Late Night Radio

Time traveler Orson Welles leaves our present day for the 1930's and has the career that today we know him by. But how come we don't remember him broadcasting in Manhattan in 2017? And how else has history changed that we've lost track of? And why don't we call this place New York City any longer?

the year is 1641. The Dutch Republic has claimed the Hudson, inventing wampum as currency for the beaver trade. Market forces unleash the dark side of the fearsome Five Nations of the Iroquois. The forest explodes, depopulating the Ohio Valley. Amid the mayhem, one certain murder, one very particular murder, cosseted among the various brittle parchments at the New York Historical Society, is interrupted. Because of this, we soon will not call this place New York City any longer.

July 4th 1939 celebrated storyteller Orson Welles reconstructs events for the Associated Press with a frame tale of Manhattan, melding ages past with those to come, a synergy of voice and concept braiding the method of Poe with those of Heinlein and Phillip K Dick.

In a few days, the statue on the plaza will depict someone else besides the general who shelled Atlanta. New York City's historical record of 1641 tells us of a Weckquaesgeek’s murder of revenge at Turtle Bay on Dutch Manhatta. Somehow, the Indian must be allowed his murder and the Dutchman Switts must die.

From his present-day broadcasting studio, Orson Welles observes the bustling Yiddishness of the Glickman Building and the stubborn Irish Westies of Hanrahan’s Bar, just across the alley on the crosstown street. The power of Orson’s monologues soon draws a visitor from the Morgan Library, a conservator of spent lives.

Broadcaster Orson Welles has a fine career going for him in modern-day Manhattan. Although, his famous War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938 never happened. Yet, as luck would have it, Orson falls for Broadway actress Lois Nettleton, and his destiny is changed.

Fast forward to July 4th 1939. Since Orson Welles has taken refuge in the past, he has become foremost among the stars of early radio. The Mercury Theater on the Air is the nation’s most popular radio program. Orson has done the broadcast for which he is remembered. Yet, he and Lois know that one of the city’s largest families was never born. Before she left modern-day Manhattan, Lois had discovered why. Tuesday, July 4th, 1939 is the one day in history when and where the patriarch, Chaim Glickman, might be found. It is Lou Gehrig day. Orson Welles and Lois Nettleton are on their way to Yankee Stadium so that 360 Glickman's may yet live, and the crosstown street may yet become noisy with Yiddish.

If Orson and Lois do not find young Chaim Glickman, then on some future day, a young artist shall pencil the first of many drawings of a woman named Bathsheba. She will appear from out of a memory not his own. This shall become the work that will possess his remaining years, this idea of a woman who has never lived, and who now must never be allowed to die.

Fifteen minutes ago, the image he now conjures was his wife, when suddenly, 360 Glickman’s were never born, when Sartre's Being and Nothingness meets E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime.