Chester the Nightfly

 This is a short story I wrote for a really fun podcast called The Alexandria Archives. It was a podcast in the form of a late-night radio show being broadcast out of the fictional "Alexandria University," featuring weird tales of horror and the macabre. Think Night Vale, but on a college campus, and not quite as... friendly. The podcast is no longer active, but I think you can access its archives at the link above. Check it out!

Anyway, this story was featured in one of the episodes of that podcast. It was slightly edited for that, but here's the original story I submitted, unedited. It's only slightly inspired by folks I know in real life, Steely Dan, and a couple years I spent as a late-night radio DJ during my own college years.

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Chester the Nightfly

It was about a half an hour before dawn, and I’d just played the last required PSA of the night when Chester finally came back.

Chester was legendary.  He did everything, a real Jack of All Trades, master of most of them.  He dominated the basketball court, held a steady 4.0 GPA, was in about fifty different clubs, and still found time to host a midnight radio show on the “WHAU Signal.”  The stories though; name any weird occurrence going around, some outrageous prank or unbelievable tale of daring exploit, and his name was guaranteed to come up.  I remember the time he convinced the entire first floor of the Levi Residence Hall to steal trays from the cafeteria and slide down the road between Pickman and Dent Hall.  The night before had been the first frost of the year, and the road was completely iced over.  Of course, it was also the first open house of the year, when prospective parents and their kids were touring the campus.  So about two dozen screaming freshmen came barreling down the street with only a thin sheet of plastic between their asses and the asphalt while fifty vehicles filled with shocked future AU freshmen and their parents skidded and careened out of control trying to avoid them.

Administration was pissed, but somehow no one even got a scratch on them.  That’s how it always went with Chester.  The dude’s antics were always legendary, but he had an almost supernatural ability to know where the line was and to scoot right up to the edge of it, but never to cross it.  Chester never even got in trouble for that one, and it didn’t hurt that none of the students involved would admit to who gave them the idea.  Administration wasn’t about to discipline that many students, and they couldn’t single any of them out without seeming unfair, so eventually the whole matter was dropped.  Oh, they knew who was behind it, and they hated that they couldn’t do anything about it, but Chester was untouchable.  The dude always had an alibi, or at least plausible deniability.

We knew each other through the radio station.  I had the show from eight to midnight, and I played the standard mix of alternative college rock.  I liked to throw in some old stuff, some tracks by Belly, or off of Toad’s “Fear,” or even some Blightobody when I really felt like pissing people off.  Half of the phone calls I’d get were requests to play something, anything, from this century.  I’d laugh at them and hang up the phone.

I got in so much trouble that one time I picked the phone up while I was blasting “The Puffing Pioneers” across the airwaves, screamed “I’ll play whatever I fucking want” and slammed it back down.  Yeah, it was the Dean, calling to ask about reserving some airtime for some announcement.

That’s another story.

Anyway, Chester didn’t go for the usual college radio fare.  He didn’t hate college rock, but what really lit his fire was jazz.  Old jazz.  Modern jazz.  Fusion.  He loved it, but more, he knew it.  I can’t tell Mingus from Jarrett, but Chester, he knew them all.  He could tell you the backstory behind each track, what lost love or broken promise or destroyed dream spawned this one groove, and how this one guy pawned everything he owned just to be able to rent studio time to record this other one. 

Chester would sometimes spend more time talking about the history of the music than actually playing it, and he always tried to encourage other students to call in and join in on the conversation.  You wouldn’t expect a lot of folks on a campus like AU to know a whole lot about jazz history… and you’d be right.  His calls for in-depth discussion went unheeded.  He got lots of callers, but they were mostly the usual calls about lights in the sky, or weird happenings over at the hedge maze.

His show was still insanely popular though, it went from midnight until about five AM, the perfect background music for late-night crammers or townies looking to get into trouble.  He played his jazz, took the calls, and people kept turning in.  He even gave himself an on-air persona to go with his show.  Called himself “Chester the Nightfly.”  He said it was an inside joke.  I still don’t get it.

