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Radio Abel, Season Four

Part 3 of 6

ZOE CRICK: And we've still heard nothing from Baz and Domhnall?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Not a peep.

ZOE CRICK: Damn it!

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Mmhmm. Uh, but don't worry, citizens. We have been picking up some other broadcasts, and there's one me and Zoe think you might enjoy.

ZOE CRICK: Seems disloyal, though, doesn't it? To Baz and Domhnall?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Well, it's not like they knew we were listening. And you like Eloise. You said she sounded like a kindred spirit.

ZOE CRICK: Eloise is pretty cool.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: And Hugh's great, too. Now, you're going to love them, listeners, we promise. They're travelling around the country -

ZOE CRICK: No spoilers.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Oh, okay. Well, stay tuned, and you'll find out all about Eloise and Hugh, right after this.

[static]

ELOISE: Is that better?

HUGH: There's still some interference, Eloise!

ELOISE: Well, then, stop and let me down, Hugh.

HUGH: I can't quite at the moment, my love.

ELOISE: Stop the van, you [?]. I'll drag the aerial right off the roof.

HUGH: You know I can deny you nothing, but that zom we saw, it phoned a friend! Now there's two fast ones got our scent, and they're gaining! I can't slow down!

ELOISE: If you go any faster, I'll fall off!

HUGH: I've opened the window. Can you do a Dukes of Hazzard?

ELOISE: Are you having a laugh? I'm 53!

HUGH: Now would be a good time! [ELOISE climbs in through window] Handled like a ballerina.

ELOISE: Next time, we check the bloody bushes before I climb up there. I found the problem. It was a zombie foot wedged into the aerial mount. Look! How'd a foot get onto our roof?

HUGH: Uh... maybe you should throw it out the window. With the contamination and the blood and all.

ELOISE: Oh Hugh, you're a big wuss, aren't you? Wait! That light's on. Are we transmitting? Did you hit transmit?

HUGH: Uh, I was trying to change the air conditioning.

ELOISE: Turn it off. Turn it off!

ELOISE: Hello!

HUGH: Hello.

ELOISE: I'm Eloise, and this is Hugh.

HUGH: Hello.

ELOISE: Yes, Hugh. Thank you. And thank you, the listener, for tuning in to our first show. We are travellers voyaging through the wild isles of zombie Britain in our faithful Volkswagen camper van.

HUGH: It's a Type 2.

ELOISE: Thank you, Hugh.

HUGH: With everyone dead, I thought we'd get a [?], but they're no good in the winter. And quite frankly, they're a bit slow for eluding the undead.

ELOISE: Yes, Hugh. But we were going to introduce the show.

HUGH: Oh yeah. Now, I used to be a postman, see, and I've still got my keys. So I can get into every postbox in Britain.

ELOISE: And I'm a telecomms engineer. So we've lashed a transmitter on the roof, and I've rigged up some relay stations along the road. We thought we'd do a show, to pass the time, and as a public service, you see, and we thought, "What did we used to like?"

HUGH: It was that show on Radio Stafford with that lady who answered your personal problems, Lucy Lockjaw.

ELOISE: Lucy Lockhart. Our idea is, we'll be your travelling agony aunt and uncle, bringing you wisdom from the road, and advice from the heart. So if you've got a problem, write a letter to Hugh and Eloise, and just pop it in the postbox. Everywhere we visit, we'll check all the boxes, and if your letter's there, we'll try to help! We're waiting to hear from you. And in the meantime, here's some music to keep you going. [audio clicks]

That went well, didn't it? I thought that went well.

HUGH: You didn't press it right. It's still going.

ELOISE: Oh, shit!

ELOISE: Well, a lot has happened since we last did a show. We've been coming up from the lake district, a lovely place to settle! Apart from all the zoms.

HUGH: All that moisture's hell on the axles.

ELOISE: If we were going to settle, we wouldn't do it in a camper van, now, would we? That would kind of defeat the porpoise.

HUGH: You mean purpose.

ELOISE: That's what I said.

HUGH: No. You said porpoise, like a dolphin.

ELOISE: Why would I want to defeat a dolphin?

HUGH: I don't know. You were the one who said it.

ELOISE: You always do this! You know fine well what I mean, but you pick up on a slip of the tongue and try to make me sound stupid. Any reasonable person would just take it as I meant!

HUGH: It's my Royal Mail training. When you read an address, see, you can't just guess what you think the customer meant. You have to deliver it exactly what it says on the letter!

ELOISE: Exactly where it says on the letter.

HUGH: It says it on the front.

ELOISE: There you go again. You are a pedant, Hugh Caulfield.

HUGH: Well, they never gave me a bike.

ELOISE: You're just making fun of me now.

HUGH: I might be, my love. But just remember, you're the one I voyage with every day through this cruel world.

ELOISE: Yeah, and I know where you sleep. Where did I put that zombie foot?

ELOISE: Good afternoon. I'm driving today because Hugh is busy opening your mail.

HUGH: Where'd we put them scissors?

ELOISE: They're in one of those boxes back there. Now, as you remember, we're here to answer your questions, like the agony aunt and uncle you've been deprived of since the zombie apocalypse. The idea is, if you've got a problem, whether it be about relationships, or careers, or health, or just everyday zombie matters, you write it down in your best handwriting and pop it in the postbox, addressed to Hugh and Eloise. And when we come to your town, we'll pick it up and offer you some confidential advice. Just listen in on this frequency.

HUGH: It won't be confidential, will it? If it's on the radio.

ELOISE: Well, it'll be anonymous, then.

HUGH: Yeah, but if we read a letter by Jane from Carlisle, it's going to be obvious who it is, right? I mean, there aren't many people left in Carlisle. Even less called Jane.

ELOISE: We'll use a fake name, won't we?

HUGH: Then how will they know it's their question?

ELOISE: Strike me down! They'll know because they'll hear it, won't they? They'll recognize the words, Hugh.

HUGH: Oh yeah.

ELOISE: So, have we got any first questions today?

HUGH: I'm soryr, Eloise. It's just the usual bills and charity stuff. There's this one package someone is returning to a website called Happy Tools.

ELOISE: Might be something you can use for the van.

[packaging tears]

HUGH: Oh. Oh, um....

ELOISE: What is it? Oh! My goodness!

HUGH: It might keep you happy, dear.

