you and Rachel, but we’ll start with you first. I see you like music judging from your stereo there. This question is about music. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready. This sounds like fun!” She shifted her body beneath her blankets and sat up a little taller in her bed.

I pretended to read from a notecard. “Kristen, Peter Frampton needs classic rock more than classic rock needs Peter Frampton. Agree or disagree? Remember, you only have one minute before our buzzer sounds and then it’s Rachel’s turn.”

“What was the question again?”

“Does Peter Frampton need classic rock more than classic rock needs Peter Frampton?”

“Who’s Peter Franklin or whoever you just said?”

Before I could paste her with an incredulous reply, Dale came out from behind the camera and spoke for me. “You don’t know who Peter Frampton is? He only has the best-selling live album ever!”

“Name one of his songs,” Kristen demanded.

“Do You Feel Like We Do is his most famous.”

“How’s it go?”

Dale looked to me. “Zeus?”

Rachel screamed, “Wait, did he just call you Zeus?”

“That’s my name,” I replied.

“It is," Dale affirmed.

“Zeus, like the Greek God?” Rachel barked. “Full of yourself, are you?”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “We’re getting off topic. Back to Peter Frampton.” I sang a few bars of the Do You Feel Like We Do chorus. Kristen wasn’t getting it. I knew what I had to do next. I cupped both hands over my mouth like I was getting ready to produce a duck call and did my best impersonation of Frampton’s guitar talk box.

Kristen laughed so hard that her book toppled off her bed and onto the floor. Even Rachel couldn’t resist finding me amusing, though I could tell she hated herself for showing it.

Kristen took a long sip from a water bottle, steadied herself, and said, “I still don’t know who he is.”

The game demanded that I move on. “Rachel, I have to turn it over to you. Kristen had to pass because she is unfamiliar with this world-famous artist. The great question is now yours to steal. I need an answer. Does Peter Frampton need classic rock more than classic rock needs Peter Frampton?”

She withdrew the pencil from her mouth, donned a mordant expression and sneered corrosively, “Get out of this room, you freak! And take your Peter Plankton, stupid classic whatever dumb-as-all-questions with you!” She threw her pencil at me and I deflected it with my arm. She was not the first girl to throw a writing implement at me.

There was no doubt in my mind; Rachel was smitten. Buried beneath her irritation was an unmistakable come-hither allure, and had I reached out and stroked one of her fuzzy pink slippers with my fingertips she would have, I believed, come undone. But I took the high road and did what she had asked by exiting her room. Dale followed me out the door. “Bye ladies,” I hollered.

Rachel grunted and threw one of her pillows toward the door. It didn’t quite make it beyond the threshold.

“You missed!” I shouted from down the hall.

*****

Meadowfield Manor was as I had imagined it — a majestic, southern-plantation-like nursing home shaded by colossal oaks, with a sprawling lawn, flower gardens bursting with every color, and an ornate marble fountain bisecting a long, brick passageway that lead to front double doors. It looked more like a Governor’s mansion than a nursing home. Lots of stone and red brick, white columns and beautiful decorative green draperies behind the windows. It was something out of Gone with the Wind, and I guessed that every tenant inside was financially well-off. I wondered how I would matriculate into its pristine environment as a student completing a community service assignment as part of my Family Studies course at FSU. FSU wanted to expose me to other demographics so I could gain new perspectives on humanity.

“Evenin’, Mr. Hall,” a man called to me from the passageway in front of the main entrance. He looked comfortable and relaxed in a pair of khaki slacks and a blue oxford button-down. He was maybe fifty, but hadn’t started to gray. “Welcome to Meadowfield Manor. I’m Henry Long. I spoke to you on the phone.”

“Yes sir,” I said. “Thank you for having me.” We shook hands.

“Every semester we get a new student out here to spend some time with us. Everyone loves it.” He rubbed his hands together and smiled. “Ready to call some BINGO games and mix it up with some sprite folks?”

