Breaker Whiskey

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

So, I’m on my way to the Grand Canyon, but apparently Arizona is full of cavernous earth. Because I’m standing in front of an absolutely enormous hole in the ground. 

A meteor crashed here. I had no idea. Which is weird, right? Isn’t that something that everybody should just know? That we have an enormous meteor crater in our country? It feels noteworthy. 

But no, I only learned about it from a road sign on Route 66. Thank goodness for tourist trap advertising, I guess. There’s a little viewing deck and everything—apparently, the meteor crashed here over fifty thousand years ago. The viewing deck has a pair of binoculars pointed at an astronaut suit they put in the middle of the crater. Which is a bit of an odd choice if you ask me, but looking through it does give you an idea of the scale. 

If this is just a random meteor crater, how big is the Grand Canyon going to be? Was this all mundane to the average Arizona resident? I don’t know that I could handle it—the idea of driving around my state and stumbling across these massive voids of space. It’s too much—it’s too much of a reminder. 

A rock—a fucking rock—fell from the sky fifty thousand years ago and even now, this land is unusable. The Colorado River pushed through the ground for so long that it wore away at the very earth. 

Random chance versus persistence. Two opposite ends of a spectrum with the same result—nothing where there used to be something. The world, reshaped. 

There’s nothing we can do, is there? To ensure that we carve the path that we want or to be certain that we’re not eroding everything around us. It doesn’t matter if we make one spontaneous decision or we work hard at something for years—the result could be exactly the same. It could be the opposite of what we were going for. There are plenty of rivers in the world that have been flowing for just as long and haven’t made that kind of impact. There are plenty of meteors that hurdle through space without creating mass destruction. 

I don’t know whether to be comforted or disappointed by that. I told you I left my mark on this world already and that I wasn’t sure if I liked what shape it took and that’s true—but maybe there was nothing I could’ve done to make it different. After all, I haven’t had the power of a strong current or a burning meteor. 

I guess I should just be grateful that the impression I left wasn’t a mile wide. I left my mark, but it won’t still be visible in fifty thousand years. It didn’t change the curve of the world. 

[click, static]

[long static] 

[beeps]

You're wrong

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

I haven’t heard from you, which I’m trying not to read into too much. It’s not like we haven’t gone days—or weeks, even—without talking but I guess I’m feeling—

Well, between talking to you—actually talking to you—for the first time and you knowing my name…

Is this what it feels like to be…vulnerable? I know I’ve told you about K not calling me back and Millie moving away and my parents dying and—it’s not like I haven’t been vulnerable before. I have. Of course I have, I’m human. 

But it’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to be. Well, I guess not that long if you count—

[click, static]

It doesn’t work out that well usually, does it? Caring about someone. Caring what they think about you, how they feel about you. Wanting to talk to them, to know them. There’s no way to do any of that—to have anything meaningful—without rolling over and showing your soft underbelly. And I’ve been kicked in the gut one too many times, Birdie. 

I thought the last one might kill me. 

But nothing has yet. 

[click, static]

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[beeps]

[click, static]

I—I’m not sure I translated this message right. Except, I must have. I’ve gotten pretty good at this over the weeks and I listened again and again to make sure I had it right but how—

[click, static]

How do you know my name? That’s—I have to think that’s what that message is about. You wouldn’t send that randomly, it wouldn’t make any sense. Which means you know, you know that’s my real name, and that would be a hell of a first guess if you were just going off of the fact that it starts with A. 

You better start explaining yourself soon, Birdie. If you’ve known who I am this whole time, then…Well, Jesus, I’m not sure we can ever build that trust back.

I assume—well, I’m counting us on still being on for Thursday, so I guess you can do your best to explain it to me then. 

But the explanation better be fucking good. 

Whiskey out. 

[click, static]

.- -... .. --. .- .. .-..

Abigail

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Hey Birdie.  
I’m still…

[click, static]

I can’t believe we talked yesterday. It doesn’t feel real, it happened so fast and it still doesn’t feel real. But it is. It is real. You’re real. You’re real and you can hear me and I know that we’ve been communicating for months now but I didn’t realize just how different it would feel to have you responding in real time to me. 

Is it a sort of cumbersome way to have a conversation? Yeah, maybe. But it’s still the most scintillating interaction I’ve had in years. 

