Strange Times - Part 4: Channel 99

[1983]

The opening notes of Blade Runner echoed across the room from the tinny speaker, the roar of the spinners and blasting fire of 2019 Los Angeles pushing the walls out, while electronic strings swelled and burst like C-beams on Tannhauser gate. Vangelis’s score deserved to be heard loud and clear but the TV began to crackle if you set it any higher than five on the volume knob.

‘Should we turn it down?’ asked Harry

‘No, we can leave it for another five minutes or so’ I replied

‘Hm.’ He grunted, plunging his hand into a packet of cheese Twisties ‘Wait until end of the opening and we’ll turn it down’

We were the only members of Haverbrook High’s Film and Television Club, held in the clubroom long after the school had emptied out for the day. The clubroom wasn’t really a clubroom at all; it was science room D4 that we wheeled the TV stand into every day after school to watch movies, pulling the blinds closed to hide the world outside. Harry and I had formed the club from a mutual love of film, mainly Science Fiction movies. We watched amazing films like Westworld, A Boy and His Dog, Soylent Green, Dark Star, The Parallax View. We combed through a mail order catalogue from a store in Melbourne, saving our money to purchase tapes and reels of film. We lived life through a screen.

‘Okay, what next? Silent Running or this Twilight Zone episode?’

‘Depends, what episode?’ I said.

Harry checked the tape ‘A Most Unusual Camera’

‘Silent Running. That episode is too ridiculous anyway’

Harry went to fetch the tape ‘I’d have suggested we watch both anyway, I saw Martin and his posse hanging around the school.’ and he waddled out from the store room, wiping a runny nose ‘Martin said he’s looking for you’

I paled, feeling a sweat come over me. Martin was coming to kick the shit out of me. Just like the bullies in Rebel Without a Cause. He was bored then, or had gotten a bad mark on something and I was the target. Harry and I had formed the club for a second reason: to band together and hide from Martin.

We were targets: I wasn’t physically fit, I was a pale scrawny kid with two left feet and all thumbs, Harry was a pudgy ball of sweaty teenager worry. We were both physically worthless in a town based on physical worth. We started watching the film, the blackness of space filling the screen but I was a million miles away, going intergalactic with worry. Martin hated us because we didn’t play football, because we got answers right in tests, because – and this is pure speculation – that we were going to do something with our lives. People like Martin exist in movies too, they get their comeuppances, they get shown up by the nerds, they die with no accomplishments.

‘What the fuck are you two faggots watching?’ came a yell from the back of the room. I jumped, eliciting a laugh from a group of people behind me. I turned to see it was Martin, and his group of friends: Johnny, Linda, Bruce and Alice.

‘Silent Running’ said Harry, before I could stop him.

‘The fuck?’ Bruce said now; he was the one who had yelled about our sexual choices. ‘Silent Running, fuck does that even mean? Martin, he’s in here’

Martin was silent with a face like he’d seen a ghost. He hadn’t said anything yet, hadn’t called me faglord, or pussy or anything; he was silent and in a way that was worse, like a type of wild animal. Martin stepped in now, looking at Harry.

‘Get out of here, I need to talk to Brendan’

Harry gathered up his satchel, running from the room. Bruce closed the door, sealing me in alone with Martin. Like how in movies the protagonist is cornered against a chain-link fence, or when James Bond is sealed in with Goldfinger.

Martin ran his hand along the surfaces of the VHS covers, pausing at a few before sitting. Dead silent. Martin stared at the paused image on the video player and spoke without looking at me.

‘You and I haven’t seen eye to eye—’

I nodded ‘You’ve hated me since year seven, Martin’

‘Yeah…well…’ he didn’t offer an explanation or apology, which was kind of lame. ‘Well…I need your help Brendan’ He paused, still staring hard at the TV, then he looked at me again. I realised what was different about this; he looked frightened, eyes wide, like he’d seen The Exorcist for the first time.

‘I’m going to die Brendan, tomorrow morning, and I think you guys might be the only ones who can do anything about it. It was on New Starts last night’

Everybody knew the television show ‘New Starts’ in town. It was on Channel 99 from 11:30pm to midnight. New Starts was a teen drama, bunch of melodrama about school, drugs, life. Pretty average stuff really, poorly written too but what made ‘New Starts’ really freako was that the entire cast of the show were our doppelgangers; our own clones walking around on screen. They sounded the same, looked the same, they had our names too. It was set in our town, Haverbrook, and filmed in our school. Everyone over the age of eighteen saw static on the TV when it was on, so nobody except us kids ever saw it. The plots of the episodes went over into real life: when Pete had failed the maths test in the show, sure enough it happened in real life. Two years ago, when an episode showed that Jenny was killed off in a car crash, they found her dead on Yarram Road, her car twisted around a tree. Nobody knew where Channel 99 was coming from so no one could stop it, and with each episode getting darker than the last we wanted it to end.