Chester’s show was right after mine, so as my show would be winding down, he’d be setting up for his own shift.  Like most college radio DJs, we had some flexibility in what we played, but we still had to satisfy the playlists.  I’m not sure what infernal contracts and bargains exist between college radio stations, the FCC, and the record companies, but most DJs are required, during their show, to play a certain number of “approved” songs from a playlist.  WHAU has three lists: A, B, and C, and DJs have to play at least five songs from playlist A at some point during their show, two from playlist B, and one from playlist C.  Playlist A is always full of the up and coming bands that the labels want to give more exposure to in hopes of breaking them out into the mainstream.  Playlist B is the really out-there stuff, bands that would never find mainstream success, but who’d probably enjoy healthy sales from the alternative crowd.  Playlist C is local bands, and it’s almost entirely complete and utter garbage.  Occasionally, though, you find something incredible in there, and those are the bands you drag your friends out to see at the local bars on Friday night.  Most of us would get the playlist crap out of the way early, and spend the rest of the show playing whatever we wanted.  I liked to space it out a bit, to give some variety in what I was playing between the required new stuff and the older fare I liked to inflict on my listeners.

Chester was lucky that he had a “specialty” show.  Specialty shows were exempt from the requirement to touch the playlists.  Chester’s jazz show, my roommate Jack’s “Cryptid Chronicles,” our friend Rosie’s Gospel Music Hour on Sunday mornings: they didn’t have to stink up the airwaves with local bands or the latest manufactured “edgy” punk quartet from the record label. They still had to play a certain number of PSAs per hour, and give out University announcements, but their content was their own to manage, their dominion of the DJ booth absolute.  I was so jealous of them.  I thought about making my own show a specialty one, making it entirely old-school alternative, but even I could see that would be too much.  I didn’t want some angry torch wielding mob to burn down the radio station over “The King Is Half-Undressed.”

Chester would always show up at about 11:30, right as I’d be playing the last required PSA of the night.  He’d wait outside the door, giving a little wave through the glass window.  I’d pop back out the PSA cartridge, get the next song started, and pot down the mics before waving him in.  This was essential.  You don’t walk into someone’s booth when they’re broadcasting, when the red light is on.  It’s a quick way to get your ass kicked.

With the mics muted, we’d chat a bit, catch up, and then he’d start getting his CDs and vinyls together for his show while I kept my own going.  He’d be super quiet so as not to intrude on my airtime, and I’d always return the favor as I left.

I’d always wrap up my show with this same spiel:

“This has been ‘Danny E.’, wrapping up another edition of ‘Screw All You Hipster Philistines; I’ll Play Whatever The Hell I Want.’  Up next, it’s ‘Chester the Nightfly,’ with jazz and conversation from the outskirts of the Hedge Maze.”  Then I’d slam in the station identification cart, pot down my mic, shake Chester’s hand, and we’d switch places.  By the time the station ID was over, he was in full swing, and he’d already be well into some esoteric tale of lost fortunes and unrequited love before I’d even gathered my things to leave.

I never let the door slam on the way out.  You always respect your fellow DJs’ airtime.

I wouldn’t say that those of us who worked at the radio station were famous or anything like that.  Most college students don’t even listen to their college radio station, and that’s assuming that they can even pick it up.  Our transmitter power was low, to say the least.  But there were enough students who’d listen in that all of us DJs had a bit of a fan-base.  Chester, of course, drew in listeners from all over campus, and even from out in the town of Alexandria itself.

Like I said, Chester was legendary.

I remember our first day at the station.  Chester and Rosie and I were undergoing orientation.  They showed us the basics of how the equipment worked, talked to us a bit about what to do in various situations, like an unexpected curse word in a song or by a caller, equipment failure, how to avoid dead-air, what to do when the Dean called, etc.  They showed us the handbook, talked a bit about the seven words we were absolutely forbidden to ever say on the air, pointed out the Taser under the desk.  We got to sit in with other, more experienced DJs, and then we were thrown to the wolves.  I remember my first show, stumbling over words, staring at the microphone while dead-air filled the airwaves.  I didn’t dare to bring my own music to the station back then; I stuck strictly to the playlist.  Chester hit the ground running.  He took to the mic like he was born with one in his hand.  The dude was good at whatever he put his hand to.  I didn’t think that there was anything that could get behind his unflappable exterior, anything that could keep him from breezing through his last two years at the University.

Then Joanna showed up.

Chester and I were both juniors at this point, and it was only early October.  Joanna was a senior majoring in Occult Archaeology, with a minor in Ritualistic Textiles.  She was taking night classes because of some medical issues causing extreme sensitivity to sunlight.  She was one of the editors of the campus poetry journal, and also helped run the anime club.  Joanna was actually a pretty cool person, and I don’t blame her for what happened at all.  Some people just aren’t good at prioritizing their time.