The same message came up a little while after you signed off—which was pretty abrupt by the way. Th, 9AM, Thursday 9AM. It broadcast for a little while and I’m not sure if its a holdover or you saying that you want to talk again next week? I hope it’s that. Either way, I’ll be sitting by the radio waiting. 

Just like you’re a date that has no interest in me.  

You said you don’t want me to know you. But I—I want you to reconsider, Birdie. I’m not going to—to hurt you, I’m not going to judge you, I’m not going to ask too much of you. Or, at least, I don’t think I will.  I’ll try not to. 

I know what it’s like to have something that you want to hide. Or to want to hide from the world completely. I’ve felt that—I’ve felt that for most of the last six years. And I know what it’s like to not be able to hide. I couldn’t, after everything that happened, because Harry was there. And I could never hide from her. 

But I think even hiding would’ve gotten tiring after a while. Aren’t you tired?

[click, static]

[beeps]

.- -... .. --. .- .. .-..

Abigail

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Birdie? You there?

[one beep]

Is that…is that you? Are you really here?

[one beep]

Okay—okay, jesus christ—wow. Hi. Oh my god, hi.

[click, static]

Right, I guess we’re not gonna have me translating full morse sentences in real time. Though—I’m up for that if you are?

[two beeps]

Two dots…that’s the letter “I” but…maybe you’re thinking what I’ve been thinking if we ever got a chance the talk. One beep for yes, two for no?

[one beep]

Yeah? Okay, do it again. One beep for yes. 

[one beep]

And two beeps for no?

[one beep]

Okay, how long do we have?

[two beeps]

No? Oh—yeah, I have to ask yes or no questions, huh? Can you stay for an hour?

[two beeps]

Half an hour?

[two beeps]

(sigh) Fifteen minutes?

[five beeps]

Five…five? You can stay for five minutes?

[one beep]

Ugh, okay. I guess I’ll take what I can get. What are you doing that you can only stay on the radio for five minutes? I’ve got all the time in the world, I could sit by the radio all day. Where do you have to be?

[click, static]

Right, yes or no. Um…are you safe?

[one beep]

Okay, that’s good. 

Will you tell me where you are?

[two beeps]

Why not?

[click, static]

Yeah. Alright, Whiskey, focus on the important questions…

Huh. That’s funny, I guess I really have started to think of myself as Whiskey. I mean, obviously that’s not my name, but after so many months of referring to myself by it, I guess it’s starting to worm its way in. 

Jesus, sorry, I’m so used to just saying every thought I have out loud but you’re here, you’re really here. 

Is Birdie your real name?

[two beeps]

That’s what I figured. Did you—did you pick a code name because you’re talking to people you don’t want to know the real you?

[one beep]

Really? How many people are you talking to??

[one beep]

Yes—yes, what?

[one beep]

Oh, one. One person. You’re just talking to me?

[one beep]

And you don’t want me to know who you really are. 

[click, static]

(sigh)

Okay. Right. That’s—well, you don’t know my real name either. But you do know everything else about me. 

Are you…this is a stupid fucking question maybe, but are you a young person? An old person? A kid somehow?

Um, okay, wait, so I’m thirty-four, I’ll be thirty-five in a few weeks actually. Are you older than me?

[one beep]

Yes. Okay…um, I don’t know why I asked that, what does it matter. Are you—do you know what happened in ’68?

[one beep]

You do. Well, can you tell me?

[one beep]

Yes? You will?

[two beeps]

You won’t?

[one beep]

Well, which is it?

[three beeps]

Is it too hard to explain over morse code?

[one beep]

Do you think we’ll ever talk face to face? Or…voice to voice or, I don’t know, some other method?

[one long beep]

One dash, not dot. Is that…I don’t know?

[one beep]

Right. Okay. 

Um, whatever happened in ‘68…did it happen everywhere? The whole world?

[one beep]

(sigh) Okay. That’s what I thought but it’s still…

I don’t know what to ask you, Birdie, I’m sorry. I—there’s too much! There’s too much I want to know. I want to know what you know about what got us here, I want to know who you are, I want to know what your job was, but I’m running out of time and I—

Is whatever’s in Denver related to what happened in ’68?

[one beep]

It is. If I went to Denver, could I figure out what happened?

[two beeps]

Are you just saying that because you don’t want me to go?

[one beep]

Yes? You are just saying that?

[two beeps]

No. Oh, yes, you don’t want me to go? Because it’s dangerous?

[one beep]

Okay but…look, it’s great to be talking to you and all but why the hell should I trust you?

