Bridgetown, Issue #1: Arrival (18 page)

Susanna was not ashamed of her
greased-stained denim overalls and rolled-up sleeves; in fact, she
felt proud. This was as good an implicit middle finger as she was
going to find to illustrate just how much she wanted to be here
right now. The Ladies of Bridgetown did not publicly raise an
eyebrow at her apparel: To them, Susanna was an evident eccentric,
but one with more wealth and power than anyone else in the room.
Had she been their monetary peer, they would have banished her to
Mexico merely for showing up the way she did.

The Ladies of Bridgetown Assembly was, like
the rest of the local elite, well aware of Cole Co.'s true
industrial ambitions. They were sworn to secrecy about the auto
project, though that didn't mean much. They wouldn't have been able
to put a stop to their gossip grapevine if it were a matter of
national security. Several of the ladies had already placed orders
through their wealthy husbands, reserving some of the first cars to
come off the production line. They tittered and chirped about how
they'd read that female driving was all the fashion in Paris, and
asked Susanna about the availability of an electric-powered
option.

"If ever there has been an invention of more
solid comfort to the feminine half than the electrical carriage, I
cannot think of one," one of the peacock-women announced. "How
delightful a thing! A machine a woman such as myself could operate,
with no loss of dignity, no risk of injury upon ignition. Of a
demeanor as clean and quiet as my own. For shopping, perhaps, or a
pleasurable ride, even just the paying back of some small social
debt." The other ladies nodded and made womanly sounds of agreement
that were overwrought in their tiny inoffensiveness.

"Look, ladies," Susanna shot back, playing up
a butch undertone in her voice as much as possible. "Baker and
Colombia want to sell to the 'the fairer sex'." She took a breath.
"But let me tell you something. Those companies think men will only
buy cars for their wives if they don't have to worry about them
driving past the city limits."

This elicited blank stares from the Assembly.
"Why would we ever need to go beyond the city limits by ourselves?"
one asked, earnestly. The others gave small laughs in
agreement.

Susanna sighed. "I suppose you have a point,"
she conceded. "Why would you?"

She had failed to realize just how small the
self-imposed prison that these women lived in was.

That was that, as far as
Susanna was concerned. From then on, she paid attention only to
every other word that was spoken. She simply could not bring
herself to care about the things they were debating amongst
themselves.
Are two centerpieces per table
too gauche?
Another would say,
these tables are simply too long—they'll appear
barren without the proper sprucing up
.
Then a third would stick her neck in—
If we
were concerned with it seeming gauche, why did we choose such large
tables in the first place?

Every once in a while, the League would turn
their heads, seemingly in unison, towards Susanna, expecting her
decisive judgement to bring clarity to the proceedings.

"Whatever you guys think is best," she would
reply.

When she reached her breaking point, she did
what she had in their previous meeting three weeks earlier.

"Ladies, thank you for your time," Susanna
said, already getting up, "but I'm afraid I have some business I
must attend to." With no further elaboration, she left the
room.

Yet she couldn't quite help herself. She
stood just outside the doorway, curious to know what the Ladies had
to say about her when she was gone.

There was a long pause, while each of the
ladies no doubt debated within herself if it appeared unseemly to
be the first to say it. Finally, one of them broke.

"Mrs. Cole has been acting very oddly all
week, I must say."

"All week? Why, I can hardly recall an
encounter when she hasn't seemed almost perverse!"

"And that outfit!"

"Where are her graces, showing up to a
meeting dressed like that!"

"I do believe she looks down upon us."

"Well, our tea sets may not be gilded in
gold, but we know how to treat our neighbors."

"You're absolutely right."

More silence fell upon the set.

"I suppose it will be two centerpieces per
table, then?"

Susanna poked her head back through the
doorway. The women's faces immediately went wide in ghastly
expressions, realizing they'd been caught by their social superior.
Each wore a look of contorted, silent agony. They'd have scarcely
looked more horrified if Susanna had walked in on them engaging in
an orgy. She savored this moment. It made the whole damn meeting
worthwhile. "Once centerpiece per table will do, ladies."