I think we’ve all had a friend who started dating someone new, and they just sort of fell off of the map.  I had another friend like that, Lucky.  Lucky would meet someone new, fall head-over-heels, and suddenly he’d stop showing up to the weekly D&D games, would always have other plans when we were all planning to go out to the bar, and would eventually stop even returning phone calls.  Hey, I understand. When you’re with someone, you want to spend time with them, but Lucky would take it to an extreme.  When he and “whoever” would inevitably eventually break-up, he’d suddenly be back, as if he had never left.  Then he’d vanish again the moment he met someone new.  That was just how Lucky was.

Chester, though.  The dude had everything so together; I’d never have pegged him for the kind of guy to let a relationship interfere with the rest of his life.  We never thought he’d “pull a Lucky.”  When he and Joanna started dating, Chester seemed able to juggle everything just fine, at least at first.  He brought Joanna along to D&D night, and she rolled this incredible cleric who turned a straightforward dungeon crawl through a lich’s lair into a hilarious romp where we somehow, by the end of the night, had turned the lair into a profitable tourist attraction and had convinced the lich to personally fund the local orphanage.  She’d join us when we all went out to eat, always at night of course, and she’d bring her own food because of her allergies, and we were all cool about it.  Hell, at least once when Chester was busy writing a paper she came along with us without him when we all went bar hopping.  We actually all pitched in to get her this set of designer polarized UV shades so she’d be able to hang out with us during daylight hours, even with her sensitivity issues.  That one Saturday when we all went paintballing was amazing, even if she did end up shooting me in the neck.  I ended up with a welt the size of a quarter that took a week to heal, but all’s fair in love and paintball.

Joanna was a cool person, is what I’m trying to say.  What happened wasn’t her fault.

Sometimes people have trouble keeping priorities straight, finding a balance in their lives, and I guess college is the time to learn about all of that.  I honestly didn’t really notice it happening at the time, or I’d have said something to him about it, but we suddenly noticed that Chester wasn’t… well, Chester.  We found out he’d been missing classes.  A lot of classes.  Hey, we all skip from time to time, but he was missing class entirely, though he’d be waiting right outside when Joanna would get out of her own.  He started wearing sunglasses, even indoors.  Hell, he’d barely even go outdoors in the daytime at all unless it got really cloudy.  He stopped eating in the dining hall and started getting all of his food from some local butcher shop.  He started wearing all black, and usually had a scarf wrapped around his neck.   At night, he’d be over at Joanna’s dorm, hanging out while she’d finish her coursework.  He’d still hang out with us, but something subtle changed.  At first, he was bringing Joanna along whenever we got together.  Now she was bringing him, and I got the distinct impression that he was only there to hang out with her. We were a secondary consideration.  Which was fine, I’m not about to come between two people in love, but it was still a little shitty.

Even then, we figured it was a phase, that he’d grow up and realize that this wasn’t really healthy.  You can’t base your entire life around another person.  Rosie was the first person to speak up.  “Are we going to talk to him about this?  Dude’s going to fail out if he doesn’t start going to class once in a while.”  Even Joanna was concerned about it, maybe even a little creeped out by it.  We talked to her first, asked her if she wanted us to talk to Chester, but she said not to.  “I’ll talk to him about it,” she said.  “I’ll try to get him back to himself again.  He’s just got a lot on his plate.”

I should have confronted him sooner.  I don’t know now if it would have helped, but I still should have said something.  But I just didn’t realize at the time how serious things had gotten.  The radio show was my wake-up call.  Chester was late to his own show, for the first time in… well, ever!  He came stumbling in an hour late (and I was trying to figure out which of the weird-ass jazz crap we had in the station archives was actually worth putting on, because holy crap this Menza stuff was not doing anything for me) and he didn’t even bother to apologize for being late.  I got out of his way, he grunted, slid into his chair, and then queued up the next record.  I let myself out.

I asked some of my friends who I knew listened to his show, and they said it hadn’t been the same for weeks.  He was playing the same music, but he wasn’t talking about it anymore.  He wasn’t extolling its virtues, telling its stories; he’d stopped evangelizing jazz, and was only playing it. He also had stopped answering the phone on the air, which had been the reason half of his listeners tuned in in the first place.

