Breaker Whiskey

Please visit breakerwhiskey.com for more information or to send a message to Whiskey's radio. Breaker Whiskey is an Atypical Artists production created by Lauren Shippen. If you'd like to support the show, please visit patreon.com/breakerwhiskey. As a patron, you will also receive each week's episodes as one longer episode every Monday.

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Hey, Birdie. I haven’t heard from you in a few days. Not that you need to talk to me every single day, but I’m still waiting for you to explain the whole “betrayed your job” thing.

[click, static]

I hope I didn’t scare you off by putting certain topics off limits. But I promise, we’ve got other things to talk about. Uh, like, um...

[click, static]

Okay, how about this—I’ll tell you about how Pete and I met, how about that. I told you how Harry and I met and this is, um...well, this is actually a nice story, strangely

Um, Pete had been working in the art and antiquity racket for a while—I don’t know how he got into it, but he was good at it. Really understood museums and security systems and always seemed to have a line on which rich art collectors would be out of town when and—

[click, static]

Well, anyway, he’d been doing it for a long time. But every now and then, the gap between jobs would stretch a little too long for comfort. For as much as there were feast times, there were plenty of famine times too. So he’d have to dip down into less...prestigious jobs.

That’s how I first heard about him—I’d had my eye on a couple of Park Avenue apartments with these great big jewelry collections, and Pete beats me to one of them. And let me tell you, I was not happy.

I was in a famine period myself—one that had lasted for a while. So when I got wind that he’d scooped me, I was mad mad. And, of course, there’s nothing I can do—I’m twenty two and broke and trying to make my way in the world, but then I realized, Pete may have gotten there first, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t take something from Pete. You know what they say, there’s no honor among—

[click, static]

Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this story. I don’t want to put another topic off-limits, and I’ve already told you plenty that’s incriminating, but these are still public airwaves that anyone could be tuning in and I don’t know if I should still be paranoid—

[click, static]

I’ll come up with something else. Another fun story, okay? And you just get back to me when you can.

[click, static]

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

[stray morse beeps]

[click]

Birdie??? Birdie, are you there?

[click, static]

Birdie. Do you read?

[click, static]

Goddammit.

I could have sworn that I heard...

[click, static]

I was tuning through the channels and there were beeps that sounded like you. Like you were trying to send something.

[click, static]

(sighs) Maybe I’m imagining things. Wanting to hear from you.

(laughs) You know, it sort of reminds me of sitting by the phone waiting for a date to call, or whatever.

Not that I ever did that much dating, but I remember the first time I had a genuinely good date, I was twenty-one, living in that terrible shoebox apartment with a million other people, and I went on this date with this—uh, they were a friend of a friend of a friend, one of those set ups that happens when you’re in your twenties and you know a ton of people but you don’t really know any of them. Did you experience that?

(mumbling) I guess I don’t even know how old you are.

Anyway, I’d met a bunch of people through my roommates and my job and a few of the bars that I would frequent and I had this one friend, Sissy, who made it her life’s mission to set everyone in the world up. It didn’t matter how tenuous the connection between her and the two parties were, she was shameless anyway.

So she set me up with—lets call them “K”. K worked on Wall Street, which made me immediately suspicious but Sissy assured me that they were cool because the friend that she knew them through was a choreographer and had good taste in people. I don’t know, I agreed because, again, really lonely and also I thought if K was a Wall Street person, maybe I’d get dinner at a really fancy restaurant out of it, somewhere I could order a twenty dollar glass of wine or something.

But it wasn’t like that at all. K took me to get gyros at this street vendor that they swore was the best food in the city. And it was pretty good and K paid, so I was plenty happy. And then we went to a jazz club where they knew the owner, so we got the best seats and really good service and...I don’t know. It was nice, to be somewhere that treated you like you were special.

