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.

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static] Breaker, breaker, this is Whiskey driving West on a beautiful day.

Still in Ohio. The Buckeye State. I’m thinking of heading South actually–the last time I was in the Midwest was...god, probably sixty? Sixty-one. I just remember a lot of flat. I haven’t hit that yet, but knowing it’s coming...yeah, anyway, I’ve been thinking about heading south. Cutting back over into...(rustling of paper), 77? And going down to West Virginia. I blew right past Akron without seeing a single sign of life, so I’m thinking maybe the big cities are out.

[click, static]

Jesus, not that Akron, Ohio is a big city. Maybe I should’ve gone up to Cleveland, I don’t know. I guess I’m still a little skittish of anywhere that might have–

[click, static]

(sighing) Anyway, West Virginia seems like a place worth checking out. Harry mentioned this doomsday cult she’d heard about down there–granted, that was back in ‘66 or something that she heard those rumors but...what else do I have to go on, huh?

Man, if she could see me right now, she’d laugh and tell me ‘told you so’. Not even a week into this and I’m already going looking for a weird survivalist cult. Bet she’d love to have me go slinking back with my tail between my legs, giving up on any hope that there’s something worth looking for in this godforsaken country.

But she’s not gonna get the satisfaction. I’m not going back, not for anything. It was safe, sure, but at what cost? Human beings aren’t meant to live in a cage, even ones of their own making. I mean it’s just—

[click, static]

Well, even a bunch of nuclear war freakouts would be better than being alone.

I’ve been alone for so long now.

[click, static]

Harry would take issue with that, I think. Try to logic me into some kind of admission that because I wasn’t actually alone, I couldn’t claim being lonely. And maybe I wouldn’t’ve been if every conversation with her wasn’t exactly like that, where she would–

[click, static]

(deep breath) I’m not gonna talk about her. I’m not even gonna think about her. I’ve spent the past six years doing nothing but–

[click, static]

If I’m gonna head south I should probably figure out where the hell I can get on I-77. I’m working off a Rand McNally from 1963, but it’s not like they’ve done any public works since ‘68 so I’m counting on it being somewhat reliable. But if you hear this and have a hot tip on the best route to take...

This is Whiskey, signing off.

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 on] Ugh...

[click, static]

Jesus Christ. I–

[click, static]

The last time I had a hangover, I believe I was twenty-eight years old. I’m not twenty-eight anymore.

Not that I’m old–least, I don’t feel it. Sure, maybe in a usual circumstance I’d be well into suburban adult life or something. Maybe. Probably not. I was never the get hitched and have kids type. Folks in my line of work usually don’t–

[click, static]

Ughhh god, I don’t even know if I can drive today. My head is pounding. Guess it wouldn’t hurt to spend a day just...resting. I’ve been driving most of the day for the past week after years of barely driving at all.

It’s been harder on my body than I thought it’d be. Though I guess that might be the after effects of bourbon talking.

[click, static]

I guess I’m not used to sitting down for so much of the day. Those first few years after everything happened, it took a lot to find a spot we’d be safe in and then to set that place up. By the time we got everything running smoothly, I’d forgotten what it was like to sit still.

Not that I did much of that before. My life has always been taken up moving around, fixing things, breaking things.

I had to learn how to garden these past six years.

[click, static]

Who am I kidding. Harry did most of that stuff. I figured out how to butcher chickens I guess. Chop wood. Fix the roof. Rewire the house.

It’s not like I had a purpose really. Other than keeping myself alive and trying not to strangle Harry every time she wasted a ton of flour trying to reengineer a goddamned croquembouche she had in Paris in 1962 from memory. That no-good pretentious—

[click, static]

I can’t figure out if I have less of a purpose now or more of one. I’m still trying to keep myself alive, though I’ve gotten pretty good at that. And there’s not as much...hazard, on the road, as I expected. I’ve got enough food to last me...months, probably. Water’s a toss up sometimes but boiling works in a pinch. As long as I can find gas, I’m good to drive around indefinitely.

Which, you know...

[click, static]

Is that a life? Has any of this been? I wasn’t expecting to get past our driveway and find that the whole world had gone back to a normal, civilized society–I’m not even sure I would’ve wanted that. The fear of it is half the reason we never tried to contact anyone–

[click, static]

But there’s gotta be something–someone–out here somewhere. There’s no way in hell that Harry and I are the only two people who survived...whatever it was.

So, once again, I’m begging–if you can hear this. Come and find me. I’m at a little house with a red door off Route 33, take left at the bridge and then the third right you come to. I’ll stay a few days, take a beat, and wait.

[click, static]

And just to be clear, if you come here and try something I don’t like, well...as I said, I have a lot of experience in breaking things.

Alright, Whiskey out.

[click, static]

[beeps]

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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[TRANSCRIPTS]

[click, static]

Well, I nearly accidentally killed myself last night.