The next week, he missed his show entirely.  I was tired that night.  I’d just had my mid-term exam in Comparative Religious Traditions of Antediluvian Mesopotamia, and I was beat.  I hadn’t seen or talked to Chester all week, but I was insanely busy with end of the semester work.  It had been the week from hell, but I finished my exams, and all that was left was to host this one last show before heading home for winter break.  I was dead on my feet, but I chugged an energy drink, made my way to the station, and threw on some Screaming Trees.

Four hours later, I was ready to crash, hard, but Chester never showed up.  This time, I didn’t even bother switching over to his format.  I kept playing late 80s, early 90s alternative stuff, including the entirety of Toad’s “Fear,” until Chester’s replacement showed up at Five AM.  The sun was just starting to light up the sky, and I could see the glow reflecting off of the clouds through the skylight.  My eyelids felt like lead, my vision was starting to swim, and I wanted nothing more than to fall into my bed, but I was pissed off.  I gathered up my stuff, and made my way over to the dorms, and went straight upstairs to Chester’s room.

I banged on the door until his roommate opened it up, bleary eyed and confused.  He said that Chester wasn’t there, hadn’t been there for a long time.  Chester had moved out, taken all of his stuff, and hadn’t been back for weeks.

I made my way over to the women’s dorms, and got someone to let me in and went down the hall to Joanna’s room.  I did the same percussion solo on her door, and when she finally opened the door, I couldn’t believe what I saw.

The lights were very low inside, only a couple of candles flickering in the draft from the open door.  Chester was curled up in the corner, a blanket wrapped around him.  His eyes were wide, blood-shot, his skin was pale.  He flinched at the fluorescent light spilling in from the hallway, and his in-drawn breath sounded more like a hiss than anything else.  His nails were filthy and in need of a trimming, and his beard was at least a week old.

He screamed in my direction.  “What?  WHAT?!  Is it food?  Where’s the fucking food, man!  Can’t you see how hungry I am?”

I had gone past furious into absolutely incensed.  I stormed in.  “What the fuck, man.  You left me hanging all night!  I had to do your damn show!  I don’t know what the hell has gotten into to you since you and Joanna started dating, but you need to pull your shit together already!”

He stood up, the blanket falling away, revealing filthy stained sweat pants and a discolored t-shirt.  A thin trickle of blood oozed from the two tiny red welts, little wounds, near the base of his neck.  He rounded on me, stumbling, and jabbing wildly at the air with one finger.  “What the fuck do you know about it?  I didn’t ask for your help!  You think you can just come here and tell me what to do, try to… to… get… to get between us!  You’re jealous!  All of you!  Don’t think I don’t see the way you’re talking about us behind our backs!  Trying to split us up!”

His breath smelled like an open sewer, and I backed away in disgust.  “Dude, what the hell?”

Joanna stepped between us.  “Chester.  Babe.  Please sit down.  You know you need your rest.  You’re not yourself.”

He rounded on her.  “Shut up!  Who asked you to butt in?  This is all your fault anyway!”

She stared at him for a long moment, then turned, took me by the arm and guided me back out into the hallway.  She looked paler than usual, with bags under her eyes, and looked like she was even more tired than I was, unbelievable as that might be.   She sighed, and looked back in towards Chester for a moment before speaking.  “Chester and I need to have a long conversation, and it needs to be just between us.  I’m sorry for how things… if I’ve caused…”

“I’ll talk to him.”

Then she shut the door in my face, and I went back to my own room because I wanted to pass out.

I didn’t see Chester after that.  Winter break came, and went, and when classes resumed, everything was as it had been, but with no Chester.

He never showed up for his classes.  We’d keep a seat open for him on game-nights, or out at the bar, but he never showed up.  His usual haunts, the student union, the dining hall, and of course the radio station, all seemed strangely empty without him hanging around.

We talked to Joanna about it, and she said that she and Chester had had a long talk, and had decided to see other people and that he’d moved back over to his dorm the next day.  Chester’s roommate said he’d shown up at about seven in the morning while he was on the way to the showers, screamed something incoherent at him about sulfur and iron, and was gone by the time he’d gotten back, along with the last of his things.

Rumors swirled around that he had run off somewhere to join the foreign legion, or was living somewhere under a bridge, or had just stayed home after going back for winter break, but no one actually knew anything.  We thought about filing a missing person’s report, but none of us knew where he was from originally, or how to contact any of his family.  He was just gone.

