Brians Writing

Radio: Chapter Four - Mr. Druthers

Chapter Four: Mr. Druthers

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    While I tried to make sense of it all, the Embarcadero echoed with the incessant beeps of the fire truck as it took group after group of law professionals to see the sights of the waterfront and admire its newest attraction, “body in red mounted on giant plastic feather.”

    This took long enough for the sun to burn off all of the remaining morning fog as it rose over Yerba Buena island and reflected off the glass squares of downtown’s skyscrapers, throwing little flashes of light onto the crime scene.  The television live van masts wilted under the solar glare as the crews packed up and left with the end of the morning shows.  Soon the only reporters left on the scene were a couple of newspaper guys and me.

    I found a perch on the Bay side of the park where I leaned against a black and white three-quarter’s pole shooting up like a stunted beanstalk from the concrete sidewalk.  “Tomorrow lies west” the caption on the art piece’s base read as I pulled my camera from the pack and focused in on the crime scene technicians searching the body.

    From this perspective, there was something familiar about the victim but I couldn’t place where I had seen the guy before.  In the telephoto sight, the man’s eyes were still open staring at the bustling city to his west.  The crime scene tech reached inside the victim’s red down-filled coat and came out holding what appeared to be a wallet.  He put the find in a plastic evidence bag then dropped it the 60 feet to the ground.  One of Vince’s detectives caught it.  I wondered if that was really proper procedure but hoped that meant we would have a preliminary ID sooner rather than later. 

    I snapped out of my daydreams as I realized it was time to cut up the latest sound featuring the mayor’s less than inspiring words.  I fed in the bites then went back to the puzzle at hand.

    The scene brought several questions to mind.  How did this guy get to the top of the feather and why would he climb the sculpture in the middle of a foggy night in the first place?  Where would the shooter have to be to hit this guy?  I assumed there were officers searching for a sniper’s nest using the line of sight data that would intersect with the hole in our dead fellow’s head.  You might think the force of such a shot would have knocked the victim off the feather and sent him sprawling into the native grasses planted at the base of Cupid’s Span.  What kept the body stuck in place?

    I was so focused on the scene above that I nearly fell over when the cell phone in my pocket began to buzz.  I regained my balance while managing not to drop the camera onto the unforgiving ground. 

        It wasn’t a call but a text message. I recognized the sender as Vince’s personal, not his city, phone.

        “Meet me at Red’s Java House in 20.”

        I recorded what the TV people call a “look live”, a short taped report that might fool the audience into thinking I was doing another live shot and fed it in for the top of the 11:00 o’clock hour then began my walk to Red’s.

        I jumped at the sound of a loud horn marking the departure of one of the city’s fire boats from its moorings just to the south of the Bay Bridge.  My nerves were still shaky seconds later as I passed into the shade of the span then back into sunlight as I walked on the sidewalk past Piers 24, 26, and 28 before arriving at Pier 30/32, the home of Red’s.

        If Cupid’s Span was emblematic of modern San Francisco’s love of majestic pretension, Red’s was a reminder that this was once a working class city.  The tiny white stucco structure first opened its doors in 1912 serving coffee and cheap food to the people who worked blue-collar jobs on and around the port of San Francisco.  About 20 years after it opened, Red’s saw a new clientele, the hard hat workers who were charged with fulfilling Emperor Norton’s dream of a bridge connecting San Francisco with Oakland and the railroads that would link the city to the rest of the United States.

        I found Vince at his usual table outside facing the giant parking lot of Pier 30/32.  Sometimes it’s hard to square the two young men who shared a dorm at Sonoma State with the not so young men we had both become. 

        I’ll never forget the day I met him.  I had walked into my assigned room, terrified at the prospect of sharing a space with someone I had never met.  Vince  had settled in a couple of days early since his parents had to report to their new duty stations at Fort Lewis in Washington State.  His belongings were already in place, his bed made into tight square corners, his pencils, pens, and a large magnifying glass stuck into a white porcelain coffee cup on his immaculate desk.  He was sitting at that desk, paperback book curled back, his eyes intense in concentration, his haircut as short and squared off as the blankets on his bed.  I glanced at the card with my roommate’s name and then back up at the teenager sitting in front of me.  He wore khaki pants, an honest to goodness polo shirt and leather loafers over argyle socks.

        Oh shit, I had thought, I’m rooming with a straight-ahead neat freak nerd. Later he had confided those were the exact first two words that went through his brain when he saw me.  I’m sure I cut a figure his parents had warned him symbolized everything that was wrong with decadent civilian America.  My dirty blond hair hung below my shoulders concealing a likely obscene rock-and-roll t-shirt.  My ripped jeans would have earned him ten demerits had he ever had the temerity to wear them in front of Colonel Dad or Major Mom. 

        We were each everything the other assumed he would despise so it came as a shock to both of us that we immediately became friends.  Vince taught me to play golf, helped me study chemistry, and introduced me to the benefits of matched socks and clean underwear.  I taught him to play guitar, to discover the joys of hacky-sack, and even the allure of a bottle of Jack Daniels and the thrill of a very occasional joint.  When our classmates moved into off-campus housing in their junior and senior years, we chose to stay in the dorm together.  Vince graduated near the top of our class in psychology.  I made it through with a much higher GPA in journalism than I could ever have imagined without him.

