Andy Andy and the Wolfman

ANDY ANDY AND THE WOLFMAN /Michael Byers ACCORDING TO THE RULES of radio your on-air name has to be unique, and when I started out in this business twenty years ago there was already another Andrew Morgan, a guy doing classical music in Santa Fe—some bearded guy talking to the canyons and coyotes, or so I imagined—so I couldn't legaUy use my own name on the air. After some consideration I became Andy Andy. It made sense at the time, and actually I Uke the name now. It's Ught-hearted, and it's happy to be here, and by rights I ought to be happy by now, but being on the radio makes me uneasy. I'm a shy man reformed—something of a burden in this business, if you want to know—and although I've got it more or less under control (I usually talk to the people who talk to me), sometimes I do find myself envying that other Andrew Morgan, if in fact he stiU Uves: his quiet classical voice, the voice of a man alone and broadcasting to maybe nobody at all. No strangers call him. I envy him his long classical lapses overnight, his gentle desert music, the quiet sand, the stars. I work in Seattle, not a bad place to be these days. We were famous for a few years, but now our stock is falling fast; our time has come and gone; our fading music grinds on aimlessly, like roadwork. We've been known lately for being rain-soaked, gray-eyed, saUow, clouded. We've always been Seattlite—for as long as I can remember, anyway—but now our sweeping national orbit is diminished, no more flash and faddish glint. Of course there are worse things than being famous for fading away. We could be famous for race riots or drive-bys, or tornadoes, or corn, or the various high-rise pestilences that plague the eastern cities. And here in this hiUy lumber town gone good, amid the espresso stands and flannel shirts, I am a lucky man, or so I'm told every day by people who caU me, write me, shout my name and wave from their cars: you're a lucky mani Why? Because I work the morning shift at KLOK, the all-sports station. It's a wonderful job, but aU the pleasures of the job are ephemeral, as are the pleasures of sport—by which I mean that the wins don't linger as long as the losses. And yes, it does involve some awfully early hours and a constant anxiety concerning ratings The Missouri Review · 115 and all the vagaries that go with the radio business; but these things are unavoidable. Harlan Tomback, an enemy of mine, worked six soUd years at KERD before being fired for no reason anybody could fathom, and now he's scratching out a living doing trafficand -weather for KGO in San Francisco. On clear nights when I take the radio out to the deck I can hear him describing first the accidents in the East Bay, then the fog creeping inland up the hiUs. This is my only contact with him, if you can caU it that, and I try to detect in his voice traces of despair, or regret; but to my chagrin he sounds happy. Radio guys are tough. We have any number of possible lives. And the men who wave from their cars? I smUe and wave back, but I'm embarrassed. My partner on the morning show—eleven years now—is a very fat man named California Jack. Jack is loud and flabby and looks Uke a sea Uon: he's got a smooth bald head, and black whiskers, and a wooly, grinding voice Uke an old dog. He wears gigantic, baUooning sweatpants, and when I first see him, usually around five in the morning, he's stiU wet and fragrant from his shower, and his beard is nicely fluffed out. Over the course of the morning it gets dirty and matted and festooned with food. Jack takes up room: he played footbaU in coUege. He did not Uke me at...