Anchor Man

‘In fact isn’t this just another example of lunatic liberals promoting their secular agenda through the mainstream media?’ fumes Phill.

The camera switches briefly to the studio guest who seems inclined to agree with Phill but doesn’t have time to say anything before the camera switches back to Phill again. ‘Well not here folks! Remember – what you get here is no nonsense news! We tell it just the way it is!’ Phill gives one of his slow little smiles, the sort that has feisty Florida grandmothers wishing that their sons could be a little more like Phill, and unemployed truckers in Montana whooping and punching the air as they reach for the next can from the six-pack.

The screen splits again and the mayor of the little town in Oregon that is the object of Phill’s wrath comes back in to view. The mayor seems a little shell-shocked but tries to make his case once more, ‘The reason there’s no Santa Claus in the parade this year is …’

The autocue rolls and Phill rolls with it ‘Santa Claus is a Christian symbol,’ he says with an air of infinite patience, as if explaining something very simple to someone very dim, ‘This is a Christian country Mr Mayor, despite the best efforts of the liberal secularists. You would agree at least that this country was founded on Christian principles?’

‘Well yes, but Deke Adams who normally plays Santa …’

‘And yet all over the nation, town fathers such as yourself have fallen prey to this …’ Phill pauses as if he is reluctant to say the next word. The autocue pauses with him, ‘…conspiracy’, he continues and somewhere a feisty Floridian grandmother gasps, partly in awe at Phill’s rhetorical skills and partly from shock at his revelation.

‘Deke wasn’t too well this year and he’s a strange sort of shape so the costume doesn’t …’

‘There we have it folks, just another example of the secular left chipping away at the great founding traditions of our nation. This newsman for one won’t stand for it. I’ll be publishing lists on the website of all those places that have rolled over to the demands of the rabid leftwing liberals, so that you – the folks – can write them and let them know what you think.’ Another slow smile in Florida a pacemaker struggles to bring order to a fluttering old heart, in Montana another beer can disappears beneath the grimy brim of a John Deere cap where writing seems like such trouble but cleaning down that old .45 might be a step in the right direction.

The autocue spins on, ‘It’s only five weeks to Christmas folks, so check out the Phill O’Brian website for Phill O’Brian merchandising, there’s something for everyone and remember all of the profits –’ he turns to look at camera 2, the shot cuts with him and he smiles as he says, ‘– go to charity.’

‘That’s it from me for tonight. Tomorrow we have the Wisconsin grade school kids that are being forced to learn the so-called theory of evolution, we have regular correspondent Mike Wierzbowski on mainstream media criticism of the President’s wardrobe that he says is treasonous and threatening the lives of our forces overseas and we have our regular Most Unbelievable Story of the week. Trust me you’ll have to see it to believe it! Be sure to tune in for more…’ he pauses. Counts two. Three. Four. ‘…No Nonsense News!’

In his earpiece he hears the rock guitars of the inter-bulletin promo squeal into life. ‘We’re out,’ says Stacey in the control room, ‘Great show Phill!’

The intern scuttles onto the set and helps Phill to unhook his earpiece. Phill does not like her. She wears too much makeup and is terrifyingly young. He hasn’t dared to do the math but suspects that it is technically possible that she could be his granddaughter. As he walks off the set Stacey intercepts him. She is carrying a clipboard and wears a headset, the microphone of which is turned upwards like a raised finger calling for his attention.

‘Phill, tomorrow we need to go through some of the memos from the controllers. They’re getting bored with the Christmas stuff. They want more illegal alien stories and more Democrats in disarray. We want you to do an interview with one of the loopy ones.’

‘Stacey dear, whatever you think is best, though I must say some of the Christmas pieces are getting a little lurid. Now, did you remember to ask Andrew about that little matter we discussed?’

Stacey looks confused for a moment and then annoyed, ‘Yes. Look it’s fine Phill, OK, whatever you want, just tell Donna and she’ll make sure we get the right one in.’

‘It’s just that I find Evian so terribly bloating. You know, on stage we always used to know who was drinking French. Leotards can be so revealing. Terribly catty, but that’s just how it is when you’re off Broadway.’ Phill giggles to himself, Stacey smiles, nods and hurries away quickly because she is busy and once Phill starts to reminisce it can be difficult to stop him.

As he heads to the dressing room Julie, his PA, brings him a towel. Julie is very efficient which he appreciates, though he misses Winston who was his student intern last year and much more to Phill’s taste than middle-aged, media career Julie. In his dressing room, on the dressing table is a huge basket of fruit. Phill smiles. There is a small white envelope propped against the basket. He opens it and finds a card with ‘Thinking of you…’ printed on the front of it in silver. Inside the card is written, ‘Told you I would remember! Can’t wait until the weekend! Love Juan. XXX.’ Phill smiles and holds the card to his lips as he chuckles to himself and savours the memory. It’s exactly a year since he and Juan took their first hot tub together at the little spa resort near Jackson Hole. It was a wonderful weekend. They went skiing and drank mulled wine in front of the log fire. Juan kept on joking about when would they meet this Jackson fellow and what was so special about his hole anyway? It was silly, but Phill found it all very funny. Later in the spa, he had suddenly felt insecure, thought Juan was checking out another guy, but Juan had reassured him, said that every day they spent together was special, that he would even remember to sent Phill flowers on the anniversary of this, their first tub. Phill doesn’t like flowers. OK, Juan says let’s make it fruit.