        My friend had the exact same look of concentration on his face at his table at Red’s as he wore that day with the paperback book in our dorm room. This time he was staring at his notebook, running through the evidence he and his team had already collected.  His haircut was just as short as it had been the first day of college but the dark black hair was now speckled with flecks of grey.  The crease of his white dress shirt’s collar concealed a conservative red and blue striped necktie.  Vince’s dark blue suit pants had two additions he had never sported in college, a gold shield on the left side of his belt and a service revolver in a holster on the right.

        “How does it feel to be taller than the most powerful people in this town?” I pulled the white plastic chair out from Vince’s table and sat facing him.

        “You’re an asshole,” the police captain tried but failed to suppress a grin as he looked up from his notebook. “One of these days I’m going to wipe that smirk off your face for good.”

        “And you’re a great judge of character, as always,” I smiled back at him.  It felt good to exchange barbs with my buddy. 

    “What will you two buzzards have,” Helda, a waitress at least as old as the bridge, interrupted our friendly sparring.  I ordered a Danish and a glass of iced tea. Vince took a coffee, black.

        “So how the hell does someone get his ass shot while stuck on top of the most butt ugly piece of artwork in this city?” I watched Helda’s uneven gait as she pushed through the door to retrieve our orders.

        “Too soon to tell,” Vince flipped a couple of pages back to the front of his notebook then circled something that must have been important.

        “Any idea who the vic was and what in creation he was doing on top of that bow at four in the morning?”

    “His wallet says he’s Clarence Druthers, 45, of Noe Valley,” Vince pulled an evidence bag out of the inside pocket of the coat that hung from the back of his plastic chair and tossed it across the table at me. “As for what he was doing up there, I was hoping you could tell me.”

    The plastic of the evidence bag was slippery in my hands as I recognized the victim’s face I had seen through the camera’s lens.  I looked through the clear side to see one of my business cards. The back read in shaky handwriting, “Ferry Building, 2 a.m., come alone and await instructions.”

    “Oh brother, not Druthers,” Vince almost laughed at my almost rhyme.

    “How do you know him?”

    “He’s been pestering me for weeks, telling me he has the goods on the Mayor,” I paused as Helda brought my Danish and our drinks. I stirred two faux sugars into my iced tea and savored the raspberry flavor in the center of my pastry.

    “Go on,” Vince tasted his coffee, winced, then gave me that look he once used when chemistry most bewildered me.

    “Vince, you gotta understand, I get this a lot from weirdoes who think I’m their ticket to vindication.”

    “I hear you.  After all, we never get strange calls into the detective’s bureau. Everyone we deal with is strictly on the up and up.”

    “Okay, okay.”

    “So tell me the story of McKay and Druthers.”

    “It does sound like a rundown funeral home doesn’t it?”  Okay, funeral home was probably the wrong image for this conversation.  “I first heard from him in mid-August.  It started with a series of e-mails.  Something along the lines of ‘I know the true power behind the Smith Administration.’  Essentially teases with no evidence to back anything up.

    “I made the mistake of writing back asking him for proof.  He grew hinky then implying it wasn’t safe to reveal too much.”

    “Wasn’t safe?” Vince’s pen paused above his notebook as he looked up at me and took another sip of his coffee.

    “He didn’t say anything specific about threats,”  I grabbed a napkin to wipe the raspberry filling off my mouth then drank the last of my tea. “Come on Vince, you know how these guys can be.  He started displaying classic signs of paranoia.  ‘They’ were reading his e-mails.  ‘They’ were following him on Muni. ‘They’ were tapping his phone calls.”

    “It doesn’t look so much like paranoia after this morning, does it my friend?”

    “I guess not.  But admit it, if you followed up on every kook who called the squad, you would never have time to investigate real crimes.”

    “True enough,” Vince drained his coffee.  Helda came over with a refill.

    “Who’s doing the notifications?”

    “We think he has a sister,” Vince sipped his refreshed drink.  “We’re trying to track her down now. The JJ’s are on it.”

    If the mayor was J.J. to his admiring public, every cop in the department knew “The JJ’s” as Tommy James and Hector Jones, the homicide team with the best record of closures in the SFPD.  James had been on the force since the days when they still busted hippie heads while Hector had come on board in the mid-80’s.  Between them they knew every crook in the city and county of San Francisco.  When that pair showed up on your door, you just knew bad news was just moments away.

    “I’m sure the JJ’s will be their usual sensitive selves,” Helda had returned with a pitcher of iced tea and poured me a refill. 

    Vince had just opened his mouth to reply when both of our cell phones went off at the same time.  We both conducted our conversations in whispers, hung up, and looked at each other with intense stares.

    “Oh shit, this is not good, not good at all,” Vince took a final sip of his coffee and stood. 

    “I dunno, I think it’s pretty good for me, or at least for my story,” I got to my feet and used a napkin to wipe the sticky filling off my fingers.

    “You get the address?”

    “Sure did,” we each left some money for Hilda, put on our jackets and headed for the Embarcadero.  “See you there in ten.”

    “Not good, my friend, this is not good at all.”

