Figure 8: Portable Radio
Frankie Scarpino owned a van. It was a 1974 Dodge B300, with a V-8 engine. It was painted simply and unabashedly in an avocado-tan color scheme, and it had no logos associating it with the Pagliacci Brothers Family Circus. That meant that it was Frankie’s van, and Frankie’s van alone.
When the sheer annoyance of putting up with the other members of that particular circus became too much for him, Frankie would drive off in his van and disappear for a day or two. He always kept the van stocked with enough cheap wine and dried food that he wouldn’t even have to look at another human being until he decided that the circus had suffered enough from his absence, and that it was time for him to return.
Sometimes he brought his daughter Piera with him. This was just as good as being alone as far as Frankie was concerned, because Piera had a strong aversion to talking. He taught her to drive before her growth spurt, when she could just barely see over the top of the steering wheel. Frankie considered her a better driver than he was, and would sleep with confidence in the back of the van while his underage daughter found somewhere remote for them to hang out. By day, they’d stare out of separate windows of the van at nothing in particular. Frankie fantasized about retaking his position in the Mob. He didn’t know what Piera thought about during these times, and he never asked.
This trip was nothing like those others.
“Ooh, look at that one!” exclaimed Lilly the Snake Lady, her face plastered against one of the windows of the van.
“Oh, I think that’s taken from Boston’s first album,” said Antonia Martin.
The big van was far from empty. Frankie was driving and Piera was sitting silently next to him in the passenger seat, her eyes occasionally wandering over the controls.
Behind them, both bench seats were occupied. Sitting on the first bench was Julia Scarpino, Lilly and Officer Gloomfeld, wearing his full police uniform. Lilly’s primary purpose as far as Julia was concerned was to keep the increasingly zombie-like Gloomfeld as far away from her as possible. The back bench was occupied by the Martins and Hector the Strongman. The sun had long since set on this late April evening, and everyone was dressed in black. Some, like Frankie, Julia and Piera, made black look like a fashion choice. Others, like Hector and Lilly, made it look like they were going to rob a museum.
Which of course is exactly what they were on their way to do. They were five minutes out of Passaic on Interstate 80, destination Hackensack. And they were gawking at the van conversions.
Custom van conversions were a sort of plague upon the freeways of America at this time, clogging up traffic, bankrupting families, and generally acting as the latest stand-in for the American Dream.
“Is that a Confederate flag?” asked Lilly, pointing at the side of another van.
Hector looked out the window. “Yup,” he acknowledged.
“Oh hey!” William exclaimed, looking out an opposite window. “A complete summary of Star Wars in van form.”
“Really?” his wife asked incredulously as she took a look. “This is becoming completely ridiculous. It’s just a movie! Why is it still playing in every town we’ve driven through so far? What’s it been now, six months since it was released?”
“More like a year,” said William.
“A year!” Antonia exclaimed. “I just don’t get it.”
“Well, I liked it,” William offered meekly, then he looked back outside. “Wow, is that John Carter of Mars?”
The massive strongman squashed the Martins against their seat as he took a look. “Looks like the artist copied a Frazetta cover,” he said. “I’ve read all of the John Carter and Carson Napier books from Chuckles’ library.”
Frankie turned back to glare at them. “I’ve heard enough about van art in the past ten minutes to last a lifetime. Change the subject!”
With a few grumbles, everybody faced forward.
“Alright,” Antonia said with a small smile. “What about circuses? Did you know that the King-Carol Circus shut down last month? They just weren’t able to pull in enough to meet expenses.”
“Well, that’s something that won’t ever happen to us,” Frankie said smugly.
“Yes,” agreed with Antonia. “And that’s why I think we should take in their side show. We have none of our own, and— ”
“Out of the question!” Frankie interrupted. “By ‘side show’, you mean the freaks, right?”
“Well...yes,” Antonia admitted.
“A modern circus doesn’t need a freak show to succeed. We’ve amply proved that.”
“It’s not about what’s necessary,” Antonia countered. “Everybody else that was laid off can get a job elsewhere. But they cannot. Nobody will hire them. They only way they can earn a living is in a circus.”
“Then let it be some other circus,” Frankie said, “because this circus doesn’t operate on charity, and we don’t waste our time on anybody who can’t do their fair share of the work.”
