SCRIPT
WORMBAIT: Hey, hey, hey, you know what time it is? Ladies, Gentlemen, anybody or anything
in between, or even off the fuckin' scale entirely, it's time for your latest dose of your favorite
station, not sweeping the nation, just hanging...just living...just killing it, right here....in this
location.
You know I love you, and I know you love to be loved, so let me introduce myself for any
of the newbies driving through the boonies of the world who haven't heard this little piece of
freak-dom before – I am the Emperor of the Wasteland At-Hand, your cosmic guide through this
cosmic ride tonight, the one that's about to connect your mind to the universe and the universe
to your mind, Mr. Worm-bait Jones!
Wormbait gets very serious all of a sudden, and the “radio voice” drops away.
WORMBAIT (CONT.): And we've got some talking to do right now, unless I'm very much
mistaken, which I never yet have been. We've got a lot of things to get to. Because this is
Broadcast Station U-S-Fuckin'-A dash Seven Six, and it's time to tell you the truth about the
world.
Theme song/callsign sting occurs. When Wormbait comes back, some of the radio personality
has returned.
WORMBAIT: Right now we're floatin' around the small county of Moffat, Colorado, it is a brisk 32
degrees outside, and the connection is fuckin' amazing, let me tell you that from the inside out,
upside down, and any other way you might want it.
We're gonna kick it off with some news tonight, because sometimes that's just the way it
works.
Our story comes to us from the leaky and creaky trailer owned by Mrs. Peggy Anne
Johanesson, and the former Otis Johanesson before the events that we happen to be talking
about just now. As the story goes, Mrs. Johanesson was doin' some readin' in a big black book
she got from a big grey man with small quail eggs where both of his eyes should have been.
The man didn't need it anymore because, as any child will be only too happy to tell you, you
can't read a goddamn thing if you got eggs for eyes.
Truth from the mouth of babes, as all of my mothers used to say.
So readin' from this big black book was kinda the same thing as asking strangers what
they would like to carve into your chest today, and then handin' them a dull spoon for which to
be doing that exact thing. It is not a good idea, you see? And if you do that for long enough, you
might start seeing the world in some weird ways and wanting to do some weird things in those
weird ways. And Mrs. Johanneson did it for a very long time, indeed.
You see, Mrs. Johanneson, that poor little thing, she got it into her weird old head that
her husband Otis just didn't love her no more. And this made her all kinds of sad, don't you
know, because Otis and her had been sweethearts for a very very long time, ever since she was
8 and Otis was 4 and they were trying to have a little baby for themselves in the ways that kids
do. Ain't it lovely?
And this big black book started giving her some funky ideas about love and about holistic
feelings permeating body tissue, not to mention a few ideas about the kind of music that they
needed to be listening to in their little trailer – and the funkiness quotient thereof. She needed
him to feel the beat within his feet and have that funky shit travel right up and out his third eye
into her root chakra and then and only then would they be truly one and truly deserving of that
most overused of terms...sweethearts.
Mrs. Johanneson, who had been brought into this world under the name of Peggy Anne
but lost that to the book as well, she thought she could remember a time in which they were
truly connected in such a cosmic fuckin' manner, sometime earlier when their backs didn't ache
for no damn reason and their hatred of the world was condensed into the three nights out of the
month where they threw beer bottles at any policemen they could find. She didn't know exactly
when they had lost it, but she had a pretty good idea of how she was gonna get it back.
This fine lady, this absolute gem of a wife and a lover, she marched herself down to the
nursing home where Otis kept his mother so she didn't go wandering into traffic again. It was a
drippy and damp motherfucker of a place, but Otis' mother had never said two kind words in a
row her entire life so any pity that might be wasted on her when you're hearing this should
instead be collected in a small bucket for the rainy season.
It always pays to be prepared, you know.