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Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference Time and Place Writing Exercise

Challenge: We were given a list of times and locations and asked to write a few paragraphs based on that prompt, I chose Present Day, Hunter's Point, San Francisco, Abandoned Dock

My entry:

You won’t find Heron’s Head park on any of the tourist guidebooks to San Francisco.  The rumble of a big rig drowns my footfalls on the gravel parking lot as I start my approach to the edge of the bay.  The truck fades in much the same way the squawk of the seagulls echo in and out as they circle overhead searching for food from the trash or fish in the water. 

I close my eyes and imagine this place sixty years ago when the horns proclaimed shift change at the Hunter’s Point shipyards, the marching of work boots on concrete announced thousands of men and women stepping away from the victory ships as they felt the vibrations of the engines on the bus benches that would carry them to their quarters.

Today, those workers, like the war they helped to win, are gone and their battlefield has turned into a marriage of rust, refuse, and restored bird habitat.

My Entry in the 2010 Book Passage Mystery Writer's Conference Challenge

The Challenge: Introduce a new character in three sentences.  No physical descriptions allowed.

My entry:

“Game over, get ready to die,” the peppermint on the killer’s breath flashed me back to the gum my mother chewed to cover up the liquor when she kissed me goodnight. The cold press of the knife against my sweaty throat became my father teaching me to shave in the bewildering months after puberty. That’s when I relived the thrill of brandishing the razor at Pop the night he raised his fist at Mom and knew I had the determination to bring death to my would-be assassin.

The other entry I wrote which I chose not to read at the conference:

My instincts screamed earthquake as the vibrations radiated out of the sidewalk through my leather soles, up my calves, and echoed under my sternum. My brain processed the odor of burning rubber a few milliseconds before the buzzing in my throat assaulted my ears as a very low frequency bass rumble. It was the silence that buckled my knees when George killed the stereo, stepped out of the car, flipped the keys at me, and walked into the restaurant.

Radio - Chapter Three - Hizzoner

Chapter Three: Hizzoner

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     I don’t know if Sierra Myers plans a long career in public relations but she experienced the full gamut of the profession in the next 20 minutes.

     Within about five minutes of my live shot that included her sound bite about hearing the fatal shots, first Veronica Peter of Channel Four, then Gary Benjamin of Channel Seven, then a couple of seconds later Cynthia Ito of Channel Five got calls on their cells.  Within seconds of that they were searching the crowd for Sierra. 

A camera from Channel Eleven actually found her first, still sitting on the bench where I had left her smoking and staring out at Treasure Island.  A few things happened in rapid succession after that.  First, the cigarette was gone.  Second, she stood up and pulled out a hair brush.  By the time Sierra had finished with the third thing, getting presentable for the TV cameras, Channels Four, Five, and Seven had all arrived creating an honest to goodness media event.  Since I had already enjoyed a little tete-a-tete with Ms. Sierra, I just hanged back and watched.

It appeared to me that everyone got the money sound bite, the one about hearing the gunshot and the moan but whatever Sierra may have wanted to tell the world about the perils of oil tankers or the imminent destruction of the planet at the hands of evil Homo Sapiens was left in mid-air because with a shout of “Hizzoner” from a truly dastardly domesticated primate, mayoral toady Guy O’Bannon, the entire pack picked up in mid-sentence and rushed over to where John Jacob Smith, Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco stood with his back to the bridge, not to the sculpture whose recent embellishment we were all there to talk about.

Smith, known as “Mayor J.J.” to his sycophantic admirers and “Jingleheimer” to the rest of us, stood about five foot six and weighed barely 135 pounds.  He wore a dark black suit complete with vest and a tie that suggested he was serious and somber all at the same time.  He shifted from side to side on his Oxfords while he waited for the TV cameras to get into position.  At the age of 40, Smith fancied himself destined for higher office, maybe Governor or even a candidate for President of the United States.  If Mr. and Mrs. Smith every actually went to Washington, I would rent a kayak from the vendors at McCovey Cove and start paddling towards New Zealand.

For this, I joined the media circus, grabbing a small mic stand from my bag and positioning my big microphone flag front and center of the TV shot on the wooden podium O’Bannon had already set up.   

O’Bannon affixed the seal of the city and county to the front of the podium and then arranged the visuals for the news conference as if he was a florist preparing a mob funeral.  The aide held out his hand to indicate where Police Chief Catalina Gonzalez should stand just to Jingleheimer’s right shoulder.  Vincent tried to hang back but Gonzalez was having none of it.  The chief ordered him into the frame much to the displeasure of O’Bannon who didn’t want anyone looming over the Mayor.  With a six inch height differential, it would be hard for Vince not to overshadow most people, let alone the scrawny Smith.  My old friend saw my smirk at the dance and gave me one of those dark gazes that used to accompany a loss in our drinking games in the Sonoma State dorms.  I tried to look serious but I’m sure I failed.

O’Bannon didn’t have to worry about either the height or stature of the man standing to the mayor’s right shoulder.  District Attorney Michael Eisenberg was even shorter than the diminutive mayor.  San Francisco prosecutors are notorious for their inability to win major cases.  It’s a problem that’s gone on for years over the tenures of several D.A.’s.  Even so, Eisenberg’s office had set records for futility, losing nearly two-thirds of all felony cases put before a jury.  Sure, juries in the city are often filled with liberal do-gooders who would rather see a bad guy given a chance at rehabilitation than good, old fashioned punishment but even these citizens will render a guilty verdict if they’re overwhelmed with evidence.