“Sure. Anything to help. Looking forward to it.”

“There’s really nothing to it. Just letters and numbers, then identifying the winners.”

“Right. How hard can it be?” I laughed nervously.

“So, is your name really Zeus?”

“Yes sir, well, I mean, it’s actually Garrett but everyone calls me Zeus. It’s a long story.”

“I’ll bet it is. They called me Pork Chop in college. Ok, then. Zeus it is.”

Meadowfield Manor’s interior was downright scary. The plush red carpet went on for miles. Elaborate crystal chandeliers graced the main hallway and I had the general impression that whomever had decorated the place was a direct descendant of the White House’s original interior designer. Painted pictures housed in ornate frames as large as small movie screens depicted fox hunts and royalty I didn’t recognize. Small tables dressed in white linen supported silver tea sets. Mingling in with the delicate china cups, sugar cubes and creamers were delicious-looking, frosted petit fours.

I felt out of place in cargo shorts, sandals, and a Ron Jon Surf Shop t-shirt.

The place was quiet and subdued. From down the hall and through a set of open doors I could hear the faint din of conversation and the tinkling of silverware against china. The banquet hall.

An old man dressed in a bathrobe and slippers crept by us with his walker and asked Henry, “Who’s this?”

“This FSU student is going to call BINGO this evening, Sanders. You’ll be attending tonight, won’t you?”

“I wouldn’t miss it.” Sanders looked me up and down. “By the way, Henry, Walter is in the banquet hall. He’s sitting in the back.”

Henry’s eyes widened. “Father’s already there, eh? Has he had his supper?”

“He has.”

“And how’s his mood this evening?”

“Same as always.”

“Hmm.” Henry’s face saddened. “Everyone grieves in their own way, Sanders. In time. In time. Henry gave Sanders a gentle pat on the arm. “Well, I’ve got to get Mr. Hall set up so we can get started.”

Henry led me through the banquet hall and onto the stage, where he gave me some simple instructions on how to call the BINGO games.

“Good evening, ladies and gentleman,” Henry bawled into a microphone as I stood next to him, nervous. A bit of feedback greeted his announcement, so he plucked the microphone from its stand and stepped around the stage to diminish the noise.

The light conversation in the banquet hall died instantly and there was a great rattling from silverware dropping onto the china.

“Tonight we have a special guest. This is Mr. Zeus Hall, our FSU student, and he’s calling tonight’s BINGO games. So, please give him a warm Meadowfield Manor welcome!”

An almost accidental smattering of light applause rippled awkwardly from various corners of the audience as I gazed out over an endless sea of disengaged senior citizens. It was some banquet hall. The cavernous place was filled with about thirty round tables draped in white linen tablecloths, with about eight chairs around each one. There wasn’t an empty seat in the house. Bright spotlights punched me in the face from every direction. The house lights were low, but I could still make out the general flavor of the audience. The elderly folks were dressed in fancy clothes or robes. Some men held unlit pipes in their mouths, and the women’s silver hair was beautifully coiffed. Some people had walkers by their chairs, others had canes, and others had oxygen tanks. All of them looked back at me inquisitively. They struck me as a group who, throughout their lives, were used to getting what they wanted.

I grabbed the mic and tried to swallow. “Um, thank you, everyone.” A light sweat broke out on my forehead. “It’s … um … good to be here. This is for a class I’m taking. They want students to, you know, do community service. You know, serving and helping.” Hundreds of eyes stared back at me. “So, are you ready for some BINGO?” A fork clanked against a plate to break the silence. “I suppose we should get started. Everyone have their cards? Hold them up for me.”

A few hands went up and waved cards back and forth.

“Good. Good. Let’s begin. G six … N ten … B two.” I paused and looked out over the crowd. My impression was that somebody had turned the banquet hall into a wax museum. The audience members sat rigid in their seats and stared at me as if extra-terrestrials had landed on the stage. A great and intimidating silence hovered over the hall. I could see Henry in the back sitting next to, I guessed, his father, Walter. Henry was smiling. Walter, slouched, was not. He looked grief-stricken.