[click, static]

Birdie?

[one long beep]

You don’t know. Great. Helpful. 

Denver, the collision point. Does that collision have to do with other people?

[three beeps]

Three dots. Too hard to explain over Morse, huh? Yeah, that feels like it’s going to be a pretty convenient excuse. 

[two long beeps]

Two dashes, what does that mean? That’s…M, what does that…

[two long beeps, then one very long beep]

Birdie? Birdie. 

[click, static]

Oh.  I guess our five minutes are up. Two dashes is goodbye. 

Then, goodbye, Birdie. 

[click, static]

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Um, so…I translated your most recent message. 

Sorry for getting distracted—I was figuring out what the best way to go to the grand canyon was and it seems like there’s…basically one way from here, so that’s sorted now. 

But, well Birdie, you did it again. You left me a fucking cryptic message. 

“Th. 9AM.” 

That’s all. I’m assuming the “Th” stands for Thursday? Day and time? Which is…tomorrow. And I really hope this isn’t a Denver situation and there isn’t something I need to avoid at 9AM tomorrow, because I would really need more information than that. 

The other option—and maybe I’m crazy for thinking this, for hoping this. But maybe you’re telling me to be on the radio tomorrow at 9? You know where I am so you know my timezone—at least, I hope you do. I’ll probably just sit on the radio starting at 6AM to be honest. I have to assume you’re somewhere in North America. 

If you are telling me to be on the radio tomorrow, I have to think it’s not just another morse code message. You’ve never told me to listen at a specific time before, you seem to have it rigged up to continuously broadcast. 

So that means…

Birdie, are we going to talk? Really talk?

I guess…I guess I’ll find out. 

[click, static]

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

“It still matters” - I asked you a question ages ago. I only just remembered. I asked you if what your job—if what happened with your job—if it still mattered. Now that we don’t have jobs and careers and all that. 

And you’re saying it does. Which could mean…a lot of things. It could mean that your job has something to do with…all of this. Or it could just mean that you still care. 

I really hope it’s the latter. 

[click, static] 
I’m a little—I’m kind of embarrassed about yesterday. You were trying to share something about you—about the way you feel, answering one of my questions—and I made it about me. About me and the person who annoys me most in the world. Which is the opposite of what I want to do when I talk to you. 

So I promise. I’m listening. I care about you and what you have to say. I promise I won’t make it all about me all the time. 

And I  will definitely stop talking about Harry. 

[click, static]

[beeps]

- .... / ----. .- --

Th 9AM

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Breaker, Breaker, this is Whiskey heading west from Albuquerque.

[click, static]

“It still matters”. That’s what you said: it still matters I’m not sure what you were referring to with that…I don’t even know what I was talking about. 

My…friends? Or—my crew, that is. I was telling you about Harry and I being nice to each other…is that what still matters?

I’m not sure what matters anymore when it comes to Harry. I’m not sure what ever mattered with her. With…us. 

All those years together and what kind of impact did it have, really? None. Our existence left the barest footprint these past six years. We might as well have not existed. Why does any of it matter?

I guess you could say we mattered to each other? In the sense that the only thing we touched since the world emptied out was each other. 

Each other’s lives, that is. We didn’t—not that—

[click, static]

I do…there are things that feel like weird echoes of the lives we lived in proximity to each other. I’ve finally cut my own hair, but it’s…

I’m not sure I would’ve taken that painting if it weren’t for Harry. I’m not sure I would’ve bothered to go to that museum at all. I don’t like paintings that much.  
But it felt like I had to. Like I’m—like I’m doing it for her because she can’t. Which might make sense in a sad sort of way if she were dead but she could’ve—

(sigh) I’m so fucking mad at her. 

[click, static]

I…I haven’t told you this, Birdie. I don’t know why, I’ve told you everything else. But I’ve picked up something to the tune of seven postcards since I last told you about keeping an eye out for them. And I’ve written to Harry on each and every one of them.  
I don’t know why. I don’t know why I keep putting cinnamon in my coffee even though that’s how she likes and I never did it before I met her. I don’t know why the few times I’ve passed a sign for a town or road or anything with the name Franklin, I’ve circled it on my atlas, thinking about how Harry grew up in a town called Franklin and always complained about being from a place that shares a name with a dozen other places in the country. 

