Radiomen (32 page)

The dog turned to look straight at me with dark, glittering eyes. Then he stood up, shook himself, and ran off toward the horizon, toward the edge of the white sky.

~XVII~

T
he days went on. I slept, I got up, I walked my dog, I went to work and then came home and went through the cycle again. I was in a strange state, a kind of suspended animation, in which few sensations seemed to get through to me. Instead of being in the world, I felt like I was walking along a corridor just outside, seeing everything through a kind of filmy curtain. Sometimes, drifting through the motions of work or riding the bus or walking down the street, my mind would clear for a moment and I would be able to focus on what I was involved in and it would occur to me that maybe I had gone crazy. Maybe I was deluded. Maybe I was imagining things. Dogs were bringing me messages? An alien sitting in a room that was not really a room—not in this world, anyway—was waiting for me to give him back the lost component of an interstellar radio network? Beings who were not human were consumed with sending prayers into space in order to speak to God? Maybe instead of wasting my money on rent and food I should ask Jack to watch Digitaria for a while and check myself into some sort of clinic.

But it was actually Jack’s phone calls—he spoke to me now almost every day—that kept me tethered to the strange reality that was now the framework of my life. He was making progress building the repeater, and actually seemed to be enjoying himself, as if he, too, sometimes forgot the real purpose of his task. We talked about that one night, late, when he was off the air, and agreed that it was hard to hold the idea in mind of what we were really doing; the subject came up in the context of a surprising piece of information he wanted to share with me.

“Guess who wants to come on the show?” Jack asked.

“I can’t guess,” I said. “I just got back from work a little while ago. I’m too tired.”

“Raymond Gilmartin.”

That was a surprise—and it certainly got my attention. “Why?” I asked. “The last time you suggested that, he threw you out of his office.”

“You haven’t been listening to my show, have you?”

I hadn’t because once I found out how much it actually cost to buy the special radio you needed to listen to the satellite service, as well as to pay the subscription fee, I decided that I could live without it. I was kind of embarrassed to admit that to Jack, though. So, hemming and hawing, I said, “I’ve been meaning to sign up for the service, but . . .”

“Never mind,” Jack said. Maybe he’d guessed at the reason I wasn’t listening in or maybe he was just being nice—maybe both—because he immediately offered a way to fix what, to him, must have seemed like a problem that needed an immediate solution. “I’ll get you a radio and pay for the service. I should have at least one loyal listener.”

I said thanks and then waited for Jack to circle back to the subject of Raymond Gilmartin, which he did, almost immediately. What he told me was interesting, but I still didn’t think it explained much.

“I’ve been after them—the Blue Awareness—ever since Raymond kicked me out that night,” Jack said. “Well, before, of course, but that just made me . . . oh, let’s say, it made me even more pissed off. So I’ve had lots of ex-Awares on, and they’ve been pretty frank in revealing just about everything they know about the movement. I have to say, they’ve told some very interesting tales about Raymond, in particular. Apparently, he’s revised a lot of the Awareness doctrine to make it more to his liking. Howard Gilmartin was a grandiose, narcissistic paranoid, but the picture I’m getting is more of someone who wanted to play out his fantasies than a man who was deeply invested in having people create a cult around him. It’s Raymond who built a small group of followers into a worldwide movement. I’ve actually had on a number of people who joined the Blue Awareness when Howard was alive and left during Raymond’s tenure as the movement leader. They all say that Raymond is totally inflexible; you can’t disagree with him or question him in any way. For example, did you know he was the one who came up with the idea of engrams and Blue Boxes? He really believes that he has a duty—a mission—to make people adopt his beliefs.”

Though I hadn’t known these specific details, overall, I didn’t think the information was all that surprising. It seemed to go without saying that Raymond was picking and choosing from his father’s ideas then adding in his own to create a religion that suited his own strange view of the world and what lay beyond. But just as obviously, he was doing a very good job of it, because, from what I knew—and despite all the disgruntled followers Jack could find—people seemed to be joining the Blue Awareness in record numbers. So why bother to go on Jack’s show? Why give Jack that satisfaction—and the buzz it might create for his program? What was in it for Raymond?

