It was Friday, May 6, 1988. Another pleasant spring day with hints of hot and humid in the air. The spring-y scent that blew threw the windows in the morning was being augmented with a little early-summer funk, sooner than usual.

I didn’t care. Destiny awaited.

I went downstairs around 8AM, calculating the time to try to call Charlie at the station in Orlando. I figured he’d be in around 8 or 9ish, but he’d have the usual early-morning clusterfargs to take care of before he started doing show prep for his own show – 1PM Eastern. So the sweet spot would be between 10 and 11AM eastern. 9 or 10 Central.

Make it 9:10, to not seem too anxious. Never let ’em see you sweat.

At 9:10 on the button, I picked up the phone.

Silence.

I hung up and tried again.

Nothing.

Oh, there was some kind of signal on the line – an occasional electric “click” gave it away – but no dial tone.

We’d been shut off.

Wyatt had stiffed me on the bill in April, pleading “I got no money”, and promised to pay it this month.

“Wyatt!”, I yelled up the stairs. He was in bed with…Michelle, I think? One of his “B-list” girls, who’d been showing up once or twice a week.

“Huuuh”, he groaned in his affected Arklahoma accent.

“Did you pay the phone bill like you said?”

Silence.

“Yo?”

“No, I didn’t. I came up a little short this week”.

F**k, right, I muttered, you had plenty of money to go partying last night, a***ole. Figures.

I grabbed a notebook, some paper, and my passbook, and ran out to my car. I jumped in, ran to my nearest bank branch. I got $20, changing $5 of it for quarters.

I looked at my watch as I ran out: 9:30.

There was a pay phone in front of Rainbow Foods, right across the parking lot. I ran over…

…and saw a disheveled-looking obese white man wearing droopy sweat pants and with terminal plumber’s crack, swearing incoherently into the phone. I stood, hoping that meant the conversation was near an end.

It wasn’t.

9:40.

I ran back out to my car, and drove up the street, looking for another pay phone.

I saw a bar. It was open. I’d been in there once before; it had a pay phone.

I parked, and ran inside and dialed the number. After I deposited $2 and change in quarters, my call connected, as I frantically wondered how I was going to tell the guy not to bother calling me for a couple of days – I’d be “out of town” or something, anything, to keep him from trying to call and hearing the dreaded “disconnect” recording.

And, for once, I actually got through.

“Mitch! Here’s the deal”

And we talked, as I anxiously counted out my minutes, hoping that it wouldn’t be obvious that I was on a pay phone. He was interested in having me host a nightly “News Magazine” show – 6-9PM. Not the best shift – competing with prime time TV was always brutal – but it was a shot in the major markets. The money was, by industry standards, adequate, and by my standards at the moment, spectacular.

“Call me back, say, Tuesday or Wednesday. I’ll have an update. I’d like to move fast on this”, he said.

I left the bar…

…no. I didn’t. I had a beer (75 cents!) to celebrate.

Then I left. And drove downtown to the phone company. And wrote out a check for yet another *&^%$# bill.

(Twin Cities hYpStRz know the bar as the Turf Club, today.  Back then it was still the Turf Club – but this was five or six years before alternative rockers discovered the place.  The Turf was full of serious drinkers, old guys who’d worn the stools into the shapes of their butts from being there so long; the “live music” was an accordion band that’d show up on Fridays or Saturdays, back then.  We’ll revisit the Turf in about eight more years, as the series, God willing, continues). 

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 11:50 am and is filed under Twenty Years Ago Today. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.