Other People’s Secrets

I LOVE GOSSIP.

Every chance I get, I watch Maury Povich, Jerry Springer, Steve Wilkos, and that new girl Zara Zimmerman. All sleaze, all the time. The revelation of other people’s secrets sends a thrill through me like an electrical jolt. Cheating lovers, absent fathers, all sorts of liars – they get what’s coming to them in the end. I love it.

Lately, though, my steady diet has been wearing thin. If you eat nothing but grilled cheese and ham sandwiches for weeks on end like I do, your body craves a lot more nourishment. I’m hungry for something real, unscripted and unstaged. Something that will make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I want to see fear on people’s faces, not just frowns. I want to see them sweat. The more they quiver and quake, the better. Make them beg for mercy, then deny every bit of it.

Where is THAT show amid the glut of programs I watch?

In the meantime, Zara’s on.

“You need to man up and take responsibility,” she says to a scrawny loser whose scowl deepens the lines on his face until they’re like the Grand Canyon. “Your baby needs a daddy, not just a sperm donor.” The audience applauds.

Come on. You can do better than that.

“We’ll have one of our counselors talk to you backstage.” The deadbeat dad grunts and nods. It seems like he’s agreeing, but once the cameras are off, he’s going to chase more girls and get them pregnant. I bet you dollars to donuts.

“That’s all for today,” announces Zara. “Tune in tomorrow for explosive lie-detector test results. Remember, the truth and Z will set you free!” Her picture shrinks to three-quarters of the screen so that tiny credits can roll at the bottom.

I heave a sigh. Time for my afternoon nap.

I crawl in bed and pull the covers up to my chin, even my comforter, but somehow this doesn’t make me comfortable. I’m not only tired, but wired. Doing something will require too much effort. The thing to do is wait the feeling out.

*Get up.*

No. I don’t want to.

*Get up. There’s something else on TV.*

Oh yeah? How would it be any more entertaining than what I just saw? How would it be better than a two-hour snooze?

*Get up and find out.*

Okay, okay. You don’t need to tell me twice – er, three times.

In thirty seconds I’m back in front of the tube. I turn it on to find signal loss.

“Great.” I debate going back to bed versus being productive, like washing the dishes, but the pull of my couch is too strong. So is taking my frustrations out on the remote. I mash buttons until I get ready to throw it across the room.

But I don’t.

The screen has me gob-smacked:

OTHER PEOPLE’S SECRETS.

Below that, an old-timey electric chair.

You know, made out of oak and with the little metal cap, like in Stephen King’s “The Green Mile?” It looks exactly like that, and it’s spinning round and round.

I bust out laughing.

“Welcome to Other People’s Secrets,” says a chirpy woman’s voice, “where it’s a crime NOT to confess!” The screen then shows both the woman and the chair.

“As always, I’m your host, Dina Devlin, and this, as always, is the Big Juicy.”

My neck prickles.

“Speaking of which, let’s get to our first guest, shall we?”

The stagehands are dragging what appears to be a man, by his bulk, over to the chair. He’s handcuffed with a black hood over his head. He makes a few muffled sounds through it, then falls limp in the grip of the even-more-burly crew. Taking advantage of his dead weight, they uncuff him and strap him into the device.
I can’t move. I can’t think. I can’t even breathe.

One of the crew members leans in and removes the hood. I gasp.

Ted Coughlin, our town’s mayor, leans forward and tries to bite the stagehand.

“You’d best not do that,” says the chirpy woman –

*Dina. Dina Devlin.*

“ – or else you won’t get out of that chair. Not alive, at least.”

“Let me go!” Coughlin struggles against the leather restraints. They hold.

“This,” explains Dina, “is a golden opportunity to get some weight off your chest.”

“Huh?”

“Someone has been bothering you for a long time. We’re giving you a chance to bother them. To hold them accountable. To reveal them at long last.”

“Really? This isn’t a joke or a trick?”

“You can refuse – you always have a choice – but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

Is that a generator I hear, humming like that?

“Welcome. . .to Other People’s Secrets.”

A hidden audience whoops and hollers, whistling and catcalling to beat the band.

“The rules are simple. In order to get out of the Big Juicy – and win some money – you have to spill the beans. Not about yourself. This isn’t True Confessions. I want you to go into lurid detail about the person who’s under your skin. The bigger the secrets, the more cash you get. If you start to bore us, however. . .” She trails off. “Another thing. You can’t expose anyone who’s already exposed you. That, my dear sir, would be boring. What do you say? On the air or take the chair?”