And that all would’ve been enough for me to go out with K again—I was twenty-one and dead broke, I would’ve gone on as many dates as I could if it meant I got a free meal or a good night on the town. But, much to my surprise, I had fun. Sissy had been right. K was funny, and smart—one of those people you’d never run out of things to talk about with. I hadn’t really experienced that before.

So we exchanged numbers at the end of the date—kissed on the cheek to say goodbye, I think maybe we were both nervous—and I waited by the phone for days. I drove my roommates insane—any time I came home from work I’d hound them about if anyone had called when I was gone. We didn’t have a phone service, so we were pretty reliant on one of us being home at all times, which usually someone was. But there was nothing.

Eventually I just bit the bullet and I called K—who did have a phone service, of course, which is what I got when I called. It’s what I got every time I called. And I’d leave my name and number with the service every time—even starting saying when I’d be likely to be home so they could tell K when was best to call back and...the phone stayed silent.

[click, static]

Please don’t stop answering my calls. Or, if you do, at least give me a reason. K never did.

[click, static]

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Hey Birdie.

I think—I think I need to get out of this park. Out of Wyoming. I still don’t understand how the hell you’ve been managing to reach me this whole time, no matter where I’ve been, but I feel like maybe—

[click, static]

Huh. Well, actually, I’m realizing that I’m not even sure you’ve been reaching me wherever I am. For all I know, you’ve been sending messages every single day for the past three months and I’ve only received a quarter of them. And you’re having the most frustrating conversation of your life.

[click, static]

If that’s the case...christ, I’m sorry. Here I am gabbing onto the airwaves every single day and you’re desperately trying to tell me something. Then again, maybe you’re receiving only a quarter of my transmissions. I guess there’s really no way to know for certain.

[click, static]

Whatever’s actually been happening over the course of our conversation, I’m pretty sure that I’m in a hard to reach spot right now, no matter what you’ve got rigged up. I think you were trying to send something the other day, but I was only getting every tenth beep, so it’s impossible to tell. But scanning through the channels every time I’ve come back to the car, it’s been almost entirely static. And less varying static than normal, which probably sounds like nothing, but when you’ve been listening to so much static, you start to learn the slightly different flavors of it. Trust me.

[click, static]

Anyway. This whole diversion has been...well. Diverting. I needed it, I think, on some level. I’m not entirely certain why, but I do feel more grounded. Maybe it was seeing that dog, or nearly getting caught in that tornado, but I’ve been feeling...

I’m feeling better now. So I’m gonna hike back over to my campsite, break everything down, hike back, and then get on the road. Leave national parks exactly as you found them, right? This place doesn’t need people intruding on it anymore.

[click, static]

I’ll get back on the horn when I’m on a major highway again. I hope I hear from you the moment I do. Whiskey out.

[click, static]

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Please visit breakerwhiskey.com for more information or to send a message to Whiskey's radio. Breaker Whiskey is an Atypical Artists production created by Lauren Shippen. If you'd like to support the show, please visit patreon.com/breakerwhiskey.

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

One week ago I was on top of the Blue Ridge Mountains and now here I am looking out over the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s...big.

[click, static]

That’s a stupid thing to say, of course it’s big, it’s the ocean. And it’s tiny compared to the Pacific. But it’s still, you know...yawning. Is that the right word?

I thought the ocean—which always feels big—would just...fit right in with the rest off the huge emptiness. But it’s somehow even bigger in context.

I wonder what’s going on over there—out, across the ocean, in other countries. Is it the same as here? Is everyone gone? Is anyone also trying to reach out? Fruitlessly?

[click, static]

There’s a lot of old shit in Virginia. Did you know they made a whole colonial town nearby? Williamsburg. The entire place is trapped in seventeen-whatever. “A Living History Museum” is what they called it on some brochures I found. They had...actors, I guess, dressing up as the founding fathers or whatever, going around and pretending like it was the olden days.

What an absolute trip. All these old buildings, horse posts, the whole nine—and lemme tell you, it’s even creepier without any people around. Like I’ve been the last person on Earth for two hundred years.

