Radiomen (30 page)

But it was also extremely bizarre. Aliens, prayers, perhaps even the existence—or the search?—for God himself. How was I supposed to incorporate all this into what I understood my life to be? How was I supposed to get on the bus in the afternoon, spend the night in an airport bar mixing up Cosmos and then go home to watch the late night infomercials knowing that behind some sort of screen—some divide between the reality I could see and something else I could not—things were going on that I simply could never comprehend? The tiny glimpse I had been given of that other reality, which could even be one of many, of an infinite number, was just enough to make it impossible for me to use my most powerful survival tool: the ability to compartmentalize, to deny what I did not want to know about. Or else to simply run away, as would have been my instinct when I was younger, because there was no “away” that I could get to. Not only was there no longer a hippie trail to follow (maybe there was still some commune, some network of crash pads somewhere, that welcomed forty-plus-year-olds, but I had no idea how or where to find them), but even if there were, I had a feeling that now, whether I was walking down a rural road in the back of beyond or wandering on a city street, I would hear that high-pitched, sizzling hiss come out of the mouth of a driver passing by in a car or a child on a swing. Or maybe a hawk swooping down from the windy sky. I would hear it until I helped the radioman get what he wanted, even if I had no idea what that might be.

All of this, all these thoughts and images, flashed through my mind as the girl in the silver skirt slowly turned away from me and drifted slowly down the sidewalk, as if nothing had happened. I watched her go for a moment, trying to collect myself. I looked around to see if anyone on the street had reacted to her bizarre behavior, but no one seemed to have paid her, or me, any attention. It was just another latenight scene in the city, another weird interaction that came and went.

After a while, as if I were on automatic pilot, I continued on my way to carry out the interrupted errand that I had set for myself. I crossed the street to the convenience store, where I bought a bottle of water and let the dog lap some out of my cupped hands. Then I took his leash and started walking, looking for a cab.

I thought I might find some gypsy cabs cruising around this neighborhood because it was home to a lot of after-hours clubs, but at this time of night, the drivers working these streets would be looking for high-end fares; I’d never get one to take me home for what I could afford to pay. So instead, I hailed a regular yellow cab and asked him to take me to Queens. I was already in the back seat with the dog next to me when the driver told me forget it, get out, he wasn’t crossing bridges or heading off into the outer boroughs. I knew why—for a metered cab, the trip back would turn out to be a waste; no one would flag him down to get back to Manhattan. But it was also illegal to refuse me and I wasn’t in the mood to play.

I leaned forward and spoke through the opening between the panels of the plastic barrier that was supposed to protect the driver from thieves and crazies. “Look,” I said in the darkest voice I could come up with, “I am not a nice person and this is not a nice dog that I have with me. Either just drive the damn cab where I want to go or I’m going to take off his leash. He will be through the partition and in your lap in about ten seconds and I promise you won’t like it.”

The man glared at me in his rear-view mirror, but I saw his glance slide over to the dog and then, muttering to himself, he threw the flag on the meter. The cab moved forward.

It was nearly four
A.M.
when I let myself into my apartment. I stripped off my clothes and got into bed, finally letting myself feel how exhausted I was. As I pulled a blanket over myself, the dog took his usual place at the end of the bed and with his head facing the door, began his customary nighttime vigil. Almost immediately, I fell asleep.

But I didn’t sleep for long. I awoke just a few hours later knowing exactly what I had to do, because I had to do something. I just couldn’t go on living my life waiting for new dogs to show up—as if I needed any more intermediaries to bring me messages—and strangers to hiss at me, or worse (what “worse” meant I had no idea but didn’t think I wanted to find out) if I did not at least try to provide what the radioman wanted. But to do so, I needed help.

I took Digitaria outside, and as I walked him, I dialed Jack’s cell phone. It went directly to voice mail so I tried the studio line, but that was also picked up by an answering machine that announced I had reached the
Up All Night
show on World Air. That at least answered a question I hadn’t thought to ask myself: was Jack still working out of his Brooklyn studio even though he was now doing his show for the satellite service? Apparently, the answer was yes. I started dialing his cell phone again but then I thought,
The hell with this
.
What am I wasting my time for?
I pulled on Digitaria’s leash and marched back home.

