Rollback

"You’re exactly right," Ben said. "It doesn’t change. Meaning a guy who looks twenty-something isn’t going to be able to command respect from men and women in their fifties. Plus, I need managers who know when an engineer is bullshitting them about what the equipment can and can’t do."

"Isn’t there anything ?" Don asked.

"Have you tried downstairs?"

Don drew his eyebrows together. "In the lobby?" The lobby — the Barbara Frum Atrium, as it was technically known, and Don was old enough to have actually worked with Barb — contained nothing much except a couple of restaurants, the three security desks, and lots of open space.

Ben nodded.

"The lobby!" Don exploded. "I don’t want to be a fucking security guard."

Ben raised his hands, palm out. "No, no. That’s not what I meant. I meant — don’t take this the wrong way, but what I meant was the museum."

Don felt his jaw go slack; Ben might as well have punched him in the gut. He’d all but forgotten about it, but, yes, in the lobby there was a small museum devoted to the history of the CBC.

"I’m not a bloody exhibit," Don said.

"No, no — no! That’s not what I meant, either. I just meant that, you know, maybe you could join the curatorial staff. I mean, you know so much of that stuff firsthand. Not just Pellatt, but Peter Gzowski, Sook-Yin Lee, Bob McDonald, all those guys. You knew them and worked with them. And it says here you worked on As It Happens and Faster Than Light."

Ben was trying to be kind. Don knew, but it really was too much. "I don’t want to live in the past," he said. "I want to be part of the present."

Ben looked at the wall clock, one of those broadcasting units with red LED digits in the middle encircled by sixty points of light that illuminated in sequence to mark passing seconds. "Look," he said, "I’ve got to get back to work. Thanks for dropping by." And he got up and extended his hand. Whether Ben’s shake was normally limp and weak, or whether he was being delicate because he knew he was shaking an eighty-seven-year-old’s hand, Don couldn’t say.

Chapter 18

Don returned to the lobby. It said something nice about Canada that anyone could walk around the vast Barbara Frum Atrium, looking up at the six floors of indoor balconies, and watch while all sorts of CBC personalities — the Corporation frowned on the use of the word "stars" — came and went, unaccompanied by security guards or handlers. The little restaurant Ooh La La!, which had been there forever, had tables spilling out into the atrium, and there was one of Newsworld’s anchors enjoying a Greek salad; at the next table, the lead performer in a children’s show Don had watched with his granddaughter was sipping coffee; crossing over to the elevators was the woman who currently hosted Ideas. All very open, all very welcoming — of everyone, except him.

The broadcasting museum was tiny, and tucked off to one side, clearly an afterthought in designing the building. Some of the stuff predated Don. The kiddie program Uncle Chichimus was before his time, and This Hour Has Seven Days and Front Page Challenge were shows his parents had watched. He was old enough to remember Wayne and Shuster, but not old enough to have ever thought they were funny. But he’d learned his first French from Chez Helene, and had spent many happy hours with Mr. Dressup and The Friendly Giant. Don took a minute to look at the model of Friendly’s castle, and the puppets of Rusty the Rooster and Jerome the Giraffe. He read the placard that explained that Jerome’s bizarre color scheme of purple and orange had been selected in the days of black-and-white TV because it had good contrast, and had been left intact when the program switched to color in 1966, giving him a psychedelic look, an unintentional reflection of the times.

Don had forgotten that Mister Rogers had gotten his start here, but there it was, the original miniature trolley from that show, back when it had been called Mister Rogers’ Neighbourhood, the last word notably sporting a U.

No one else was in the museum just now. The emptiness of the handful of rooms was a testament to the fact that people didn’t care about the past.

Monitors were showing clips from old CBC shows, some of which he remembered, much of which was cringe-worthy. In the vaults here there must be tapes of dreadful stuff like King of Kensington and Rocket Robin Hood. Perhaps some things should be allowed to pass out of living memory; perhaps some things should be ephemeral.

There was some old radio and television hardware on display, including machines he himself had used early in his career. He shook his head. He shouldn’t be curator of a museum like this. He should be on display, a relic of a bygone age.