No dead air. Ever.

Larry was such a pain.  He broadcasted the overnight shift--midnight to six and at this moment in our friendship, I was his boss.  The only reason I mention this is because Larry was a terrible employee.  He consistently made mistakes,  forgot to do his duties, and never followed instructions.  One time, he left a beer in the station freezer, which blew up after he left.   But, I’ve never known anyone that made me laugh more.

One morning, I arrived slightly after 5 a.m. and opened the control room door to check on Larry.  The first thing I noticed was that his t-shirt and jeans were shredded to pieces and he was covered in blood.  The second thing was the putrid smell in the room.  He smiled, breathing hard, and said, "Hey, boss!  How's it going?"  "Fine, how about you?"  In spite of the wounds all over his body, and the small trickle of blood moving down his forehead, he made small talk for a full minute. It was hard for me to understand how he could carry on a conversation as if everything was copacetic. 

Finally, the real story emerged.  Larry, needing a cigarette break, decided to go out the back door to smoke.  The back door to the radio station only opened from the inside and would immediately lock when closed.  So, he propped something against the door and as he lit up, he thought he heard a slow dragging sound, and then, realizing what the noise was, turned and watched as the knob less door picked up speed and slammed shut.  Immediately, he panicked realizing he had less than three minutes before the cued song would run out and there would be the deafening silence of dead air.  To people in broadcasting, dead air is equivalent to seeing a cigarette rolling towards an overturned big rig leaking gasoline. 

The area behind the station was fully enclosed by a 7-foot chain link fence topped with razor wire.  (That may very well be where the first injuries were realized.)  By the time he made it to the front of the building, he was running on adrenaline.  In his state of panic, he most likely believed that he could just grab the top of the next chain link fence and lob himself over into the front parking lot.  Granted, this fence was only 4-1/2 feet tall, but Larry wasn't the athletic type.  He wasn't even close.  It was during this daring lob, that the front pocket of his jeans got caught at the top of the fence.  This sudden stop increased his body’s forward momentum; whipping him over so fast he did a “face plant” into the fence.  (That explained the odd marks on his face.)  The way he put it, "I was upside down looking back in the direction I came from.  It was trippy."  Then, the front of his pants ripped off and, when he dropped to the ground, he landed in a big pile of dog excrement.  A really, really big pile.  (That explained the smell.)

Before he left the station that morning, he repeatedly told me that in spite of all the events that had occurred, he had made it back to the control room in time.  There had been no dead air. 

Truth be told, I really loved that guy.