She closed the door,
quietly, and began the march back to the factory floor. When at
last she rounded the corner and passed under the doorway that
opened up into the cavernous interior of the factory, she walked
with heavy steps. She wanted Howard Rimmler to hear her storming
in, her shoes going
clack-clack-clack
with all the anger
of a slighted hen. He wanted her to fear her, just a little woman.
She wanted his bruise to smart for a while.

She found Rimmler, back turned to her,
muttering to one of his crew. The younger man saw Susanna first. It
was as though he knew what was coming, for his eyebrows arched wide
and his eyes locked with Rimmler's, issuing a kind of silent alarm.
But Rimmler didn't take the hint.

Susanna tapped Rimmler on the shoulder,
twice. He stopped, grunted, and turned to face whoever it was that
had deigned to interrupt his thought.

What he found was the angry fist of one
Susanna Cole, a veritable freight train on an unstoppable collision
course with his face.

For the next few days, Susanna's knuckles
would hurt as though she'd smashed her fist right into a
countertop. But it was worth it, and every time it ached, she
smiled just a little.

* * *

"This little crystal can hear things we
can't," Wayne told his son with a reverent quiet. "It can help us
hear the radio waves that travel all around us, silent and
invisible."

"Oooooooohhhhhh," W.J. said, imitative.

Wayne wore a big grin on his face. He'd been
just a few years older than W.J. when he'd made his first radio.
And now he was passing this magic on to his son, who would one day
inherit a kingdom built on a more sophisticated extension of the
same trick.

The crystal radio was little more than an old
oatmeal cylinder attached to a wooden board. Wayne guided W.J.'s
hands to wrap a reel of thin insulated wire around the cylinder.
The best way to learn was by doing, something the elder Cole knew
from experience.

When it came time to finish the wiring, Wayne
make the cut himself while W.J. looked on with bated breath. Then
he took an alligator clip, one he'd fashioned himself in his
workshop, and attached it to a tap loop on the side of the
radio.

Instantly, they both heard the fruits of
their labor—quiet sound leaking from the ceramic earpiece on the
table. Wayne picked up the receiver and held it to W.J.'s ear.

"Woooooooooooowww," W.J. said. "Is it coming
from inside the oatmeal?"

Wayne smiled. "Not quite," he said. "It's
coming from that great big radio tower on the other side of town."
He pointed out a ways towards the tower.

They were outside, on the ranch property,
sitting on dry grass underneath the balmy late summer's evening
light. A bit of wind kicked up around them, and carried leafy
debris on a current of air in the direction of Wayne's outstretched
hand. Pink sky crept up into a gradient the color of a perfectly
ripened orange, and little wisps of cloud hung lazily, seemingly
applied by brushstroke. Even Wayne was not fully immune to bouts of
Romanticism. He couldn't help but be carried off by the
transcendent quality of the moment.

Across the town, the radio tower stood as a
triumphant marker to what Wayne had brought to this land. The Lotus
Boys could burn his oil fields, but even they didn't dare touch his
tower.

"You don't even need to plug it in," Wayne
said, of the radio. "It runs on the electric power of the radio
signal itself. Isn't that amazing?"

W.J. nodded, maybe because even at his young
age, he could tell that was what he was supposed to do.

"Dad," W.J. began. He looked like he wasn't
sure he was supposed to say whatever came next.

"Go ahead," Wayne assured.

"Where'd Uncle Jesse go?"

Wayne pursed his lips. "He's on a trip," he
said. Martha had alerted him to the letter Susanna found that
morning. "Business. Like I have to do sometimes."

"Oh," W.J. said.

The elder Wayne forced a smile. "Come on,
let's get you back inside. Martha has to wash you up."

W.J. obliged, and Wayne helped him, gingerly,
onto his feet. He handed the boy his crutch, and W.J. took it in
his hand, second nature, a part of him as much as his lungs and his
heart.

"Dad," the boy began, not quite able to hit
the hard "D" sound with full force, "I do it myself."