ELOISE: I... well, uh, well, maybe we could keep it.

HUGH: Oh, hang on. It's been used.

ELOISE: Ugh! Oh, throw it out the window. Throw it out the window!

ELOISE: People like you are why kids don't read!

[gunshots, glass shatters]

HUGH: Bugger. There goes another one. It's not the repair I hate, it's picking the little bits of glass out of my vegetables.

ELOISE: Well, she was a cranky lady.

HUGH: Nobody likes being called a fascist, dear. Not even a fascist bookseller.

ELOISE: Oh, really! What did she think we were, zombies driving about in a purple camper van? The hungry dead come to get their decaying hands on the latest Inspector Wexford?

HUGH: Well, possibly she's had previous experience with bloodthirsty raiders.

ELOISE: Bloodthirsty raiders come to pillage the largest secondhand book selection in Dumfries and Galloway? Oh, talk sense, Hugh.

HUGH: Bloodthirsty readers, then.

ELOISE: I'll bloodthirst you in a minute.

HUGH: Maybe save the pillow talk until we're off the air, my love.

ELOISE: Oh, I forgot about you and your vampire thing. [clears throat] This is an announcement for anybody requiring our services in the vicinity of Wigtown. I'm sorry to say we are unable to access the postbox because some nutter is on the roof of a bookshop, blazing away with a dangerous firearm. Yeah, that means you, lady! Get over yourself!

HUGH: We'll be around again, one day.

ELOISE: That's right, folks. You hang in there with your romantic dilemma or your baby turning gray. We'll be around again and we promise to respond to your letter in what, two years or so?

HUGH: Providing the van doesn't break down.

ELOISE: So um, just hang in there.

HUGH: Once again, I'm denied a chance to pick up the final Dick Francis.

ELOISE: Dick Francis? You only read him because you thought it gave you an edge at the bookies.

HUGH: You know what's coming up? Alloway, birthplace of Robert Burns, the Ploughman Poet, known the world over. I picked up a leaflet at the last place. It says, "His national pride, fierce egalitarianism, and quick wit have become synonymous with the Scottish national character." You can see the cottage where he was born and everything! Do you want to go?

ELOISE: Nah. You?

HUGH: Nah. Place'll be heaving with tourists.

ELOISE: [laughs] That's one good thing about the collapse of civilization.

HUGH: No tourists?

ELOISE: No poets.

HUGH: There's bound to be some bastard in one of them fortress towns knocking out free verse.

ELOISE: Doing readings to people who know it's either that, or be torn to bits by the undead outside.

HUGH: Hang on, here's a postbox. [parks van, opens door]

ELOISE: Any luck?

HUGH: No. Must have been empty when the plague hit. [starts van]

ELOISE: I really thought we'd get letters.

HUGH: We will, love. Give it time. It's only been a few weeks.

ELOISE: Deep down, I kind of knew we wouldn't.

HUGH: I know something to cheer you up! We're approaching Prestwick.

ELOISE: No!

HUGH: 100%! Prestwick Airport, the only piece of British soil upon which Elvis ever walked. And I am to know that there are no flights scheduled this afternoon, so if you're very good, I'll knock down the gate and take you on a tour of the runway.

ELOISE: Hugh Caulfield, you are the greatest man who ever walked this earth! Except Elvis, maybe.

HUGH: I'll take that.

ELOISE: If you've been listening to us for a while now, perhaps you've thought, "Yeah! I should get on the road like Hugh and Eloise and live the life of a free spirit!" But if you're thinking of leaving your nice, safe, gated community, hold your horses. It's not all picnics at sunrise and the fresh smell of pine after the rain. There's certain practical considerations.

HUGH: Any sign of them?

ELOISE: No, you're fine! Get on with it! In a camper van, your water supply is precious, and you need to preserve it. Okay, there's reservoirs and little streams, and of course, it pisses down every second day, but you try washing your smalls in an icy river come February, and frankly, a girl gets fed up of doing her big gypsy skirts in a basin the size of a grapefruit.

So every now and then, we make a special trip, and that's how we come to be parked outside the Chery Launderette. It's supposed to be the Cheery Launderette, but one of the E's has dropped off. Also, there's a lot of bloodstains in there.

Now, your average launderette don't work too well these days, what with there being no electricity. But we've got a little generator, and Hugh does some magic that only he can, so we get a couple of loads in. Well, to be honest, I could rig the same thing up easy, but who wants to spend their golden years doing electrics in launderettes? I swear - wait. Hugh! Get your ass in here!

HUGH: We're nearly at the spin cycle!

ELOISE: Sixteen shamblers incoming! Get in here!

HUGH: Oops.

ELOISE: Where's all my leggings?

HUGH: In the dryer.

ELOISE: Oh! And so, for a good half hour now, we'll be leading zoms into the suburbs until we can go back for our clothes and the genny. This is the harsh reality of life on the road.

HUGH: But it makes you smell so fresh.

ELOISE: Ah, zip it.

HUGH: Eloise, it's a very special day.

ELOISE: No, we didn't!

HUGH: I've got the letter right here.

ELOISE: No! Read it out. No, give it to me! No. Read it out. I'll drive. [starts van]

HUGH: "Dear Eloise –" Looks like this one's just for you. "Dear Eloise, it's Jasmina here. I heard you say that you are a telecomms engineer. I would like to learn that stuff so that I can help with the reconstruction of society, but how can I learn it now all the colleges have closed? Yours sincerely, Jasmina."

ELOISE: Good for you, Jasmina! We all need to find our place, and the more engineers we have, the quicker we'll get back on our feet. Before the zoms, you'd have been working on fiber and switches, setting up redundant networks and so on. But we're in a back to basics situation here. The old cables are still around, but there ain't the power to drive them, so radio makes more sense.

You don't say what age you are, but don't begin by trying to set up your own Rofflenet node. If you get stuck into the books to early, you'll maybe get bored. So go break into a toy shop or a craft shop and look for their electronics kits. Or the museum gift shop! Often, they've got a build your own radio. Follow the instructions, and try and understand how the circuit works. You can listen to our program on something you built yourself!

HUGH: Nice.

ELOISE: After that, you'll want your local library and a shop like Maplin or Radio Shack. Get a soldering iron and a suitcase worth of components. Build up the difficulty until you've done a transmitter, and then give us a call, all right?

