"Find Larry" by Dianne Warren

According to the radio weather report, extreme cold. (Again.)

The effect of extreme cold on an organism such as the human body: the desperate preservation of core temperature, possible slow death from the sacrificial extremities inward. 

Why risk it?    

Now (and this is worse than the weather report) the morning show host is announcing a contest to warm everyone up. Elvis impersonation. Win an Elvis doll, a collector’s item. Call in and sing your heart out for 20 seconds. Jail House Rock. Don’t be Cruel. All you chilly listeners out there... shake your hips on the telephone and get your name in the draw jar. Go cats go.

Anguish. Listening to people make fools of themselves. And Elvis impersonation: the radio-fool’s most tempting invitation yet. At 7 o’clock in the morning, no booze involved, at least not for most, although there might be a few all-nighters still tipping the bottle.  

Change the station. But that would require sticking an arm into the arctic air (the arm, an extremity, susceptible to freezing because the core looks out for itself). Okay then: pillow-wrap over the ears and wait it out. 

Doesn’t work.  

Roxanne from Shellbrook is still having a Blue Christmas and John from Tompkins is wearing blue suede shoes (somebody had to). Morty from Yorkton dons a white sports coat and a pink carnation and argues vigorously when the host interrupts him: Morty, Morty, you’re mixing your tunes there, Elvis didn’t sing that, did he? 

Gail (on her cell phone in a hospital parking lot) is All Shook Up and Margaret (I’ve been to 

Graceland 17 times) Can’t Help Falling in Love. Trucker Bob is a Hunka Hunka Burning Love, even at this hour, and it’s hard to tell what Gary from Kelliher is singing. They cut him off.  Maybe he’s one of the all-night tipplers.  

The off-key a cappella Elvis offensive rolls through the hour. Call after call.

Enough agony. Brave the cold air and touch that dial. Toss the pillow. Reach out. A necessary risk.  

But oh!  Larry from Saskatoon is on the air. With a wonderful, warm and sexy voice, singing Love Me Tender.   

Turn up the volume.  

Twenty seconds pass. Larry sings on. Thirty seconds, forty. There’s no time limit for Larry.  His voice is a radiant heater, warming hearts and bones, an unexpected gift to the airwaves. 

When it’s over, the host asks, “Larry, my friend, where on earth did you learn to croon like that?” 

Larry says, “Oh, I do a little Elvis.”  

“Are you a singer, then?  A real one, I mean.” 

But he’s hung up the phone. Larry is gone.

“Oh no,” the host says. “Larry, call us back, we want to talk to you!”  

Next up is some little kid singing Teddy Bear. The host is nice—that’s so cute—but she’s lost her enthusiasm. There’s no interactive radio life after Larry.

Waiting. To see if he calls back. Then, when he doesn’t, to see if he wins the doll. He deserves it. An absolute travesty if Larry doesn’t win that doll.

Gary’s name is drawn. The one they cut off. 

Gary wins the doll and some station swag. Not Larry. 

Throw off the bed covers. Step into this cold day, warmed by outrage and love for Larry, who melts ice from core to fingertips (I want you, I need you...).

All day: What is that idiot Gary going to do with an Elvis doll?  

All day, and each day after, from winter through summer: Must find Larry.

The inevitable return of ice, from fingertips to core.

Larry, call back.