Breaker Whiskey

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

There’s a saying about bad habits. Or maybe it’s just habits. Habits die hard. Bad habits die doubly hard, I guess. 

Although maybe I shouldn’t be considering it a habit—it is what I did for a living. And is it really bad now? I don’t think so. 

I stole a painting. That’s what I’m trying to say. Just the one. Because I could. Because I wanted to. 

“Santa Fe Mountains in October” by some Pearson guy. I’ve already forgotten his first name. Maybe I should’ve taken the placard too. 

It was the New Mexico Museum of Art - nice place. Harry’s favorite, as it happens. I don’t know how she would’ve gone through the museum, what she would’ve paid attention to. We’d probably still be inside, to be honest. I have no doubt that she could spend hours and hours and hours inside an art museum. 

Isn’t that funny? That Harry and I have never been to a museum together? I mean, not to actually go to the museum. We’ve been in plenty museums and galleries before, after hours, illegally, taking stuff. And she’d make a comment here or there about a piece of art—not even the stuff we were taking, though that she’d always give a lecture on on the way there or after the job. Why it was important, how much it could really be worth, why it had to be transported the way it did. But she never tried to fence anything herself. I don’t know why. She could’ve moved to that part of the whole process and made just as much money—maybe more—and would never had to have left her home. She could’ve been like Francis, living amongst her own art, working with Pete and me to get what we stole to wherever it would fetch the highest price. 

But she didn’t. She wanted in on the action. She wanted to take the art, wanted to be there as we broke in, wanted to run down the clock as she carefully stored each work of art for transport while the rest of us stood lookout, terrified that we were always seconds away from being caught. 

I think she liked the risk too, is what I’m saying. I think she liked it just as much as me, or she would’ve made a living doing a million other things. 

I don’t know what happened to take her from the woman I knew, the woman who’s eyes would light up any time we were taking on a job that had new complications we had to solve to the woman who refused to venture into a world with no one in it.

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[TRANSCRIPT]

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(sigh) Alright, you sent me a message last night that just said “Santa Fe”. That’s fucking…

Well, I assume it means you want me to go to Santa Fe. Well, I am. I’m already here, actually. And not because of your message but because I was close and it’s November and I’d honestly rather be in New Mexico than Colorado, so. 

I’m not even really a hot weather person, to be honest. I wasn’t raised in a hot climate, I’m not built for it. But the dryer and the warmer the weather, the easier the driving is. To a point, anyway. Too hot and driving becomes a misery. 

(groaning) Ugh…I don’t know, Birdie, I’m—when I’ve talked to you lately, I feel like I can hear myself better. Like the words I’m saying are really landing in my ears and it’s all so….

I can feel myself being sanded away at the edges. Becoming less interesting, less engaged. Becoming a shell. 

[click, static]

That was always my greatest fear with staying. That we’d become husks, living simply to stay alive and for nothing else. Harry seemed content to garden and cook and read and paint and I…

I just wanted to live, you know? Really live. Harry says that I’m just an adrenaline junkie who hasn’t done anything risky or stupid for years and I should just go jump in the lake in the middle of January because “what could be more adrenaline inducing than freezing to death?” but I think she’s wrong.  
It’s not…danger that I miss. Sure, my job had risks to it, but I was careful. I didn’t want to get caught. I didn’t get any thrill from the chase. I was never chased, actually, outside that one time and look at how that turned out. 

I liked the unpredictability. Every job had new challenges and sure, new risks, but no one day was ever the same. 

That’s what I miss. And lately, I can feel my days becoming the same, even if I’m in a different place. What happened in Estes Park wasn’t…good or fun but at least it was something different. And now I’m just right back where I was months ago, which is listening to someone else, following the directions of someone I’ve been forced to trust because of circumstance and it’s putting two things into clear focus: 

I don’t want to passively live my life by someone else’s rules—not yours, not Harry’s. 

And I don’t trust you. 

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[TRANSCRIPT]

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Alright, your most recent message. Let’s talk about it. 

“Collision point in Denver”

Birdie, what the hell? 

