Announcer: Now, from the WJWK newsroom in Pottsville, Maine, here is the evening news with Brick Bradshaw and Bev Golightly:
Brick [pleasantly]: Good evening, Bev, lovely weather we’re having.
Bev: Yes, Brick, it’s splendid!
Brick: Well, unfortunately the news isn’t so splendid. There’s been a terrible car accident on Route 77.
Bev [dreamily]: I hope it won’t be that bad. I drove by there just now and I didn’t see an accident.
Brick [somewhat annoyed]: Well, Bev, if you had been looking more closely you would have seen the accident.
Bev [obliviously]: Brick, in a related story, our Pottsville police have just gotten some shiny new patrol cars.
Brick: Right. [somberly] In another tragic event, the remnants of Hurricane Utigore have swept away all the homes on Algonquin Beach.
Bev: Speaking of water, Brick, a Pottsville man has just run his famous rubber-ducky contest in his backyard swimming pool. For the fourth year in a row, Mrs. Boneacre’s rubber ducky was the winner!
Brick [sarcastically]: Excellent reporting, Bev. In national news, three crazed members of the House have attacked the Senate for extending the Right to Bear Arms to all kids over the age of three.
Bev: Funny you should mention kids, Brick, because farmer Joe Featherbridge’s cat just gave birth to three adorable little kittens. The cutest of the litter is named Puff Ball.
Brick [with considerable emphasis]: And this just in: the FBI has expanded its search for Mrs. Betty Natt of Shanksville, Maine. Mrs. Natt, is alleged to have murdered her husband, hacked up his body into ten parts, and FedExed the parts to Organ-Donor Hospitals in ten different states.
Bev [with some concern]: Well. I hope the states are half blue and half red: we here in Maine don’t want to play favorites.
Brick [disgustedly]: Adorable sentiment, Bev. And, in tragic international news, North Korean President Kim Jong-Un has just exploded a nuclear device in the DMZ. Millions of North Koreans have fled to South Korea and Millions of South Koreans have fled to North Korea.
Bev [enthusiastically]: That’s great, Brick. Speaking of running, the kids in Jobsville Junior High just broke the 10th grade record in the 100-yard dash. I was there, Brick, and I can report that it was wonderful!
Brick [exasperated]: Bev, have you heard a word I’ve been saying? The stories I’ve been reading are all horrible! What is wrong with you? Someone should examine your brain and see if there’s anything in it!
Bev [utterly dreamily]: Oh, thank you, Brick, you’re so sweet. And listen to this news flash: Grandpa Eustace Boneacre found three preying mantises on his front porch.
Brick: Really? That’s the kind of story our station always gives you. I get to talk about floods, murders, pestilence, and nuclear war and you get to talk about some old coot and his preying mantises! Really?
Bev [slightly offended]: But Brick, my stories are always so…meaningful.
Brick [totally exasperated]: OK, that’s it! You know, I used to be a big-time reporter in New York. I got to meet all the big shots in politics and show biz. But now I’m stuck in this hick town, working with this dumb bimbo who wouldn’t know a big story if it hit her in the face. Well, I’m through with it! I’m ending it now, I’m ending it now! It’s over!
[THE SOUND OF A GUN SHOT]
Brick [somewhat calmer]: And now, in a sad news item, my beloved friend and co-anchor Bev Golightly has been assassinated by person or persons unknown.
But to continue in her grand tradition of excellence in journalism, I’ve just gotten word that Mrs. Elvira Snodgrass of Snodgrass Farms has baked forty-seven chocolate-chip cookies for the annual Arbor Day charity fete. Think of it: forty-seven.
Folks, WJWK security forces are entering the newsroom, and it looks like I’m about to be taken into custody. So good night, ladies and gentlemen. More news in twenty-five years if I’m lucky.
A longtime Princeton resident, Cheiten is the author of numerous short stories and poems, several plays, and the Princeton-based novella “The Hidden Ally.”