HUGH: There's more on the back. "P.S. I am thinking of getting into Elvis, too. Can you recommend any records?"

ELOISE: Wait a minute. Let me see that. Do you think I'm daft, Hugh Caulfield? This is your handwriting.

HUGH: Uh...

ELOISE: Did you write this letter yourself?

HUGH: You wanted one so badly. I was just helping the process along.

ELOISE: You're a bloody twit. But I do love you.

ELOISE: Where are we?

HUGH: Inverkip.

ELOISE: Where's that?

HUGH: Under the ocean, it looks like.

ELOISE: I did suggest we take the other road instead up to the loch.

HUGH: Yeah, because up the hills, it didn't rain.

ELOISE: No need to take that tone.

HUGH: I wish we could find a good pub completely protected from zombie attack, so on a day like this, we could sit near the fire and get trollied.

ELOISE: A man of your ingenuity should be able to set up a pub inside a castle.

HUGH: All the good castles are taken.

ELOISE: You know that's the marina over there.

HUGH: What gave it away? All the boats?

ELOISE: You, Mister Crabby Esq., are missing the point. The owners of all these boats are most likely dead. We could have our pick. There's no reason we have to stay on land. You could load the bugger up with canned soup and lager and do what generations of weekend fisherman have done before you – sail out into the unknown waters and get wrecked. Of course, you would take that literally.

HUGH: Even in my cups, I'd be a responsible pilot.

ELOISE: Come on, let's check them.

HUGH: I think I saw a zombie on that one.

ELOISE: Really? You sure?

HUGH: Definitely. We'd better go before it smells us.

ELOISE: You just don't want to go out in the rain.

HUGH: Nothing to do with that, Eloise, nothing at all.

ELOISE: Hello. We're in some godawful bed and breakfast on the outskirts of Glasgow. I've moved the whole broadcast rig inside so we can bring you our program today, which is #2 in our occasional series: Why life on the road after the zombie apocalypse is not like the great music festivals of your youth.

HUGH: I got a bit of flu.

ELOISE: As you can perhaps hear, my handsome co-presenter is a little under the weather, as I came to realize when he nearly drove us into a hedge yesterday.

HUGH: It wasn't a hedge! It was barely a bush!

ELOISE: Camper vans are not optimized for illness. I could have made a bed for him in the back, if I'd been willing to ditch three weeks of food or 800 miles worth of petrol. [HUGH sneezes] Thank you, Hugh. Under these circumstances, a small hotel or a B&B is a good choice. They often had vacant rooms when all went to hell, so you can find somewhere clean to sleep without scraping up infected remains. And crucially, they often have private parking with a gate that locks.

HUGH: The pay-per-view's rubbish these days.

ELOISE: The what?

HUGH: The breakfast. It's the breakfast.

ELOISE: Of course, it's always on our mind that one of us might get seriously ill. All the big settlements have doctors, but they don't all welcome new faces, particularly new faces who have any symptoms that might look even a little like the gray plague. You're as likely to get shot as to get an appointment, and good luck persuading them to send the doctor out.

HUGH: [?]

ELOISE: I have no idea what he is saying. My point is, you have to be your own GP and pharmacist now. My old doc always prescribed antibiotics and never anything else. So early on, we started raiding pharmacies for antibiotics. We took a small supply and left the rest.

As we travel around, we still look, but lately they've always been looted. So we save the antibiotics for the times it's really bad. We're not there yet, but these drugs have a shelf life. And as far as I know, nobody's making any more of them. [HUGH sneezes]

So the message is, eat as well as you can, give your body all the rest it needs, and if you approach a settlement, do not look like a zombie on the turn.

HUGH: [?]

ELOISE: Move over, you. We might as well treat this like a holiday.

HUGH: Eloise. Eloise!

ELOISE: What?

HUGH: We got one!

ELOISE: No!

HUGH: Look!

ELOISE: This better not be another one of your fake letters to make me feel better.

HUGH: I swear! Look! "Hugh and Eloise." It was on the top, totally fresh. No stamp or nothing.

ELOISE: And really nice handwriting, look at that! Fountain pen or something. Female hand.

HUGH: Well, open it.

ELOISE: I don't know.

HUGH: What?

ELOISE: I kind of want to savor it for a minute.

HUGH: It might be urgent.

ELOISE: Hugh, we've been broadcasting for three months about our agony aunt program without getting a single inquiry. How urgent could it be?

HUGH: So are you ready yet?

ELOISE: Where did we put the letter opener?

HUGH: Use your fingers, for God's sake.

ELOISE: We might want to save this one. Frame it or something.

HUGH: Open the damn envelope.

[paper tears and rustles]

ELOISE: Do you want to read it?

HUGH: No, no, you read it.

ELOISE: [clears throat] "Dear Hugh and Eloise..."

HUGH: Well, come on!

ELOISE: "Thank you for your show. Since I found it, I listen all the time. Sometimes life can be very grim, and I get a vicarious thrill from listening to your adventures up and down the country. Please keep going and broadcasting. Yours, Louise."

HUGH: Wow, that's nice. Lovely.

ELOISE: Yeah, but... but...

HUGH: What?

ELOISE: She didn't have a problem.

ZOE CRICK: "Dear Eloise and Hugh: I'm a tightly-wound control freak who'd prefer it if all human interaction was carefully scripted, not just my radio segments. I think jokes get funnier every time you tell them, and washing up my tea mugs is for other people.

Sometimes I nod off while Jack and Eugene are acting out scenes from Thelma and Louise for us, using all the voices. And then I like to pretend I haven't, even though I've been snorning incredibly loudly. Can you help me to be a better partner to my lovely cohost?"

PHIL CHEESEMAN: "Dear Eloise and Hugh: I think I'm so funny, I laugh at my own jokes, even when no one else is laughing. Sometimes I start laughing four hours later because I've just remembered my joke again. Sometimes I do this when my best friend is trying to tell me a very serious story about his mother.

I'm so anal that I rewash anything anything else has already washed up. Also, I've alphabetized all the novelty mugs. I've recently been pretending I'm extremely well-read, but actually I just found a stash of CliffsNotes at the back of the pantry, and I don't think anyone else has realized. Can you tell me how to be a better human being?"

HUGH: Well, this is all very picture-skew.

ELOISE: You know what that is? It's the Harry Potter viaduct!