[click, static]

You can’t just leave a message like that and not follow up. We’ve talked about this. I know that our communication capabilities are limited but this is completely absurd. “Collision point”?? What does that mean?

Maybe I should stop expecting things from you. Maybe you simply being there, being someone to talk to, is enough. Maybe it isn’t fair to want answers on top of that. 

But the least you could do is stop sending me fucking cryptic messages that I can’t do anything about. 

[click, static]

Then again, if Denver really is that dangerous somehow, I guess I did do something. I drove around. I guess you did me a favor.  
It doesn’t feel like a favor. 

[click, static]

Because…collision point…collision is a fucking weird word to use. If some kind of bomb had gone off, I don’t think that’s the word you’d pick. So what’s colliding? In order for a collision to happen, there needs to be some kind of…what, an immovable object and unstoppable force, right? Or two unstoppable forces, I guess?

And that—well, that would imply other people. You can’t have some kind of momentous force without something putting it into action. And the most likely catalyst for something that would be dangerous enough to avoid would be…other human beings. 

So if you’re telling me that Denver has other people and you’re trying to warn me off them—Birdie, I don’t care if they’re the worst kind of apocalyptic barbarians. They’re people. And I want to see them. If you’re just trying to manipulate me or—or hoard me for yourself somehow, well, I’ve had enough of—

[click, static]

It’s not too late for me to turn back and go to Denver. It’ll never be too late for me to turn back. 

And I don’t know that you’ve given me a good enough reason not to.

[click, static]

[beeps]

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

Santa Fe

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[TRANSCRIPT]

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I think…um, I’ve been on edge. All week, ever since I left the Stanley.

Maybe it was driving past Denver that set me off, set me thinking about Harry again. You ever gonna tell me what the hell that was about? You ever going to respond to any of the bonkers transmissions I’ve sent in the past week or so?

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I’d…I’d really like to come see you, Birdie. The loneliness of this—of this weird stilted conversation of ours—it’s…profound. A profound loneliness. The kind that’s so deep I’m worried if I leave it in my bones for any longer it’ll just stick to them like tar, never to be scrubbed clean.

This isn’t what I signed up for. I came out here because I wanted to see things yet, but mostly because I wanted to see other people. Harry knew what she was doing—she didn’t want to leave and she didn’t and she knew that would mean being alone. Even if I’m the one who eventually drove off, she might as well have handed me the keys.

If I met you, I don’t think I’d miss her as much as I do. I miss her like you miss…a loose tooth that you’ve gotten used to poking with your tongue, that you’ve learned to eat around. And then you finally go to the fucking dentist and get the thing fixed or torn out and it’s better, you’re not in pain anymore, but it’s also…strange. You got used to shaping your life around this terrible, protruding sharpness and now it’s gone and suddenly your tongue feels too big for your mouth.

I don’t know how to eat anymore. How to talk, how to bite down, how to fill the space where that tooth was. It’s just…a hole.

[click, static]

Whiskey out.

[click, static]

Collision point in Denver

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Hey Birdie. I’m, uh, I’m on route to Santa Fe, now, I guess. It’s a place I’ve always wanted to go—it’s supposed to be beautiful, and cultural, and it’s very much on my route, so…

Not that I have a route. I have to stop following invisible rules. Just because it’s the next major city on the highway I’m currently following doesn’t mean that—

(sighs) Harry fucking loves Santa Fe. She’s been a bunch of times. I guess they have—had—a pretty vibrant art scene out there and she used to talk about how gorgeous it was, how delicious the food was, how much she’d like to show me—

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Actually, maybe I don't want to go, I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to see it with—

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No, no, I should go. I’ve never been. I haven’t traveled very much and basically never for the purposes of leisure—a trip taken for the sole purpose of eating and drinking and looking at extraordinary things, that’s… 

…well, I guess that’s what I’m doing now, kind of. Even if it…feels different. 