I tried to go on. “O fifteen … B forty-two … G thirty-three.”

Somebody coughed.

“I nine … N fifty-six … N thirteen … no BINGOs yet, I guess?” I looked again at Walter, whose face was taut, his eyes glassy and vacant, his nose wrinkling.

A sneeze rang out from somewhere back and to the left.

I held the mic in silence for a moment, blinking rapidly, trying to stave off a curious urge that was welling in my heart. “G four … B nineteen.”

Another cough from somewhere, this one wet and productive.

There was Walter, studying his game card passively, lost, despondent. Henry was pointing to things on Walter’s card and rubbing his back.

The urge that had been welling up in me took full hold. I had a suspicion. I laid aside the BINGO chips. “Um, folks, who … who watches That’s a Great Question!?”

Henry’s eyes narrowed at me; a questioning look. A spirited murmuring erupted throughout the hall. A few chuckles rang out. Heads nodded at one another. But most importantly, Walter’s head rose, and his eyes brightened slightly.

I moved toward the front of the stage, and in my best Noel Hodges shouted, “Well, who’s ready to play?”

It was as if I had announced that the war was over and our troops were coming home. A celebration ensued like I had never seen. Of all the people-groups who watched That’s a Great Question!, senior citizens were at the top.

I stayed in character. “Well, sit back, ladies and gentlemen, as we bring you yet another entertaining episode of America’s favorite game show! You know the one!”

The senior citizens knew exactly what to do. In unison they excitedly belted out, “THAT’S A GREAT QUESTION!”, and the place filled with applause.

I put the microphone back into its holster. My first order of business was to invite three contestants to the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, I need three willing contestants to join me up here. Who among you has the courage to face the great questions I will ask?”

The senior citizens became kids at a reptile exhibit. Just about every hand went up. A few even shouted, “Ooh, pick me! Pick me!”

I called on a bespectacled gentleman who combed his silver hair over a bald spot. Then I called on a large woman who giggled spastically as she made her way to the stage. And my final contestant was a meek and gentle man who apparently regarded being called up to the stage as important as being awarded a Medal of Honor by the President. His face radiated pride. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have our three contestants. Please give them a warm round of applause.”

When the applause settled down I turned to the bespectacled man. “Sir, please tell me your name.”

“It’s Harold.” His voice was crunchy.

“And where are you from, Harold?”

“I’m from right here, Noel.”

“No, I mean originally, Harold.”

“Albany.”

“I’ve got a cousin from Albany. Nice to have you with us. Are you ready to answer some great questions tonight?”

“I sure am, Noel.”

“Excellent.”

Next, I visited the big woman standing next to me. “Well, hello, ma’am.” I drew her hand to my lips and kissed it lightly. She blushed.

“Oh, Noel.”

“What is your name, gorgeous?”

“Martha. Martha Young.”

“And where are you from originally, Martha?”

“Long Island.”

“Martha from Long Island. Well, you’re not short on beauty, that’s for sure.”

Martha swooned. I had more up my sleeve. “Long Island, eh? Martha, you’re like a beautiful arpel … an apilec … um, an agripel—”

“An archipelago?” Martha cried.

“Yes, that’s the word!”

“Long Island is just one island.”

“But it’s a long one! Are you ready to play tonight, Martha?”

“Oh Noel, I am! I am!”

I moved on to the third contestant. “And who is this gentleman here?”

He spoke slowly and softly. “My name, sir, is Sylvester Pike.” He regarded me like I was about to bring him some much-needed good news.

“Sylvester Pike, as in Pike’s Peak?”

“That’s the one, Noel.”

“Ever climbed Pike’s Peak, Sylvester?”

“No sir. Took the Cog Railway to the top, though.”

