Jeffrey Alan Payne - Doczine

We did, and he scanned an email on his computer before continuing, “I got a call todayfrom the corporate office. As you know, all of corporate upper management is locatedon the tenth floor of this building, and most of the executives in this company typicallydrive to work listening to one of the company’s radio stations.”“Are we all getting raises?” I was trying to add some levity to the atmosphere. I could tellhe wasn’t happy.“No. Unfortunately, the president of Crowe Radio was listening this morning, and he hadsome concerns.”Jim tried to disarm Dave with a wisecrack, “I know. We should have played the newGreen Day single, but we ran out of time.Dave would usually offer his gregarious “good sport” grin at this point. Not today. Helooked down at his desk as if he was formulating what he was about to say, “Guys,pedophile jokes are a little over the top, particularly when the guy just died twelve hoursago, or whatever it was. Plus, there were some racial overtones that could end up bitingus on the ass.”“We didn’t say anything racist. We never mentioned race.” It was a pretty flimsy retortfrom Jim.“Olde English 800? Stripping copper wiring? And this was corporate’s favorite, ‘LaToya’s skanky ass’.”I looked at Jim. Along with his intelligence and talent was a genuine commitment andpassion for the work. He could become defensive and fiercely protective. Sometimes,when he became extremely offended or agitated, you could see a hint of that that goodole southern boy’s “them’s fightin’ words” look in his eyes.I could see some kind of rant brewing, so I stepped in to the conversation first, “What didthey say?”“They just warned us to be careful. We don’t know how huge the public sentiment istoward Michael Jackson. So far, it looks like it’s going to be some kind of globalphenomenon. Even though we in this room aren’t fans, there are millions out there wholoved the guy, still do.”“We didn’t say anything slanderous.” That was weak, but I couldn’t think of anything elseto defend us, “And besides that Dave, we all know that this guy was a freak. He fuckedwith his face until he looked like some kind of goth Pinocchio.”“With a camel toe on his chin,” Jim piped in, then looked over at our producer, the formerRicky Smith, “Sorry Cam.”“He also admitted to having young boys sleep in his bed. That’s just not normal on anylevel,” I justified every element of this very valid argument in my own mind.12