“It wouldn’t be charity, and these people can do their share—they’re not children,” Antonia insisted. “Well, there are a couple children the same age as Piera. They might have a few things in common.”
Piera peeked around the edge of her large bucket seat at her. One hand self-consciously scratched at the edge of the woolen cap that was pulled down over her ears.
“I won’t have my daughter mixing with her social inferiors,” Frankie proclaimed, “end of discussion.” He turned back to glare at the group again. Piera’s hand calmly reached over to control the steering. “The whole lot of you are getting infected with ideas from that enchantress Rarity. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the midst of a robbery—the exact opposite of the kind of generosity that that tiny horse preaches. Isn’t that right, Harry?”
In response to the question, Harry Gloomfeld suddenly leaned over to face Antonia and haphazardly flopped his head up and down, looking exactly like a marionette controlled by a giant invisible hand. At the same time, Frankie’s right hand was moving above the steering wheel in the same manner as that hypothetical hand.
Antonia shuddered. “Quit it,” she told her brother.
“Change the subject. Again,” Frankie said as he faced forward. Officer Gloomfeld flopped back into his seat.
“Oh I know!” Lilly exclaimed, reaching into a cardboard box located under her seat. “How about some music?”
Lilly’s first attempt to remove an object from the box was blocked by a “love hug” administered by her 50-pound boa constrictor. With a grunt, she slowly pried the coils of the creature off of one hand by using the other, and finally emerged with a red ball the size of two average fists clenched together, hanging from a chain ending in a keyring. A hole cut into the side of the device revealed an AM radio dial. “Calm down, Patty Hearst,” she addressed the boa, “you’ll have your time in the moonlight soon enough.”
The Dodge B300 does not come with a sound system as a standard feature, and that was just the way Frankie Scarpino liked it. But on those occasions when there were more passengers than just his daughter, they always insisted on music. Therefore, the sound system for the van consisted of the red sphere, a Panasonic P-70 Panapet.
Seeing the device in Lilly’s hands, Julia snatched it from her hands and twisted a flat knob to turn it on:
It's a heartache,
Nothing but a heartache.
Love him till your arms break.
Then he lets you down...
Antonia frowned at the lyrics and stared glumly out of the window, until William gently pulled her into a hug and her frown turned into a smile.
It ain't right with love to share,
When you find he doesn't care for you.
It ain't wise to need someone
As much as I depended on you.
“Yup,” Frankie commented as the song ended, “sounds like love to me.”
Plop plop, fizz fizz
Oh what a relief it is!
The song was immediately followed by an annoying earworm of a commercial.
Meow meow, meow meow.
Meow meow, meow meow.
Meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow!
This was then followed by one that was even more annoying.
Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese,
Tomatoes, onions on a sesame seed bun!
And that was followed by one so mind-controlling that it had half of the passengers singing along.
Frankie grit his teeth and put up with it.
“This is Chuck Leonard at Music Radio 77, WABC,” the radio DJ said after the commercial break was finished. “And here’s the latest hit from song-meister Barry Manilow.”
I can’t smile without you.
I can’t laugh, and I can’t sing—
Julia, steamed by this reminder that Barry Manilow had sabotaged her perfect plan to break up her sister’s marriage—a plan that she was lately feeling unaccountably guilty about—savagely started turning the tuning dial at this point, muttering, “You got that right, Barry—you can’t sing!”
The AM radio shifted frequencies, as the song was replaced by static. For a moment, the static cleared, and a confident male voice announced that “WCBS News Time is 9:27 PM!”. The sound continued shifting, stopping next on the faint sound of a pipe organ. An even more confident young man with a nasal twang in his voice declared that “The Lord Almighty knows what you all are thinking. And the Lord will—”
Julia quickly changed the station once more, stopping when she heard music.
I know you're looking for a ruby in a mountain of rocks,
But there ain't no Coup de Ville hiding at the bottom
Of a Cracker Jack box.
“Change it.”
Julia looked back at her sister. “Did you just—”
“Change it,” Antonia ordered, her eyes steely.
Frankie chuckled to himself.
With a shrug, Julia went back to station hunting.
Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels.
Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields.
In ‘65 I was seventeen and running up 101.
I don't know where I'm running now...