[click, static]

I got in late—no sign of any organized groups of people, doomsday or otherwise. No sign of people, period. It was a foolish errand maybe. And I was exhausted but I made dinner as I usually do—as usual as anything can be when you’ve only been doing it a few days—but I fried up a little spam, with some canned spinach, little bit of American cheese I brought from home that I think will stay good for a while—

[click, static]

Not home. It’s not home anymore. I don’t know if it ever really was home. No more than this random West Virginia house is. No more than any place has been since I was fifteen years old. The cars have been more of a home to me—

[click, static]

God, I’m still a little loopy. I left the gas on is the thing. I don’t know how, but when I turned off the burners, I guess one knob must’ve been a little finicky or something because by the time I was getting ready to go to sleep last night, I was feeling strange. Thankfully, I’m not an idiot, contrary to all the evidence I’ve given you, my radio stranger, my little void in the form of static, so I checked the stove and then opened all the windows the moment I figured out what went wrong. I slept with the windows open all night, just to be safe, checking the burners first thing this morning to make sure they stayed all the way off.

So I’m fine! I’m fine. But it...I don’t know.

[click, static]

I could die out here, die anywhere, and no one would ever know. And I guess that could’ve been true during a lot of times in my life but no matter what I have to say about the last six years, I wouldn’t’ve have dropped dead without someone taking notice.

[click, static]

I can’t speak to how Harry would have felt about it, but she would’ve noticed.

[click, static]

For all she knows now, I am already dead. I ran out of gas or food or water or crashed the car. I’d like to think that—despite whatever else she might think about me—she at least knows me well enough to have a little more faith that I could survive than that but...I don’t know.

[click, static]

I don’t want to die alone. I don’t want to live alone. But what if I really am alone? What if we both are?

What if we’re the last two people left in this stupid place and I’m the one who sentenced us to an existence of isolation?

[click, static]

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]

I spent last night looking at the map of West Virginia and trying to remember where exactly that doomsday cult was supposed to be. There’s three towns that sounded sort of familiar for some reason, so that’s what I’m doing today. I got up early and I’m gonna drive to each of these towns and see what’s what.

[click, static]

If there are other people out there, I bet a lot of these kinds of groups have sprung up. The one Harry had heard about was panicked about nuclear war—but who isn’t, right?

[click, static]

It used to scare me, the idea that just a handful of people in the world could wake up one day and decide to end the world. All it would take is for one country to decide to drop a bomb and then it’d all be over. It never seemed that far-fetched either—America already did it.

[click, static]

When we first realized that something was different—that something had gone wrong...we’d been hiding out in this little abandoned cabin deep in the Pennsylvania wilderness. And I couldn’t hunt for shit and Harry certainly didn’t come with survival skills, so things were starting to look a little bleak. We weren’t strangers to planning outings that require a certain amount of stealth, so it was decided—we’d make our way closer to a town and scope it out for supplies.

But when we got there, there was no one. It was a ghost town. We figured maybe it was an old coal town or something that had gotten abandoned when a mine closed—you see some of those types of towns out West, but we didn’t see any reason that it couldn’t happen in Pennsylvania too. So we kept going. And it was the same thing in the next three towns.

[click, static]

Of course we thought that nuclear war had broken out. What else could we have thought? Everyone disappears overnight, leaving their cars parked on the street, leaving the lights on—some of them, anyway. The breakout of nuclear war didn’t explain everything, but it seemed like the only possible explanation.

[click, static]

Except...wouldn’t we have died long ago? Wouldn’t we have gotten sick? In my driving these last two weeks, I haven’t seen any evidence of a bombing or nuclear fallout.

So who was responsible then? Who made all the people disappear? Was it like it is with nuclear war—were there only a select few who had the terrible power to make that happen?

[click, static]

And if that’s the case, what the hell kind of button did they push?

[click, static]

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

Good morning, West Virginia. A miracle occurred this morning—this little house I’m holed up in? Somehow, it still has a working gas line. And they’ve got a gas stove.

[click, static]

That’s right, I had a hot breakfast this morning. And, look, it’s not like it’s been so long since I had hot beans, but I don’t know how likely this exact scenario is going to be on my travels, so I’m taking the little joys where I can.

I do have a camper stove with me, but it doesn’t seem like a great use of gas. I’ll probably heat up food if and when I’ve got to boil water, and I guess I could always make a campfire but...I don’t know, you kind of get used to cold food after a few months and even though we eventually got a decent working kitchen at the house, I think the ability to eat something straight out of a room temperature can never really went away.

[click, static]

I’ve never been particularly fussy about what I eat. It’s all just fuel. I did use to be absolutely dependent on coffee, but I had that habit kicked out of me pretty quick.

[click, static]

God, I miss coffee. Good coffee, the kind that doesn’t come in a can. The kind that you don’t have to brew yourself. There’s not a lot I miss about the “old world” or whatever you want to call it. I wasn’t exactly the prime example of the American dream or anything, but there’s a few creature comforts that I’d sure like to access with ease again. The joy of sitting down at a coffee shop. And, you know, we never got more seasons of “Star Trek” for god’s sake, it’s just, it’s really—

[click, static]

How is everyone else keeping themselves entertained? There’s plenty to be said for the joy of a hot breakfast, beauty in the simple things, yada yada, but come on, has anyone else been bored? There’s only so many card games you can play with two people. As much as I like fixing things up, it can’t take all my time.

[click, static]

Well. Anyway. Guess I should indulge today, while I can. Or for a few days even. I have half a mind to spend the rest of the week here. I don’t think the owners are gonna come back, but you know maybe I can poke around, see what can be found in the little downtown I drove through. See if anyone might be about.

If anyone might be listening.

[click, static]

Are you listening?

[click, static]

(sigh) Yeah. Alright. Whiskey, signing off.