I asked Jack that question and he said, “To be honest, I don’t care. Though I imagine he thinks he can get the better of me, just like he did last time.”

Oh boy
, I found myself thinking.
This is some guy thing. Jack Shepherd lost a fight with Raymond Gilmartin and now he wants to get back at him, no matter what.

“You’re not going to mention the repeater, are you?”

“Jesus, no,” Jack said. “Not to Gilmartin. That story is for later.”

Later?
What did he mean? “Wait a minute,” I said. “You never even asked me about that. I wanted you to help me—not to talk about . . . well, about
anything
. Not on your show.” The idea made me panicky. My life was already weird enough without hearing it discussed on the radio. Helping shadow men send prayers out into the distant universe—that didn’t sound like how the ideal Endless Weekend employee should be spending her spare time. If the story got out, I could easily guess how quickly I would get fired.

“I would never mention your name,” Jack said.

“Oh, great. That makes me feel so much better.”

“Stop worrying, Laurie. Everything will be fine.”

“That’s what they say in the movies just before the psycho killers show up.”

Jack sighed. “We’ve got enough going on, don’t you think? Don’t bring up psycho killers.”

After we hung up, I went to sleep, got up the next morning, and the cycle of days began again, though after that phone call with Jack there was one big change in my life, and that involved my dog. Digitaria now seemed to be on edge all the time. For the first time since he’d been with me, I had to restrain him from lunging at people in the street whose look I guess he didn’t like. And at night, keeping his vigil at the edge of the bed, he’d sometimes make that odd yipping sound, but softly, as if he were talking to himself.
You totally are crazy
, I said to myself the first time I had that thought—
Digitaria is talking to himself
—and then rolled over and went back to the broken, fitful sleep that now characterized my nights.

Raymond Gilmartin was scheduled for his on-air talk with Jack about a week after I first heard that he was going to do the show. I was very nervous about what direction their conversation might take since the last thing I wanted to hear was either of them mention my name on the radio. Ravenette had found me that first time with very little trouble—who knew what other kinds of crazies might be moved to invade my life if they heard anything about my connection to what was undoubtedly going to sound like some kind of alien invasion? I tried to put Jack and Raymond out of my mind for a while, and it helped that I had to work on the night of the interview. I managed to keep myself occupied by tracking the sports scores and suggesting elaborate mixed drinks to customers; making Singapore Slings and Mai Tais kept my hands busy and my thoughts engaged with inconsequential tasks.

But afterward, after the bar had closed down and I was waiting for the bus on the service road that separated the food service parking lots from the marshland edging Jamaica Bay, I couldn’t keep my attention focused on trivialities anymore. Looking up into the night, I saw that Orion and his hunting dogs were climbing back into the ink-colored sky, making their return from their summer hiding place below the horizon. Recognizing these constellations led me immediately to locate Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, which is pinned to the snout of the Great Dog constellation. Along with its lesser companion, the Minor Dog, Canis Major faithfully follows Orion the hunter throughout the seasons, never leaving his side. I tried to imagine the companion that belonged to Sirius itself—Digitaria, the invisible other, the dwarf star bonded to its massive twin by the bonds of ancient, interstellar forces. But that’s all it could be: imagination. Sirius is a bright dot in the sky, but a single point of coldly burning light is what it must remain to any Earthbound observer. The human eye, unaided by a telescope, cannot see that Sirius has company. It is impossible.

With Orion and his fierce pets on the ascendant, these were still the supposed dog days of summer, but it was actually late in September, and the night air was cool. I had brought a hoodie with me, rolled into a ball and stuffed into my shoulder bag, so I pulled it out and zipped myself into it, hoping the bus would show up soon.

It finally did, though the ride home seemed to take forever. Once I got to my block, the usual scenario was playing itself out: a long Diamond Reo was parked up against the wall of an alley near my house, its running lights on and its engine idling softly. Two men were unloading cartons from the back. I knew they were not the pair who had helped me out last summer, when the men in the yellow goggles had tried to steal Digitaria—I had never seen those two workers again. Tonight, I barely even glanced at the guys pulling swag from the truck as I walked on toward my building.