The van became unusually quiet, as everyone reflected how well the lyrics matched up to their own lives.
“I’m...I’m changing it,” Julia finally said without prompting.
“You’ve listened to the rest, now listen to the best: WJDM, you never heard it so good!”
Julia rested the Panapet in her lap, waiting to see what the station would throw at them next.
“This is America’s Top Forty with your host, Casey Kasem. Number 19 on the Top 40 list was co-written by Trammps keyboard player Ron Kersey, inspired by a scene in the movie The Towering Inferno. I’ll let you see if you can guess which scene by listening to the song.”
It was so entertaining when the boogie started to explode
I heard somebody say
(Burn baby burn!)
“Nope!” William declared just before the song dropped its title. “We will be having no disco on this trip!”
With a groan, Julia twisted the dial once more. “Whoops, end of the dial,” she said.
The song that began to play had an odd sort of pattern to it, where the solo singer was joined by a chorus for certain words only. The passengers soon began to join in:
Jack (Jack!), wanting someone to feel
Sat up on the hill (Hill!) and
Waited all day for Jill.
“Jill!” exclaimed William, Antonia, Julia, Lilly and Hector. The song’s chorus failed to match their prediction, being off by one word.
Jill (Jill!), always away from home...
The passengers laughed at the song correcting them.
“Enough of that!” groused Frankie. “Change the station!”
With a frown, Julia started turning the knob in the opposite direction from before. She stopped on the same disco song as before, and deliberately stopped with a wicked grin.
I heard somebody say
(Burn baby burn!) Disco—
“No...!” warned William.
“Alright, alright,” purred Julia.
Roland searched the continent for the man who'd done him in...
“Um...” said Julia, reaching for the knob.
“Keep it,” said Frankie. “I like this one.”
Roland aimed his Thompson gun - he didn't say a word
But he blew Van Owen's body from there to Johannesburg!
“Do we seriously have to listen to this?” asked Lilly. She gestured back at Hector, who was trying to curl himself into a fetal position.
“Oh, all right, you can change it,” Frankie said with reluctance.
Tune, tune...
Mariachi!
“Change it!” ordered Frankie.
Tune, tune...
“God!” The speaker somehow made this one word last for at least nine syllables.
Tune, tune...
“Crazy Eddie, his prices are INSANE!”
“Stop,” said Frankie.
“And it’s Chuck Leonard, at Music Radio 77 WABC, layin’ some heavy music on ya. Here’s the latest from Elton John.”
The song opened with Elton John playing what sounded like a toy piano for the soundtrack of a melodrama train seeking to run over some blonde heroine in the 1920s.
Take a look at me now and take a look at my billing.
I'm not in it as an extra, I'm in it for the killing.
The back passengers, who all recognized the song, all looked at Frankie in expectation.
“You know what, I like this one!” he said, surprising no one. “Keep it here.”
I'm so obsessed with my ego,
My ego and it's message.
Oh inform the press, invite the guests,
I need the press tonight!
Everyone in the van that night had a specific function to fulfil in the planned robbery: Hector was the muscle, and Julia was the acrobat—both very useful roles to have in case of trouble. Lilly (and specifically Patty the Snake) were for the purpose of intimidating anyone not intimidated by Hector. And of course Harry Gloomfeld was there to convince everyone that this was actually a “routine police inspection”, and not a robbery at all. In the absence of Chuckles (and Rarity), William was the electronics expert. And Antonia was the lookout.
Frankie had two different roles. On the one hand, he was the mastermind, expected to be able to most-quickly improvise should anything go wrong in his master plan. And on the other hand, he had his mystical abilities, specifically the ability to make security cameras and alarm systems deactivate while clouding the minds of the guards monitoring that equipment so they wouldn’t notice until it was too late.
And as for Piera? She was the getaway driver, and therefore the only one not entering the museum. This was because out of everyone on this mission, only she and her father actually had driver’s licenses. (Technically, Piera had a learning permit.) Julia specifically went out of her way to not learn to drive, for the single purpose of never being obligated to drive anybody anywhere. This overwhelming selfishness was the primary reason why Julia was Frankie’s favorite sister.