Which I’m not. No matter what I see—or don’t see—out here, I know I’m not the very last. I’m not the only.

[click, static]

Harry would probably love it. All the antique crap, the costumes...It’s...theatrical. Like she is. Like Francis was.

[click, static]

A widow’s walk. I remembered this morning—that’s what the little thing on top of Francis’ house was called. A widow’s walk. Like a crow’s nest on a ship—a place to look out over the ocean from. They’re all over Cape Cod.

And I guess they’re called that because the people who’d be looking out from them were the wives of sailors. Men who were more devoted to the sea than the women they confined to their homes. Women who had nothing to do but stand on a perch and pace and worry when their husbands were coming back.

But they’re not called ‘wives walk’s. They’re called ‘widow’s walk’s. The men rarely came back. And the women were still there, looking out over the endless water, waiting to see a boat that would never come. Is that...

[click, static]

(quietly) Is that what I’ve done to Harry? I told her I was never coming back but now I—

[click, static]

Never mind. It’s not important anymore. There aren’t any more widows to walk and I’d bet most of those houses are standing empty, ready to fall into the ocean, with no one any the wiser.

I wonder if they’ve got widow’s walks out on the West coast.

[click, static]

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Please visit breakerwhiskey.com for more information or to send a message to Whiskey's radio. Breaker Whiskey is an Atypical Artists production created by Lauren Shippen. If you'd like to support the show, please visit patreon.com/breakerwhiskey.

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Okay, I’m sorry for rambling the other day, and I really hope I didn’t come across as too weird, I’m regretting a lot of that now, because I think I figured it out and if I’m right, then...you are really talking to me.

[click, static]

God bless the public library system. In all my driving around these past few days, I found a little downtown—small, but seems to have all the basics. Bank, grocery, post office and...public library.

I hadn’t even thought to check out the town but I popped my head into the grocery store and it didn’t look like it was all that well stocked to begin with. The place didn’t seem to be looted, but it didn’t really have much.

And you know what wasn’t touched at all? The perfect, dust-covered library. I’ve never been much of a reader, so Harry was usually the one to go to our local library and pick up whatever novel she could find that she hadn’t read and then she’d read it in two days and make me listen to her recount the entire plot of the entire thing, whether I asked or not.

And I never asked.

But sometimes she’d bring back technical manuals for me on whatever she could find. Even if it was for something we didn’t have and had no way of getting. I guess she thought maybe I needed entertainment, or maybe she was trying to drop hints that she wanted to fix up or build a particular thing.

[click, static]

Not that subtly was ever her game when she wanted something from me. Demanding was more her style.

But anyway, as I was driving this morning, scanning frequencies and keeping my eyes peeled for any scrap of a sign of human activity, it occurred to me—the library would have books on morse code. Any library would have books on morse code.

And lo and behold, I am correct. So, now I’ve got everything I need to understand you. And guess what you’re saying to me?

“Hello, Whiskey”. You’re saying hello to me!

[click, static]

I don’t know if you’re listening now, but you’ve clearly been listening enough to know my callsign. I’ve gotta assume that you’re not sitting by your radio every hour of every single day, like, you know, some people so I’m guessing you have set up some kind of automatic transmission system. Which makes me think that maybe you’ve rigged up your radio to record everything it picks up too, so you can hear my messages.

[click, static]

At least, that’s my hope. It’d be tricky to rely on the joint miracles of skip and being on the radio at the same time. So I’m going to keep talking, on this frequency, every morning, and you keep doing what you’re doing.

[click, static]

Hello, Whiskey...

Listen, if you can, change your transmission tomorrow. If it’s different, I’ll know that you’ve heard this and I’ll...

[click, static]

I don’t know! I don’t know what I’m gonna do next but you bet your bottom dollar that you’re gonna be hearing all about it.

[click, static]

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.