923: “Before I . . .”
Leaving Small’s Hotel, Chapter 17 continues
“BEFORE I BEGIN the next reading from Dead Air,” I said to the group in the lounge after dinner, “I have something more to say about fallout shelters.
“About four years after Guppa had dug his fallout shelter, I arrived at college as a freshman. I hadn’t been there more than a couple of days when I was interviewed for the ‘man on the street’ segment of a local television program. I was walking along, a young man on the street, when an earnest young interviewer stuck a microphone in my face and said, ‘Let me ask you a hypothetical question: Let’s say that a nuclear attack is under way. Bombs are falling on targets all across America. You run to your fallout shelter, and your neighbor comes running up with his wife and children. They never got around to building a fallout shelter, and now here they are, begging you to let them into yours. What do you do? Do you let them in?’
“Without a moment’s hesitation, I said, ‘Sure,’ and as soon I began to speak, I astonished myself by discovering that I had been preparing my answer for years. ‘I’d let them in. In fact, I’d give them the damned thing, my gift, and I’d move out. Let me tell you why — ’
“I reached for the microphone, and the reporter, startled, handed it to me. (I think he must have detected something in my manner that indicated that I had experience in broadcasting — which I had, on a small, local scale, as you will see if you’re here for some of the later episodes of Dead Air.) I spoke into it as into an attractive ear.
“‘If we creatures, we the people, are so fucked up that we can allow some of us to blow millions of the rest of us from here to forever, then I don’t want to be around to pick up the pieces.’ A crowd had gathered, and I began speaking to them, shouting now. ‘Well, you know, I’ve been thinking, and I think the evidence is already in. We are that fucked up. We have already dispatched millions of our fellow creatures for one idiotic reason or another — because we envy them, hate them, fear them — so I’d say we have fully and completely lived up to our potential for fucking up.’ I looked right into the camera, dropped my voice, and spoke to anybody who might be watching. ‘Add it all up,’ I said, almost whispering now, ‘and this species probably doesn’t deserve to survive. So if we’re going to blow ourselves up, I’m not going to hide in a cave while we do it. I don’t want to miss the show. I want to watch!’
“My performance became the lead clip in a feature on disaffected youth. The broadcasters bleeped fucked up and fucking up, of course, and even damned, since those were far, far more reticent times, but even censored I was a hit. As soon as the program was broadcast — in fact, before it was even over — dark-haired, dark-eyed girls began telephoning me to invite me to join them in grieving for the species, and so I spent the first semester of my freshman year in a state of blissful despair, commiserating with brooding beauties, thereby proving that it is a very ill wind indeed that does not blow somebody some good.”
[to be continued]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, Reservations Recommended, Where Do You Stop?, What a Piece of Work I Am, and At Home with the Glynns.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.