Coughlin’s hair leans forward in a sweaty gray heap above his brow. “On the air.”

Dina grins a grin of perfectly white teeth – and too many. “Splendid! Let’s roll.”

Is it my imagination, or has the generator been turned up instead of down or off?

“Jane Parker is an embezzler,” the mayor says. “She’s also my secretary.”

“Ooohhh,” croons the crowd.

“She’s my mistress, too. What a cliché, I know, but when I see her hot body – ”

“Careful, now,” says Dina. “Focus on Jane. What’s the dirt on her, Mr. Coughlin?”

“A shit-ton, if you’ll pardon my French. I’ve been letting her dip into the city till for years, because she lets me dip into her – Anyway. Will I lose my job for this?”

“You might lose a lot more than that. Details, details!”

He provides them, one by one. Hotel visits. A nasty divorce. Under-the-table shenanigans involving the town expense accounts. Her fondness for hardcore porn. When he’s done, his hair looks painted on, plastered all over the place.

“Congratulations, Mr. Mayor. You’ve just won yourself a thousand dollars.”

“Only a grand? That’s chump change to me.”

“Then come back for another go. You can expose as many people as you like within this week’s timeframe. If, however, you fail to appear or refuse – ”

“No. I won’t do that. I’ll be here. Same time, same place, same chair.”

“Good.” Dina beams at the screen. “That’s all of Other People’s Secrets – for now.”

As the credits roll, I discover my armpits are as stinky and sweaty as Ted’s must have been. Finally. The show I’ve been looking for. I can’t wait until tomorrow.

Over the next week, Mayor Coughlin reveals the ugly truth behind four more people: his wife, his best friend, his boss, and his sister. Two addictions, one bankruptcy, and an incident involving a dead pedestrian in the dead of night.

That one is for his sister, landing Ted five hundred grand. It might land her in jail.

I can’t stop watching and rewatching these episodes. I DVR them to relive the juiciest bits, pardon the pun. I’m filled with the need to get on the show. How, though? There’s no phone number or any sort of contact info. Then again, maybe I need my bifocals to read the end credits. Go figure.

The week after that, a new guest appears in the chair: Ted’s sister, a woman by the name of Marlene Jackson. Unlike the mayor, her demeanor as she sits down in Big Juicy and submits to the restraints is one of a queen taking her throne.

Once Dina explains the rules, Marlene clears her throat.

“My brother, Ted Coughlin, is a pathological liar. I’m not here to expose him, though. My beef is with the schoolteacher I’ve hated for years. I married him.”

“OOOHHH!” The crowd’s approval swells.

“I will now proceed to tell you every dirty little deed he’s done to me.”

“That could take a while,” quips the host. Light laughter.

“I have a week, right?”

“Right. The more people you expose, though, the better.”

Marlene sits straighter in the Big Juicy – generator on and up – and describes student affairs that go beyond, well, student affairs. Not only that, but he keeps photos in his car that will get him at least twenty years in prison if caught.

In one fell swoop, she earns 200K.

On the verge of tears, I tell the screen, “My bills need paying. Help me, Dina.”

I watch “Marlene Week” with a mixture of worry and the kind of excitement you get from waiting on a roller coaster at an amusement park. You know that eventually it will be your turn to climb on, and then – bingo! Blissful terror.

I want the bliss, though, and not the terror.

On Friday Marlene points the finger at someone I know: Big Tom, a regular at the bar I tend. He gets far too friendly with me and the other waitresses, but that’s no secret. Nor is his alcoholism. What surprises me is an encounter Tom had with my boss. Neither of them was drunk at the time. Marlene gets 2K for that revelation.

My stomach suddenly sinks, like on a roller coaster when you’re going down a hill.

“Don’t let the next contestant be me. Please, not me.”

Why am I so scared? I WANT to be on the show, to blab Other People’s Secrets.

Will Big Tom blab mine to continue the chain?

I watch with bated breath as he puts friends, relatives, even his own son in the hot seat so that he may escape it. The tension is terrible. Dina knows this, too, and shaves Big Tom’s head for dramatic effect when he starts to falter. You know, so the cap on Big Juicy can conduct electricity without setting his hair on fire.

Thursday rolls around. So does my unofficial entrance onto the scene.

“The bartender at my favorite joint,” Big Tom says. “She’s a bitch, ‘cause she won’t give me any.” Chuckles from the audience. “That ain’t a secret, though. What is? The woman’s afraid of the dark and clutches a teddy bear at nighttime.” Laughter.

