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Grif initially took this non fiction course because he thought it’d be an easy way to get some English credits out of the way. That and it was an audio based class so he assumed he wouldn’t have to do a lot of reading. Like he said, easy credits. He was unfortunately very wrong about this. Not only did he still have a bunch of readings about the history of radio he had to slog through, but he was expected to create his own audio project. That saved him from having to write a paper, but he did have to learn how to mix audio, which was a lot harder.
After understanding how much effort he had to put in, he planned to scoop up any extra credit and brownie points he could to create a sort of safety net. So when his teacher offered extra credit to join the campus radio team he jumped at the chance. He then dragged Simmons along to make it even easier.
Their slot was shit, and Grif still had a hard time remembering how to work the equipment, but things still felt like they were going great. That was until Grif received an email from his professor saying that she wanted to schedule some office hours with him to discuss his show.
He knew that all shows were recorded for documentation, but firstly, he didn’t think she’d actually listen to any of them. After all, she hadn’t brought up anything from it before. Second, if she really had an issue with how he ran it, why was she only bringing it up now?
Grif decided not to think about it too hard. He hadn’t done anything wrong, and worrying was a waste of energy. Besides, this was probably just to check his progress or something.
Grif knocked on her office door, and she called him in.
“Dexter,” Professor Tam smiled, “take a seat.”
He always felt weird hearing his first name. The only ones on campus that used his it were teachers. Whenever he heard it it almost felt like they were talking to someone else.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Good. No complaints.”
“That’s good to hear. Now, do you know what we’re here to discuss?”
“To see how my radio show is going probably.”
Her smile faltered slightly, “Not exactly.”
Oh, that wasn’t a good sign. This wasn’t going to be a serious conversation was it? He really didn’t want to deal with something like that.
“So as you know all campus radio broadcasts are recorded and archived, but what you may not know is that all of these broadcasts are transcribed by my interns.”
“Okay?”
“Well one of my interns brought to my attention your latest broadcast.” She looked at him expectantly.
“Okay?” He really didn’t know what she was getting at. His last broadcast was the same as all the others.
“Well,” she said, pushing on, “I gave it a listen and you seemed under a lot of, um, pressure let’s say. If there is something going on, you can always talk to me. I don’t want any of my students to feel overwhelmed. Especially not like that.”
“Sure thing, teach, but I’m all good. Not really much to discuss there.”
She looked shocked by this. “Dexter, I’m sorry if I'm prying too much into your life, but there are things that were said on that broadcast that I cannot ignore.”
“Okay, like what?” All Grif could think of was that he got into a screaming match with Simmons, but that happened almost every time, and it was never anything that serious.
“I have the recording on my laptop. Would you like me to pull it up?”
“By all means.”
After a few moments of typing she pulled up the recording and scrubbed to the spot in question.
Grif’s voice filled the tiny office, “Now you listen here you sick son of bitch. You can insult shitty ass pizza chains all you fucking want but the second you start comming for peperoni as a concept is when you cross the fucking line!” His voice was pitching in that way it did when he got heated. Like he knew it did that, but he hated listening to it.
“Girf, shut the fuck up,” said Simmons, “I never said that you couldn’t have pepperoni on pizza. All I said was-”
“Oh, I know what you fucking said, and I know that it’s down right treasonous!”
Grif remembered this conversation. This was right before Simmons really lost his patience. His whole face was about to get red from screaming and that vein at his temple would be working double time.
“What the fuck are you talking about! All I said was that I don’t like how greasy it gets when you order double pepperoni on it.”
“Exactly!”
“What!” Simmons shouted back, exacerbated.
“We put pepperoni on pizza because proud Italian immigrants came to this country and had so much meat at their disposal they were like what can we do with this shit, and started putting it everywhere. To deny the double pepperoni is to deny the American dream.”
“Hey lard for brains!” There’s the anger, Grif thought, somewhat amused. “Me not liking something personally has jack shit to do with the American dream, and if you weren’t too busy trying to replace your blood stream with marinara you’d see that, but I guess we’d also have to ignore the fact that there are toddlers who have better base communication skills than you!”
“And there are toddlers that have better social skills than you!”
“Oh yeah, well at least my greatest goal in life isn’t to be Guy Fieri.”
“Say what you will Simmons, but I’d rather kill myself than deny what it means to be human. What it means to live!”
“Fine, kill yourself, or better yet I’ll do it for you because knowing you you’ll say you’ll do it, but you’d put it off and put it off until it’s clear that you’re never getting off you fat ass and do the damn thing.”
“Oh please, without me to entertain your nerd shit, you’d become a reddit incel.”
“I’ll take my fucking chances!”
As Simmons' voice rang out Professor Tam hit pause.
“Now do you see what I’m talking about? It’s probably a lot more jarring hearing it back,” she said.
She was looking at Grif with worry and sympathy, and it was pissing him off. He always fought with Simmons. Hell, he argued with all of his friends. This was just how they talked. Sure things got a little more heated than normal, but that was none of her business.
“No, not really. We were just having a conversation,” Grif said dismissively.
Her eyes went wide with concern. “Dexter,” she said way too seriously, “it’s not normal for a friend to yell that they’d happily kill you, and it’s even more alarming that it was done in a public forum.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t mean anything by it. He never does.”
“Wait, is this a common occurrence? Dexter I highly suggest reaching out for help, or maybe finding a new friend.”
Now that crossed a line. Simmons might be an overactive asshole, but he was his asshole goddamn it, and she needed to butt the fuck out.
“Listen,” he said. He was trying to keep his voice even. After all, he couldn’t tell off the person who decided if he passed or not. “I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but I’m good. Mean it.”
“Dexter, you can’t just-”
“I said I’m fine.” He didn’t mean to cut her off, and he sure as hell didn’t mean to sound so forceful, but this bitch needed to mind her own business. That show was one of the few times he got to be a lone with Simmons now adays and he didn’t need her fucking it up.
She pressed her lips together and took a deep breath before responding, “That may be, but that kind of language is not acceptable on a school broadcast. If this continues, corrective action will need to be taken,” she said firmly.
Oh shit.
Grif didn’t like the sound of that. What if she took away his show? He barely saw Simmons as is. He couldn’t afford to lose this.
“Understood. We’ll watch ourselves,” he said, worry now taking its place in his voice.
“Good.”
“Is there anything else?” he asked, scared the answer would be yes.
“No, you’re free to go.”
Grif breathed a sigh of relief and headed for the door.
“Oh, and Dexter.”
Her voice froze him in his tracks. Now what? She just said they were done.
“My door is always open,” she said softly.
The sentiment left a bad taste in his mouth, but regardless he told her thanks, then booked it. He needed this to be over.
Once he was back outside he took out his phone and texted Simmons.
[GRIF] Hey man we need to talk about our radio show
[GRIF] ASAP!
If he got ahead of things he wouldn’t have to worry about losing it. He just needed to get Simmons on the same page.