HUGH: Eh?

ELOISE: The viaduct from the films.

HUGH: What, that bridge?

ELOISE: When it's got all those arches, you call it a viaduct.

HUGH: Why did he have a bridge?

ELOISE: Who?

HUGH: Harry Potter.

ELOISE: He didn't have a bridge.

HUGH: So they named it after him?

ELOISE: It's Victorian, you wazzock! How could they name it after Harry Potter?

HUGH: I thought maybe they changed it when the film came out. For the tourists, you know.

ELOISE: They call it the Harry Potter viaduct because his train goes along it in the films!

HUGH: Oh, I got you now. When they go to his castle?

ELOISE: Who's castle? Voldemort's?

HUGH: Harry Potter's castle.

ELOISE: He doesn't have a castle.

HUGH: He does! Where all the kids go and have the big dinner.

ELOISE: That's a school! Hogwarts Academy of Magic and Witchcraft.

HUGH: That explains why they're all wearing ties.

ELOISE: We watched all the films on the telly.

HUGH: That might be one of the times when you watched them and I caught up on my snoozing.

ELOISE: Unlike those gripping times when we watched the Three Stooges.

HUGH: All right, then. Let's go to his castle while we're in the area. You got the map. Where is it? What?

HUGH: This is from Alan. "Dear Hugh and Eloise, thank you for your program. We have built a little community up here on the banks of the Ness. On the whole, we get on fine, but we do have personal disputes from time to time over issues which might seem trivial to an outsider, that take on great importance with living in such close quarters. I am sure you know all about this." No, Alan. I can honestly say that despite living full-time in a camper van, Eloise and myself never disagree.

ELOISE: You bloody liar.

HUGH: Yes, dear. Alan says, "Lately, it has become something of a big deal to decide whether Inverness is in the northeast or the northwest." Well, Alan, we've got the map here, and we will tell you exactly where you live.

ELOISE: I'm looking at it right now. I can state quite definitely that you live in the northeast. I hope that helped.

HUGH: There you are, Alan. One of our easier – wait. Northeast? You must be looking at it sideways.

ELOISE: It's on the east coast! It can hardly be on the east coast and in the northwest, now, could it?

HUGH: That's not how you work it out. You find the center point of the country and draw a line due north. Then if it's on the left, it's northwest, and if it's on the right, it's northeast. Where would you say the center of the country is?

ELOISE: I don't know! Huddersfield.

HUGH: It's about 200 miles west of Huddersfield, so it's in the northwest.

ELOISE: By that same argument, the whole of Scotland's in the northwest.

HUGH: Well, it is.

ELOISE: When you're up here, you use the center of Scotland!

HUGH: Okay. Where's that?

ELOISE: Fort William. Inverness is clearly northeast of that.

HUGH: Fort William's on the west coast, so how can that be the center of Scotland?

ELOISE: You're not allowing for the Western Isles.

HUGH: Yeah, and if you include Shetland, Inverness is at the center. Don't listen to her, Alan. You're in the northwest.

ELOISE: Northeast!

HUGH: Northwest.

ELOISE: Northeast!

HUGH: Read one out.

ELOISE: Just drive.

HUGH: This lot's been after us for half an hour. I'm bored. Read one out.

ELOISE: Hugh, will you concentrate on saving our lives?

HUGH: Not unless you read a letter.

ELOISE: No! Now shut up.

HUGH: The pressure. It's getting on my nerves, it's making me slow down. If only there was something to distract me.

ELOISE: Hugh, I swear I'll do that thing to you that you don't like.

HUGH: Just read a letter, Eloise.

ELOISE: Right. Right! "Dear Hugh and Eloise." Speed up! "Dear Hugh and Eloise, I like someone and I think we could become a couple. Frankly, neither of us has many options these days, but when we get together, there's no spark. Can you suggest a way I can spice things up and see if she's at all interested? Thank you, Mandy."

HUGH: You're the relationship expert, my love.

ELOISE: Oh, no. You wanted to hear the letter. Let's hear your romantic solution.

HUGH: Well, Mandy, it's actually very simple. [ELOISE scoffs] Some of the big settlements have runners – people that go out on missions and gather supplies. Ask your prospective mate to come out with you on a zombie run. You may find that the sheer peril of roaming undead and the looming prospect of a hideous death will bring your hearts together in a way that simple words cannot.

ELOISE: And Mandy, if that load of crap don't happen, make sure that you can run faster than this other girl. After all, it's great to be single!

ELOISE: You know what you're going to find.

HUGH: I prefer to think positive.

ELOISE: It's going to be the same as the last twelve.

HUGH: My dear, you are a beautiful woman, a charming companion, and a considerate lover, as well as no mean driver when you put your mind to it. But right now, you are throwing off my karma something awful.

ELOISE: You just have to accept that it's a good idea and somebody had it before you. Somebody who lives closer with a bigger van.

HUGH: All that means is there's a stockpile somewhere.

ELOISE: Yeah, with armed guards.

HUGH: Armed, they may be. Sober, they may not be.

ELOISE: You think a raid by a middle-aged agony aunt and her painfully obsessive husband might succeed where others have failed?

HUGH: I was thinking stealth.

ELOISE: That's it ahead. Which one's this?

HUGH: Glen Spey. Not so well-known, see, but slap-bang in the middle of the heartland.

ELOISE: The gates are off the hinges.

HUGH: Think positive.

ELOISE: That's the warehouse. The doors are open. It's empty. Cleaned out, just like the others.

HUGH: Buggeration. I'm going to check the office. There might be a special bottle or two in a drawer.

ELOISE: No, you ain't. There's something moving up there, and it's gray!

HUGH: [sighs] Where's the next one?

ELOISE: Aberlour. You get three more tries. Got that? Then we're off. Choose wisely.

HUGH: I suppose.

ELOISE: You don't even like whiskey!

HUGH: I just fancied a bottle or two. For visitors, like.

ELOISE: Visitors? Well, make sure I know when they're coming so I can freshen up the parlor!

HUGH: We've got a letter here from Angus, and he says, "Dear Hugh and Eloise, I used to eat too many convenience foods. Then I cleaned up my act and started cooking, with a consequent improvement in my health. Then civilization collapsed, and I was right back to eating from tins again. How do you make sure you get the right nutrition, especially as you are travellers of no fixed abode?"

