Jack O'Connell - Wireless

The apartment came semifurnished with a single metal-frame bed, an aluminum patio table that Speer uses as a desk, a wicker rocking chair painted kelly green, a five-drawer bureau with cardboard backing, a mini, dorm-style refrigerator, and a gas stove. To this he added a wall mirror that he hung over the bureau, the original Mr. Coffee he and Margie had received as a wedding gift, his collection of bound back issues of Ham Man Digest , and his radio equipment: a Kenwood R-5000 receiver, a Tascam recorder, and a set of Koss Pro 75 headphones.

Two weeks after he moved in, Speer gave Corny fifty dollars to allow a Dymek antenna to be bolted to the chimney up on the roof. He secured the coaxial lead to a drainpipe that ran down the corner of the building, then brought the wire in through the sidewalk-level window. Now, on a good day, he can monitor as far away as Nigeria. But Speer isn’t interested in most of the chat and babble found around the dial. He usually zeros in on a handful of frequencies. He listens for sounds that the hobbyists ignore. He strains to pull in the obscure and unclear.

Right now, for instance, it’s 4 A.M. and he’s sitting on the red Naugahyde seat of a metal stool and delicately turning the tuner knob on his Kenwood. Open flat on the kitchen table is a spiral-bound notebook, a standard 8½ × 11 schoolboy job, college-ruled and a red-line margin down the left side of each page. On the front cover, on the appropriate line, Speer has printed his name in block letters with a black felt-tip pen. On the inside of the front cover, running down in a neat column, is a series of numbers:

Frqcy (KHz)

3060

Spnsh

3090

Sp

4642

Frnch

4770

Grain

10450

Krn

14947

Gr

23120

Gr

Speer wears a starched T-shirt, the pants to one of his suits, and felt moccasins on his feet. From a water glass on the table he takes a pen, a Papermate metal roller fine-point. He picks it up as if it were a knife, maybe a scalpel, as if he could injure himself by mishandling it. He uncaps the pen and places it on the notebook page, reaches up, and turns on the radio. He spins the tuning knob with the side of his index finger, stops at the desired frequency, adjusts volume and squelch, then sits motionless for a moment as a voice enters the room from the speaker. It’s a female voice with a heavy Spanish accent. He finds it impossible to determine the speaker’s age. He tries to prevent his mind from forming a picture of the woman. He wants to concentrate solely on the voice, the words that come to his ears.

Only they’re not words. They’re numbers. In Spanish. She speaks them in a bland, uninterested manner. She keeps a mechanical, absolutely controlled rhythm, the same spacing between breaths, the same tone: “ Atención grupo número cuarenta y nueve … 51512 … 12152 … 32085 … 28911 … 11211 … 61208 … Atención grupo número sesenta y dos … 03151 … 08201 … 02611 … 08129 … 22519 …”

Speer closes his eyes for a moment, listens to the numbers, tries to prevent himself from speculating or analyzing. He just wants this Spanish voice to wash over him like a kind of primal music. He wants to put himself into a mood, create an atmosphere.

And when he feels he’s come as close as he’ll get, he uncaps his pen and in a practiced, legible, no-nonsense script he writes:

4 A.M.

Dear Margie,

What is a man to do? I’m no stranger to discipline. I have attempted to be as ordered and precise with my life as is reasonable. I have attempted to be prudent. As you know, my methodology has always been to review all available options and select the most promising. I often said to you, “We can only work with the available facts.” I have steadfastly acknowledged that there will always be certain parcels of information that we aren’t privy to. No matter how much skill or intuition a man possesses, there will be events he can’t alter. I’ve always felt that understanding this was one of the chief signals of maturity. I’ve always felt I had an unalterable grasp of this fact.

Were I acting in a professional manner, applying all I’ve learned to this turn my life has taken, there are questions I would ask. This is how I would begin. I would start with broad, general questions. Later, based on the answers I’d obtained, I’d narrow in. I’d select the most promising avenues. Try to verify evidence. Try to establish patterns and trails. See what led to what. This is sometimes called “tracking” and I like to think of the word in the way an outdoorsman would, in literal terms — following markings to trace the route of your prey.

I think you know, Margie, that if I wanted to, I could track you down. You’re an intelligent woman, and though I was limited in the degree to which I could discuss my work, certainly you’re aware of the tools at my disposal, the networks of information, the breadth of data I can access, the amount of manpower that would be willing to do a favor for a fellow agent. I’m reasonably sure that it would take no more than a week to ten days to locate the city you’re in, who you’re with, where you’re staying, where you’ve been, and on and on. Ad infinitum.

At the moment, for complex reasons of my own, I’ve chosen not to take this route. Ultimately, I’m not sure what the benefit would be to either of us. As adults, we each make choices, take actions, accept the consequences. Thinking about this last week, I realized that my goal in seeking you out, my true goal, would be simply to explain my feelings, to talk to you. Right now, at this moment, I can see where you’d find tremendous irony in this. Perhaps that’s typical in the reality of any marriage. But if what I want to do is enumerate my feelings, convey to you what’s happened to me since your departure, I can do that here, in the safety of this room. Someday these words may get to you. By conventional means or other.

This is a journal of my heart, Margie. Please don’t laugh so bitterly. I’m aware how trite this sounds, how trite it looks to me now, in ink, on the page. But I won’t cross it out. I won’t begin again. Because that would imply an attempt to alter the past, to change history. And we both know what a childish, futile wish that is. We can only chart what is to come (and some would even argue against this).

If you know me, then you know I align myself on the side of free will rather than fate, that we have the definitive say in how our future lives will go.

You should know that I have stopped using amphetamines. Two days after you left, I took all the vials and poured them into the toilet, got on my knees, and pulled the lever. I will admit to you that I experienced a somewhat painful withdrawal for forty-eight hours. But I’ve purified myself with an ongoing regime of weak tea and club soda. (I’ve also been taking extended steam baths at the Y.)

I have also purchased a few paperbacks concerning spousal abuse and its treatment. I recall the incident last spring when I discovered a book of this type in your drawer, but, again, this is the unalterable past. I’ve read over a hundred pages in Dr. H. L. Helms’s Dark Glasses and Rouge.

Possibly these signs of change mean little or nothing to you, Margie. Perhaps you believe there is no hope for me and that everything was entirely my fault. I will concede this.

But, for your part, what you must do, what any notion of justice would insist that you do, is acknowledge, right now, wherever you are, in whatever miserable second-rate motel room or trailer park, that you’ve broken my heart. The triteness of that phrase only makes the pain greater, larger, and more relentless. I am a changed man, Margie. You would see this if you came back. I can control the behavior that terrified you. 1 can eliminate the drug usage. I can participate in an open, rational exchange of ideas.