If I really could send a postcard, I’d put one right in the mail for her from…whatever Santa Fe’s most famous museum is. Show her what she’s missing. Show her what she could be doing if she would just stop—

[click, static]

That—that was our last fight. Well, our last huge fight. I think I—I maybe mentioned that we weren’t talking all that much the last few months before I left and that’s true. What we did say to each other wasn’t particularly civil, but it was all…inconsequential. Bitching to each other about house chores or making snide comments…

The fight that led to that cozy atmosphere was—it wasn’t about Santa Fe, specifically, but about…the outside world. I wanted to—well, I wanted to do this, what I’m doing, right here. What I’ve been doing, for the last four months. And she…

[click, static]

She wanted to stay inside. She wanted to protect us from the world by keeping us from it. Even though we had every reason to believe that we wouldn’t get caught if we ventured further out. And I tried to convince her, I tried to explain that even if there were other people out there, clearly we wouldn’t be a priority. I tried to make her see that the likelihood of running into anyone who even knew who we were or what we did was so slim, but she just…

She dug her heels in, like she always fucking does. She’s intractable when she wants to be, and trust me, she wants to be a lot. It’s what made living with her such a fucking nightmare. Everything had to be just so and she would be so condescending when I didn’t get the temperature of the tea right or whatever the fuck it was and the most infuriating thing is that I know she didn’t actually care if I did it right, she just enjoyed riling me up, wanted to pass the time somehow, wanted to exert control over whatever she could, which I get because I was the same way with the endless house repairs, which drove her insane because she wanted to build a home and “how can you turn a house into a home when you treat it like the Winchester mystery house!” That’s what she’d say. “Not even the spirits would put up with the constant work.” 

It’s good. Yeah, it’s good that I got out of there. Because I haven’t been to Santa Fe, I hadn’t been to Colorado, I haven’t seen the Pacific. She has. She’s done all of that. She could stay inside and be content and root where she was planted or whatever but I need sunlight to grow and I tried to tell her that. I tried to tell her that I couldn’t see a future for us if we stayed stuck—

[click, static]

Jesus christ, I’m—I don’t know what I’m saying. She really…she drives me up a wall and I miss her and—

[click, static]

I—I’ve gotta—

Whiskey, signing off. 

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[TRANSCRIPT]

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Okay, maybe I’m not doing great. I can’t get his face out of my head. The way he looked as he was leaving, suitcase in one hand, other hand on the doorknob, turning around like he forgot something. Turning around like he wanted to say goodbye to me. But that doesn’t—

[click, static]

I’m trying to…focus on other things.

I took a branch from the national park back in Wyoming—I know you’re not supposed to do that, but it was on the ground, it’s not like I took it off a tree. So I feel like it’s okay.

But I was thinking I might whittle it into something. I haven’t whittled in fucking ages, but I used to be okay at it and it’s not like i’ve got any materials to build miniatures. 
What do you think, Birdie? What shape should I carve this little piece of wood into? A bird? Make a little keepsake that I can give you when we meet?

Yes, I said when. I’m deciding to hold out hope. I think I saw a ghost the other morning, so nothing is impossible for me anymore. Here I am, moving about the world, totally alone, and surviving. Thriving, one might say, despite any midnight breakdowns I may or may not have had.

They said it couldn’t be done—that leaving Pennsylvania would be the end of me. But it’s not. I’m sitting on the hood of my car on the side of the highway in Colorado, whittling a stick from Wyoming into a bird for an anonymous friend who only communicates in dots and dashes.

The impossible happens every day. And I’m not dead yet.

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[TRANSCRIPT]

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The stupid thing is, with all the weirdness at the Stanley, I didn’t even take a look around Estes Park that much. And it looked like it is beautiful.

Sure, I got a lot of beautiful lakes and mountains in Wyoming. And it’s not like I can’t come back if I really want to.

But I don’t think I’ll be staying at the Stanley again.

I forgot to tell you—when I was driving out of Wyoming, right near the highway was this enormous statue of a rabbit with antlers. One of those jackalopes, I think it’s called. Some weird Wyoming legend. I don’t really get it, but it’s kind of cute—a little antlered bunny.

[click, static]

Where do people come up with this stuff? Bigfoot, the loch ness monster, jackalopes…and how do these ideas gain so much traction with the public? I mean, I know there’s actual myth and legends from different cultures and religions but that’s not what these are. These are…these are made up by somebody who tells their friends, you know? But what makes it so that those friends want to share it with their friends and so on and so on? How many potential monsters are out there ready to become myths and are just being held back by the fact that their creator just doesn’t have very many friends?

