It was late at night, and I lay awake in my bed, unable to find sleep. Unconsciously, I picked up my cell phone and dial the magical numbers that used to be worshiped by me every night. To my surprise, the familiar phone buzzes suggesting successful connection started ringing in my ear.
“Hello, (the name of the radio station)!” along came his excessively vivacious greeting.
“Hello…,” I responded to the salutation, somewhat hesitant.
“Who’s this?”
“It’s Debby.” The regular tempo of our conversation seemed to slowly take shape, and the great distance between my bedside and the radio station was shortened by our acquaintance.
“Debby!” howled Ron out loud, so I had to move the phone farther away from my ear. “Gee, I have not talked to you for… wait, the last time we talked was during the summer, and you were taking a part-time job. So what planet have you traveled to so that you have decided to leave an old friend behind…?”
As usual, I struggled to keep up with his extremely speedy outbursts of words. After nearly two months of departure from his program, undoubtedly he was curious about my whereabouts. However, a slight sense of guilt swept over me, for I could never tell him that I have lost my interest to tune in to the program and that my willingness to call him had reduced to shreds.
I was a junior high school senior when I listened to Ron’s program for the first time. As a student whose mind was forced to concentrate solely on studies, I found my days dull and monotonous. Having listened to a classmate’s recommendation, I browsed the channels on the radio and found the desired station. As soon as the channel was settled, a stimulating, garrulous voice vibrated out of the speakers and roused me from my drowsiness. Odd sound effects of tremendous laughter followed; intrigued, my eyes grew wide and my ears straightened up. My juvenile fascination with the stout African American DJ took off since then.
Abashed by my coyness, the first means I used to contact the program host was e-mail. I sent him an e-mail with nonsensical praises for his program, and he satisfied my anticipation by giving me a reply. Thrilled, I continued to send him messages before I had enough courage to talk to him in the live program. I had so much fun in the foolish matter of sending mails that I even managed to persuade one of my friends into dropping a line to him as well. With an amorous temperament, Ron responded to both of us by typing “are we having ‘threesome’ now?” If my English proficiency was better, perhaps I would have woken up from the teenage romantic enthusiasm; yet if I did, I would not have experienced the illusional bliss that once complemented my unsatisfactory adolescence.
After entering senior high school, I finally overcame the barrier of talking in English and dialed the call-in number to the show. Once tried, twice bold. Therefore, I made myself a regular voice in his program. Although sometimes I groaned at the cell phone bill that came with hundreds of dollars I must pay, I was trapped in the pleasure like an innocent lamb. The greatest appeal to call in, of course, was to request a song.
“What song do you want, Debby?” questioned Ron with his signature folly.
“‘I Can’t Tell You Why’…”
Before I could finish my word, Ron interrupted unexpectedly, “If you don’t tell me why, how can I play it for you?”
Highly entertained, I chuckled at his naughty trick. “That’s the name of the song, Ron! ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’ by the Eagles!”
As I became more and more familiar with him, our conversation had transformed into flirtations whose indecency I failed to notice as an adolescent. In fact, it thrilled me to find a place to utter statements that most adults would frown. I had been taught to fight and taught to win, and Ron was the only Mephistopheles who seduced me into taking off my mask of an ideal student before I was doomed to wear it for good. Moreover, my vanity was contented hearing Ron call me “princess” or “angel,” even though many other girls share the same nickname.
“Do you know you have the same height as my ex, my little princess? I feel ‘gaga’ when talking to cute girls.”
My constant involvement in the radio program synchronized with the culmination of L.A. Lakers, an NBA team’s continual victory. “Go, Lakers!” we acclaimed for the team like lunatics every night. It was bittersweet to celebrate Lakers’ “three-peat” success after three years of supporting the team, as the team’s deterioration in tournaments afterwards hindered its way to another championship, and the major star was accused of sexual harassment to a waitress. However, it still amazed me how I could squeeze time from the busy schedule of a high school student to watch live broadcast of ballgames in order to chat with Ron the following night.
With two actual meetings with Ron, it sufficed for my immature crush, especially in chilly winter, the simmering fire provided me warmth and security in my painstaking high school days. Both of our meetings took place in frozen winter, and I always remembered the heat in his palm when we shook hands, a courteous American gesture of showing friendliness. Like a sailor on the sea shore, my ecstasy of finding the idealized dreamboat remained until Ron ruined the beauty of the boat by telling me ridiculously that he was a competitor in an eating contest before seeing me and that his stomach was churning.
Nonetheless, perfect idolization inevitably went wrong with the increase of knowledge and experience. Somehow I had become the reminder of Ron’s neglects, and the only purpose of my participation in his program was to remind him of the song titles he had forgotten. Since late last year, the website of the radio station is impressively improved. Listeners of his show jostled to his board and left loads of messages, on which I found several girls who owned the same admiration I ever held so dear for Ron. However, I repeatedly questioned myself if my thoughts had become old-fashioned since being scantily clad was what the girls ever talked about, and Ron showed enormous ardor for such matters.
“Are you conservative, Debb?” Ron asked me a couple of times. “I can tell by the way you talk.”
Some part of me sobered up since I was aware that I would never become one of the “hot chicks.” Before he exposed himself thoroughly in front of the webcam in the studio one day, I had been reluctant to admit to myself that I had grown sick of leaving vulgar messages over the Internet which were totally against my newfound pride.
As time proceeded to this summer, the part-time job I took made me too exhausted to stay awake until midnight in order to listen to Ron’s bragging. Finally, on a weary night during the summer vacation, I switched on the button of the radio. Luckily, I happened to tune in at the right time when Ron was giving away prizes to people on the condition that they could say the correct name of his show, which sounded easy enough to me. Energized, I called in and cried “Extreme Radio” out before he could finish his overflowing speech. To my surprise, he burst into a series of outrageous laughter.
“No, Debb!” he seemed out of breath from his yelps. “That was the old name of the show. The name has changed since last week, and, well, I guess they haven’t updated the content of the website, have they?”
Then I came to know that my absence had lasted much longer than I expected, and I did not even log on to the web pages, to which I was once extremely addicted. After the phone call, I realized that once I answered a simple question wrongly, the lump would always exist even if I made attempts to remove it. The chasm between us had been widening at an immeasurable speed, proven by my two-month nonattendance at the program thereafter.
As memories of my interactions with Ron were flooding in my mind, Ron’s several queries to ensure my attention brought me back to my senses.
“Call me some other time, Debb. Don’t wait for another four months!”
“It’s not four months,” I protested with confidence. “There were only two…”
“Four, indeed!” Ron feigned a hurtful voice, yet I was certain that he hardly felt heartbroken since there will always be girls ready to replace me. “Don’t leave me with a longing to hear your voice, just dial in whenever you can, all right?”
“Sure,” I answered him absent-mindedly, wondering if it is possible to forget about the future and just reminisce about the past.