Wayne felt two disparate emotions pulling at
him. On one hand, he surged with intense pride, for his son was
already developing a strong independent streak. It was clear he
would not let his condition stop him, or hold him back. And yet,
Wayne was still a father. The ranch house was maybe five hundred
feet away. The thought of W.J. trekking by himself, over mounds of
dirt and rock, like a west-coast Tiny Tim, made his heart sink. But
he brushed aside such cloying thoughts. If W.J. wanted to make the
trip by himself, Wayne knew he ought to let the boy.

"Okay," Wayne said, confirming with a nod.
"Just be careful." He wondered how it might look to Martha, Wayne
leaving W.J. to hobble back up by himself while he stayed out to
play with radios.

He watched W.J. go up the hill a ways, then
turned back towards the vista.

In the distance, Devil's Peak faced him. He
got that strange feeling, the feeling he was sure Susanna got from
time to time but of which neither of them spoke. The sensation that
the mountain was staring at him. Judging him.

What a silly notion.

The wind was still blowing, pleasant in its
warmth. He began to feel a prickly sensation, the hairs on his body
rising with static arousal, and a bolt of lightning rang out over
the mountaintop.

His heart skipped a beat. Could this be it?
What if, standing where he was, he saw a hole open up in the earth
before the mountain. He was struck with an oblique terror. Even
though he knew Susanna could never make it there in time, it was
all to easy to imagine her wanting to take flight. Or worse, Jesse
stealing her away.

The radio was making strange noises. Wayne
knew better than to hold a crystal radio to his ear in the event of
a lightning strike, but his curiosity was overpowering. He leaned
in, closer to it than he ought to have, and listened:

The radio tower was being overpowered by some
kind of interference from the lightning dancing over Devil's Peak.
The squelching that eminated from it was louder than he'd have
thought possible for the tiny speaker to produce.

It sounded like talking, almost, but garbled
and too rapid. Was it some kind of code? Or just random
electromagnetic white noise?

Just like a wine glass succumbing to an
screeching opera diva, the ceramic earpiece shattered and the
signal was cut short. Wayne was jolted. Breathless, quaking.

The distant lightning ceased, and the thunder
rippled out for the last time. Then it went silent, as suddenly as
it had started.

Wayne didn't move for several minutes. He was
too caught up in studying the mountain for any sign of continued
phenomena. When he was certain the show was over, he got up to his
feet and dusted off his pants.

He wasn't ready to go back to the house. Not
yet. He had something he had to do, another itch to scratch.

He began walking eastward, past a stone that
acted as a marker only he would recognize. Two trees down, and past
the second stone marker now. He hung a left, crossed a fallen log,
and arrived at the third and final stone. He lifted it up as much
as he could, just enough to move it aside. Then he brushed away a
layer of camouflage California scrub and weeds, revealing an iron
square. A door.

Wayne reached under his shirt collar and
pulled out a keychain. He couldn't help himself but to glance
around to his left and to his right, assuring himself no one else
was out here, watching him. He inserted one of the unmarked keys
into the lock and opened the hatch.

Peering down the shaft, one
could only see a ladder receding into darkness.
Good
, Wayne thought. Maybe, even if
another person ever made it this far, they'd think it was just a
routine sewage system and avoid the descent.

Wayne clung to the ladder, pulling the door
shut above him, and clambered down the shaft about thirty feet. He
found himself at the base, feeling in the pitch-dark with his feet
to ensure he was where he thought he was before letting go of the
ladder. It was musty, the dank odor of cold and slightly moist
cement omnipresent. He pawed along the wall until he found the
protruding lightswitch. He flicked it on.

The lights awoke, coming to life in sequence
and illuminating the secret space before him. It was a panic room,
a survival chamber.

The space was a chamber ten feet wide by
thirty feet long, stocked with a collection of reading materials
and food. There was a workbench, too, identical to the one Wayne
had back in the main building. At the far end of the panic room was
a bathroom with full plumbing. He could stay down here for weeks,
as if it were a bomb shelter, if need be. Wayne had a cot, and a
telephone to the outside world, connected by an entirely separate
line to the main one at the house, buried under dirt. He'd
remembered reading, in his prior life which was now so far away,
about how the Manson family had severed the phone line at Cielo
Drive.