Idea in Stone | Page 6

it off and looked at the clock beside his bed: seven-thirty. Time to get up for work. He looked down and scratched his stomach. There was something in his belly-button. Lint? He plucked it out and looked at it. It was a tiny piece of newsprint with the letter E on it. He shook his head and put it on his bedside table, then went upstairs to have a shower.

Chapter Two
Jacks and Queens
Stefan waited for the subway, leaning against the glazed, curry-coloured tiles of the platform wall. He let the other passengers crowd along the ledge: he wasn't in a hurry to get to work, he didn't like being jostled in a crowd, he was afraid of "pushers", and he wanted to feel cooler than everybody else. And cool, he knew, was all in the little details.
For one, his job allowed him to dress however he wanted. Today he wore a T-shirt and a pair of baggy hemp trousers his mother bought him as a birthday present a few months ago. To his surprise, they became his favourite trousers, and they also seemed indestructible. He allowed that some of her wingnut ideas had merit. Some.
A subway train, silver and burnished like something from the back of the cutlery drawer, pulled up and its doors opened. The crowd flowed toward them like water to a drain. A voice came over the station's public address system telling the riders to let the other passengers off first, but it went unheeded. As the voice spoke, Stefan heard something else, as if a second person was speaking close to the announcer. But Stefan knew otherwise. The faint, broken words were a mix of English and perhaps a foreign language, but the voice was as familiar as his own. He'd learned to dismiss it years ago.
He pictured a film clip he'd seen of a Japanese subway in which men used large aluminium potato-mashers to shove people into the cars. He smiled.
The pixel-board on the platform showed that it was now after 9am. Predictably, the crowd thinned, and Stefan moved away from the wall. Minutes later, the next train arrived, comfortably empty, and Stefan strolled leisurely through the doors as they opened. The subway game was all about getting a seat, and he'd just scored a goal.
~
Stefan waited in a small room that was beige in every way except for the posters on its walls, relics of past children's shows. Cartoon characters and live entertainers looked down at him, smiling so big and happy they looked about to drool. He moved the overflowing ashtray on the coffee-table aside, put his legs up, and leaned back. His fingers probed and massaged under his jaw, loosening the root of his tongue from below. He hummed with his mouth closed and stretched the soft palate at the back of his throat.
A woman opened the door, smiled, and said, "We're ready for you Mr. Mackechnie." He nodded, picked up his jacket and satchel, and followed her. They walked through a maze of halls decorated with similar posters and children's broadcasting awards.
The production assistant remained strangely silent as they walked. "You're new here," said Stefan. "What's your name?"
"I, uh, my name's Wendy."
"Hi," said Stefan, "nice to meet you. So did you study broadcasting, or is this just a job?"
"I'm, uh, I'm sorry, I was told not to speak to you before you go into the studio. The producer got really mad at me the other day after I talked to one of the talent. He fell out of character and had to warm up again."
"Who did you talk to?"
"Ron Emery."
"Figures. He does the voice-over for a goddamned lightbulb. There is no character. Certainly not the way he does it. Yeah, don't worry about all that crap with me."
Wendy laughed, relieved. "What do you do to get into character for Bloob?"
"I do a funny voice."
"Yeah," she said, "but people really respond to him. You must do something. There's a quality to your performance that's really special."
"I don't know. I brush my teeth. Have you ever been in the booth at the same time as Ron? Ugh." He smiled at her. "Okay, seriously, I do some vocal exercises, I suck on a cough drop if I'm sick, and I goof around in front of a microphone. We had a lot of mics around when I was growing up, so I've always been comfortable around them."
Wendy gestured him past a thick door with a number four and an unlit 'Recording' sign over it. "You're in this booth today. Thanks very much for the talk. I appreciate it. Sheesh, and they said you were difficult."
Stefan's smile disappeared as she closed the door. What? His concentration left him completely.
The sound engineer held up a magic-marker sign to the window. "Ready?" Stefan held up a 'one minute'