The nameless Peggy Anne walked right up to Otis' mother, asleep in her bed all
wrapped up in dirty blankets don't you know, they're the best kind, (you want a blanket with
some texture to it, don't lie to me now), and Peggy Anne took those blankets away, leaving the
old woman shivering and skinny in her age and nude appearance. She took that old woman's
legs and she forced her head up inside that place that her lover had once descended from in a
shower of blood and shit and pain, and Peggy Anne stepped and squeezed herself right up into
this old woman's body, only getting stuck for a second because she still had her shoes on and
they just would not fit down this old lady's skinny legs.
That skin that used to hang in folds like a map of fuckin' time was all pulled taught again,
nice and tight like an overfilled sausage casing just getting ready to burst with all of it's juices
getting all bubbly-like. Peggy Anne's eyes squeezed out the old woman's, and they fell into the
pile of dirty blankets, where at least they'd be warm until they were wanted again. And so Peggy
Anne, the nameless and now shrouded Peggy Anne, walked herself right back out of the dirty
nursing home and into the dirty air that surrounded it, only ripping her new suit in a couple
places that don't need mentioning in this polite society we find ourselves in. The feet and the
toes got a little banged up, and a little dirty, a little broken, but Otis had never cared much about
her feet before, and she supposed he wasn't about to start now.
Peggy Anne made it almost all the way home in that old woman's skin when she
happened to glance at a car passing by, and what was inside that car nearly broke this poor
woman's heart right in two. Otis, her Otis, that might've-been, could've-been,
maybe-even-was-at-one-point, sweetheart of hers, he was in the passenger seat of a 1952
Roadmaster, red on black with big whitewall tires, and he was suckin' and muckin' about on the
floppy titties of a woman wearing the skin of his sister and chanting obscure and sacrilegious
poetry to the beat of a Glen Miller song.
Well, poor nameless Peggy Anne just sat herself right on the curb and cried and cried
and cried some more. She cried so much about what she had just seen that she managed to fill
up any leftover space in that old woman's flesh she wore, and poor nameless Peggy Anne
drowned right there, on the side of the road, in her own tears.
And that, my gracious listeners, is the end of the news for now, and I think we're all a
little better for having heard that, don't you?
Now, I don't know about you, but I am shakin' and quakin' like some pan fried bacon,
because it's just been so long since we've had a report from one of our people on the ground, in
the thick of it, right at ground mother-fuckin' zero. So why don't we just toss it right on over to our
Volunteer Reporter In-The-Field, Ms. Daphne De-Laurii Samarano!
There is quite a bit of electrical interference mixed with clips from old radio/TV shows and
commercials.
MS. DAPHNE DE-LAURII SAMARANO:
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter – bitter” he answered;
“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”
Mr. Jones, there's nothing but elephants out here, and they're all skinny enough that you
can see their ribs.
Mr Jones, the moon has begun to break in half.
Please stand by for the routine transmission.
In morse code, seemingly over a very bad connection, we hear:
Will I hurt you or have I already hurt you STOP
You're on the floor but I cant remember STOP
You're bleeding but you do that so often STOP
You know it upsets me to see you like this STOP
So why do you insist on these games STOP
Mr. Jones, the elephants have all broken each other's front left kneecap. It's just like we
assumed.
Every day is the goddamn same, isn't it?
There is quite a bit of electrical interference mixed with clips from old radio/TV shows and
commercials.
WORMBAIT: Thank you, thank you, thank you, Ms. De-Laurii Samarano, it's always both
enlightening and lovely when you choose to drop on by our little show, in whatever form you feel
the need, the speed, and the greed, to be takin'.
And let's talk about greed for a moment, that wild little fuckin' bug that lives in the back of
your head and makes you think you deserve better than the tiny piece of scratch you've
managed to carve your name into for the time being. Let's talk about greed. Let's talk about
people wanting things from you that you just aren't ready to give them. Let's talk about how
we're all getting fat right around our brains and it's startin' to squish right down into every damn
hole and crease it can find. Let's talk about how we keep this show on the air as well as down
underground, for that good ol' Earth Mother sound. Let's talk about who keeps the lights on
around here.