The trip back from Hackensack was of a considerably different character than the trip in the opposite direction two hours earlier. To begin with, two people were missing from the van, and one person had been added. The subtractions were Frankie and Gloomfeld; the addition was Rarity.
Piera was driving. She was doing a carefully calculated seven miles-per-hour above the speed limit on the mostly empty interstate. Her eyes were mostly on the rear-view mirror, looking for cops. Rarity, sitting in the passenger seat, was staring intently at the steering wheel and the road ahead, ready to take over should anything happen. Considering she had exactly the same amount of driving experience as Patty Hearst the Boa Constrictor, she was not looking forward to this eventuality.
The eyes of everyone else in the van was also on the alert for pursuing police cars. Hector had moved up a seat to join Lilly and Julia. The radio was silent, and no one was in the mood for talking.
About halfway back to Passaic, Piera took the Saddle Brook exit to stop at a parking lot for a closed Food Fair supermarket. After waiting a full minute to be sure they hadn’t been followed, she shut the van off and got up out of her bucket seat so that she could face the others. She then gave them all a piercing stare that was rather reminiscent of her father.
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.
“Look, it was all—” Julia began, before being cut off.
“You better tell it from the beginning,” said Lilly, putting a hand on Julia’s arm.
Julia snatched her arm away with a grimace and then, after a moment of thought, she reached out to grab the red Panapet radio from where it had been resting in Lilly’s lap. She didn’t turn it on, instead rolling the sphere around in her hands. “The plan went perfectly at first,” she began, using the Panapet as an excuse not to have to establish eye contact with Piera. “Gloomfeld got us into the building, and your father was able to handle the security like he promised. Then he entered the display room, and everything went wrong.” She turned around and handed the radio to Antonia. “You saw what happened next better than I did,” she told her sister.
Antonia looked down at the Panapet. “I...really?” She looked up at Piera’s accusing eyes for a moment, and then quickly redirected her eyes to the red sphere. “Yes, well I was right behind him, and he said something about the walls, ceiling and floor being covered with silver foil, and that being a particular vulnerability of his.”
Piera winced.
“He told us to scatter to the corners not covered by the cameras,” Antonia continued, “before his powers failed completely. He focused everything he had in keeping control over Officer Gloomfeld. Then a searchlight came in from the front window.” She passed the Panapet to William.
With a roll of his eyes, William continued the story. “Coming over a loudspeaker was the voice of Officer Gruekin, Gloomfeld’s partner. In fact, I expect you know that part of the story, Piera.”
Piera nodded.
“Right then,” William said with some relief. “Then that means you got most of the story. Your uncle Dino set your father up, so that Frankie would be sent to jail.” Resting the radio in his lap, he started counting out points on his fingers. “He brought Officer Gruekin in on the plan, to break your father’s control over Gloomfeld, which he did. He also implied that your father was the only other person in the museum. I think it was because he thought we’d let him take over the family if he arranged for only your father to be arrested.”
Antonia took back the radio. “I don’t know if he ever told you this, but your father and Uncle Dino tried to rob a bank together twenty-five years ago.” Being forced to look Piera in the eye for this part, she took to curling and uncurling a lock of her hair with the hand that wasn’t cradling the Panapet. “When it all went wrong, your father escaped to Faerie by opening a portal, but because he only knew how to create portals for himself only, he wasn’t able to take Uncle Dino with him, and as a result Dino went to prison for twenty-five years. So, you know, that was why Dino had a grudge.” She sped her way through the rest of the explanation: “And why the rest of us ended up running a circus as punishment. It was twenty years before he came back, and of course, when he did come back, he came back with you.” She shoved the Panapet back into William’s hands. “Although that does raise a question: if he can only use that portal spell on himself, how was he able to come back to earth with you?”
Piera’s only response was a shrug. She then looked over at the current holder of the Panapet.
“Right,” William said. Then he stopped, as he remembered that was the same word he had started his last part with. “Anyway, Gruekin kept your uncle talking and talking about his cover story about being a ‘concerned businessman’ who had accidentally overheard the one-man robbery plot while visiting the circus. And while that was going on, Rarity showed up!” He quickly tossed the Panapet over Lilly’s head in the pony’s direction. Only then did he realize that equines are not well equipped for catching round objects, and winced.