ELOISE: What a good question. Well, there's two ways to look at that. One way is that we travel to make sure we get a varied selection of natural produce from up and down the country, and to minimize our impact on the environment.

HUGH: Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it, but it isn't true.

ELOISE: Well, it's sort of true. If we just stayed in one place, we'd probably exhaust local stocks and leave none for the next people.

HUGH: She likes them Ritz crackers. We got four boxes in the back. Not the little boxes, either. The ones they bring on the forklift.

ELOISE: Thank you, Hugh. We do cook every day on a camping stove. A lot of soups and stew and stuff, from vegetables in the fields and peoples' gardens. There was a slight plan to grow our own on the roof, but we had to give up on that before I installed the aerial.

HUGH: I took a corner too tight and we lost every last radish.

ELOISE: Hugh has been trying to grow things inside the van.

HUGH: I'm giving up on that until we can get proper hydroponics.

ELOISE: I suppose our best advice, Angus, is to become a gardener. Try a few different crops to test the soil, and build a wall around your beds to keep the zombies off.

HUGH: Zombies don't eat vegetables.

ELOISE: No, but they do eat gardeners.

HUGH: Uh, thanks for your question, Angus. Stay safe out there.

ELOISE: Hugh, don't look now, but I think we're being followed!

HUGH: What?

ELOISE: I said don't look!

HUGH: Is it zombies? We haven't got much in the tank.

ELOISE: No.

HUGH: Who is it?

ELOISE: It's the paparazzi.

HUGH: Oh. [laughs] Not again, eh?

ELOISE: I think it's the show that's the problem. Now our listenership is in the hundreds of thousands, people are thirsty for the intimate details of our glamorous life.

HUGH: Well, it's true. Every move around these rugged isles is a glittering cavalcade of drama and high fashion.

ELOISE: I'm glad I'm wearing a little Chanel number today with my matching handbag and all.

HUGH: I'm wearing Cinzano.

ELOISE: [laughs] That's a drink, you pillock.

HUGH: No, no. During my brief spell as a visiting scholar in Florence, I had something of a personal tailor who later became globally renowned. Humberto Cinzano made me many original designs.

ELOISE: I never heard of him.

HUGH: Yeah, he died.

ELOISE: Was that before or after you addressed the United Nations?

HUGH: Around the same time. What were you doing then?

ELOISE: Well, I think it's safe reveal to you now that I am a sleeper agent for the KGB.

HUGH: Your English accent's quite good.

ELOISE: [imitates Russian accent] Der Mister Caulfield, at last I have you in my grasp! My submarine is parked in the Scottish [?], or whatever it is called, and I must insist you accompany me to motherland, where I will both interrogate you and make mad passionate love to screw with your head!

HUGH: You think we could uh, [laughs] pull over for a bit? Maybe turn off the mic?

ELOISE: What about the paparazzi?

HUGH: They can take all the pictures they like.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Jack and Eugene need to listen to that.

ZOE CRICK: Yeah, they really do.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: That'll show them.

ZOE CRICK: Exactly. Indulging in a bit of harmless, non-sexual roleplay is totally normal.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Completely! There's nothing odd about spending two hours pretending to be Dastardly and Muttley.

ZOE CRICK: Especially when you're as good at the laugh as I am. [imitates Muttley’s laugh]

PHIL CHEESEMAN: And I bet lots of people pretend to be Q and M for extended periods of time. Days, even.

ZOE CRICK: Yeah. We should definitely make Jack and Eugene listen to it.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: [gasps] Hugh and Eloise are an old married couple, though. Wouldn't that kind of be proving Jack and Eugene's point about us?

ZOE CRICK: Only if we tell them Hugh and Eloise are married.

#zombies run #zrs4 #s4 radio #s4 radio part 3 #zr transcript

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junker-town · 6 years

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‘Oh my God, it’s the Aces’: Remembering the University of Evansville plane crash that shook college basketball

The headline the next day read, “The Night It Rained Tears.”

It was a cold, rainy night on Dec. 13, 1977, a night in Evansville, Indiana, history that everybody remembers. What they were doing. Where they were. The details are seared into their memories.

At 7:20 p.m. CST, Air Indiana Flight 216 took off from Dress Regional Airport on Evansville’s north side. Ninety seconds later, after clipping trees off of Twickingham Drive, the plane crashed, taking the lives of the 29 people who were aboard.

People around Evansville slowly learned of the crash. For some, it was a neighbor knocking on the door. For others, it was a telephone call, or from local television news. There were various reports of who was on the plane — some correct, and some not.

Gene Hollencamp was working at Patrick Aviation at the airport that night with Patrick Alvey. He watched the plane take off, disappear into the clouds after taking a hard left, and then heard an explosion. As a former medic in the Vietnam War, his instincts kicked in. He ran toward the crash site, along with Alvey, who was familiar with the neighborhood the plane landed just outside of.

When they made it to the crash site, Hollencamp tells me, “It looked like it had come down in a graveyard because there were these mounds that looked like gravestones sticking up here and there. As we got closer, I realized it was,” — he pauses to collect himself — “the seats from the plane had blown out.”

Hollencamp looked for survivors, checked vital signs, and carried the few who appeared to have a chance to safety. It was for naught — all 29 souls on board died that night.

Hollencamp didn’t know who was on the plane while at the scene — until he started leaving.

“As we started making our way out, my foot hit something,” he says with a recollection as if he were just discovering it again for the first time. “I look down and I picked it up, it was a U of E bag that they would carry stuff in.”

“I saw that and that’s when I realized — oh, my God, it’s the Aces.”

The University of Evansville Aces were rockstars at their peak. They won five national championships at the Division II level under legendary coach — and appropriately, an Evansville native — Arad McCutchan, who created a rich history within the program.

McCutchan was an original. He wore a red suit on the sideline, and despite the fact that the University’s official colors were purple and white, McCutchan had his team wear orange uniforms. In the winter time in Indiana, the fans’ heavy coats were dark colored, and it was hard for players to pick out their teammates, so he made the call: The team would be orange. They were also famous for their sleeved jerseys.

The Aces won five national championships in 13 years between 1959 and 1971. In February 1965, the year they won their second consecutive and fourth overall title, Sports Illustrated’s Frank Deford came to town to write about the “best small-college basketball team in the nation.”