Wormbait gets very serious again, and the “radio voice” drops away.
We'll be back real soon, cuz you know we can't just let you go like that. And don't you
dare turn away, I want you to look me in the eyes when I hurt you.
Static mixed with screaming in pleasure/pain. We enter the world of the sponsor.
AVERAGE JOE: (Always kind and pleasant, like a Folgers commercial.) Hey there. I'm just like
you. When I come home after a long day, I like things to be where I left them. I like a peaceful
house. I like my dinner on the table, my laundry folded, and my children achieving better things
than I ever could.
JANIE BOO: (In a very disassociated voice, the less emotion the better) I....I just don't want to
get hit again. Every day, no matter what I do, it's just....I just don't want to get hit again.....
AVERAGE JOE: But sometimes I get home and things just aren't up to snuff. And when days
like that come around, I'll admit it, I tend to get a little angry.
JANIE BOO: It was one thing when it was just me, but now that it's become the children too....I
just don't know what to do. I just don't know where we can go. I feel so trapped.
AVERAGE JOE: Thankfully, when days like those come around, I know I can reach for my trusty
little sidekick. It's called: my rage. I pop a couple pills of pure, untainted, fair-trade, anger, and
before long I can't even remember what I was stressed about in the first place.
JANIE BOO: If anybody can help...If anybody even cares... My name is Janie Adams, my
children are Ethan and Tabitha, if anybody...If anybody can –
AVERAGE JOE: It's called my rage. And it's the solution to all of my problems.
Glitchy static mixed with an old love song. We exit the world of the sponsor.
WORMBAIT: And we are back, but you already knew that from the way you just started feelin'
so good, I've got a little bitty feelin' about that. But enough about my feelings, let's talk about
your feelings for a while, let's really just break that head wide open, scoop that beautiful brain
out into a sink and have ourselves a little whore's bath in your thoughts, now. Does that sound
good to you? Does that sound fuckin' pleasurable? Oh, but that's a little rude attitude there, isn't
it? Look at me, askin' questions I already know the answer to, what would my mothers say...?
Between you and me, they wouldn't say much, most of them didn't have any tongues.
But that's enough of my secrets and enough of my stalling. It's time to fire up the
connection machine. The lines are open, the way forward is buttery smooth, and I want to hear
that sweet sweet voice of yours. Who do we have first, who's gonna be the brave one, who's
feeling the excitement, who's ready to rock and fuckin' roll?
A fun and jazzy ringtone plays.
WORMBAIT: Oh, Moffat County, I knew I could count on you to be sweet tonight, I just knew it. I
could feel it, I could smell it, I could taste it. Let's see what we've got goin' on here and now.
The ringtone stops.
MADELINE TAYLOR:
Hello.
My name is Madeline.
Madeline Taylor.
I have a problem, and it keeps getting worse.
I have a house. It was left to me, I'm nobody special. The house has 5 rooms, a small
basement, and a yard with a bent, chain-link, fence. Three weeks ago, a new door appeared at
the end of a hallway I'd never seen before. When I opened it I saw a small stage with three
folding chairs facing it. On the stage a collection of 5 people, all well into the later half of their
life, sat tuning black instruments.
A piano.
A bass.
A clarinet.
A trumpet.
And a drummer, sat behind a set that seemed to have been carved from volcanic stone.
I was too stunned to speak, but the woman sat at the piano, with a golden halo of hair
that hid most of her face, she turned to me and said,
“Not yet. Soon enough, but not quite yet.”
And I blinked, and found myself outside of my house altogether, staring at the door like it
held any answer to the million questions in my head. And when I tried again the process
repeated itself. For three days all I would hear is the gentle tuning of instruments and the voice
of an old lady saying:
“Not yet. Soon enough, but not quite yet. “
On the morning of the fourth day something had changed. When I entered, the bassist
and the drummer were sat very quietly and at attention. They had obviously finished tuning. Yet
again the old woman with the golden hair turned and spoke, but her message had changed.
