Sports Talk Radio 1

“Jeremy Green and the Crack-Smoking Pedos”

The hum of the kitchen rises like a button was pressed. Jim pans his gaze and bulges his eyes as a wall in the kitchen forms into a flat-screen television, a floor to wall screen.

An image of Jim broadcasts, an image of Jim in his younger days, of Jim reading a newspaper, the sports page, by his indoor pool. Watching the wall, Jim’s jaw drops, and he stares at the picture, hypnotized...

Jim used to read the sports pages, religiously, back when he was playing, even against the advice of coaches about “not reading your press clippings.” But he wouldn’t read everything; he wouldn’t read anything in praise. He’d only read the bad stuff, the criticism. It motivated him, hearing what some sports talk jackoff would say.

Oh, how he hates the sports talk radio jackoffs...

Jim remembers Jeremy Green, who’d hosted a popular radio show, and had bashed one of Jim’s teammates, relentlessly. Jim remembers the morning he read the news that Jeremy Green had been arrested, caught smoking crack while looking at child porn in a hotel room, and was even tracked in an online sting, trying to arrange sex with a toddler.

That’s what these guys are, Jim thinks. Jim believes that, deep down, all the sports talk radio jerkoffs are fucking crack-smoking pedos ... Jim wonders how many of these other animals were up to even worse...

Jim Rome most of all. That is the guy he hates most. He fucking just loathes that weasel. He wishes he could tear off Jim Rome’s limbs and leave him a limbless stump of a man, then kick the bloody limbless torso off into the horizon, like he was punting a football.

He would cut out or print out the crap Jim Rome or Stephen A. Smith and other sports talk dumbasses would write or say, post the clippings in his locker, read them before practices, workouts, gamedays.

These days, though, he doesn’t read much of that garbage. Why would he? It only reminds him of that Super Bowl he lost. It only digs up memories and skeletons and flings bones at his face. Reminds him of...

But this morning, there was no suppressing the memories being broadcast and flickering in front of his face. Fragments of time, in black and white, animated memories, like zombies from old horror films, were rising from their psychic tombs.

Jim sits in a trance, his eyes glued to the wall. The screen on the wall shows black and white images from the past, from sports talk radio shows, and Jim shakes with anger. His teeth clench.

He sees the stupid fucking faces of those blowhards, the fat, balding middle-aged men rambling and arguing about pro athletes, kids half their age.

Jim boils in rage. His anger a thermal shock, overcoming him, cascading in pyroclastic currents.

He sees the sports page columnists for what they are. Losers. Fucking losers. Failed players. Guys who could never do what he did and yet had the nerve to criticize and ridicule him. Jim seethes, his jaw quivers. He fucking hates those sport talk blowhards. He fucking hates them.

“The crack-smoking pedophiles! Damn them! Damn them all!!” Jim imprecates. His blood boiling, he shakes with primal rage.

He always hated the pedos. He was always weary of them. But he appreciated and understood that they helped sell merchandise, tickets, and drive TV ratings. He always knew that it’s a business; it’s economics. He knew these are cogs in the machine. They are playing their role.

But he’d never hated them more than now. Now, what role do they play for him? What role are they serving? They aren’t making him money anymore. They aren’t motivating him. They are only tormenting him. They are only swiping his Ouija board, reanimating his mental ghosts.

The more he sees of them, the more he seethes. On the wall, he watches sports talk radio shitheads, slimy weasels like Jim Rome, Clay Travis, and Stephen A. Smith. Stephen Asshole Smith is wiggling his eyebrows up and down, and pointing, snorting and laughing at Jim.

Jim pictures gouging out Stephen A. Smith’s eyeballs. With his fingernails. Fucking jabbing and digging his fingernails into Stephen A’s face. Then scooping Stephen A’s squishy eyeballs out of Stephen A’s stupid fucking skull, and dropping trou and pissing on Stephen A’s stupid fucking puffy face and pissing a hot yellow stream into Stephen A’s stupid fucking empty eye sockets...

Jim hears the sports talk radio shit-burglars, their voices raised. The frequencies perturbing every essence of his soul. Those idiots! Those fools! Arguing about a sport most of them never played professionally. Those losers yapping about 20-year-old kids, kids who get more done, make more money, and are better people than any of those writers or loudmouths!

Jim sees one of his favorite quotes, in flashing red letters, on the wall: “The answer to all your questions is money.”