He takes off his hairpiece and places it carefully on the stand, then squints into the brightly lit mirror for a while as he studies the wrinkles around his eyes. He decides, as he does every night, that they make him look distinguished as he dabs the beads of sweat from his forehead. He takes a swig of that filthy French stuff. He knows that it’s the only type of mineral water in the building and better than nothing when, as now, Phill is literally dying of thirst. He is sure that Walter Kronkite never had to suffer such indignities and makes a mental note to ask Julie to tell Donna to get some better water in when she returns.

Refreshed, he glances at the pile of mail that Julie has left on his dressing table. He will get Julie to answer most of it, but he always likes to take a first look to see if there is any particularly touching fan mail. As well as the ordinary post Julie has printed up his emails. Phill does not like computers, he always seems to break them and he really doesn’t have too much time for all of those horrible internet sites that seem to take everything so seriously. There is an email from one of his usual critics from cyberspace. Zebedee24 writes: ‘O’Brian you are a disgrace to the news media. You goddamn racist, nazi freak, why don’t you just die?’

Phill takes it as a compliment. It means that he can really move people with his performances and only the great actors are able to do that he knows. He finds that the scripts here at the station are sometimes a bit repetitive but the money is good and he gets to meet some interesting people, though it’s important to always stay in character when you’re out and about. Once he nearly got into quite a lot of trouble at a reception in Washington when he had misunderstood what the handsome young senator had meant by ‘pork barrel politics’.

Another email from the same internet site lists thirteen differen factual inaccuracies from yesterday’s bulletin. Phill chuckles to himself, ‘Get a life! Who watches news for the facts? Honestly, some people!’ He is almost tempted to draft a reply to this buffoon but decides to leave it to Julie. He could spend really far too much time on these people and their pathetic carping.

The next piece of paper in the mail pile is an interoffice memo regarding mineral water. It states that the studio has an exclusive contract with Evian and that no other water will be purchased by the studio whilst this contract stands. Employees are, of course, at liberty to bring their own brand of mineral water from home. The usual rules about displaying branded products on air apply.

This is too much. Really, just too much. Phill decides to take matters into his own hands and goes to find Ray Meek, the news editor.

He pads carefully down the corridor that leads to Ray’s office. He knows that the offices are mostly empty at this time of night, but doesn’t want just anyone to see him without his hairpiece. As he approaches the office he can hear two familiar voices. Raised voices. Ray is on speakerphone with Douglas Maxwell, the station boss. He knows he is being very naughty, but stops himself just before knocking on Ray’s open door and listens.

‘But Doug we’ve been running Christmas in Crisis stories for two weeks now, it’s what you asked for!’ complains Ray. Phill smirks. He always thought Ray was a bit of a whiner.

‘Christmas makes people angry,’ screams Doug. ‘I don’t want angry I want scared goddammit! I want an army of wops coming across the border, I want the planes full of raghead terrorists and some kid with a computer virus ready to take down the nuclear plants.’

‘Look Doug we’re doing what we can but there are laws, we can’t just … well we can’t just lie, you know? We’ll punch up the piece that Phill is doing on immigration tomorrow. OK?’

‘That faggot? Jesus H Christ, Ray! When McCourt is in the Oval I’ll make sure that people like Phill O’Brian are the first up against the wall, along with every other faggot, liberal and goddamn commie in this country so help me!’

‘Doug, he’s our highest ratings draw. He gets viewers.’

‘Viewers is one thing Ray, Senator McCourt on the party ticket and sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office next January with a big shit-eating grin on his face because I’ve made some time to call in on him for a chat is another. I’m not paying you a million bucks a year to tell the goddamn truth Ray. You’re running a news channel not a bible study group! I want fear and I want it NOW!’

The phone makes a whirring noise. Doug has hung up. Phill thinks that Ray probably has better things to do right now that talk about mineral water. He decides discretion is the better part of valour and resolves to leave a post-it in his dressing room for Donna instead.

He walks back down the empty corridor towards his little room. As he walks past the glass walls of the writers’ bullpen he sees the smiling face of Bobby the giant teddy bear that is being auctioned for charity on one of the daytime segments that he never finds time to watch. Bobby is nearly eight feet tall and wears a big T-shirt that says No Nonsense News! Phill checks to see that there is no one in the office and then walks over to the bear and hugs it. He doesn’t know why. Then he begins to cry. He doesn’t know why he is doing that either.

A door opens somewhere off to his right and Phill breaks off his bear hug and looks gratefully up at Bobby as he turns away and heads back to the dressing room. Sitting at the dressing table again Phill blows his nose loudly and dabs his eyes dry. He looks at his face in the mirror. Despite his red eyes he is still good looking. Maturing with age, is what Juan would say. No jealous cyber-nobodies or washed up old hacks will steal his limelight. They can choose to misunderstand his art, but he knows, his fans know – Phill isn’t some tired old newsreader he is an actor and a darned good one. Phill smiles bravely through his tears.

‘They smile when they are low,’ he sings softly to his reflection and feels a little better. He decides to put on a bravura performance when doing the interview tomorrow – really go to town. If necessary he will adlib a little about the brown tide surging across the southern border and the homocentric media. Yes, tomorrow he will show all of them what he is made of and silence their carping and their backbiting; tomorrow and the next night and the one after that.

After all he is a showman and the show must go on.