“Fabulous, Sylvester. Tremendous. Well, here’s to hoping you … peak … at just the right time tonight. Do you think you have the best answers to my great questions?”

“I sure hope so!”

“Well, Harold and Martha think they do, too. We’ll just have to play the game to find out. Who’s ready to play?”

Each contestant, along with the audience, clapped furiously. I found Walter again in the back of the banquet hall. His expression hadn’t changed.

I pressed on. “Ladies and gentlemen of the audience, you know that you have a job to do tonight, right? Based on your applause for each contestant’s response, that’s how we’ll pick our winner. And remember,” I looked at the three contestants standing before me, “there’s a lot of money riding on your answers.”

They nodded greedily and expectantly, even though no money would change hands.

I searched my mind for something witty. “Let me think a moment.” I snapped my fingers. “Ah, yes. My first question to our three contestants is this. If there’s safety in numbers, how can you be guilty by association?”

The audience members immediately hollered, “THAT’S A GREAT QUESTION!”

Harold and Martha looked blankly at each other, then Harold spoke for both of them. “Can you please repeat the question, Noel?”

“Sure. It’s a tough one, I know. Tough like an overcooked hamburger. But I’m not here to toss you any water balloons, right?” I looked over at Walter, who was anxiously staring back at me. I cleared my throat. “The great question is this. If there’s safety in numbers, how can you be guilty by association? Harold you’re first. You have one minute.”

Harold looked defeated. “Oh, my. Let’s see.” He was searching for words. He scratched his head and crossed his arms. “Well now, that is a great question.” He began tripping over his words. “Well, I suppose … um … it must be like when you….”

“Thirty seconds!” I cried.

At length Harold said sadly, “I haven’t the foggiest clue, Noel.” He threw his arms out to his sides defeatedly.

“All right, then, Harold. We’ll move on to Martha. Martha, you’ve had some time to ponder this great question. What say you?”

Martha looked as defeated as Harold. “Well, Noel. I could see someone getting in trouble by hanging around with some bad apples.”

“Yes, go on.”

“Maybe they get arrested or something?”

“Are you asking me or telling me, Martha? Thirty seconds!”

Martha heaved up a prayer. “Maybe it’s because you’re innocent until proven guilty?”

“Is that your final answer, Martha?”

“Oh, Noel! It’s such a great question. I’m not sure I know how to an—”

I held up a hand. “Oop, don’t say any more, Martha. You’ll bias the audience. Your time is up and we must climb Pike’s Peak over here.”

Sylvester Pike was smiling pleasantly.

I put my arm around his shoulders. “Sylvester, you have one minute. Do you have an answer to my great question?”

“I sure do, Noel.”

“Excellent. Talk to me, Sylvester.”

He drew himself up proudly and tilted the mic more in his direction. “Safety in numbers does not imply that one is innocent, Noel. It merely suggests that there’s cohesion among a group, cohesion in thought and action, a shared cognition. Assuming there’s a group of individuals congregating under a banner of solidarity, that in no way confirms the members’ guilt or innocence. A group, regardless of how in sync they are in thought, can still be right or wrong, its members guilty or innocent. In essence, you have two mutually exclusive phrases here.”

I staggered back a few steps and let Sylvester hold the mic.

He continued. “Furthermore, Noel, guilt is a question of conscience, morality and ethics, not a question of quantity.”

I smeared my hand down my face and banged my ear with my hand like it had water in it. I grabbed the mic. “Wow. Ladies and gentlemen, that was some answer.”

Harold and Martha looked like they believed they didn’t have any chance to win.

I had to bring things to a close. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for you to vote. By your applause, we’ll pick our winner. Who thinks Harold gave the best response?”

There was light, conciliatory applause. Nothing from Walter.

“Now cast your vote for Martha. Who thinks she had the best answer?”

Slightly more applause and a few whistles. Still nothing from Walter.