‘So you die in the latest episode…’ I said and he nodded. The room was silent except for the dull hum of the paused VHS ‘How does it happen?’

‘I don’t know. A fire, burst of light, rushing wind...it isn’t clear enough in the video'

I shrugged ‘Well, not everything on the show comes true. There’s been—’

He looked frantic ‘Look, you know more about TV and movies than anyone right? Channel 99 must be around here somewhere right? Can you help me?’

Something clicked in my brain, a revelation, so I bought myself some time by stammering out questions as the realisation overtook me: I could refuse to help him. Martin could ask me, threaten me, insult me, but he couldn’t force me to do anything. I could lie and give false information and he’d be dead. The bully who had broken my arm, the guy who had ruined my teenager years, the boy who had made my life living hell. Justice delivered like Conan the Barbarian. But then a little meek part of my mind spoke up: you’d be killing him. I couldn’t believe I was hearing it and listening to it as the words came out of my mouth

‘…Yeah, sure Martin, I can help you’

He sighed with relief and called his gang into the room. We had to come up with a plan.

If the episode was airing tonight, we needed to stop the transmission. Martin got the group into the room: Linda, Alice, Bruce and Johnny and we sat around trying to figure out what to do. Every idea, one by one, was dismissed for not making sense or not being right; each dismissal making Martin paler and paler. Another revelation came over me like it had been there the whole time.

‘There’s…a radio tower outside of town, the big one in the north?’ They all looked at me, so I continued ‘I think...I think they have TV transmission there too…maybe. If we shut it down somehow, like turned it off, just for a night, maybe we could stop the transmission…’

Martin nodded, colour returning to his face ‘We could blow up the tower’ and he stood, leading the march of boys to the door. I stayed seated until he shouted back ‘Look, are you going to help us or what?’ and I hurried after him.

I tried to mention we could just cut the power lines with an axe, throw water on the electronics, but all Martin could think of was blowing it up. It was like he was possessed or something.

Linda was trying to get him to listen to me, saying that we knew nothing about building a bomb but all Martin could think about was blowing it up.

Bruce and Johnny agreed with him. Alice just cackled with laughter with echoed through the empty school halls. I felt a nervous little butterflies dance in my stomach. I was forced into their car. The old Fairlane had big leather seats and could just seat all six of us, me crammed between Bruce and Alice. This was worse than watching Plan 9 From Outer Space.

My skin crawled being around them coupled with a fear this could all just be a sick joke being played on me. It wouldn’t have been the first.

‘Martin, we shouldn’t build a bomb’ said Linda again. He was concentrating on driving and had tuned us all out.

‘Why shouldn’t we? Channel 99 has been doing this shit too long, remember, they’ve been running that show since before we were kids’ said Bruce.

‘Okay, yeah, but like do we even know how to build one?’ Linda said, twisting around to face Bruce. Johnny coughed

‘Done it all the time on the farm with Dad, fucking...lot of fertilizer, chemicals’ Johnny nodded at Bruce who gave a thumbs up. Linda looked at me briefly out of the corner of her eye.

Woody’s Hardware gave us the supplies, Johnny and Bruce mixing it in the carpark as the sun went down. Long black shadows against orange. I could imagine this shot from high up, emphasising our small group against the huge blacktop, like in Vanishing Point or The French Connection.

‘So Brendan, what was that nerd shit you were watching back in there?’ Alice asked, knowing full well I wouldn’t respond; when I didn’t, Johnny and Bruce laughed.

‘You and your fucking nerd films man, no pornos or nothing…’ said Bruce

I didn’t say anything. Johnny laughed, nudging Bruce in the ribs.

‘Hey, Bruce I think he’s scared of ya’ said Johnny Bruce gave his hyena like cackle. I glared at them from under my brow, trying my best to look like Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange.

‘Yeah, I’m afraid of you, Harry is afraid of you guys too, isn’t that what you want?’ and they did a dramatic ‘ooooh’ as a chorus. I walked off to the supermarket, to get a drink and to get away from their stifling way of being.

I sat with my head peering into the freezers, the distant beeps of the checkout machines echoing in the distance and a rattle of trolleys. I wished I was back in the science room, watching the tapes, away from all this. People were fucking awful, I hated the fact that this was apparently some 'normal teenager thing' and I just had to 'put up with it'. Why do people like this just coast through life while us, smart people, had to shoulder all their shit? I heard a patter of shoes and a pair of tattered converse appeared in my periphery vision.

