Jack O'Connell - Wireless

He runs his hand through his hair, thinks for a second, and gives up a risky smile toward Hazel.

“The problem ,” emphasizing the word, “comes when we start to translate a philosophy from the head to the street, so to speak. When words become actions. Which, correct me if I’m wrong here, is what Hazel and her people would like to do.”

He pauses to give a chance for objection.

“I think Hazel would like to see some evolution. We’ve spent some time at the bar together and I don’t think I’m out of line saying that she smells some stagnation within the family. And this bothers her a great deal since the reason she became involved at the start was for the charge, the rush, you know, the thrill of being on the other side of the fence. But I shouldn’t speak for her. I’m putting words in her mouth. Hazel, just tell me, tell us, if you could, okay, why you first wandered into Wireless.”

She’s not prepared and Flynn knows it. It disarms her a little and all she can do is take the question on, try for a straight-forward answer.

“Jesus, I don’t, uh—”

Flynn jumps into the breach. “Repeat what you said last week. Remember when we were talking last week? Back near the pool tables?”

“Well, I, uh—”

“She said, ‘I hooked up with you people ’cause I thought you knew the truth.’ Right, Hazel?”

She gives this confused nod.

“And I asked her what the truth was, ’cause let’s admit it, I’m a little dim sometimes. And she said, ‘You see that their idea of order is just an illusion—”

Hazel interrupts with, “I said ‘just bullshit.’ Their idea of order is just bullshit.”

“Okay, my mistake, like I said.” He taps his forehead with his index finger. “Now, Wallace—” he shifts his behind slightly on the set until he’s angled toward the old boys—“what I want to ask you is, is there anything about that statement you disagree with?”

Wallace is silent, sucking nervously on a fat stogie.

Flynn continues before the lack of a response can seem like a challenge.

“You, Wallace, my mentor, the guy who charted my course from day one, the guy who showed me how to take apart and put back together my first mail-away crystal set.”

He slides off the RCA, shuffles over to Wallace while nodding to himself, and places a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder while grinning over at Hazel.

In a lowered voice: “The man who once said to a very green prankster, ‘The problem is there’s no logic or order to anything and everyone wants you to believe that there is.’”

Pause.

“Do you remember saying that, Wallace? One spring night, about twenty years back, I’d run from Galilee for the tenth time. We met in an aisle at that old store on Hollis — University Radio. We got to talking. And you brought me back to DeForest Road. You and your wife, Olga, showed some kindness to a kid without a home. Had him to dinner. She served Swedish meatballs, Wallace. The radio was tuned to old WSTR all through the meal. You were wearing a maroon sweater vest. You remember any of that, Wallace? Because I do. I remember every second of that dinner. Of that whole night. ’Cause my life changed that night, my friend.”

He tries to be casual as he takes his hand from Wallace’s shoulder and starts his stroll across the room toward the opposite team. He comes to a stop in front of Hazel, extends his two hands palms-up. She flinches, looks quickly at the person next to her, and, not knowing what else to do, puts her hands in his. He continues to talk in the same deep, self-loving voice of a professional storyteller.

“That night, the wonderful Swedish meatball dinner, the spatzle, the coffee afterward, and your words, Wallace,” though he’s staring into Hazel’s eyes, “especially your words. That was what was going through my mind three years ago. Back on the day I found a young woman, a little scared, rabbity, outside in the parking lot, trying to figure out how to go inside, what to say to Tjun at the door. She was a runaway. Remember that, Hazel? Remember the dinner I got you down at the Rib Room? I do. You had the chili and three plates of soda bread just out of the oven. And milk. It was pouring that night. You remember sleeping on my couch? I played you some old Bob and Ray tapes? Right?”

He drops his hands, steps back, says to the crowd in general, “Anybody see a little pattern there? Huh?”

He goes back to the RCA and takes a seat.