[click, static]

Do you believe in stuff like that? The…legends, the urban myths? Ghosts?

I never really did. I like a good ghost story as much as the next person, don’t get me wrong, but it never struck me as…real. There’s way too much evidence to the contrary and I always felt that if any of it was real, no matter how rare it was, surely it would be unavoidable to hear about. Surely there would be real evidence. If people were experiencing real ghost encounters, there’s no way we’d all go about our business as if everything was normal. People aren’t that good at keeping secrets.

[click, static]

But now…after everything that happened…

There still isn’t hard evidence. How much can I trust my eyes really?

There was already so much about the world that I didn’t understand before this and now I understand even less. And I fear I’ll never fully understand anything ever again.

So, I guess, sure, why can’t jackalopes be real? Nothing about this whole place, this whole country, driving around it, feels real. Nothing about my life feels real.

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[TRANSCRIPT]

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Breaker, breaker, this is WAR1974 calling out from Route 36, heading South.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to Denver. I’ll drive right past but…I assume that’s okay? You still haven’t told me anything about why I should avoid it, so—

[click, static]

I think—I think my last transmission probably cut off. I was in the hotel, in that room, Room 217, talking on the CB somehow when all of a sudden, whatever phantom power had been keeping it going just…died.

The moment it did—in the exact moment the radio went dark, not a second before—there was this flicker. The man that I’d seen, the—the ghost? Hallucination, whatever. He appeared again, just for a moment. By the door. Suitcase in hand, looking over his shoulder as he put his hand on the doorknob. He was looking around the room like he was expecting to see something. And for that one second, I could’ve sworn that he saw me.

That’s impossible right? I mean, the whole thing is impossible. The weird feeling, my CB turning on by itself, with no power hookup, seeing a person who isn’t there…none of it makes sense.

And he looked…he just looked like a normal person. He wasn’t dressed in, I don’t know, old timey clothes, he didn’t have chains around his arms or gashes in his face or any of the things you would expect to see on a ghost. 
He didn’t look like a ghost.

[click, static]

God, am I a person who has opinions on what ghosts are supposed to look like now?

Anyway, I’m doing better now that I’m away from there. It was—it wasn’t scary exactly—

[click, static]

Alright, no, it was fucking scary. But it was scariest when I was in my room alone that night, not when I followed the feeling and saw the apparition the next morning. That was just—

That was walking into the wrong room and seeing another hotel guest checking out. That’s all it was. Except there were no other guests. There’s never any other guests at any of the places I stay. And maybe…maybe he never checked out.

[click, static]

I’m glad to be putting that place in my fucking rearview.

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[TRANSCRIPT]

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So I…I followed the feeling this morning.

Somehow, I managed to fall back asleep last night. I didn’t sleep well—I don’t remember any of my dreams, but I think they were nightmares. They must have been. Because I woke up and that feeling wasn’t gone.

That feeling of dread. Of something standing, just off to the side. And it still doesn’t feel like mine which—that doesn’t even make any sense to me so I can’t even imagine what it sounds like.

I keep a little running calendar in a pocket notebook—not that dates are important, but it’s helped me feel a little more sane over the last six years. Today is Halloween. I’m sure there’s some kind of joke in there, but I don’t know what it is.

[click, static]

Why did you tell me to stay out of Denver, Birdie? Does it have something to do with what’s happening to me now? I don’t believe in ghosts, or hauntings but—

[click, static]

Room 217. That’s where the feeling took me. That’s where I am now. I’ve been walking around with the CB and—

I wish I could tell you how this worked. But I left my room on the top floor and just started walking. It was like playing a game of hot and cold. Stepping slowly down long hallways, waiting for the dread to get worse. Following the dread all the way down, the feeling growing stronger and stronger like a screeching sound that gets so loud it almost buckles your knees.

Like tuning a radio. Searching through the static to find a frequency you can click into.