There is one crime that will see the full fury of the law come down on you if you commit it in the D.A’s presence or that of his minions.  If you use the “M” word, you know the one that’s often used to describe “little people” whose employment possibilities once consisted merely of circus or carnival sideshows.  Saying the world that rhymes with “Gidget”, especially in relation to the Chief Prosecutor might see you facing hate crime enhancements on top of whatever else Eisenberg’s people could concoct.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” the mayor raised his arms as if he was the ringmaster at a circus that would have, in another era, featured Eisenberg in a clown’s get up and Chief Gonzalez doing summersaults off the back of a black stallion. 

Smith’s next words may have announced the coming of the lion tamers for all we knew because as soon as he started speaking, the loud beeps from the descending fire truck basket drowned out whatever he had to say.  The TV news photojournalists pressed a hand to their earpieces and turned to scowl at the offending sound.

     Qion Fang pulled the evidence gloves off his hands as he enjoyed what must have been a most scenic ride from the top of the span to the grassy park below.  His van was waiting for him at the bottom and the M.E.’s assistants had a stretcher ready for the return ride to pick up the body.  I was sure that before that happened, Vince’s dicks were going to want to ride to the top to take a look for themselves followed by the crime scene specialists.  We were in for a heap of beeps before this thing was over.

     O’Bannon rushed over to the Battalion Chief to tell him to put a kibosh on the beeping until Hizzoner was finished.

     “Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, and Children of All Ages,” okay, the mayor didn’t really say the last two thirds of that except in my twisted imagination which I tried to turn off  as a professional and just pay attention to what he really was saying.

     “We come to you today despite these tragic circumstances to announce a major crackdown on crime in our fair city,” Smith beamed with pride as he paused in turn to gaze into each of the cameras in front of him. “I have directed Chief Gonzalez and District Attorney Eisenberg to put together a task force to come up with a new strategy for preventing crime, targeting our worst offenders, and bringing them to justice.

     “San Francisco is a great city, a world-class city, whose citizens have the right to enjoy our nightlife, our culture, and our vibrant business environment free of fear, free of danger, and free of failure.”

     Jingleheimer droned on for another five minutes in this vein before wrapping it up with a kicker that none of us really understood until much later.

     “Ladies and Gentlemen,” Smith fingered the gold timepiece dangling from the chain attached to his black vest and put on his most serious expression. “Communication is the key to making this city the safest in the country and eventually the safest in the world.  This task force will be looking at new ways to communicate with our citizens and more importantly listening to what they have to say.  San Franciscans are the smartest, most well-educated, and most civic-minded people I’ve met anywhere.  Getting them even more involved in the community will help us all stay safer.  I believe in San Francisco and I know you do too.  Thank you for coming today.”

     I felt like shouting, “We didn’t come out for you asshole, we came because some poor schlub took his last breath while climbing on a fake bow and arrow.”  I didn’t say that out loud of course.

     “Chief Gonzalez,” I did say not just out loud but louder than all of the TV reporters could shout their questions, “what can you tell us about the victim today?  Any indication of how he got to the top of the span?”

     The chief started to answer but O’Bannon cut her off.  He wasn’t going to let me derail the message his boss had come all the way down Market Street to deliver.

     “Cynthia,” O’Bannon fingered his yellow polka-dotted bow tie then pointed to the Channel Five reporter. “I believe you had a question about the task force.”

     “Mayor J.J.,” Ito gushed.  “Where did you get the idea for this new innovative new initiative?”

     “Well Cynthia,” Smith turned his smile up about 3.5 megawatts as he beamed into the Channel Five camera, “as you know, I recently visited Japan and China.  In Japan, I saw a society built on tradition and respect and with very little violent street crime.  It inspired me to see what we could do to build on that success right here in the gateway to the Pacific.”

     “But Mayor,” I couldn’t resist, “isn’t part of the reason for the lack of random street violence in Japan the total hold on the underworld of organized crime like the Yakuza?  Is that the model for San Francisco?”

     “Certainly not, Mr. McKay,” the mayor and I are clearly not on a chummy first name basis like J.J. and Cynthia.  “I believe we can learn from the Japanese experience and improve upon it.”

     The other TV reporters and a scribe for the Chronicle each took turns throwing out softball questions for their friend J.J. although to be fair the newspaper guy did ask about new strategies to improve Eisenberg’s winning percentage.

     When the news conference came to an end, I joined the TV shooters at the podium where we went through the ritual of untangling our microphone cords and I collected my recorder.  As I turned away, O’Bannon was at my side.

     “I’ve had about as much as I can take of your know-it-all attitude, McKay,” the weasel hissed in my ears.  “But that’s okay, because before very long, I have a feeling you’re going to be out on the streets looking for new work.  You’ll sure wish you had friends in this town then.”

     “They say a dog’s a man’s best friend, Guy,” I laughed in the mayoral aide’s face, “and I would take a rabid pit bull’s companionship over yours any day.”

     “You’re laughing now, McKay,” O’Bannon wagged his finger at me. “We’ll see how you act by the end of the week.”

