The Kill Riff (17 page)

    
Instead of Rex's buns,
Robbin thought,
I now have to deal with the Sunday morning loon parade
. She hit the switch and repeated the station ID, and KRZE's phone numbers for Orange County, the Valley, and the 213 area code. Five of the eight lines on the board were blinking out of sync, like amber Christmas tree lights in a regimented row.

    While all the TV stations were putting out dawn broadcasts featuring white-pompadoured, wide-eyed evangelists, KRZE opened its ears to its audience-highschoolers, blue-collar graveyard shifters, and the heavy metal faithful. A lot of whom didn't vote, couldn't read, and thought that Reagan's decision to "kick some radical ass" in Libya had been a fun idea. People who embraced Rambo chic. People stupefied by the spell of MTV. All the drones and the clones, thought Robbin, the great unwashed, the hope of America's future, play it loud.

    She knew she was judging too harshly. A lot of the kids were good. They had verve and audaciousness. She had air time and the chance to open their eyes every now and again. It sufficed. She decided she was being sullen and pissed off this morning because there was Rex, right in front of her. Untouchable. Being male.

    She punched in line two. Never do things in order, she thought.

    "Hello there, line two, you're on."

    "Uh. Yeah! Hullo there, Robbin."

    She heard the guy's voice echoing back from his own overcranked stereo. The volume dropped. "What's your name and where are you calling from?"

    "Uh, this is Donny. From Woodland Hills. We been partyin' since six o'clock last night, and we just wanna say that KRZE fuckin' rocks'."

    "Yo, Donny." The FCC Demon of Swear Words jabbed his pitchfork into her neck. "Fuck" and "shit" could pass in song lyrics, but the jocks were admonished not to run a bad mouth too freely on air. KRZE couldn't afford an eight-second delay rig for the phone linpsf so Robbin was stuck. Explaining federal regs to a heavy metal audience was an idiot's game. The call-in segment was not prime drive time, but it was an arena in which Robbin had proven her mettle. Female jocks got a lot more crank response, mostly from male listeners who were dying to talk to a woman, any woman. She'd fielded a month's worth of shows adeptly and so was sleeping in the bed she'd made-one that would later give her negotiating clout at KRZE. For now, there was Donny the party animal to deal with. So be it.

    "What've you got for us this morning, Donny my man?" She could make her voice so sweet it sometimes stunned them.

    Donny was clearly overwhelmed by the mere concept of hearing his own voice coming out of his own radio, and he needed goosing. Robbin's rebound was automatic. She knew callers frequently had nothing to say.

    "You got something to get off your chest, or a chunk 'o' news for us, or a question for all the other rockers tuned in? Any rap at all-it's all yours. All of southern Cali is waiting on you, so go for it."

    That was the correct track. Encourage the idea of the radio family.

    "Uh. Right." Donny marshaled his thoughts-such as they were. "Oh! Yeah, I gotta question. Y'know, like, how come there's these great groups, right? And they do like one album. Like Quiet Riot, y'know, like they did one album and it was like, rock out. N'then… shut up, Sasha, I'm like talking, okay? And then, they break up after makin' one album… like one album that's really great. So like, how come they gotta break up just when everything's, y'know, going real great?"

    Robbin had answered this one before. "No way to predict how personality conflicts are gonna affect a band, Donny. Sometimes the sparks fly and the group can't hold together. Look at it this way: at least we got the one album, right? And the members move on to new groups. And other groups come along. And whatever music they're able to give us in the time they're with us is fine. Hey, thanks for calling KRZE."

    She ignored the fact that Quiet Riot had cut more than one album, and cut the line before more time could be wasted. Rex had cruised out of the outer office. That helped her kick into gear. "Line five, you're rappin' with Robbin on the KRZE talkback."

    Several girls, laughing.

    "Hello-hello?" Robbin said musically, amused.

    More giggling, more hysterical.

    "Hm, well, somebody's having themselves a fine old party out in the Basin somewhere," she said, chuckling. She cut direct to line eight and did her prefab spiel.

    "Hi, Robbin, this is Ginger from Sherman Oaks."

    Right away, this one sounded as though she was sitting with a cup of coffee instead of half a beer. "Hiya, Ginger. What've you got for us?"