The station gave me Chester’s time-slot on the radio, which sucked ass, but I got used to it.  Someone else took over the eight-to-midnight slot, some weirdo talking about spaceships or something.  I made my show a specialty show, straight up retro alternative from midnight to dawn.  I inherited the amazing, horrifying, brilliant callers that used to call Chester throughout the night.  I actually took the time to talk to them, and I found that I was a lot more comfortable talking on the air than I ever thought I would be.  Talking to the callers, and listening to their awesome, hilarious, horrifying stories became a huge part of my show.  I didn’t get to play as much music, but let’s be honest, a lot of 90s alternative was complete and utter garbage, and the callers were much more popular with my fans anyway.

Joanna still hung out with us occasionally, which was fun, but she was gearing up to graduate and head on to internships and grad-school, so we saw less of her as the year wound down.  We went to her graduation, though, and cheered for her, and the party we threw to celebrate… well, that’s a story for another time.

Things went back to normal, but Chester was gone.

…

It was about a half an hour before dawn, and I’d just played the last required PSA of the night when Chester finally came back.

It had to have been almost a year since I’d seen him last.  I was a senior now.  Like I said, none of us had seen him for the rest of that year, and when we came back after the summer break, no one ever bothered mentioning him.  I hadn’t even thought about him in months.

I still had the midnight-to-dawn show.  I had learned to love being a night owl.  I had just hung up on a caller who’d gotten a bit too creepy even for my tastes, and was introducing the next song (more Blightobody; I apologize for nothing!) when Chester came in the door.

It slammed open, and he stepped into the room, all black leather and vinyl, face pale, his brown hair slicked back so it looked almost purple, buckles on boots up to his knees.  My mic was still hot, because I had just been in the middle of publically insulting everyone who disagreed with my musical tastes.

“That’s.  My.  Chair.” He said, pointing a taloned finger towards me.  Seriously, the dude’s nails were at least an inch long.

I frantically waved towards the still lit red light above the door, pointed with arched eyebrows at the microphone on the desk, and held my finger to my lips.

He strode forward, slamming the door behind him.  “That’s my fucking chair!  This is my fucking show!”

He grabbed me by the shirt, lifting me up out of the chair.  He snarled at me.  Seriously, he snarled like a freaking dog.  His teeth were long and pointed, sharp like needles.  His eyes were completely black.

“Chester, man,” I whispered.  “We are on the air…”

“You took everything away from me!” he screamed, shoving me, hard.  I stumbled across the room, smacking up into the CD shelves on the back wall.  They came tumbling down, jewel cases clattering across the floor, CDs spilling out around my feet.

He was on me before I could even react.  He grabbed me by the back of my shirt this time, and yanked me back across the room.  I careened backwards, tripped and fell back into the DJ chair.

He stood there, leaning against the wall, hissing and snarling, and started punching the wall, over and over again, letting out this horrible low moan.

I didn’t know whether to try to talk to him, or to escape, or to just go on with my show, or what.  I figured I should say something to him, but I just didn’t know what to say.  He stood there, moaning and punching the wall, each jab accompanied by a choked sob.  All of this, I was acutely aware, was broadcasting out over the airwaves.

I quietly reached over to switch off the mic, but he suddenly spun, glaring at me through those dead, black eyes.

“THAT’S MY CHAIR!” he screeched, his mouth opening to an inhuman width, sharp teeth glistening with spittle and something red.  He reached out his arms and rushed at me.

I had already pulled the Taser out from under the desk, so I gave Chester 50,000 volts.

I warned him.

The fucking.

Light.

Was on.

You do not step on someone else’s broadcast.

Chester lay on the floor, twitching and foaming at the mouth, whimpering something about saxophones and “The Bean.”  I gave him another jolt just for spite.  That shut him up.

I stared at him for a minute, at least.  “Not cool, man,” was all I said.  I was keenly aware that the mic was still hot, that I was sitting there, and that the deafening silence of dead-air was blasting out on frequency.

So fucking unprofessional!

I still had half an hour until the next DJ showed up, and I just wasn’t in the mood for my own music anymore, so I grabbed up the first jewel case I could find lying there on the ground. 

Lostprophets. “Start Something.”

Ew.

I took the CD out and snapped it in half.  Station management would thank me for it later.

“Good listeners, sorry about that interruption.  We’ll be back after these brief words.”

I slammed in another PSA cart and turned off the mic.