     “You know why I’m laughing now, O’Bannon?” I covered my mouth with my hand to hide a mock giggle. “It’s the bow tie.  Yellow polka-dots, really? On a man of your age?”

     The aide stomped off, then returned to the podium to collect the seal and then trotted behind Jingleheimer back to the mayoral limousine for the ride to City Hall.

     I found Mira and got an update from her on what Qion had found including confirmation of the single gunshot wound to the forehead.  The fire truck started its loud beeping again, this time taking Vince and his detectives up for a close look at the victim. 

     I returned to my car where I did a live shot on the mayoral appearance and then cut up more sound bites to send in to the station.

     As I worked, I thought about O’Bannon’s threats.  He might have been an insufferable asshole, but a fool he’s not, yellow polka dots notwithstanding.  I wondered if there was a connection between his taunts and what I might learn at tonight’s mandatory station meeting.  The mayor’s remark about communication, about listening to the citizens of the city also tickled my subconscious. 

     I knew I had some ammunition with which to fight this battle.  I just didn’t suspect then that the most powerful weapon I had was sitting folded up in my bag next to the polemics of the Earth Defender’s Front.

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Radio - Chapter Two - Cupid's Span

Chapter Two: Cupid’s Span
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    I stepped around a drunk sleeping it off in the alley between Mission and Market and sidestepped a pair of 20-something entrepreneur types who were gesticulating wildly about the next big thing in the cloud while ignoring those of us stuck here on the ground and made it back to my car.  I stepped into the red Ford Focus, started the engine and slipped my laptop out from under the passenger seat.  I plugged it into the cigarette lighter and dug my digital voice recorder out of my pack.  I copied the room ambiance and the interviews onto the computer hard drive and went to work.
    Within a few minutes I had put together five decent sound bites that could run with an intro and an outro, something we call a reader-act.  I turned the radio down in the middle of a cooking segment and recorded a couple of rosers, short for “reporter on scene” stories making it seem like I was still standing in Lucky Leoung.  Well it least it did when I mixed the room sounds underneath it.
    Once I had everything put together, I dialed Isabella and told her I was ready to feed.  She turned me over to Mario, a nice kid still in college who worked part time for us as a tape editor.  He took my download and when it was over said Isabella needed me pronto.
    “Cupid’s Span,” Isabella’s voice was back in my ear with all of the warmth of a Lake Tahoe skinny-dip.
    “Aw, I think that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me,” I deadpanned.
    “Shut the fuck up and get your ass over there right now,” she said.  “You know, the stupid fucking bow and arrow pointing straight down into the goddamn Embarcadero.”
    “On my way, sweetie,” I had already put the car in gear and turned it towards the east.
    A year after September 11th, when the rest of the world was still reeling from the “Fight of the Century” featuring in the blue corner Osama bin Laden and in the red corner George W Bush, the artist Claus Oldenburg unveiled his new 143 foot tall sculpture of the bow and arrow.  He dedicated it to San Francisco as the “home port of Eros” whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean.  It being San Francisco, you can’t actually see the tip of the arrow because that might imply that the damn thing was going to shoot someone.  Instead the feathers of the arrow are the most prominent feature.  As I pulled up to Cupid’s Span, I saw that that day the sculpture had an embellishment that would have made Oldenburg faint.
    I got out of my car, slipped my headphones on, and dialed Isabella.
    “Okay, I’m on scene.  Ready for air when you are.”
    “You’re gonna pay for calling me Sweetie even if I have to mug you when we’re both standing in the unemployment line,” she couldn’t quite keep the smile out of her voice.  “We’re in spot right now, I’ll send you up there.”
    Most people might think it premature doing a live report since I hadn’t actually talked to the police or sought out any witnesses or knew what the fuck was really going on.  But this was all-news radio.  Who needs facts when they’ve got my eyes?
    “We’re 45 out,” Eddie picked up the line.  “We’re coming straight to you out of the breaking news sounder.  Just do your normal sig-out when you’re done.”
    “Got it, thanks,” I took the moments to survey the scene.  Uniformed officers were putting up crime scene tape blocking off pedestrian access to the sculpture.  I spotted my old college roomie turned police captain Vincent Smith huddling with a group of detectives and pointing at the top of the feathers.
    Suddenly serious music filled my ears followed by our booth announcer Dudley Anderson’s most stentorian tones announcing breaking news from Bay Area Radio News.
    “This is Bay Area Radio News reporter Sean McKay live along the Embarcadero in San Francisco,” I said.  “San Francisco police are now investigating what appears to be a man’s body wedged into the feathers of the Cupid’s Span sculpture, 140 feet above Rincon Park.”
    I went on to describe the scene including the impact on traffic in the area.  Just before signing off, I noted the arrival of the coroner’s van saying that seemed to confirm appearances that the victim was dead.
    After the live shot, I grabbed my microphone and voice recorder and snagged a 12.1 megapixel camera out of the side pocket in my pack.
    Yes, you heard that right, a radio reporter using a camera.  These days though, it’s important to take snapshots at stories to add graphics to the report on our web site. In order to make journalism a halfway paying concern, it’s not enough to just paint sound pictures anymore.  I took a couple of wide shots framing the bowstring of the sculpture around the deep blue waters of the bay and the looming concrete and metal of the Bay Bridge.
    I waved at Vince but he just shook his head indicating he couldn’t talk and pointed at Sgt. Mira Hansson, the newly appointed Public Information Officer or PIO.  Vince pointed his thumb at his right ear and his pinkie at his mouth indicating I could call him later.  He then moved with his detectives to a pair of young white kids in their late teens or early 20’s who were sitting handcuffed on the grass about 20 feet away from the span.
    I showed my press credentials to the uniformed patrolman guarding the outer perimeter and moved closer to the center of the sculpture.  I could see a pool of dried blood directly under the body staining the steel bow. 