“Very soon now. Be ready.”
This time I found myself on the street, later that night. Hours had passed and I had no
recollection of where I was or what I did. I was 2 and a half miles from my home. This happened
twice more, and each time I found myself at a different place, and each time it was slightly later
into the night.
On the morning of the seventh day there was a thunderstorm. The sun barely illuminated
anything within the house. I stood in front of the new door at the end of my new hallway. The
energy had changed, you could feel it, you could almost see it, like wavy air over a highway in
summer.
The door swung inward and I saw that two of the three folding chairs had been taken over by
Men In Suits who had nothing but empty void above their collars. They turned to look at me but I
could only tell by the shifting of their torsos, the void was the same all the way around. The
clarinet player and the trumpet player had also finished their tuning, and the pianist kept playing
a single note that seemed to reverberate in the center of my skull.
I felt all around me an aura of impending doom. Of some horrific evil barely held at bay.
Somewhere in that room, folded away into the air itself, maybe, there was tragedy. There was
terror. There was that which some simply refer to as the Darker Piece Of Life.
With a start I noticed that all eyes in the room had locked on mine. In a voice that held
new power somehow, the pianist addressed me.
“Please, join us.”
That single note pounded itself into my head again and again, and with each repetition I
could feel something drain from the deep parts of my brain, the ancient pieces that were
screaming for me to run from the room. Had it not been for the thunderstorm, I'm sure I would
have taken a seat then and there. A low rumble was suddenly split by a harsh crack as lightning
landed somewhere nearby. The smell of ozone tinged the air, and the smell of power, and the
smell of something old, something that had been with the Earth far longer than humans. Longer
than life maybe. Something closer to the forces that bind the universe together than the beings
that inhabit the spaces they create.
In my brief moment of clarity from the lightning, I forced myself back through the
doorway, moving as though each limb weighed ten times what it does. As I raised my arm to
grip the knob and close the door I could see that the two men in suits had risen to their feet and
turned to face me. The darkness that lay where their heads should have been was absolute. I
closed the door, and collapsed.
I lived in that house for 82 more years, and that hallway never left. And each day of
those 82 years there was a piece of my brain, one of the deep ancient pieces that had been
touched by the note from the piano, that fixated on that last chair in the room and what might
happen if I were to take it and let the show begin. And for 82 years I managed to resist that
urge. Not easily, not gracefully, but I resisted. And I found myself both old and tired and ready to
be finished with the cares of this world. I had held my torch, and was ready to pass it on to
whomever might come next.
Three weeks ago I woke up, and found myself young again. And the date, when I
checked it, was that same date when I had resisted the urge for the first time and closed the
door against the music.
I never forgot that date.
I will never forget that date.
I resisted.
As best I could.
I didn't open that door for a lifetime.
But I don't know if I can do it again. I have a young body, but my soul is tired. So tired.
And my willpower has almost reached its end. I've been hearing the note. I don't think that
woman ever stopped playing. I think she's been there, I think they all have, waiting. Waiting for
me to take my place.
I have a problem, and it's getting worse.
My name is Madeline.
Madeline Taylor.
Goodbye.
WORMBAIT: And after that, I don't think there's too much more to say for this evening. Moffat
County, you've been wonderful, but I knew you would be. You always are.
For anybody out there that's still getting' their pay and makin' their way down this old
highway called life, don't be afraid to swing off the highway every once in a while. Peek around
a dark corner. Turn over a stone and roll around in whatever you find crawling around
underneath.
Maybe, just maybe now, baby now, maybe someday you'll see this old radio van cruisin'
along beside ya. If you're real unlucky, maybe we'll just choose to stop wherever you do. Maybe
you'll get to meet ol' Wormbait Jones, get a little interview goin' on, really get to know each
other. All personal-like.
But for now this little thing wasn't anything but a nightmare. And it's time for you to wake
on up and forget us, right?
This is Wormbait Jones, signing off from Moffat County, Colorado.
Genuine Radio Broadcast USA-76.