‘Martin says we’re almost ready to go, needs you to navigate’ said Linda’s voice.

I didn’t say anything, stared at the cans of Coke and Pepsi

‘Did you hear me Brendan?...I…look, sorry about those guys out there, but, you know…you’re doing us a big favour and…yeah, so thanks Brendan’

I didn’t say anything, but I stood up and closed the freezer door, the chill on my face felt thin as I felt boiling red beneath my face as I stared at Linda, careful to keep my voice low to avoid a scene in the IGA.

‘It’s not a favour though is it? A favour sort of means you guys could do something for me right? I know you won’t do shit for me, I’m helping you now and you’re all just making fun of me, like what? You, you’re trying to be nice, whatever, but…I don’t like any of you. I sort of wish I was like Carrie, you ever seen that? Come into school, blow your heads off. I’d just kill you all’ I looked around and continued.

‘I get this weird thrill imagining it, coming into school and just shooting you all in class and nobody stops me. I walk into school, with a gun and step in through the door to your form room and bring the gun up. You don't see it until it's too late, you're all too busy being yourselves and the shots just...and nobody stops me, everybody secretly wanted it to happen. It'd be glorious, beautiful. Like Taxi Driver. Dad’s got a gun, it’d be easy too. I’d blow your brains out. You’re not worth anything, you’re not needed by anyone. God if I could kill you all today I would. So you can act all nice to me now when you need something, but it won’t change the fact that I don’t like you at all’

Linda stared hard at me as I finished talking and I swore she nodded her head slightly. A tip of the head that was almost subliminal. As I lead the way out of IGA, red face and full of adrenaline I swear that maybe she knew exactly what I was talking about. I wanted to push her face into the magazine rack and kill her.

‘There you fucking are, let’s get going’ Martin said, waiting on the bonnet of the Fairlane as the suns final rays faded out, transitioning us into a new unfamiliar scene.

Johnny and Bruce kept cracking jokes about me, Linda was silent and I caught her staring at me in the rear view mirror in the dim interior of the Fairlane. In the hills north of town, in the state forest, was a red blinking light of a radio tower. We drove towards the light.

I could only watch now, as it happened around me: the barrel being moved under the tower, the jokes about me being made, the night around us all black and thick. I just watched it happen like a movie I couldn’t stop, film threading through my fingers. Another reel burning up in a projector of my life. And then we all gathered around as Martin lit a fuse cord and…

The base of the radio tower exploded into violent red flames, pushing and billowing outwards. The heat rolled over my face, I felt scorched immediately, a dull whine replacing my hearing instantly and we were all thrown onto the ground.

Lying on my back, I saw the lights on the transmission tower blink out of existence as it rattled violently; we’d done it. As sound returned gradually, groaning metal echoed around us loudly, we stood up and shook ourselves off.

‘We did it! Channel 99 is fucking history an-’ Martin started to yell and a sound of metal hitting flesh rang out, I lost vision, wiping away…what felt like blood. A shriek came up from Alice. Harry, Johhny and me were covered in blood and we found the source: A radar dish from the top of the tower had crushed Martin’s head into a pulp, blood had burst out like an over-ripe grape with chunks of his head everywhere, a smell of copper filling the air.

The rest of his body lay on the ground like a doll. I vomited immediately, Bruce fainted and Alice began to dry retch. Johnny was running to the car to get help. Linda looked sort of non-plussed, a steely look in her eyes as she walked over to me.

‘Linda, I—‘

‘You need to get out of here, Johnny’s getting an ambulance, cops will be here too…’ she stared at me as I didn’t move before snapping a finger in front of my face ‘You need to go, get away from here, we’re not worth it, remember?’ and I stared at Martin’s bloodied corpse feeling sick. I nodded once and turned away.

I walked away from the burning tower, from the body of Martin and began to march to the town below. I was covered in Martin’s blood, smelling of sickening bitter copper and it was coating my skin thick, he was all over me, sinking into my pores. I vomited again as far off down in the town, I could hear sirens and lights were turning on all over town as people lost television.

It was like a bad Twilight Zone episode; in trying to prevent the accident, Martin had caused it to happen. Life does that so much, imitate art, to the point that whenever someone says something witty or intelligent, people ask “What’s that from?”

Everything is now just referencing references, all of us imagining our lives as movies and not as lives. It had played out like a bad episode of a worse television show, anticlimactic in nature and lacking in meaning. Martin was dead due to his own interference and in a sick way, this had been exactly what I wanted all along.

-Brendan Coff

[Brendan’s story took place presumably around 1983-1984, as the last recorded transmission of Channel 99 was around then] – Editor

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