Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Just add water.
We watched the market pass by, applying our degrees. Sometimes we answered questions.
Geoffrey was impressed that zero return could provide so much, and he caught on: the goof
shall set you free. He took a chair at the hot mud table one day to light his pipe. We lit up
too, as a test, kind of. He said nothing, passing with flying colors, because Geoffrey was cool.
We suspected as much but felt gratified to be proven correct. When the joint came his way, he
said, “I'm not just blowing smoke here.” Geoffrey was a funny guy. I laughed. He smiled, “I've
been watching. I hear what you say and how you say it. You're good. You could be the one.”
“Which one?”
“You got a line ready.”
“It's not a line.”
“Take it easy. I'm not saying a line is a bad thing. Look. I'm sitting on more electronic
broadcast equipment than any fifty-thousand-watt radio station ever dreamed of capitalizing.
Do you know who makes money in radio now?”
That was easy. The holy rollers?” The airwaves didn't hum with come to Jesus and
give
;
they wailed.
“Bingo. We'll call them the evangelicals.”
“You want me to ask for money for Jesus on the radio?”
“No. That would be fraud. Or, it should be. Do you know what cassette tapes are?”
Everyone had record albums then, but we knew about cassette tapes—space-age gizmos
with little plastic spools that let you play the tape over and over without a conventional tape
recorder. They were meant to replace records but we didn't believe it and didn't like it anyway.
Replace records? Why? Besides, they were just another version of the clunky 8-track tape. Au-
diophiles stuck to records. “Yes.”
“Cassette tape is the ticket. We broadcast a radio show once a week for starters. All I have
to do is apply to the FCC to occupy a vacant number.”
“It's that easy?”
“It is for me.” Those were the days. “At the end of the show we sell cassette tapes. Each tape
has a show on it for five bucks. You can get the whole set of six shows for twenty-five bucks
and save yourself five bucks right off the bat. I can get cassette tapes for about eleven cents,
and the players for about three bucks. We'd have to order a bunch, but I can hide it. Once we
settle in, I'll sell the tapes and players to us at cost. That'll account for the money.”
“That's not fraud?”
“Only if we don't pay it back. Then I'll tell you what we're gonna do, because you love God
and you love The Word
and
you love the folks out there listening. These cassette tape players
would run you thirty dollars each in a store. But we're gonna send you the whole set of six
shows—and throw in the player to boot—for forty-five bucks. Now you're saving yourself if-
teen bucks. Get it?”