The CB is still on. It—it doesn’t make any sense. I’m holding it, completely detached from any source of power and it seems to be—I mean, it’s working. The light is on, all the frequencies seem to be receiving, even if it’s just static. I don’t know if it’s sending any signals out but—

How is this happening? Someone explain this to me.

And it…it changed. As I walked, the static changed in time with that feeling in my gut. Like my hand was on the dial, turning, turning, except it wasn’t. It wasn’t picking anything up—just static—but the static changed. Like it’s responding to something here. Like it was waiting to be in the right place.

Room 217. That’s where the static cleared. That’s where the feeling led me and it’s—

[click, static]

It’s just a room. An ordinary room.

There’s nothing here.

[click, static]

I thought—for a moment, I thought—

[click, static]

When I walked in—all the curtains were drawn, it was dark. Hard to see anything beyond what was illuminated by me opening the door.

I saw a man. Dark hair, beard. Packing a suitcase. As ordinary as the room he stood in. 
The door swung shut behind me and he vanished. But I could have sworn that, before he did, he looked at me. Like he was surprised by the sound of the door. Like he could hear it.

I checked the whole room. Threw open the curtains, checked every channel on the radio.

But no, there’s nothing here.

There’s—

[sudden dead air]

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

(heavy breathing)

[click, static]

(whispering)

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I…I woke up a few minutes ago, heart pounding. I don’t know why.

[click, static]

There’s nothing…wrong. I looked out the window, there’s no figure in the trees, the door is locked, the entire hotel is empty, I checked. I wanted to be sure that there weren’t any wild animals that had gotten in, or any hazards that could lead to a fire or—

This hotel is somehow even bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside. Or at least, it feels bigger. Its winding and rickety—charming in the daytime and now that it’s dark…

No, it’s still charming. It’s charming. It’s just a historic hotel in a vacation town and the only reason I’m feeling like this is because I spent a whole week sleeping outdoors and now that I’m back in what passes for civilization these days, everything is off.

It did make it easier, coming into the mountains. Getting out of the feeling that the world stretched on, endless and empty—it was the right choice. But now I’m claustrophobic. Nothing fits in my body correctly anymore. Like I’m Alice in Wonderland, and at first I took the potion that made me too small and now I’ve taken the one that makes me too big and nothing fits. My bones hurt, my chest is tight, and my vision is blurry, like I’m looking through a window streaked with oil.

And I woke up, all of a sudden. That doesn’t happen to me. I’m a good sleeper—I wake up to sounds, but even when I do, it happens gradually. I arrive at consciousness by degrees. When enough of my brain is awake, I decide if I need to get up and figure out what the hell the sound was, and if I don’t, I fall back asleep easily.

There was no sound. There is no sound—this whole place is as quiet as a tomb. But I woke all at once; deep in sleep one moment, wide awake and springing out of bed the next. And still, there’s no sign of what jarred me from sleep.

Maybe I had a nightmare. If I did, I don’t remember it.

But I have this lingering sensation that something is wrong. And the feeling itself, it sits wrong in my body.

Does that make sense? The feeling is one of—of dread, I think, but it also—it doesn’t feel like mine.

[click, static]

God, that’s fucking insane. I sound totally cracked. I didn’t used to be like this, I don’t think. But first the tornado, now this…you must think I jump at every mouse and spider that I see. But I don’t. I worry about stuff, yeah, sometimes I feel anxious, but I don’t get scared. The only times I’ve gotten scared are the times that are appropriate—nearly getting caught, running for my life…the tornado, I think that was justified. 
But nothing is happening. I’m sitting in a nice hotel bed, in a nice hotel, in a nice town, and it’s like there are claws hooked into my chest. Pulling. And not like they’re trying to rip out my heart, but like I’m supposed to follow.

I don’t know what I’m saying…

Maybe it’s a panic attack. Maybe it’s fucking heartburn.

But I can’t shake the thought—the one that’s been running through my head since the moment I woke up—I can’t shake the thought that this feeling, whatever it is, is not my own.

[click, static]

I didn’t find a generator or a battery last night. But when I woke up, the CB was already on. It’s…Birdie, it’s not plugged into anything.

But it’s on.

[click, static]

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