I fed the dog and then left my apartment again, heading off to the subway. I got on with the morning commuters and rode out to Brooklyn. I hadn’t been on the train during a morning rush hour in—well, forever—and it was a kind of disorienting experience. I wasn’t used to traveling with such a well-dressed crowd. Squeezed in among the suits and dresses and crisp fall jackets, I felt like a trespasser from another world in my jeans and hoodie. And in a way, I suppose I was.

When I changed trains, the crowd thinned out because I was now traveling away from Manhattan. I stayed on all the way out to the last stop on the line. When I emerged in Brooklyn, the air was chilly with autumn and tinged with the smell of river water. I headed off toward Red Hook, walking along, block after block, under a high mackerel sky.

Arriving at Jack’s building, I didn’t let myself hesitate. I pushed the buzzer and was rewarded with the sound of Jack’s sleepy voice asking who was at his door.

“It’s me,” I said. “Laurie. I need to talk to you.”

Silence followed. I tried to control my impatience as I waited for Jack to consider how mad he still was. Weeks and weeks had gone by since we’d last seen each other at the Blue Awareness townhouse. Despite all the unreturned phone calls, it was hard for me to believe that he really continued to nurse a grudge against me. Maybe it was hard for him, too, because, when he finally replied, he seemed to be wavering a little.

“About what?” he asked.

About what? That was a complicated question. I decided to start with a simple answer. “I need to know what a Haverkit 3689D is.”

“A what?”

It was a little disconcerting to be having this conversation over an intercom, which added crackles of electricity to our already tinny-sounding voices. I hoped we weren’t going to have to continue this way much longer.

“What?” he repeated.

In frustration, I slapped the button on the intercom box and said, “Jack. For heaven’s sake. Just please let me in.”

Another few moments passed and then the buzzer emitted a scratchy bleat. I let myself into the building and went up to Jack’s studio. He greeted me in a bathrobe and sweats. Instead of a hello, he acknowledged me with a kind of grunt and then waved me toward the kitchen.

A coffeemaker was gurgling away on the counter. He poured himself a cup and, sighing heavily, settled himself in a chair by the kitchen table. Both pieces of furniture looked like they had been rescued from the street eons ago.

“You know,” I said, gesturing at the coffeemaker, “I got up early, too.”

“That’s what you have to do when you want to ambush people,” he replied.

I picked a mug off a rack on the counter, poured myself a cup of coffee and seated myself at the table. “How long are you going to keep this up?” I asked him. “I mean, being pissed off at me?”

“I don’t know. Indefinitely seems like a nice target date.”

“Because you’re what? Nine years old? Somebody disrespects you on the playground so you hold a grudge for the rest of your life?”

“Is that what you think happened?”

“It
is
what happened.”

I didn’t really want to discuss our meeting with Raymond Gilmartin and the way Jack and I had parted that night because so much had taken place since then. I felt like those events were part of some distant era that was already far behind me. But apparently, we were going to have to get it out of the way before we could go on to anything else.

“Look,” I began, “I’m not saying I don’t understand how you feel. I can be pretty good at holding grudges myself. But if it makes things any better, I apologize for not backing you up with Raymond Gilmartin. I really do. Maybe I should have walked out with you. But . . . I don’t know. I had to hear him out.”

“Why? He’s even crazier than I thought. And dangerous.”

“I’m not defending him, I’m defending myself. I’m in the middle of something I barely understand, so cut me some slack, okay? I haven’t known who to listen to or what I’m supposed to do.”

“And now you do?”

“I think so, yes.”

He regarded me with a look that radiated skepticism, but I knew he was going to give in. “All right,” he said finally. “Tell me.”

And so I did. I told him everything, from my meeting with Dr. Carpenter to my late-night encounter with Kelly, the traveler, and his dog, to last night’s turbulent visit to Ravenette. A couple of times, he made me go back over what she had told me about the radiomen broadcasting prayers.

