The Usual Set

The day started out with the usual set, it's noon, that means Leo's boss is back at WTF-FM 100.4 broadcasting the same trashy, middle-America junk music across town. Leo sat at the bus stop on the corner of Brownstone and Poplar, his head cradled in his hands, holding his old walkman headphones over his ears. No matter how much he resented the honky tonk bullshit coming through their speakers, his boss would berate him about the "quality" and "character" of his morning set. So he obliged as he sat in the heat of the sun. Already the water in the air was starting to boil, causing beads of sweat to run down his face, catch on his nose, pause for a moment, then let go and spatter onto the ground. A puddle was forming around his feet, but Leo needed none of it. He shut his eyes and concentrated.

Soon the raspy voices of Americana lulled him into repose, he had the midnight to dawn shift down at WTF-FM. Not a bad gig, there were plenty of bars open late, and too many sad, lonely people who need the company in the early hours, so his music did get heard. His set was popular among his listeners, Leo had a knack of playing just the right songs, in a timely fashion. It rallied all those lonelies, all those angst-ridden apartment dwellers. This made Leo happy, or maybe that was just his growing ego getting the best of him. For who of any importance actually listens to late night radio?

The only catch was that Leo's boss demanded him there at 11:30AM every day, he was the techie as well as the late night DJ. After his set was over, he didn't have much time to trudge back over to Castle Apartments, take the stairs to the tenth floor, slam through the eleventh door on the right side, land on his couch and pass out for a couple hours; before his alarm clock woke him up with the opening song of his wondeful boss's set.

Leo opened his eyes at the sound of the bus getting closer, the old diesel engines straining to make the turn around the corner. He caught a whiff of something more than diesel, something muskier, like wet carpet, he glanced up at Castle Apartments as he got on the bus. "I don't even want to know," he muttered to himself.

Late to work, sweaty, stinky, but more or less content, Leon Van Damme found a seat, adjusted his headphones over his prematurely gray hair, and turned up the volume.