How the hell did he know that? Did I tell him after one too many beers?

“She’s also a closet lesbo, a porch pirate, and a welfare queen. Lousy bitch.”

Hot shame and anger flood my face. The fear I wanted to avoid floods my heart. He’s wrong about the first part, but the other two? Spot on. When you’re poor, though, you do what you’ve got to do.

“You want to know the worst thing about her, though? She loves this kind of stuff. Throwing people under the bus. Looking down on them because they’ve screwed up. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the next guest. In fact – ” He licks his lips and wriggles against the leather straps, which proves pointless. “I want her to be.”

No. No. Not you, Big Tom. You were my friend. I trusted you.

“She’s the biggest fucking hypocrite I ever knew. Bring her on.”

“How about next week?”

“Great.”

My bowels turn to water. I almost soil myself.

Do I even know that many people that closely, that I know all their secrets?

Let’s see: Mom. Dad. My brother and sister. My BFF since grade school. That makes five, and that will fill my quota. All I have to do is grab the arms of Big Juicy and hold on tight.

Still, as the weekend drags on, the more paranoid I get. I keep looking over my shoulder for stagehands in black aiming to ambush me, black silk hood ready.

They don’t come.

I start to think they’ve forgotten about me, but on Monday, the shit hits the fan.

“Other People’s Secrets” has disappeared. I can’t find it anywhere. Not on live TV, not on DVR, not after lots of remote button-pushing. It’s gone. Poof.

After ugly-crying for half an hour, I give up and decide to take my afternoon nap.

I wake up in the chair. My head – and my long, beautiful hair – has been shaved. A wet sponge and the metal cap on top of it, cover my newfound baldness.

“Hey!” I thrash against the straps and clamps. “This can’t be real. Help me!”

“Oh, but it is,” says a chirpy voice, “and you must help yourself.”

The stage. The lights. The cheering crowd, itching for Dina’s patter.

She explains the show and the rules, all too familiar to me, and waits.

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I won’t do it. I refuse.”

Dina leans forward, right in my face. “You think you’re noble? You’re just chicken. Isn’t this the chance you’ve craved since before you started looking for it?”

“But – ”

“I hate that word. ‘But’ is for cowards and indecisive people.”

She calls out to the crew. “Roll on one.”

The generator surges. A drop of sweat oozes down my armpit and my left side.

“Now. You know what those near and dear to you are trying to hide. Do tell.”

The audience chants these last two words: “Do tell. Do tell! DO TELL!”

I start telling. Tears roll down my cheeks as I reveal the secrets, both sweet and nasty, that my mother and father thought they’d concealed well enough from me. Mom’s opioid crisis, begun when her arthritis got too bad. Dad’s propensity to lose his temper and throw things – and worse – when he gets really mad. Their fifty-year marriage on the rocks. When I’m done, my chin shakes from blubbering.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Dina asks soothingly. I shake my capped head. “You’ve even earned some money. One thousand dollars. Next month’s rent.”

I howl with rage. I’ve told so much and earned so little? How can that be?

“Time for the really juicy stuff, however. Tell us something we don’t know. Something we’ve never heard before. Like you, our steady diet of Other People’s Secrets is wearing thin. It’s time to dig deep and bring out buried treasure.”

After I make my chin stop quivering, I cry, “I’ve told you all I know.”

“About your parents. What about the rest of your family? Or your best friend?”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“CAN’T!” I sniff up snot. “I don’t even know what it is you want. What can I tell you that you haven’t already heard?”

“Use your imagination.” Dina grins that toothy grin. “Better yet, listen to your gut.”

“I hate my parents. I wish they were dead.”

“Aha!”

“They never left me in peace. My siblings either. My best friend thinks I’m a dolt.”

“Get your revenge.”

“No. No more. This has gone far enough.”

Dina’s smile turns into a sneer. “Here I thought you couldn’t get enough.”

“That was before – ”

“Before it was you in Big Juicy instead of another hapless guest?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I won’t betray any more people.”

“Let me tell you something.” I watch in slack-jawed horror as Dina Devlin’s lovely face morphs into the red and seething likeness of who she really is.

“People call me the Mistress of Lies, but they don’t realize I’m the one who pries the truth from ‘good people’ like yourself. You’re despicable.”

“So are you.”

The last thing I hear before electricity surges through me and fries my insides:

“Welcome to Hell. Roll on two.”

Credit: Tenet