015 - Fifteen

08/11/23 • 3 min

3 Listeners

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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]

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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]

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]

(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.

Previous Episode

014 - Fourteen

1 Recommendations

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[TRANSCRIPTS] (for full transcripts, visit breakerwhiskey.tumblr.com

[click, static]

Breaker, breaker, this is Whiskey breathing in ocean air.

Well. Almost. I’m still about seventy miles from Virginia Beach, but I swear I can smell the salt on the air.

The last time I was at the ocean was...god, probably a year before the- I don’t know what to call it, The Incident, whatever the hell it was. I’d gotten a lead on another job up in Boston and my contact lived out on the Cape, so I went out there to get the specs of the gig.

[click, static]

Francis Lennon, that was his name. Sorry, Francis, for shouting your name out on the airwaves but I really don’t think anyone’s listening and also, I’m fairly certain you’re dead.

Not to say I hope he’s dead or anything, not at all, just that the last time I saw Francis, he was already well into his eighties and that was seven years ago. and that’d be plenty of reason to think he might not be kicking anymore even before you add the realities of living on your own at that age in times like these...

He was a real character. Lived in this great old house all the way up in Provincetown, you know, the kind that has one of those little perches up on the top, god, what are they called...

[click, static]

Anyway, he’d always be dressed in these fine shirts and fancy trousers, except he usually covered them up by wearing a dressing gown at all hours of the day, like he was Sherlock Holmes or something. I think he saw himself as a bit of an eccentric. Or he just was a bit of an eccentric.

[click, static]

You meet a lot of bizarre people in my line of work—my old line of work. Especially once I started doing the...higher class jobs, the ones that are way less expedient but a hell of a lot safer—that kind of stuff, the art, the antiquities, jewelry, whatever—weirdest bunch of people are obsessed with that stuff. And knowing everything about those particulars was never my job, so I never troubled myself with learning much about it.

But Francis knew it all. The American masters were his specialty, but there wasn’t an art form he couldn’t talk about. And his place was just filled to the brim with it—I’m sure if I were a different person, or if someone like Harry were walking through his house, they’d be able to identify every piece. I wouldn’t doubt that his collection was worth seven figures or more.

[click, static]

Maybe that’s why he only ever invited me when he had a new lead, instead of Peter or whoever. He knew I couldn’t care less about what he hung on his walls—I’d listen when he told me all about his newest acquisition, but I wouldn’t try to...one up him, or sneak something out under his nose.

He was a good man. An odd dresser, fast talker, and he’d put a dab of hot sauce in his iced tea, which I always thought was pretty foul, but he was kind. And I don’t know if he really had anyone. He lived in that house all by himself, and I only ever saw him...once a year at most? But I’d always go up with the intention to be out the next day and inevitably it’d turn into a whole weekend. He’d make me eat steamed clams—which I hate—and show me the new hobby he’d picked up. I think last time it was...stained glass? He’d walk along the beach and find bottles or bits of sea glass, break them down or polish them up and fit them together into some kind of pattern that he’d then solder together.

He had three whole pieces done when I was there, and he’d leaned them against the window so that they’d catch the light, colors speckling his kitchen floor.

[click, static]

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Next Episode

016 - Sixteen

1 Recommendations

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Breaker, breaker, this is Whiskey, once again crossing a state line.

Let’s see, in three weeks, I’ve been to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois—briefly—West Virginia, Virginia, and now back through both those states to Kentucky.

[click, static]

That’s not actually that many places for three weeks. I guess I’ve been doing a lot of aimless driving.

Aimless is probably not a bad way to describe my whole life, if I’m honest. I never had any kind of plan. That wasn’t my job. Peter was always the brains of the operation, the planning guy. I worked with other guys leading the charge before, but he was always my favorite.

[click, static]

Hear that Petey? You were my favorite.

[click, static]

He probably wouldn’t care. He definitely hated being called Petey. But he otherwise didn’t care all that much what people thought of him as long as they got the job done.

I don’t know if I should be thinking of him in past tense. But what other information do I have to go on? He wasn’t headed anywhere good the last time I saw him and I doubt he got lucky like Harry and I did...

[click, static]

Jesus, not that we were lucky. It was...horrible, one of the worst—

[click, static]

(clears throat)

In some ways that is just part of life, isn’t it? Losing track of where someone is, if they’re even still alive. The older you get, the more people you have in your past. And I don’t even mean strangers—I’m talking about close friends, long time colleagues, exes. It’s not like you can subscribe to a magazine called “Everyone you’ve ever cared about! Where are they now?”

[click, static]

Like my best friend when I was a kid — Mildred Wilcox. Millie and I were thick as thieves from the time we were seven years old until we were fifteen and I left home. She was everything to me—my confidant, my partner in crime, my...sister. And I haven’t spoken to her in nearly twenty years.

We kept in touch a little after I first left home—I’d send her letters and postcards from the places I went. But then she went to college and her family moved addresses or something, because all my letters came back to me, with “wrong address” stamps all over them. And I never had a reliable address to receive mail—not until I got my act together and at least got myself a PO Box, so we just...lost each other. I never got the phone number for her dorm and half the time I didn’t even have a phone myself...

So we went from two people who were the closest of friends, to two people who tried to keep in touch as best they could to...never speaking again.

I don’t even remember the last time I talked to her. It wouldn’t have stood out as remarkable at the time because I’d had no idea it would be the last time.

[click, static]

Did people know? That they were talking to their loved ones for the last time? Was it sudden or slow? Harry and I...we didn’t see anything, we didn’t hear anything. We didn’t know. We didn’t know there was anything to know until it was too late. What happened had already come to pass and hadn’t left enough evidence behind for us to put the pieces together.

Six months we laid low, had no contact with anyone. I didn’t know it was the last time then either. If I had, I think I would’ve risked it. Would’ve risked being caught just so I could have a conversation with a stranger one more time. Even if it was just to say goodbye.

Did anyone get a chance to say goodbye?

[click, static]

[beeps]

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