'If I say yes, will you tell me a good story?' Any other DJ would have tossed off a glib response without thinking-just another midnight weirdo looking for attention. 'What did I say? Did you hear me? Nothing after '89. The line is open.'Īmazingly, I got a call right off. Have any of you seen the Bat Boy? I want to hear about it. That kid really gets around-though as long as they've been doing stories on him he's got to be what, fifty? Anyway, as visible as this guy is, at least according to the intrepid staff of Wide World of News, I figure somebody out there has seen him. Headline says: 'Bat Boy Attacks Convent.' Now, this is like the tenth Bat Boy story they've done this year. Picked it up when I got my frozen burrito for dinner. 'I have the new issue of Wide World of News here. It's twelve-oh-twelve in the wee hours and I'm bored, which means I'm going to regale you with inanities until somebody calls and requests a song recorded before 1990. College was supposed to fix that, wasn't it? The world was a bigger place than that, and I was adrift. I might have had a brain full of philosophical tenets, high ideals, and opinions I couldn't wait to vocalize. I'd started out on the college radio station, graduated a couple of years ago, and got the gig at KNOB after interning here. My illusions about the true power of being a radio DJ had pretty much been shattered by this time. It was thinking you were the first person to discover The Clash and you had to spread the word.

To be a DJ at an alternative public radio station? That was being God with a mission. I put on the headphones and sat back in the chair with its squeaky wheels and torn upholstery. One of the nice things about the late shift at a radio station was that I didn't have to look good for anybody. I was wearing jeans and an oversized sweatshirt that had been through the wash too many times. I dimmed the lights so the control board glowed, the dials and switches futuristic and sinister. 'Things change.'įinally, I had the place to myself.

I'd gone positively nocturnal the last few months. He'd started playing some third-generation grunge band that made my hackles rise, but I smiled anyway.

'Hey, Kitty, thanks again for taking the midnight shift,' he said. I tossed my backpack in a corner of the studio and high-fived Rodney on his way out.

Kitty and the midnight hour