    "Well… this is sort of related to what that previous guy mentioned, about only getting so much music from a group?"

    
It wasn't a question, and I mentioned it, not that moron Donny. But let's be charitable.

    "Groups breaking up is one thing," said Ginger. "But this thing where Jackson Knox got blown-er, killed, in San Francisco. And now, just a few days ago, this other guy gets killed in Denver…"

    "Brion Hardin. He played keyboards for Electro-shock."

    "Yeah, and both guys used to be in the same band, right?"

    "Whip Hand, way back when. Right."

    "Well, is this a pattern of some kind? I mean, do the other guys who used to be in that band need protection or something now? I mean, why would anybody want to kill them? They're just musicians. They just make music."

    While Ginger talked, Robbin sucked the last of the life from her smoke and stubbed it out in the gargoyle's mouth, then cleared her tubes with another jolt of KRZE's killer coffee. "What you're asking me, Ginger, seems to me, is this: Is someone trying to kill everybody who used to be in Whip Hand? I put that question to the KRZE group mind. But I'll tell you what I think. I think it's terrorism."

    Dramatic pause.

    "It's violence against heavy metal artists by certain people who, shall we say, have a different viewpoint on music and don't think people should be allowed to choose what they like." It was the sort of speechmaking that was permissible on Sunday morning, when the KRZE station manager thought no one was listening.

    "You mean like those right-to-lifers that were bombing the abortion clinics?"

    "You got it. They weren't even what you'd rightly call abortion clinics. They were health centers that made a lot of people healthier and better. Nobody ever forced anybody to walk through the doors of a health center at gunpoint. And the sort of person who would use violence, blow up a building because they don't like the ideology of the people who work there, that's twisted and sick. It's like blowing up somebody's house because you don't like what they watch on television. It's an animalistic response. Well, there are a lot of people out there who-"

    "Mentally deranged," Ginger interjected.

    "Well, that's your description, Ginger." In the back of Robbin's mind was the imperative that she could appear to take a stand as long as it wasn't one that threatened any of KRZE's sponsors. There was art and there was commerce, and commerce was what paid the rent on Robbin's duplex. The one where she and Rex had done the bump all night long. And might again someday. There was hope in the world.

    "I certainly agree that people should not force their views on other people. All views on all issues should be aired in a forum. Information should be accessible, and people should make their own choices." That was a nice, high-sounding, thoroughly bland party line. Normally, Robbin hated cluttering up her brain with other points of view. She knew what worked for her.

    "But what about the guys in Whip Hand?"

    "I think the… the tragic happenstance that befell both those men was terribly unfortunate. As far as anybody knows, Jackson Knox's death was some kind of accident. And there's no evidence that it was connected to Brion Hardin's murder. For all we know, he might have been killed by a robber or something, right?" Her tone indicated that she had her thumb on the pulse of the facts, was an all-knowing rock'n'roll DJ. She was waxing authoritarian on something she knew little about because she knew no one would challenge her.

    "People shouldn't kill the people who give us music," said Ginger.

    "I think everybody listening to the sound of your voice right now would be in total agreement on that one. I hope that nobody out there is crazy enough to believe that killing musicians is ever going to stop the power of rock."

    
Whoa, back off, Robbin!
That had sounded a bit too much like a challenge itself. The freaks out in bozo-land didn't need any new ideas. She was suddenly glad her radio handle was not her real name. Robbin Banks couldn't be looked up in any phone book.

    "Well, I just think it's really sad. I cried when I heard. And I hope nobody else gets hurt, you know?"

    
That's right. And keep on believing the world won't try to harm you.

    "I say if the solution is violent, it isn't a solution. We should all try to be more civilized toward each other, hm? I gotta move on, Ginger, but hey-thanks for sharing your thoughts with us."

    She took a break to spin some vintage Ted Nugent -"Free for All"-then cut to the line three blinker.

    "Fuck you, nigger dick-," bellowed a voice, followed by the hard
clunk!
of disconnect.

    Robbin winced. "Whoops, wrong number. Let's check out line seven… and no more abuse, huh, gang?" She became instantly jumpy about what pleasures or terrors the next call held. "Yo, there, you're rappin' with Robbin on the KRZE talkback."

    "Umyeah… hi, Robbin, this is Kyle from Garden Grove."