I unlocked the vestibule door with my key and started up the stairs to my apartment. As usual, it was long past midnight, but as I opened my door, I heard my neighbor’s door open as well. I waited while Sassouma walked down the hall toward me, carrying a small FedEx box.

I wasn’t all that surprised that she was awake, since she sometimes came home very late from the convenience store where she worked. I assumed that she had retrieved the package from the hall where the FedEx deliveryman had left it, but I had no idea what it might be until she handed it to me and I saw that the label had Jack’s return address on it.

As we chatted for a moment—I asked about her children and her husband, and she answered as best she could with her limited English—Digitaria came out into the hallway and she patted him on the head. Down a few doors, I could hear her little dog barking for her to come back, so we said good night and I went inside.

Before I took Digitaria outside for his walk, I opened the package and found that it contained a radio, a small one, about the size of an old-fashioned transistor, but much sleeker looking. It was slate gray in color and had an array of buttons under a small, gray screen, and I quickly realized that it was the satellite radio Jack had promised to get for me. I’d forgotten all about that, but now, here it was. Jack had once called me a radio freak, and he was right—that was one thing I certainly had in common with Avi. This was a completely new kind of radio, and as soon as I had it in my hands, I was intrigued.

The radio came with instructions for activating it, which involved a phone call to a twenty-four-hour customer service line, and in a few minutes, I was able to push the On button and watch as the radio lit up and the screen displayed a scrolling menu of more than a hundred channels to select from.

One thing the radio did not have, though, was a speaker; to listen to it, you either had to plug it into a stereo system or listen with headphones. I tuned the radio to a station dedicated to playing classic hits of the sixties, then rooted around in my top dresser drawer until I found a pair of earbuds, which I plugged into the radio, and soon I heard the Beatles singing
yeah, yeah, yeah,
as if they were inside my brain. Not bad. Not bad at all.

I found Digitaria’s leash and led him outside for his walk. In the short time I’d been upstairs, whoever was responsible for unloading the Diamond Reo had finished their work. The truck was gone. The street was otherwise empty, so it was just me, the dog, the music in my head, and the starry pictures of men and beasts drawn on the night sky.

Maybe it was just the music, but for the first time in a while, I felt like I was coming back to myself, like my spirit—whatever that was—had been absent from my body but was beginning, gingerly, to fold itself back in. I felt calmer, a little stronger, a little more centered. So, as I walked, I found myself putting aside my aversion to hearing what Jack and Raymond might have to say to each other. After all, Jack had promised to keep the focus on the Blue Awareness, and what difference did it make to me, really, if he and Raymond went at each other about that? Besides, Jack never spent his entire show talking with only one guest; the odds were that I had already missed Raymond’s segment and Jack was on to some other topic, like the existence of poltergeists or which lost civilization might have built the Bimini Road.

But like everything else, lately, what I didn’t want to happen was exactly what did: as I tuned through the stations, I suddenly heard Jack’s voice. He said something I didn’t quite catch, and received an answer from his guest who was, unmistakably, not a poltergeist hunter or anyone else but Raymond Gilmartin. The radio provided a clear, finely modulated sound, which made me focus on the quality of the voices speaking to me through the headphones. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now, listening to Jack and Raymond, I realized the two men’s voices presented as much of a contrast as their personalities: Jack’s was rough, but tinged with irony—very New York—while Raymond’s was polished and smooth, the voice of someone who gave a lot of speeches to attentive audiences.

As I listened, though, whatever good humor Jack projected quickly vanished. He kept pushing Raymond to talk about specific issues that ex-Awares had brought up on his program, such as the accusation that the Blue Awareness was set up to extract escalating fees from members for seemingly endless Blue Box sessions, which were required for rising from one level of “Awareness” to another, meaning, to have more and more of what Jack characterized as Raymond’s “bizarre doctrine” revealed to them. But Raymond dismissed all that as complaints from disgruntled individuals who were also, possibly, mentally ill. They needed more Blue Box sessions, Raymond suggested, not fewer; and then left that issue entirely to defend Blue Awareness doctrine, which, he said was based on irrefutable truth—and you could hear the capital “T” in that word as it rolled out of his mouth.