TelePrompter

JoAnne’s a slower reader than Tom, which is a headache because the Teleprompter has only one speed: “скоро”. At Channel 32, we broadcast live, weekdays 7pm, after re-runs of “American Trombone”, and have the second highest viewership of any local nightly news network in the Colorado/Southern Wyoming Territory. JoAnne and Tom are the Lead Anchors. They have a big glossy billboard near the I-25 off-ramp, eighteen-feet high, with smiles so bright there’s a Class-Action suit seeking damages for the up-tick in traffic collisions.

To my knowledge, there have been problems with the TelePrompter since the start. It’s an old Soviet model the Network got for cheap after the collapse, and it’s been flying Mach 5 ever sense. JoAnne made any number of complaints to try and get them to slow it down, but they couldn’t. Also, they wouldn’t, on account of Tom, who said he liked it the way it was. Said its “sharp speed” was “essential”, and it made him “feel the news”, and if JoAnne couldn’t hack it, then she had no place at 32. Everyone hates Tom. We snicker at his broad-neck ties and the toupee he’s lovingly named “Clarice”, but he’s been around the longest and won a Peabody in ‘94. JoAnne, a fresh transplant from Boise, this being her first real anchor job, didn’t stand a chance. So the Chief, with a shrug and off-hand remark about the struggling pee-wee football team he coached weekends, sided with Tom.

At 6:30 the radiant hum of the TelePrompter tubes coming alive means: “battle stations”. Operators rush to set-up the Cameras. Make-up artists pack-up eye bags. Rich, the Weather Man, gently stretches his semi-torn rotator cuff. At 7, everyone gets quiet, the theme music swells, and we go Live. Tom’s first. Reading the news like a machine gun. Through him, even minor stories become gripping, life or death epics. He weaves a kinetic tapestry of destruction and despair - impossible to look away from if you tried. Hate the man or not, the talent is undeniable. And before anyone knows it, he’s finished his segment on “The Inedibility of Sea Sponges”, and the cameras push in on JoAnne. She’s gripping the news desk like a life raft, trying to get steady before the TelePrompter’s blocky red sentences Blitzkrieg across the screen. She starts well - admirably well - but it’s not long before she drops a word. Then mangles a headline. Then mis-quotes the Governor. And then, in a final insult, mispronounces her own name as “Joan”. This last slight is almost too much. She stares, panic stricken, right into the Camera, eyes wet with the moisture her mouth so desperately needs. Tom smirks and mutters something into his lapel mic, soft enough for only for JoAnne and Mitch the Sound Guy to hear. To her credit, JoAnne doesn’t break. She keeps her head high, and pops a cough-drop to try and get enough spit to make it to commercial.

How she kept it up those first months is anyone’s guess. It’s embarrassing to misspeak among friends, but to do so during a live broadcast, going out to thousands and thousands of people, can break a person. And the things people would tell her... well I was raised near Cheyenne, so I know most folks around here are decent enough, but the letters JoAnne got were terrible. I’d find them, crumpled and tear stained in the recycling bin. Of course ratings shot-up because sadists started watching, hoping to see JoAnne finally crack wide and show them something they shouldn’t see. I watched through my hands most nights. To me, it seemed like witnessing an error in nature; that something so beautiful, with tight coiled locks and bright purple lips, could turn feral. Crouched like the ceiling panels might start falling in on her.

I made up my mind one evening, after making six tallies in the little black book I carry - six separate misspeaks - to pull JoAnne aside and offer-up some much needed positivity. But when I came to her after the show, she looked clean through me. As if she hadn’t even seen me before. As if she didn’t see me now, standing right there in front of her. She was living in an altogether different place, where I was breathing air, and she was breathing dust.

The Chief was surprised when I came into his office the next day. He was busy working through a fake-punt routine for the pee-wees on his white board. Without waiting, I launched right in: “Chief, you’ve got a star on your hands. She’s gonna drown in muck if you don’t nurture her. Do something, or I’ll quit right now and say that you refused her salvation because you’re a damn coward!” Re-capping his dry erase, The Chief offered me a seat. He stared at me a moment, as if deciding if I were serious or not. “I’m dead serious. I’ve been working towards my online Masters in Speech Pathology weekends, and if you give me one month, one month, with JoAnne, I’ll make her the best damn anchor this network’s ever had.” The Chief sat, considering me, then asked if I’d caught the game last night. I hadn’t. He shook his head, and with a shrug, said that as long as it didn’t affect my regular custodial duties, and if JoAnne agreed, he didn’t see anything wrong with me helping out.

It got around pretty quick that the janitor was giving JoAnne lessons. People would corner me in the bathroom while I was cleaning mirrors and mis-quote Shakespeare at me in shrill English accents. Or ask JoAnne how many marbles I was putting in her mouth at night. I think JoAnne, already diminished by her life here at Channel 32, didn’t take much heed of them. As for me, having any sort of attention at work, albeit negative, was actually an improvement. At least they’d give me room when I wheeled my cart past.

Each night, before our half-hour session, I would change out of my navy blue one-piece and head into the break room we met in. If JoAnne was skeptical, I won her over when she saw I had nothing but good intentions at heart. Looking back, I can say without too much false modesty, that the work we did was low hanging fruit. There was no great struggle. No boulders to heave uphill. I just helped her untangle the words as they came rushing out of that great Russian juggernaut. She confided that she had a slight problem with dyslexia as a child, and that Tom reminded her of an Uncle who used to lift up her skirt at family parties. I did my best to read the relevant literature, and coach her through intermediate speed-reading drills, and one night, after Tom had gone, I snuck into his office and came in wearing Clarice. JoAnne laughed so hard she vomited a little on the floor - which she later helped me clean.

Not long after, just a little over two months, JoAnne gave her first News Cast for Channel 32 without a single mistake. I was watching from the break-room with tears in my eyes. I could feel her joy radiating through the screen. Of course no one applauded. It was business as usual. As Dad would say, “There’s no awards for just doing your job in this life.” But I caught up with her in the hallway and she gave me a thankful hug, and said we should celebrate soon - but tonight she had plans. I stood there in wonder, marveling at her. Marveling at myself, having made a new friend. It was like we’d really accomplished something. She was breathing air and my boots were light as hen feathers.

To my surprise, the one who sought me out was Tom. He walked in while I was vacuuming the conference room, looking severe with Clarice left behind, and said that he’d offer me twenty thousand if I stopped giving JoAnne lessons. Tom said he wanted to marry her but couldn’t if she was going to keep working full time. It turned out that I had sabotaged him, because it’d been his plan all along for JoAnne to seek his help. And then he’d get her to fall in love with him, and they’d start a family and she’d live at home with his mother and her three terriers. But then I’d gone and messed all that up. Ruined any chance the two of them had at true happiness.

I wish I could say I refused Tom’s money without a second thought, but that wouldn’t be true. The Chief hadn’t yet subsidized me for my classes like he said he would, and working custodial pays minimum. But to my surprise, Tom’s disbelief, in the end, I didn’t want his money. He asked why I’d help someone who’d stop caring about me the moment I wasn’t of any use to them. I said I didn’t think life was about momentary successes, but the connections we make along the way. He said twenty grand is twenty grand and walked out. I stood there for awhile, alone in the conference room. Thinking maybe he was right. That maybe I should have taken his money. But then the lights shut off for the night, I pulled the vacuum chord from under my feet, and got back to work.