    As I greeted Mira, loud beeping drowned out our words.  We both turned towards the street where a huge San Francisco Fire Department Tiller Truck, sometimes called a “hook and ladder” backed onto the sidewalk.  Assistant Chief Medical Examiner Qiong Fang walked over to talk to the fire captain who had just hopped out of the passenger side of the truck.  The each took turns pointing at the body on the feather.
    “What do we know?” I asked Hansson.
`    ”We got the call at 7:35 a.m.,” she consulted her notebook then spoke into my microphone.  “A couple of witnesses,” she nodded to the two young handcuffed dudes, “reported the body at the top of the arrow.  It seems they were shimmying up the bowstring in heavy fog in order to hang a protest banner from the span.  When they got to the top, the fog lifted long enough for them to spot the body.” Mira made a slashing motion across her throat and I paused the recorder.
    “To tell you the truth, Sean, we’re damn lucky we didn’t have three bodies.  Those kids almost shit their pants when they saw the body up there and we’re fortunate they didn’t fall off.
    She twirled her fingers in a circle and I started the recorder again.
    “The witnesses say it appeared to them the victim had suffered at least one gunshot wound to the forehead although we won’t know that for sure until the medical examiner looks at the body.”
    We both looked back at the Tiller truck where Fang was now climbing to the bottom of the ladder and struggled his way onto the platform.  The operator then extended the basket into the air at a very slow pace until the assistant M.E. was eye level with the body.
    “Oh shit, here comes the pack,” Mira said as three competing television live trucks showed up on the scene simultaneously.
    “You can blame me for that,” I had already put away my microphone and taken a couple of more photos of the fire truck and the two handcuffed witnesses.  “I did a live hit when I pulled up on the scene which their assignment editors certainly heard.  You know the drill.”
    Mira rolled her eyes then pulled out a hair brush to get presentable for the cameras.  I checked my watch and saw that I had about five minutes until the top of the hour when I would need to do another live shot.
    After the hit, I fed in the sound with Mira and went looking for witnesses.  The first couple of people I encountered were just your standard looky-lou’s who didn’t know anymore than I did.  Less, in fact.  Then I hit paydirt.  Standing out from the crowd because she was sitting down, a young blonde woman of about the age of the two guys Vince’s boys were questioning sat with her head in her hands on a park bench looking out towards Treasure Island.  She wore a green army jacket with the Earth Defender’s Front logo embroidered onto the back.  Smoke from her cigarette curled into the moist air.   I figured at that moment San Francisco’s outdoor smoking ban enforcement wasn’t top of mind for any of the authorities on the scene. 
    “Pretty unbelievable, huh?” I sat on the park bench next to her.  She took a long drag off her Marlboro Red then ground it into the concrete base of the bench with her heel.  Her eyes were red with tears but they stared at me with an angry intensity.
    “You a cop?” She tried to sound defiant but couldn’t quite pull it off.
    “Nope, a reporter.” I showed her my press credentials. 
    She shook her head.  “You’re the reason I’m supposed to be here this morning.  Reggie and Devin knew they would probably be arrested so they asked me to come out and talk with the press about the reasons behind our action.” She pulled out a stack of flyers on green and yellow paper and handed me one of each. She also produced a surprisingly professional looking business card that identified her as Sierra Myers, Spokeswoman for the Earth Defender’s Front.
    “Okay,” I said as I pulled out my microphone and hit record.  “What did you see?”
    She stared at the microphone for a beat, then shrugged and began to answer.
    “I think, I think we heard the dude get shot,” she paused.  I nodded silent encouragement so the recorder wouldn’t pick me up urging her on. “It was about four in the morning.  We rode our bikes over and were just stowing them when we heard a loud bang.  I thought I heard a moan right after that, but it was foggy and Devin said I was hearing things.  He said the bang was probably just a backfire echoing across the water from the Bay Bridge.”
    She told me about unpacking their banners and attaching them with oversized curtain hangers to the bowstring.  She stayed on the ground as lookout while Devin pulled his banner up one side of the bow and Reggie went up the other side.
    About twenty minutes later, she heard Devin let out a scream.  The next thing she knew the banners were sliding back to the ground followed moments later by Devin and Reggie.
    “I can’t believe this is happening to us,” Sierra was now shaking as she reached for another cigarette.  It took her three tries to get the lighter to catch, then she took a deep drag off the smoke. “We just want the world to know how dangerous it is for the planet to have oil tankers coming in and out every day through the Golden Gate.  We thought this action would wake some people up.”
    My phone buzzed so I thanked Sierra and walked out of earshot.  It was Isabella telling me they needed another live hit at the bottom of the hour and giving me word from our city hall reporter, Sheila Barrera, that the Golden Boy himself, our mayor, was on the way to the scene.
    “He must have heard there are cameras here,” I said.
    “Why the fuck else would he go anywhere?” Isabella said.
    “Okay, I’ll keep an eye out for Hizzoner,” I was now back to my car and unpacking the laptop.  “But first I’ve got some exclusive sound from a witness who says she heard the shot.  I’ll send you one bite for my next hit and then a few more bites for reader-acts.”
    While I edited the sound, I wondered what the hell the mayor was really up to.  This kind of high profile crime would do nothing for the tourist trade or his ambitions for statewide office.  What was his real agenda? 
    In case you can’t tell, I love my job, in fact I can’t imagine not doing it.  I knew I was going to be more than pissed if the station was going under and we were all getting fired.  After working my way up the ladder through jobs in smaller markets including Eureka, Reno, and Sacramento, I had arrived in San Francisco where I was privileged to work with some true pros.  Many of them were assholes and a few might say the same about me, but we had a good group that put out a great product.  But I knew that didn’t amount to much in the minds of the corporate fat cats and bean counters who just look at the bottom line.
    As I waited on hold for my next live shot, I took Sierra’s business card and flyers and folded them inside my pack next to my already forgotten lottery ticket.
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Radio - Chapter One - Breakfast at "Lucky Leoung's"