In 1965, the Aces were led by Jerry Sloan and Larry Humes — two of the most recognizable names in the program’s history. Neither were Evansville natives, but became so good the city adopted them as their own. Sloan is still regarded as a god in Evansville.

“People here just adore — they could tell you everything about him,” current U of E head coach Marty Simmons says, while talking about a picture hanging up in Evansville’s facilities.

“He’s palmin’ two balls,” Simmons says, as he stretches his wingspan, pretending to hold two basketballs like Sloan is in the photo. “His hands are enormous! Ugh,” he sighs, “Lethal weapons.”

And they weren’t just beating teams in their division. Programs like Notre Dame, UCLA, Purdue, and others lost to the Aces throughout the years. Longtime WFIE sports anchor Mike Blake told me, “Press Maravich told Arad McCutchan after winning the fifth and 1971 title, ‘Mac, you could have played with the Final Four this year.’” That’s how good the Aces were.

Tickets were hard to come by. “If you didn’t have tickets to the Aces games, you were hoping for somebody to die,” Blake says, about the competition for season tickets. Despite being a college division school, the attendance for Roberts Stadium was top 10 nationally, even among Division I schools during McCutchan’s peak years at the university.

McCutchan’s tenure came to an end in 1976, and the team was set to hire Sloan, who would go on to coach the Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz, as their new coach. However, Sloan would rescind his acceptance just days later. The team then turned to Oral Roberts coach Bobby Watson to come be the new head coach. He accepted.

“We went from ecstasy, to great disappointment, back to, ‘Boy, this is gonna be fun,’” Blake tells me. Watson would lead the Aces.

To come close to understanding the heartbreak that the city of Evansville and the university suffered on the night of Dec. 13, 1977, you first have to know the town, its people, and the depth of their passion.

Athletic director Mark Spencer explains it to me in his office in early November. He tells me about working the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta doing ticketing. He was two blocks away from the bombing when it happened.

“People [in Atlanta] don’t remember that — they remember the ‘96 games ‘Oh that’s right, we had the bombing and it kinda dragged out,’” he says.

“Here, something like that would be just so woven into the fabric of their lives.”

Spencer elaborates. He says that a player getting in trouble, Colt Ryan breaking the school’s scoring record, and then D.J. Balentine breaking it would be a big deal in Evansville.

“The most recent tragedy is ‘The Bounce,’” he says. Northern Iowa’s Wes Washpun bounced a mid-range jumper off the rim and into the basket to sink the Aces and their chances for an NCAA Tournament bid in 2016.

“It becomes a part of them, they don’t let things go and they don’t let things slide because what might not have been a major event — a mid-level event is a major event here.”

This is a place where you identify yourself by where you went to high school, and either the west or east side of town.

“There’s such an immense school pride, and you never lose that,” Evansville mayor Lloyd Winnecke tells me. “If you went to Reitz High School, man, look out — you’re a Panther for life. If you went to Central, you’re a Bear for life.”

The city was, and remains, basketball crazy.

Though the Aces aren’t the juggernaut they once were, support remains strong. Paul Werner has been a booster for the program for 50 years. When I ask him if he still goes to games regularly, he says, “Oh, three hours early.” He missed his first game in 30 years this season because of back surgery. It’s been eating him up that he’s had to be at home watching the Aces instead of at the arena or traveling with the team.

Stafford Stephenson, who was an assistant on the 1977 University of Evansville basketball team, was once asked to describe Indiana high school basketball to his friends in Virginia. He said that everyone in Virginia thought it was a big deal when Ralph Sampson filled up a gym with 5,000 people for the state championship. In Evansville, that’s a regular season game on any weeknight.

That’s high school basketball. The Aces, at their peak, were another thing altogether.

In 1977, in Watson’s first year coaching the team and the year of the crash, the team was promoted to Division I. The Aces lost their first two games of the 1977 season to Western Kentucky and DePaul, who had Mark Aguirre. Finally on the road on Dec. 6, they got a win against Pittsburgh. Stephenson jokes it might have given them a little too much confidence going into their game against Indiana State.

“Larry Bird and company wore us out,” he laughs.

Courtesy of the University of Evansville

However, Stephenson says Watson and the staff believed that even though Evansville started 1-3, the team had great promise. “We were not disappointed,” he says. “We were optimistic about what the future was going to hold.”

They were soon going to get another chance to improve, by playing Middle Tennessee.

Stephenson recalled Dec. 12, the day before the team was set to takeoff for Nashville. “We had practice, it had not been a real good practice,” Stephenson says. “We were not happy with the way things had gone in that one. Bobby got them together, and basically sent them back to the dorm. [Watson] said, ‘Get out of here, take a deep breath, come back tomorrow, and let’s go.’”

That was the last time Stephenson saw the team.

Kathy Vonderahe vividly remembers the last time she saw her husband Maury King on Dec. 13, 1977.

“That morning I remember clearly him leaving, and me standing at the front door — and walking down the sidewalk and then turning around,” she says. “We had a few more words, and then he left.”

“That’s just like a moment that’s frozen in my mind.”

King co-owned a furniture store on the west side of Evansville. He was a member of Evansville’s West Side Nut Club, which holds the “Fall Festival” — the city’s most popular festival annually in the first week of October.

He was also a sports enthusiast, so he naturally wanted to be involved with the Aces in any way he could, whether it was welcoming visiting teams, helping with meals, or even calling games with the legendary voice of the Aces, Marv Bates.

“Any opportunity he got to be with the team or help or do anything with the team, he was right there,” Vonderahe says. When Watson invited him to travel with the team that day, he couldn’t refuse. The Aces were loved by the community, and they embraced them with open arms. It wasn’t abnormal for somebody like King, a big Aces supporter, to travel with the team.

Air travel was new for the Aces in 1977. Because they moved up to Division I, Watson wanted his team to travel like a Division I program would.

After it happened, many of the first responders were residents of the Melody Hill neighborhood the plane crashed in. Whether or not they knew it at the time, they created even more of a connection with the team that night.

The crash site was hard to get to. The plane settled on the edge of a ravine east of the airport and just shy of the railroad tracks, not far from the trees it had clipped on Twickingham Drive. The visibility that night was poor by all accounts. Aside from it being misty and foggy, the plane landed where there were no lights. What they could see, the first responders haven't been able to forget.

