Prophet (17 page)

She pointed, and John read from the teleprompter. “The Catholic Archdiocese has not yet responded to demands made by The City’s gay community in a demonstration at St. Andrew’s Cathedral yesterday, and a gay spokesman says they are still waiting. Leslie Albright is live in our newsroom with an update.”

Mardell held her hand out to the left, and John and Ali followed it with their eyes, looking to their right.

“Leslie, has there been any response from the Archdiocese?” John asked.

Carl followed his father’s and Ali Downs’ gaze and looked at the wall, but nothing was there. Then he heard Leslie Albright’s voice some distance away. “John,” she was saying, “so far the Archdiocese has released only one brief statement maintaining the Church’s position on birth control . . .”

Carl looked from the wall to his father, but his father was still paying rapt attention to the wall. Where in the world . . . ?

Oh . . . Carl could see Leslie Albright just out of the camera’s view around the end of the plywood backdrop, sitting in front of that little camera perched on the stand, the flashcam.

“. . . Harley Cudzue, spokesman for the Gay Rights Action League, is not satisfied.”

Carl looked at the monitor. Oh . . . here was some guy carrying a
sign and looking upset, hollering, “We are here to call attention to the callousness and indifference of organized religion to the plight of gays and straights alike. AIDS is everyone’s problem, and everyone needs to be involved in stopping it.”

JOHN PERUSED HIS
script once again for the scripted question and Leslie’s outcue. He found the outcue: “. . . free condoms available.”

And the scripted question. Hmm . . . Leslie came up with a different question. Funny she didn’t mention it. But John liked it. It was more probing, more interesting, and definitely more risky.

Leslie, you’ve got guts, I’ll hand you that.

CARL WATCHED THE
monitor.

Leslie’s voice: “Yesterday was the first of many planned demonstrations, with several confrontations between gays and parishioners.”

Video: Homosexuals handing free condoms to parishioners just leaving the church.

Cut to video: A parishioner and a gay having it out. The gay: “The Church needs to own up to its responsibility! You are to blame for thousands of deaths!” The parishioner: “You people need to turn back to God and turn away from this sin!”

Cut to video of the guy with the sign again. Title at bottom of screen: “Harley Cudzue, Gay Rights Action League.”

“Condoms are the answer to stemming this plague, and we will not surrender until the Catholic Church amends its murderous policies!”

Cut to Leslie, live from the newsroom, with desks and people working behind her.

Carl looked. His father and Ali Downs were looking at the wall again, while Leslie, only a few feet behind them, talked to the flashcam.

“So that’s where it stands, John. Regardless of what the Church eventually decides, Cudzue and his fellow gays say they will continue to make free condoms available.”

As Carl watched the monitor, Leslie suddenly appeared on a screen perched on the end of the news desk. Carl looked at Leslie in the newsroom, then the monitor, then his father.

My father’s talking to the wall
, he thought.

JOHN WAS READY
with his scripted question and addressed it to the wall. “Well, Leslie, how does he reconcile his position with the fact that he’s had over three hundred sexual encounters in the past year and never uses a condom himself?”

Dead air.

“Well . . .”

CARL LOOKED AT
the lady sitting behind the backdrop. He was waiting to hear the answer.

“Well,” she said, her script falling limp in her lap, “that’s a good question, John.”

Carl detected a note of sarcasm, and now she sat there with a very testy expression on her face.

AN EXPRESSION JOHN
could not see, but could certainly feel in her tone. He’d better let her go, and quick. “All right, thank you, Leslie.”

On the monitors, the screen that wasn’t there vanished. John and Ali looked toward the front again as Camera One zoomed in for a close-up of Ali.

Ali started the next story. “The tax initiative for the Public Swimming Pool is in deep water again . . .”

CARL WATCHED AS
Leslie Albright rolled limply out of the flashcam chair, her mouth open and her eyes looking toward Heaven. The first person she encountered back there, she grabbed, gesturing, waving her script.

JOHN PAGED THROUGH
his script, getting ready for the break coming up. There was tension in the air; he could feel it.

Camera Three’s red light flashed on, and the monitor showed the
camera capturing the two anchors plus Bing Dingham, newly arrived, ready at his post at the right end of the news desk.

John looked into the script mirrored on the glass over Camera Three’s lens and started the close-out for this section. “Coming up next, a two-dollar rubber washer is blamed for a million-dollar flood.”

Ali added, looking to her left, “And Bing Dingham brings us Sunday’s Sorry Saga.”

Bing Dingham looked into the eye of Camera One for the close-up shot. “Hey, you’ve heard of the instant replay. Well, how about a perfect repeat of last year’s game against Kansas City? Stop me if you’ve heard this one.”

Camera Three came on again, showing all three. John intro’d the break. “We’ll be right back.” Music. Cut to commercials.

John’s earpiece crackled with Rush Torrance’s voice—“What the @$#!!*& was that?”

Ali heard the question through her earpiece as well and looked toward John for the answer. Mardell the floor director was just now flipping through her script, ready to ask the question if no one else did.

THE SHOW WAS
over. They’d made it through with no further train wrecks. Rush, Ali, Mardell, and Leslie were huddled in the studio around the news desk—around John—every one of them spring-loaded and ready to strike.

“Where’s Carl?” John asked.

“Show it to me!” Rush demanded, his finger tapping the show’s script.

“Carl’s upstairs in the control room,” said Mardell, “but he’s probably on his way back down.”

“Then we’ll settle this before he gets here,” said John, flipping through his script.