Rarity opened her mouth to make a silent shriek, then dodged out of the way. The red sphere bounced off of the instrument panel, struck her in the side (leading to a quiet gasp), and then it landed at the bottom of the passenger compartment.
“Sorry,” said William sheepishly.
Rarity rubbed the spot she had been struck with a hoof and gave William a disappointed look.
Piera then reached down, picked up the Panapet, and turned it on. No sound came out of the built-in speaker. Rarity stared at it for a second and with a brief spark, it turned on.
Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea.
All we do crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see.
Dust the wind. All we are is—
There was a collective start from the group, at how appropriate the lyric was to their current emotional state. Piera stopped the song by tuning to an empty section of the radio spectrum. The static faded out, to be replaced with...
“Yes,” Rarity’s voice stated from the radio speaker, as the seated pony looked across at the teenage girl. “Officer Gruekin came to get me after your uncle had contacted him. Being a ‘dumb animal’, he was able to bring me in the back of his police car, with your uncle being none the wiser. He told him that your father had an emotional attachment to me.” The pony rolled her oversized eyes at this absurd lie, and was amused to see that Piera had done the same thing at the exact same time. “I easily escaped as soon as they parked and made my way into the museum. It took me a few minutes, but eventually I was able to put the security equipment on a loop so that they recorded nothing incriminating, back to the start of the operation. But when I found the others, well, your father was nowhere to be seen. I promise you that I would have saved him with the rest if, well....”
Everyone’s eyes looked away from Piera’s.
After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, Hector reached forward and put one hand atop the Panapet still being held in Piera’s. “He ran, Piera,” he said, looking straight at her with eyes hooded with sadness. “The moment he knew that his brother had betrayed him, he told us he had to go. Just opened a portal to Fairyland, and abandoned us to our fate.”
Piera stood there, stock still, lowering her head as tears sprang to her eyes.
Lilly gently pulled Hector’s hand away from atop the Panapet, to replace it with her own. “He was perfectly logical about it,” she explained. “He had the criminal record, and we didn’t. If he was caught, it would be Riker’s Island, hard labor for twenty years, twenty years where he wouldn’t be able to be your father.”
Piera jerked her head up, her accusing eyes piercing into Lilly’s. The snake woman flinched. “Well,” she said with extreme reluctance, “he never actually said your name. But surely he was thinking of you when he said he’d no longer be running this family.”
Antonia reached her arm forward, but was unable to reach the Panapet. “Uh, just pretend I’m doing it, OK? What I wanted to say is that this way, he could come back any day!”
Piera turned her death glare upon her aunt, who curled her outstretched hand into her chest. “Of course,” she admitted, “with the time dilation effects, that is very unlikely. But he had our best interests at heart.”
“nO he DIdn'T!” Piera screamed as she threw the Panapet to the floor, her voice cracking up and down several octaves. She dived into the driver’s seat and tried to curl up into a ball, knobby elbows and knees sticking out and a thumb knuckle absently rubbing at her sore throat. The sounds of repressed sobbing could just barely be heard. Her displaced cap fell lightly to the ground.
Antonia stood up and leaned forward, lightly touching Piera’s shoulder around the edge of her seat. Piera—who had never been comfortable with being touched—flinched, and a guilty Antonia withdrew her hand.
Seeing this, Rarity hopped down rather loudly from her seat and looked at the radio. It had split open into two halves, with an exposed circuit board and loose wires. At her mental command, the device swiftly reassembled itself and tuned itself back to...
I’m a Pepper, she’s a Pepper,
Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper, too?
“This is Chuck Leonard, ending my time together with you on Music Radio 77 WABC on this beautiful Sunday evening. In four minutes it’ll be the Larry King Show, with guest Muhammad Ali. But for now, here’s ‘Movin’ Out’ by Billy Joel. And as for me? Well you can get the butter, and roll me outta here!”
Who needs a house out in Hackensack?
Is that all you get with your money?It seems such a waste of time.
If that's what it's all about.
Mama if that's movin' up,
Then I'm movin' out.
Rarity let the radio play, to give Piera some privacy and to allow the others some time to think. She then turned down the volume of the song so her voice could be clearly heard over it.
“Frankie Scarpino is no longer running this family. And I believe you all made it rather clear that you did not want Dino Scarpino telling you what to do, either. So what happens next? Do you want to rejoin your brethren?”