Chapter One: Breakfast at “Lucky Leoung’s”

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     Trust me, I’ve heard all of the reasons why you should never buy a lottery ticket.  It’s a tax on people bad at math.  You have essentially the same odds of winning a big jackpot whether you buy a ticket or you don’t.  And to tell you the truth, up until that day at Mr. Leoung’s market on Beale Street in downtown San Francisco, I had almost never bought one. 

     Mr. Leoung and I share quality time just about every work day.  Rain or shine, I ring the bell dangling from the top of his front door as I slide into the store at about 7:45 a.m., fill myself a jumbo cup of his secret blend of coffee, select a doughnut from his not particularly generous selection, and make my way to the counter where we have our usual argument over whether the Giants are a better team than the A’s.  This usually consists of him describing how many more games the Giants have won so far this year than my Athletics while I respond with a comparison of West Coast World Series titles won, 4-0 A’s.  At that point, Mr. Leoung’s narrow shoulders shrug under his red windbreaker, he takes my money, sounds the chime on the cash register and moments later the bell rings again as we exchange smiles and I head out the door.
     On that brilliant October day, you could barely hear the bell as I entered the market over the hubbub of voices inside.  I pushed my way past a group of Asian women in their mid-50’s to get to the coffee machine.  It took a little more polite elbowing to get through another gaggle of strangers to reach the doughnut box, that day offering even less of a selection than usual. Fritters are my favorites followed by caked doughnuts with icing.  Bear claws I can tolerate and doughnut holes are a scam on the buying public.  Fortunately, there was one bear claw, slightly mangled, pushed against the back of the doughnut box.  Maybe today still held out a glimmer of hope.

That’s when I noticed the line to the counter.  It stretched past the potato chip display, around the condiment shelves, under the beer banners, and ended all the way in the back of the store in front of the case containing the largest selection you’ve ever seen of “It’s It” brand ice cream sandwiches.

     “What the heck is going on here today?” I asked Mr. Leoung’s neice Le who was heading to the back of the store at the same time I reached the end of the line.

     “And you call yourself a newsman,” she laughed as she straightened some cans on the top of the shelf against the western wall of the store. It occurred to me that I hadn’t eaten pork and beans since senior year at Sonoma State.  “It’s lotto day.  Today’s jackpot is up to $500 million and everyone in the neighborhood knows my uncle has the luckiest lotto machine in the Bay Area.”
     I know, there’s no such thing as a “lucky” lottery machine.  The ping-pong balls the lottery commission in Sacramento uses to choose the winning numbers are incapable of independent thought, let alone figuring out which store is most likely to sell the winning combination.  Still, I wasn’t likely to win that argument with Le.  She was speeding to the middle of the line anyway where a group of older men had just knocked over a cardboard cutout of a Giants Hall-of-Famer, bending back the picture of the beer bottle he was holding.  How can you make it to Cooperstown without a World Series ring?  I shook my head at the very thought.

     I took a sip of my coffee, reached into a side pocket on my pack, slipped my headset around my ears and hit speed-dial for the desk.

      “News.” Isabella’s voice filled my ears as a large man wearing a San Jose State Spartans jacket squeezed between the shelves and me disturbing the nice row of pork and beans Le had just straightened.

     “Will you still love me when I win the lottery?” I took a nibble on my bear’s claw then washed it down with another sip of my black coffee.

     “The way this place is going, someone’s going to need to do something,” Isabella said.  “But first things first, can you get me something on lotto fever this morning?”
     “Sure, I’m at Leoung’s Market over here on Beale and the place is nuts.”

     “I’m not surprised,” I could hear Isabella shuffling through some press releases on the desk.  “Everyone knows Mr. Leoung’s the luckiest place in the City to buy a lottery ticket.  Did you know four of the last 30 major jackpots came from that machine?”

     “I do now,” I said.  I knew discussing the logic of ping-pong ball memory would get me no further with Isabella than it would with the excited crowds here. “I’ll knock you out a couple of rosers and send in some bites with the people in line with me.”