“Okay,” in a semirelaxed voice, “here’s the problem. I don’t want to lose my family. Pretty simply put, right? I’m not going to debate ideology. I’m not interested enough. I want one thing. I want to hold on to my past”—a hand gestures to Wallace—“and my future”—open palm out toward Hazel.

“So, you tell me, folks. Somebody find the balls to tell me. How do I do that? How do I hold on to a family that doesn’t want to exist anymore? ’Cause I’m owed at least that. I’ve held up my end. If you were part of this place ,” voice rising to a yell and hand slapping down on top of the TV, “I gave you anything you asked for. Money. Time. Advice. More than one of you called me after midnight for bail. More than one of you have keys to my car in your pockets right now. If you decided you belonged here, that was enough for me.

“So, somebody tell me how I make it last.”

He folds his arms across his chest and waits for a response.

Hazel takes a breath that everyone can hear and says, “Look, I’m not looking to break things up. It’s just that some of us feel it’s time to advance a little—”

“That means blowing up transmitters,” Wallace yells.

“Hey,” Flynn yells back, and points at him with his index finger like an annoyed traffic cop.

“You fucking hypocrite,” Hazel yells. “There’s not that big a jump between jamming the signal and dynamiting the tower.”

“What we do is a joke,” Wallace says, standing up. “It’s for amusement. It’s spirited mischievousness. What you want to do is terrorism.”

“Stop it now,” Flynn says, getting up to move between them.

“You’re a joker, all right, you little freak—”

“You’re street trash. I knew it the second I saw you—”

“Yeah, call the goddamn cops, you old fart. They’ll cuff us together—”

“This is not a political gang. Why don’t you and the rest of your uneducated ilk take your act down to South America and leave us—”

“What this group is or isn’t doesn’t get decided by you—”

“Dynamiting transmitters, vandalizing relay stations. This is ridiculous—”

Flynn stops the screaming with a reflex action, the only thing that occurs to him in the moment. He grabs a firecracker from his pants pocket, lights it behind his back, and tosses it onto the floor between them. The bang is given a boost by the size of the room. There’s a scream from both parties and Hazel and Wallace are left dazed and crouching near the ground, backs turned to each other.

Flynn sits impassively with his head cocked down near his left shoulder.

Ferrie comes running up the stairs, yelling, “What the hell’s the story?” in a cracked, high voice.

Flynn walks over to him, waving blue smoke out of his face. He claps Ferrie on the back, smiles, and says, “Just a little family argument. Nothing to worry about.”

Quinsigamond City Hall is a four-story rectangle of gray granite that stretches two hundred feet down the heart of Main Street. Its central entryway consists of an enclosed portico carved into an arch and capped by a two-hundred-foot Florentine tower that houses a huge and ornate eye-of-God clock and culminates in an open-air balcony.

Hannah stands on the first step of the enormous curving baroque staircase that leads to the City Council chambers. It’s noon, but the street is practically deserted. In the glare that breaks through the cloud cover, Hannah can make out the enormous marble eagle that perches on the knob of the balcony’s roof as if watching over the city. She can remember her father bringing her to City Hall when she was young, maybe to pay a tax bill, maybe to get a birth certificate. When they exited the building, he turned his daughter around and began to point things out — the red tile of the hip roof, the fanged gargoyles carved into the granite at each corner. He pointed out the balcony and began the story of Isaiah Timmons or Tomkins — what the hell was his name? — the first printer in America, how he stood on that balcony in July of 1776 and screamed out the Declaration of Independence for the crowd gathered below. But Hannah couldn’t concentrate on the story of the rebel printer. Instead, she stared at the carved eagle at the top of the building, impressed by how lifelike it looked, and beyond that, how frightening it seemed, not really like an eagle at all, but more like a vulture, a bird of prey. It seemed as if the bird were perpetually looking out over the city for a new victim, an easy mark, a fresh carcass to swoop down on and cleave meat from bone.