“Okay, ladies and gentlemen. Now let’s hear what you thought of Sylvester Pike’s answer.” Walter leaned in expectantly.

The house immediately came down. Those in the audience who could stand stood tall and laid into their applause with everything they had. Those who couldn’t stand pounded their fists on their tabletop. It was a riotous affair and Sylvester stood there taking it all in gladly.

Amid the jubilation, I sidled up next to Sylvester and hoisted his arm in the air like he had just knocked out the heavyweight champion of the world. I shouted, “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Sylvester Pike, our winner tonight! Our champion!”

The volume of applause and fist-pounding increased.

I don’t know why I did what I did next. With Sylvester’s arm raised high, I found the urge to tickle his armpit irresistible. I wiggled a finger against his shirt in the sensitive cleft, and his arms immediately collapsed in on himself. He pinched his face together comically, hunched over and giggled like a schoolgirl. My microphone amplified all of it, sending hysterical reverberations throughout the banquet hall.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I cried, “Sylvester Pike is ticklish! Who knew!” It was an odd scene, me tickling the underarm of an octogenarian in front of the audience. And as the cacophony of laughter from the audience subsided I heard a strange sound coming from the back of the hall. It sounded like nervous panting from a small dog. I followed the sound to Walter. His mouth was hanging open, like he was choking on something. The crowd became silent, and all eyes turned to him.

“Papa!” Henry hollered. “Papa, are you okay? Oh, no! He’s choking!”

Walter immediately held out a hand to his son. It wasn’t a hand asking for help, it was a hand demanding that Henry be patient.

Walter’s panting gave way to something less frightening, something that sounded a bit more familiar to me. Yes, I recognized the new sound, faint as it was. It was laughter. And it was way deep inside him, fighting to come out. Watching him it was as if someone had re-injected life into an old, neglected car engine. The thing would have to cough out some smoke and dust before fully roaring to life.

Slowly the edges of Walter’s mouth turned upward into a smile and the laughter began to gather momentum like a rolling snowball. It started in sputters and hacks, but before long he was belting it out in mighty rolls and peals. His frail body shook and swayed, and he jabbed his cane onto the wooden floor like he was trying to kill a darting spider. Suffocated happiness longed for daylight and rushed into the air of the banquet hall like a freed prisoner. Walter became hysterical.

We all watched him intently. The moment deserved our full attention.

Tears of joy flowed unhindered from Henry’s eyes as he traded looks between his father and me.

The crest of Walter’s laughing wave passed and he finally caught his breath. He pushed his chair out, grabbed his walking cane and braced himself against the table as he stood up. He made his way toward the stage with unsteady and labored steps. Every head in the banquet hall turned to watch his slow movement toward me. My heart was racing. I heard muted whispers in the hall.

Henry called out after his father, “Papa?”

Walter’s shuffling approach to the stage took a long time. At last he arrived at the front of the stage, but instead of stopping he turned to his left and found the stairs that led up to me. He held on to the handrail tightly with one hand and with the other he eased himself up to the next step with his cane. He emitted a few strained grunts and whimpers, but he would not be denied the ascent.

Once on the platform he took his last few agonizing steps forward and drew himself up in front of me. He couldn’t completely straighten. The audience members were watching the scene unfold like it was the most dramatic motion picture they had ever seen.

We stood toe to toe, Walter and me. He dropped his cane and reached for my hands. His hands were strong and warm. As he looked at me with watery eyes I saw none of the sadness and loss I had seen earlier. He was now, by all accounts, a happy man, and he looked upon me fondly.

“Son,” he began in a delicate tone. A tear leaked from his eye. “I have not laughed or smiled since I lost my Claire.” He tightened his grip on my hands, and his jaw moved in circles as he composed his thoughts. “She meant everything to me. Only she could make me laugh like you just did. Thank you, son. Thank you.”

There was silence. Then light applause, which quickly built into a strident cacophony. I heard a senior citizen bellow from the back: “BINGO!”