     “Sounds good and can you do a live hit with me in seven minutes?”

     “No problem.”

     “Sweet,” Isabella’s voice then shrank to a whisper forcing me to cover my free ear with my hand to hear her over the mayhem of Mr. Leoung’s. “What do you make of this mandatory meeting at the end of evening drive?”

     “What mandatory meeting?”

     “Check your e-mail, will you McKay?” Isabella’s voice was back to normal volume which is to say somewhere between an angry football coach and a jet airplane.

     “It’s probably just more of Gregg’s corporate bullshit anyway,” I said.  “Now I gotta get to work if I’m going to have something for that live hit.”

     “Five minutes away now,” she said as she disconnected.

     I put my coffee down on a shelf next to a stack of canned sandwich meats and dug into my fanny pack.  I pulled out a microphone and a small digital voice recorder, plugged item A into item B, and went to work.  I talked with the people ahead of me in line about their hopes and dreams of fame and fortune after winning the half a billion dollar jackpot.  Later I would wish I had been a little less smug with some of them.
     With two minutes to go before my live shot, the line had moved so that I was standing next to the bent Giants cut-out.  Le was just finishing using tape to point the beer bottle upright and I tapped her on the shoulder.

     “Please don’t go anywhere for a second,” I said.  “I’m going live and I want to do a short interview with you.

     Le looked up and down the line for a second.  I hoped she couldn’t see the uneven line of pork and beans cans my Spartan friend had disturbed.  Finally she shrugged and agreed.

     “I hit speed dial-number two and plugged my microphone into the jack on the phone.  That way I could use the headset for my voice and the microphone for Le’s.

     “There you are McKay.  Cutting it a little close huh,” producer Eddie Solis answered the line.  “Are we all going to get fired tonight?  Don’t answer that, I’m putting you on hold.  You’re 25 seconds from air.”

     I listened to the last few seconds of an ad for household cleaning supplies.  The muted jingle grew louder in my ear as the director punched my line up on the board.

     “Bay Area News Radio Time 7:55,” anchor Ramika Kenai’s voice had just a hint of the exotic but fell far short of what you would call an accent as she greeted local commuters.  “We’ll have traffic and weather on the eights in three minutes but first who doesn’t dream of becoming fabulously wealthy?  With the Mega-Millions jackpot now standing at an even half of a billion dollars, people from all over the region are flocking to Leoung’s Market on Beale Street in downtown San Francisco.  Bay Area News Radio reporter Sean McKay joins us live from ‘Lucky Leoung’s’ with the story.  Sean, how did the store get that name?”

     I’ve been Mr. Leoung’s patron for as long as I could remember and I had never heard anyone call it “Lucky” anything.  It sure wasn’t as a result of the doughnut selection.  Fortunately, thanks to Isabella, I knew the answer Ramika wanted.

     “Ramika,” I said, “it may defy the laws of logic but somehow there are four millionaires out there right now who can thank their fortunes to the decision to buy a lottery ticket from Leoung’s.  I’m standing here with Le Leoung right now.  Ms. Leoung, how do you explain your store’s amazing string of good luck?”

     As Le began to answer, I felt a bump in the back from Spartan jacket dude.  His bushy eyebrows danced a rumba as he nodded his square shaped head to the front of the store where I could see a gap had opened between us and the rest of the line.  I took Le by the elbow and together we walked forward closer to the counter.  Le wrapped up her answer about the alignment of the stars on the day her uncle was born and the resulting good fortune that shines on all who knew him.  I could only hope a ray of that luck would fall on me at about the time of tonight’s mandatory station meeting.

     “So there you have it, Ramika,” I said.  “Can it work for a fifth time? Who knows but there’s a store full of people here willing to put down a dollar for that dream.  Live in San Francisco, Sean McKay, Bay Area Radio News.”

     I thanked Le and noted that I was close to the front of the line.  I plugged my microphone back into the digital recorder and pointed it at the ceiling.  I hit “record” and got about a minute of room ambiance, something I knew would come in useful when I put together my “taped” pieces.  Yes, even though all of our audio now consists of nothing but one’s and zero’s, we still use jargon from the days of magnetic tape.  Don’t ask me why.

     “You’re not drinking coffee today, Sean?”  Mr. Leoung’s voice started me.  I switched off the recording and craned my neck around Spartan jacket to my coffee which had no doubt gone cold in the company of the sandwich meat cans.

     “Charge me for a jumbo,” I said, “and a full bear claw.” I put the last piece of the claw into my mouth and chewed.

     “Tell you what, since you have no taste in baseball teams, let me do this,” Mr. Leoung stroked his goatee.  “The coffee’s on the house, I’ll charge you for the bear claw, and a chance to be part of the Lucky Leoung family.  That will be your usual four bucks.”

     Screw ping-pong ball logic, I wasn’t going to insult my friend by turning down a deal like that.  Mr. Leoung printed out the lottery ticket and exchanged it for a wrinkled five dollar bill that had survived an extra spin cycle in my washing machine.  I waved away the change as I slipped the ticket into my pack, next to the microphone and digital voice recorder and stepped out of the way of Spartan jacket dude.  I hope I never run into that guy again for the rest of my life since by now he’s figured out that by rights the ticket I walked out of Mr. Leoung’s with should have been his.

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