“You mean the Coragglio’s?” Julia asked. “We used to dream about that, about having power, about having people look up to us.”
“Look up to us in fear, you mean,” Antonia added.
Julia shrugged. “Well, I was fine with that.” She stopped, then glanced over at the slightly shaking driver’s seat to nerve herself to continue. “I’ve been scared most of my life. Making others scared was power to me. I didn’t think there was anything other than one, or the other. Until...well, until you, Rarity.” She looked at the pony, an uncertain smile on her face. “The crowds we get now, they don’t all have chips on their shoulders, and I’ve stopped seeing them all as chumps. They smile now, smile because Thunderbolt and I am making them happy. And I didn’t want to admit it, not to Frankie and not to myself...that I like making people happy a lot more than I like making them scared of me.” She abruptly turned around and tugged on Antonia’s sleeve.
“Oh!” Antonia exclaimed. “What my sister’s trying to say is that, well, we’re happier as circus folk than as mob folk.”
“A circus is like a pirate ship,” said Hector.
Everyone stared at him incredulously, including a Piera that was peeking around the corner of her huge chair with gravity-defying hair and pointed ears.
“Hear me out,” Hector assured his audience. “A pirate ship has a captain, and to any prisoners the pirates capture for ransom, that captain is the guy in charge. But the rest of the time, when it’s not for show, a pirate ship is a democracy, where everybody votes for where they’ll sail next, and who has to do which chore. And a circus is the same way, or at least it’s supposed to—the ringmaster’s in charge for the show, but only for the show, understand?”
“That’s not the way Frankie’s been running things,” Lilly commented.
“Well...that was wrong,” Hector said. “I think we should all be running the circus now. That includes Chuckles, and it includes you, Piera. You can stay with any one of us for as long as you’d like. Your father was right that our circus was a family.”
“And now I guess it’s a better family than it was before,” added William. “What do you say?”
Piera, who had taken a moment to put her hat back on, nodded her head a couple of times before using the palms of her hands to wipe the tears away from her eyes.
“And that includes you too, Rarity,” said Hector. “You get to make decisions just like the rest of us now.”
“Me?” Rarity asked, putting a hoof to her chest. “I don’t really know much of anything about how to run a circus, whether on Equestria or on Earth.”
“Just take the position, Rarity,” Julia growled.
“Alright, I accept. And as first order of business in this new democracy, may I propose that Piera here drive us back to Passaic. All in favor?”
“AYE!” the others chorused.
“All opposed? Nobody? The motion is unanimously passed. Piera, if you would?”
With a happy sigh, Piera started the engine of the Dodge van. Rarity turned up the volume of the radio, tuning it away from Larry King.
Thank you for being a friend.
Traveled down the road and back again.
Your heart is true, you’re a pal and a confidant.
“Oh God!” Julia exclaimed. “I don’t care how goody-good we are now, I don’t have to put up with that kind of sap. Could you please change the station? There—I said ‘please’ and everything!”
“Alright,” Rarity “said” with a smile.
“Damned! To the judgement of Hell you are forever damned! Unless...” And here the furious voice suddenly turned syrupy. “...You decide to donate all of your worldly wealth to God’s best friend in the whole wide world, little ol’ me!”
“NO!”
Rarity continued tuning with a smirk. She stopped at the sound of Casey Kasem’s voice, from apparently the second airing of the same show on a rival network:
“Number Fifteen this week in America’s Top Forty and up two spots from last week is the instrumental piece ‘Feels So Good’, by jazz composer Chuck Mangione. The single is a three-and-a-half minute edit of the original track, which was nearly ten minutes long on the album of the same name. When asked to describe how he succeeded in making such a major cut, Chuck described it as ‘major surgery’, but I think it sounds majorly groovy. Here’s Chuck Mangione, with ‘Feels So Good’.”
A solo brass instrument took up the melody. Rarity listened intently for a few seconds, before asking. “Is...is that a flugelhorn?”
William nodded. “Yes, I believe it is.”
“In that case, could we keep it here?” Rarity asked quietly. “I have some fond memories of a flugelhorn being played really badly.”
Everyone looked at Julia.
“Alright,” Julia said with a resigned shrug. “Knock yourself out.”