When I was finished he let out a long, low whistle. “Yikes,” he said.

That seemed to express just about everything there was to say. “Exactly,” I agreed.

But now what? Were we going to go back to being reasonable people? Maybe even friends? It seemed maybe so, because Jack got up then and poured us both some more coffee, which I took as a kind of a peace offering. I accepted the mug without comment because all I wanted at this point was to get back to the real reason I had come here.

“So,” I ventured, “what’s a Haverkit 3689D?”

“I really don’t know,” Jack said.

“Well, I can at least tell you one thing it’s not. It’s not the horn of plenty antenna. He—the radioman—made that very clear.”

Jack shook his head. “So everybody’s been chasing the wrong thing.”

“Not me,” I reminded him. “Not you.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Jack said. “In the great, wide scope of things, that’s probably open to interpretation.”

“But that’s not where we’re looking. In the great wide scope of things.”

“Nope,” Jack said ruefully. “More like the Twilight Zone. But come on,” he said, gesturing toward his office. “We can try to find out what a Haverkit 3689D might be.”

We went over to his computer, where he sat down and opened a browser. As I watched him, I realized that it hadn’t even occurred to me to search the Internet, which just reinforced how hard it was for me to find logical ways to think about the situation I found myself in. But it was better, anyway, that Jack was doing it. If what we were looking for was some kind of radio equipment, which was my best guess, then it was more likely Jack would have a better idea of what to search for and where to look than I did.

He bounced around from site to site for a while until he finally exclaimed, “Got it.” He had navigated to a website that was devoted to collectors of the various electronic parts and equipment that the long-out-of-business Haverkit company had made. Pointing to a rectangular metal box that looked like it belonged on a rack of computer parts, he said, “Your friend is looking for a repeater.”

“Which is what?”

“It’s a device that amplifies the range of a broadcast signal by repeating it from one source to another.”

I thought about that for a moment and something clicked. I told Jack, “Before she flipped out on me, Ravenette said that the radioman was describing a huge broadcast network that covered . . . well, she said galaxies. Many galaxies. It can’t be possible that one Haverkit repeater could help boost a signal that much?”

“Of course not,” Jack explained. “These types of repeaters were meant to be used by amateur radio operators trying to extend the range of their broadcasts over relatively finite distances. But sometimes, repeaters like these were used as the hub of what’s called a linked repeater network. With that kind of system, when one repeater is keyed-up by receiving a signal, all the other repeaters in the network are also activated and will transmit the same signal. So if there is a chain of repeaters waiting to hear from this one . . .”

“Just this one?”

Jack shrugged. “Maybe. If that’s how the network is set up.”

“So why doesn’t whoever gave the radioman his job just ship him another one? Send him a replacement for the hub repeater?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said, though he seemed to have a guess. “Maybe,” he said, “for something to exist where the radioman is, it also has to exist here. If it disappears from where we are, it disappears from where he is, too. Or maybe the supply train from his home base—wherever it is—only shows up once a millennium.”

“Do you think that’s funny?” I said to him.

“I think this is a very strange conversation,” Jack replied. “I’m just going with the flow.”

Something else suddenly occurred to me. “You know,” I said, taking another look at the repeater that was still displayed on Jack’s computer screen, “I don’t remember ever seeing Avi fiddling with something like that.”

“It wouldn’t have been something he would have carried back and forth with him, like the radio. It would have been permanently installed somewhere, on high ground.” Then, pointedly, he added, “Like a roof, for example.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, picturing Avi and me on the fire escape of the Sunlite Apartments, listening to the pinging sound of Sputnik’s 10 telemetry signal—and then Avi, frowning, as the radio suddenly went silent.
Laurie,
he’d said, looking up at the roof,
I have to go fix something . . .

Still there was something that puzzled me. “Why would Avi even need a repeater?” I asked Jack. “He was just listening to satellite signals on his receiver. He wasn’t broadcasting.”