    "Way south! Good to know KRZE penetrates all the way down to Disneyland land. What's doin', Kyle?"

    He cleared his throat. "We work the night shift, okay, and me and some of the other guys at the Datsun plant were just wondering… like, if the death orientation of a lot of metal music, okay? And speed metal, and thrash, might have something to do with the fact that a coupla guys who actually play the stuff got wiped out, y'know what I mean?"

    "I think the idea of metal music being 'death-oriented' is a misnomer, Kyle. Do you know what
I
mean?"

    "You mean it's… like a mistake?"

    "You got it. A lot of metal music deals with occult imagery, sure, and there's an aggression in metal music that implies violence, but the guys in the bands are not ravening monsters. I mean, Vince Neill loves his mom, okay? Blackie Lawless probably has a great pet dog. That's not what he chops up and tosses to the audience at his live shows. It's just slaughterhouse leavings, props. Like actors-just because Clint Eastwood blows away people in the movies doesn't mean he packs a Magnum in real life. Why, in real life he wants to make sure the citizens of Carmel can eat ice cream on the streets, man! The rats the Grimsoles toss into the crowd during their live shows aren't rabid, or anything. It's all show business. And like movie actors, the guys in heavy metal aren't very violent, or hung up on death. Some of them maintain a public persona that's pretty rowdy, but that's part of the image-making process. Unfortunately, some listeners can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality, man. And that's how people like poor Jackson Knox get killed. Heavy metal employs death imagery, but that doesn't automatically mean it promotes death or violence. A kid who listens to an Ozzy Osbourne track and jumps out a window had capital-P problems long before that record made it to his turntable. Some of the greatest poetry in history deals with death imagery. You gonna ban or label all poetry because of that?''

    ''No way," said Kyle.

    Robbin was trotting out her responses and theories by rote today. She needed to focus a little more, but she was doing better than the callers so far, who were singularly uninspired.

    Another puff. Another sip. The coffee had gone cold. Line one.

    "Like, is it true that the lyrics to 'Sleaze Weasel' are about, um, oral sex?"

    From line four to line eight, back to line two.

    "Dude, you want the Grateful Dead, I think you're tuned to the wrong station, and I don't mean on your radio, can you dig it?"

    She cut to line six. A virgin Benson & Hedges kissed fire. Nigger Dick had been good for only one call. Wimp radio terrorists; no stamina. Kneejerks, one-shots. They'd make great line soldiers.

    "I dunno what the hell they're talking about," claimed a blood named Kent calling from East Hollywood. "I played 'Kill Again' backwards on my stereo. And all I got was a headache and a fucked-up record."

    Line seven: "Those bands, you know, they ask for it. By making so much money, and then braggin' about it, and gettin' their picture in People and stuff. Bound to get someone's dander up. So naturally someone's gonna pay the price."

    Line three: "I think that last caller is deranged. But then, I think most of your callers are deranged."

    Robbin Banks kept a straight radio face… but Tracie Nichols smiled.

    "Public figures cannot accept responsibility for the lunatic behavior of aberrants or mental defectives," the caller went on. "There are a lot of kooks out there just ready to explode. Primed. No one can predict what will touch them off. Peter Kurten, the Dusseldorf Vampire, got sexually excited by listening to the Catholic High Mass. Then he went out and strangled women, stabbed them to death with scissors, killed them with a hammer. And maybe some other nut case apes what he sees in a movie, or acts out the lyrics to an extreme song. But the artists cannot be made culpable."

    Inspiration struck Robbin. Now was the perfect time to cue up a Whip Hand tune for the next break. She selected "Drive It in Deep," from their second album
Menace to Society
.

    "Maybe if this guy, whoever, in Denver hadn't knifed Brion Hardin, he'd've raped some little girl instead, and the know-nothings and the brain-dead religious right would blame it on the Movie of the Week. My point is, that person would have exploded into violence eventually not because of movies or music, but because he-or she-was a disturbed personality. There are people out there with very limited horizons. They wear social blinders. They feel it is better to play it safe, to run scared, and blame the most convenient scapegoat. And that means censorship… and censorship is the attempted murder of our whole culture. Censure replicates itself until it engulfs everything. Slapping irons on a few artists who dare to be dangerous is in no way an acceptable solution…"