by Ricardo Avecedo

3:02am, July 1995. Almost silence. Meters peaking, request lines flash on a Saturday night cum Sunday morn. My headphones sitting 2 feet away buzz out a transistorized excuse for angst. It's not a bad job, it's a job... Rock radio in the mid nineties, pretty much a wasteland. Cobaine is dead and Veders a rock recluse, (rumors keep circulating he's thinking about starting a chain of restaurants... Never happen) & Guns N' Roses sucked from day one. Well anyway, bad job is relative.

I exhale and push the red flashing light.

"KZXL"

"Is this KZXL?"

"Yep.... What'cha wanna hear?"

"Is this the request line?"

"Yep...sure is, what'cha wanna hear?"

"Cool, yeah how about some Vibrators, or The Damned, maybe some Melanie, you now that song she did about riding her bike and ripping off someone's key or something...."

All this is staccato, rapid fire. His exuberance codified by chemistry. This cat either has broad musical tastes or I'm being messed with. I'm inclined to the latter.

"Nah, sure don't, but wouldn't it be nice to hear Chris Spedding, Knox and the boys re-form with Dave Vanium as front man, just to do covers of Melanie tunes?"

"Ahhh, yeah, that would be ahhh cool.......... Hey, just got a new tat, check it out!"

"Well... we ARE on the phone."

"Oh...yeah, sorry......... Its kinda like a skull rosary hanging down my chest to my...."

"Hey zombie! You wanna hear something or not? I got other lines blinking..."

"Yeah, lines....cool!"

I hang up.

Night. The zombies are out in force and me, a disembodied Baron Sombati, gatekeeper of the other side. The power of music on the drug addled, raising them up or taking them down via the airwaves by the mere push of a button.

You'd think I be used to it by now, been working the graveyard shift for two years but they still get to me. At times I can smell their breath, hear the blades on glass, see their vacant stares. I've learned to understand their run-on sentences and recognized their slurs. The zombie factor makes this job interesting' if not a bit scary. They can rip your heart out if you let them, as they drone on requesting music as advice. Like a bartender.
Without the tips.

"Hey.... Man. Can you play some Offspring?"

"Sure... I do it all night"

"Huh..?"

His voice is like heat stretched tape, slow & wobbling.

"Let me guess, you want 'Self Esteem,' right?"

"Yeah man, how'd you know?"

"Just lucky, yeah that's me, lucky..."

"Not me man, hate that bitch...she..."

I hang up, turn up the monitors, slip in a couple "Pers Favs," nice long ones, to give me enough time to restock the burnt discs. It's 3:20am.

Shakespeare said 3am was the "Souls Midnight"; I'd have to concur. Conjuring up images of smoked filled bed and living rooms, sound systems throbbing in the corner going unnoticed amid the leering body language, clinking beer bottles, bongs gurgling until "That Song" slaps them on the ass or solar plexus. Tribal woops rise, "Yeah, Yeah...." Their souls alight; faces contort into badass snarls and tartish avarice. Thinking is unnecessary, the possession is complete. In trance they fumble for the phone, dial just as the song is ending...

"Oh man, I love that song..." a pause as the drugs regroups. "Uh, uh, how about... Black Hole Sun?"

"Sure no problem"

"Thanks man," click.

Their voices just as disembodied as mine. I scramble through my set program list trying to find a place where I can wedge in a Black Hole Sun, a real one, a cut by Meat Beat Manifesto or Sun Ra, maybe even just a sun gone nova like something off Miles' Live Evil. But in this job, in this place, there is only so much room for entropy, between the Sarah McLaughlin's and Tom Petty's. Perhaps just Rocky Erickson's "I Walked With a Zombie" to appease my inner zombie. I stoop in research. "Let's see, that's by Stone-Garden-Nirvana, Right?" as the red light flashes...again.

"KZXL"

"Is this the graveyard shift guy?"

"Yeah"

"Hey, what do you look like?"

"Well, ever seen the movie The Evil Dead?"

"Yeah."

"Well..."

"Ohhhh...."