I’ve even—my perfectly organized trunk? All the tools just where I want them, the food in one place, the cookware in another—that perfect system that I’ve had in every car I’ve ever owned and the few places I lived long enough to implement any kind of system—the system that Harry destroyed within two weeks of us settling into a permanent spot? That system is useless to me now. I put the coffee can in the food section because I’m not an insane person, but I keep looking for it next to my toiletry bag because Harry liked to keep the coffee and tea next her toothbrush on the kitchen sink so that she could brush her teeth while she brewed her morning cup. That’s nuts! Just walk the extra two steps to the cabinet! 

(sigh)

Everything that used to work just…doesn’t anymore. I guess, in that sense, it does still matter, the way we treated each other. Maybe if we’d been kinder to each other the whole while, more accommodating, I wouldn’t be looking for tea bags in my toothpaste. 

[click, static]

[beeps]

- .... / ----. .- --

Th 9AM

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Harry was right. Santa Fe is gorgeous. 

You know, being here, thinking about it being Harry’s favorite, thinking about the fact that she could be here, right now, with me, and she’s not…

(sighs) It wasn’t…it wasn’t all bad. That’s what I’ve been thinking about. Since I arrived, since going to the art museum, it’s like I see her around every corner, and I imagine what she’d look like going through the galleries, or pointing out the unique architecture, or insisting we find ingredients to make one of her favorite Santa Fe meals, whatever that might be. 

It’s—it’s made me—I’ve been remembering the good times, I guess is how you’d put it. There was this one time, before everything happened actually, before that last job, way before—

Richie had this unbelievably shitty loft in Alphabet City. Barely any heat, exposed wires, groaning pipes, warped glass in the old windows, just the whole thing. He was the only one of us who lived on the East side—even me of the unpermanent address tended to stick West—but he was also the only one who owned his place. Well, and Pete. We were all pretty sure that Pete owned a whole fucking brownstone in Brooklyn, but we were never able to confirm it. He was pretty secretive about his personal life. 

But, anyway, Richie would sometimes let me crash at his loft and he had us all over with some degree of regularity—the place was huge, so great for big parties. The crew wasn’t big of course, but he’d invite all his weird beatnik friends and Harry would bring her art friends and Don would bring the guys he grew up with who’d always have some kind of Italian fruitcake with them and Pete and I would stand in the corner friendless and drinking heavily. 

And one night, we’d all been there for hours and the crowd had dwindled and it was really just us and Don was doing his truly awful Perry Como impression and Harry and I were on the couch just…in stitches. And I think both of us were pretty sauced by that point, because once Don took mercy on all of us and stopped, someone had the brilliant idea of doing a game of charades. Harry and I were on the same team and we just…I don’t know, it was fun. It was really fun. We kicked everyone’s asses, it was…we were so in sync, it was strange. But Harry didn’t make fun of me for my pedestrian choices of what to act out and she didn’t pick anything that she knew I wouldn’t get and it was like…

“Oh. This is what it could be like if we were nice to each other. I didn’t expect it to feel this wonderful”

Anyway, then we sobered up and everyone went home and I passed out on Richie’s couch and then I didn’t see Harry again until our next job nearly two months later. And it was like that night had never happened. She was just as cold and condescending as ever. And I was just as snide as I always was. 

But for that one night…I don’t know, it felt good. It felt like how things were supposed to be. 

With your mysterious job and all, I wonder if you had any friends in it. If you ever goofed around with them. Or if it was all serious, all the time. 

It must have been, right? If it went as badly as you say, hurt people, it must have been serious right? 

I mean, I dn't know why I’m even asking, I—

[click, static]

I still don’t trust you, but not talking to you is worse. 

[click, static]

[beeps]

.. - / ... - .. .-.. .-.. / -- .- - - . .-. ...

It still matters

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

The painting is sitting in the passenger seat now. It is my companion. 

I wish I could explain why I took this one in particular. But I just…I liked it. It made me smile the moment I saw it. Gave me a kind of good ache right behind my ribs. 

It reminds me of my mom. I don’t know why. She never went to Santa Fe, I don’t think. I don’t know that I ever heard her even reference it. It’s about as far from what she knew in her life as you can get in this country. 

But there’s something about the colors in it. They just made me think of her. So I took it. 

I don’t know why I said I don’t know what caused Harry to change. Of course I know. Or, at least, I think I do. But she…it’s been six years. Not to say that she should be over it, or even that I’m over it but…at some point you have to move on, right?

Yeah. You have to move on or you’ll die driving yourself insane. 

[click, static]

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