“It was as bad as anything I’ve ever seen,” Hollencamp says. “The state of the bodies was,” he takes a long pause, “was pretty bad.”

But not all were bad — Hollencamp came across Michael Joyner. He put his leather jacket around him, “He wasn’t responding and breathing very shallowly,” he recalls. Joyner would die at the crash site minutes after Hollencamp found him.

Evansville police officer Mike Cook and his partner Stanley Michael Ford were patrolling the north side of town near the airport later that night, and would get the call after Hollencamp and Alvey’s arrival.

“Mike and I were riding around and we got this run,” he tells me. “Both of us kind of looked at each other like, ‘What is this?’ We realized it was an airplane crash.”

They, like other first responders, had trouble getting to the crash site. Cook and Michael waded through waist-deep water until they saw the flames.

“I did not know, and I don’t think Mike did either, that this was the University of Evansville,” Cook says. “You get there, and you checking bodies to see if you can find somebody alive.”

They found senior John Ed Washington, and he was alive. Cook could smell aviation fuel, and knew that they needed to get Washington to safety. “We found a banner that turned out to be a U of E banner. When we saw the U of E banner, we saw a couple of U of E bags, and that’s when I started realizing it was the basketball team.”

Cook and Ford then used the banner as a stretcher to carry Washington from the crash site to safety. Unfortunately, he died just minutes later from internal injuries.

“I don’t think it was more than 5-10 minutes max, when you think about it, it seems like it was forever,” Cook says. “You’re hoping that — for the best. But you know by — I could tell by the way he was breathing, he was having a very hard time breathing, laboring and I was just trying to talk to him a little bit.” Cook stops talking. He tries to collect himself, but starts to weep.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Larry Smith was the first reporter on the scene for WFIE, which was the only station at the time with a live truck. He arrived after Cook and Hollencamp, and was aided by following one of the fire department personnel units toward the wreck.

“I tripped over one body, because they were thrown hundreds of feet away from the airplane,” Smith recalls. “That made my heart stand still. Still does to think about it. I took three or four more steps, and I came across the next body. I very reverently approached it, and gently stepped over it.”

Smith, among others, says that most of the passengers on the flight were still strapped into their seats, but the condition of the victims varied.

Hollencamp decided he and Alvey would be leaving once police and firefighters arrived. “I could tell [Alvey] was really getting stressed out. I mean, he was looking pretty bad.”

I asked Hollencamp what they did once they got back to Patrick Aviation. He told me, “Tried to find alcohol,” which they had. Hollencamp’s friend ran a chain of liquor stores in Evansville, and brought them a bottle of whiskey.

While moments passed at the crash scene, Smith prepared to broadcast to the city of Evansville what had happened.

“It’s quite a responsibility when you face the prospect that you’re going to probably be the first person to tell a community that they’ve lost 25-30 of their finest young people and community leaders.”

Kathy Vonderahe and her two kids had just gotten home when she sat down and turned on the news. She recalls the bulletin coming across the screen that there had been a plane crash — but the Aces were supposed to leave much earlier that day.

She called assistant athletic director Bob Hudson’s wife, and asked if they got away on time. Mrs. Hudson said, “Oh, no honey, they were really delayed and they should have not left but very long ago.”

Vonderahe tells me, “Right then, nobody could convince me that it wasn’t that plane.”

It was confirmed moments later. As Blake read off the names of the individuals on the plane, Vonderahe watched with her 6-year-old son, who recognized the players as their images popped up on the screen. He recited the names before Blake could announce them.

The bodies from the wreckage were taken to the CK Newsome Center in downtown Evansville after being transported from the crash site by train. It was too muddy for cars to get to the crash site.

On the night of the crash, Grant Taylor, brother of Aces junior Bryan Taylor, had been in Huntingberg, 30 miles from his home of Tell City, Indiana, for a high school basketball game. On the way home with his friend, they heard on the radio there had been a crash in Evansville. But he didn’t think it could be the Aces and his brother because it was a short flight, and they didn’t play until the next day.

After the school contacted the Taylor family, Bryan and his parents went to Evansville. “We went to the temporary morgue that they had set up and had to identify my — Bryan’s body,” Taylor says, shaken.

“Bryan loved basketball,” he says softly. “That’s what he was going to do on the night he was killed.”

The family of Mike Joyner, a “sharpshooter” on the team from Terre Haute, rushed to the CK Newsome Center to identify their loved one. It’s typically a two-and-a-half hour drive, but the Joyners made it in an hour and 15 minutes. His brother, Robert, said in Trophies and Tears, “I saw the shoes sticking out from under the blankets.”

“They were Michael’s favorite shoes. He wore them so much they had a hole in the bottom. When I saw the shoes, I knew it was him and that he was gone.”

There was one Aces player who did not make the flight — David Furr. He was working as a statistician, after having suffered an ankle sprain so severe that doctors said it was better off broken.

Two weeks later, the 18-year-old Furr died in a car accident with his younger brother. “It was like a tremor after an earthquake,” Blake says. “The earthquake was unbelievable, but the tremor that — oh, my God, when is this going to end?”

Dan Heierman, a 1981 graduate of the University of Evansville said in From the Ashes, “I guess about the only explanation we seemed like at that time we came up with was — God wanted a truly first-class Division I team in heaven and,” he briefly pauses. “He needed the whole team.”

Assistant coach Stafford Stephenson was not on the flight. He didn’t even learn about the crash until the day after. He spent the day in Florida recruiting and scouting, which turned into a late night for him. He went to McDonald’s and got a hamburger because he hadn’t eaten all day. When he got back to the hotel, The Johnny Carson Show was on when he turned on his television, and then he went to bed.

“I woke up the next morning, and went down and bought a newspaper out of a vending machine and saw a headline that read, ‘Basketball Team Dies in Plane Crash’ and I thought, ‘Wow, that is awful.’” he says.

“And started looking at it, and names just — sort of jumped off the page. Bobby Watson, Bob Hudson, who was our assistant athletic director — and I realized that, that, what I was reading was our team.”

Stephenson would head back to Evansville, where the city and university were taking the first uneasy steps toward healing. The student body president, Chris Weaver, called the university chaplain to say that Neu Chapel should be ready for a gathering. “Students starting showing up, in Neu Chapel, without any notice being given,” he said in From the Ashes. They sat in the seats of the chapel, quietly, holding hands with one another.

On Feb. 11, 1978, just under two months after the crash, the Pittsburgh Steelers came to Evansville to play in a charity basketball game to raise money for the crash victims and their families.

“They all said, ‘When do they want us to come?’ Not, ‘I’m available next Saturday’ or ‘I’m available June the 15th,’” Stephenson tells me. “It was, ‘When do they want us to come?’ and they came.” The university offered to pay their travel expenses, and the Steelers declined.

Stephenson took Keith Vonderahe, Maury King’s 6-year-old son, back in the locker room to meet the Steelers. Back there, they met players like Lynn Swann, Joe Greene, Jack Ham, Franco Harris, and others.

“It was the first time since the plane crash that there was — you felt joy in the arena, and in the community,” Stephenson says.

“This was a unique group of people I think,” he says. “It would have been really interesting to know had it not happened, what those guys would be doing today 40 years later. I am convinced that they would be successful in whatever [they do].

“It was important for me to — let people know what type of kids they were. I don’t want to let that fade away.”

Harry Lyles Jr., SB Nation

The National Transportation Safety Board report on the cause of the plane crash was released Aug. 17, 1978. It determined that the takeoff was attempted with the rudder and right aileron control lockers still installed, causing a nose-high altitude immediately after takeoff. It was something that the pilot was unable to recover from.

Another contributing factor was the failure of the flightcrew to ensure the baggage was loaded in accordance with the configuration on the load manifest, causing a rearward center of gravity.

“I think that was just another kick in the gut,” Mayor Lloyd Winnecke says. “As a city, it was a huge body blow.”

Vonderahe, Stephenson, along with countless others, compared that tragic night of the crash to the President John Kennedy assassination — because everybody remembered where they were and who they were with when they found out.

“It’s one of the few times — like most of us when we lose someone — your immediate circle is affected,” Vonderahe says. “But the rest of the world just keeps going on, and sometimes you want to yell, ‘Come on, stop! Something’s happened!’

“But with this, I mean, everywhere you went — if you went to the grocery, no matter where you went — it was like everybody was in it with you.”

The “Weeping Basketball” sits on the University of Evansville campus near the University Center, and next to Neu Chapel where the memorial service for the team was held on Dec. 14. I walked to go see it from the Carson Center, where the Aces practice basketball, and their volleyball teams compete.

There are old seats from Roberts Stadium outside of the Carson Center. As I get ready to cross the street, a man on a John Deere tractor passes by going east on Lincoln Avenue. All over campus, there are notes on the sidewalk in chalk. “Come to University Worship Sun @ 11,” one read. Another promoted, “Serious-fun-a-thon Carson Center Small Gym.”

I make my way to the courtyard, and it’s a beautiful memorial. There are 29 stakes that come from the fountain to represent the 29 individuals who were on board Air Indiana Flight 216, water spraying gently, as it hits the ground with a soothing calm.

In front of it, lie two concrete blocks — the left one reads, “In memory of those gallant and devoted men who gave everything they had, even life itself, to the sport and to the university they loved.” It also includes the names of those lost on the flight.

The right one reads, “Out of the agony of this hour, we will rise.” Below that, “SEVEN TWENTY-TWO P.M. DECEMBER THIRTEEN MCMLXXVII,” the date and time of the accident.

Students on campus sit on the concrete benches, some reading, texting, and some just enjoying the nice afternoon. It was 55 degrees out, but the clear skies and beaming sun made it feel like 70.

The memorial and its setting are subtle — nothing too big, but also nothing that you wouldn’t just notice. For this tragedy and this town, it’s perfect.

Evansville is 40 years removed from this tragedy, but remembers and grieves it — along with the flood of 1937, and tornado of 2005 — like they all happened yesterday. This is a town that does not hide from its tragedies. “I can show you the high water marks where they say 1937,” says Grant Taylor.

I was in attendance for the Aces’ game November 10 against Arkansas State at the Ford Center, where the Aces have played since Roberts Stadium closed in 2011. Many people echo Stephenson when it comes to the Ford Center: “It’s nice, but it’s not Roberts Stadium.”

Aces games aren’t the gigantic social event they used to be, and they don’t fill up the Ford Center. But as long as you’re there to root for the Aces, there’s still a sense of unity between yourself, and everyone else in the arena.

As people pour in sporting mostly purple, with splashes of white and orange, they walk past the memorial in the arena. To the left, it features pictures from their four games that season. Next to that are pictures of the 24 individuals involved with the program and university that were on the flight. On the far right, there are images from the tragedy, including the Courier & Press’ front page paper the next morning.

Harry Lyles Jr., SB Nation

In the middle, a statement from then-university president Wallace Graves, reads: “Out of the agony of this hour, we shall rise. Out of the ashes of a desiccated dream, we shall build a new basketball team, stronger, more valiant than ever before. That was the mission of our fallen brothers. Their dream will be fulfilled. Their supreme sacrifice will be vindicated. Out of the brokenness and despair which now grips this institution will burst a new University of Evansville more sensitive to human needs, more resolute in purpose than ever before. That is our tradition. That is our destiny.”

Some people would glance at the memorial as they walked by it. Others would stop and read, and some would take pictures of it. It caught the eyes of just about everybody in the arena.

It, much like the “Weeping Basketball,” are reminders of the tragedy. But they also represent the strength, love, and unity that makes Evansville unique.

“Without this community, and the history that was built to that point, there’s no way [the crash] should have killed the program for a generation,” Spencer tells me.

Though years went on since the crash, there was still one last loose thread to be tied. The team still hadn’t played Middle Tennessee, the opponent they were heading to meet that fateful night, in its history. Middle Tennessee’s manager that season was waiting for an airplane that would never show.

“It took 33 years to play the game,” Werner tells me. “And kind of a sad thing, but it was a game that really had to be played to take care of any of the skeletons laying back in the closet from the crash.”

That changed in 2010, when the Aces finally traveled to Murfreesboro to play the Blue Raiders. The University of Evansville got an email ahead of the game that there was going to be a guest to greet the team as they arrived in Murfreesboro.

The manager who was supposed to meet the Aces in 1977 met the team and Werner as they came off of the buses. Werner recalled the chilling words from the manager.

“Glad to see you after all these years,” he said.

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