Jack O'Connell - Wireless

There’s a rumor that Hazel wears a male name, done in scarlet ink, on the bottom slope of her left breast. No one will admit to having seen the name and there have been a few drunken guesses as to what it might be. But Gabe doesn’t believe it exists. He can picture Hazel with maybe an exploding microphone on her bottom, maybe even a standard Question authority down the back of one leg. But a man’s name on her breast? That implies a branding of sorts. It’s close to an ownership symbol and Gabe knows for certain that Hazel would have nothing to do with it.

He watches her as she sits up on the ticket counter, staring out the plate glass at the pocked runway in the moonlight. He’d love to know what she’s thinking and then begins to imagine her as a pilot, a bomber pilot, looking so sharp in one of those classic, butter-smooth black leather jackets, maybe one with the fur trim around the collar. He adds himself into the picture as her copilot, maybe the bombardier, the two of them huddled in a tiny cockpit, air masks loose on their chests, talking back and forth in low, assuring voices, consulting maps and waiting for the moment, the instant, when they come down low, snap open the bay doors on the bomber’s underside, dump their missiles, and then cruise upward, full throttle, away from the coming boom of heat and air.

He suddenly realizes Hazel has pivoted on her behind and is staring back at him. There’s no way to read the expression on her face, so he drops his head and begins to tend the campfire.

Someone on the end of the belt sparks a joint and begins to pass it down the line. Gabe doesn’t know how Hazel will react to this. Personally, he thinks the group should know the seriousness of this meeting and hold off partying till they adjourn. But, again, Hazel isn’t here to make rules. She’ll probably ignore the joint, impose seriousness with her voice and body movements.

She slides off the ticket counter now, a definition of ease and grace. She moves to the semicircle at a moderate pace, letting the heels of her secondhand ankle boots ignite an echoing click on the terminal’s mustard tile floor. The sound is like a gavel that brings the meeting to order. There are seven of them in all, including Gabe and Hazel. The oldest, the construction greaser called Eddie G, is probably closing in on thirty. Gabe is the youngest. No one’s really sure of Hazel’s age.

She steps up onto the baggage belt. She looks tremendous. She’s wearing stretch black pants with a huge maroon suede belt with big brass buckle, a zebra-striped tank top under an ancient, milky-blue jeans jacket with a barely visible zodiac wheel on the back. She pauses above them all and looks down at each face lit by the campfire, then steps down inside the semicircle and positions herself behind the fire. There’s a small but constant breeze making its way into the terminal and it fans the flames toward Hazel’s boots and makes a slight whispering sound.

“Okay,” Hazel says, “we’re here. I’m not going to stand here, like Browning or like Flynn, and say something asinine like ‘Thanks for coming.’ I don’t owe you any thanks. You’re all here ’cause you want to be. And every one of you knows that being here means something. Nobody here is stupid.”

She pauses and then, after looking at them again, she goes slowly down on her knees, her behind resting on her heels, her thighs parted and the fire angled between them. She passes her left hand through the flames slowly, like she was trying to clear them away to see something on the floor below. She looks up again and lowers her voice a little.

“We’re not at Wireless tonight, are we? We’re not at some futile negotiation upstairs in the Anarchy Museum. That’s because negotiations are over, kids. Done. Wireless has nothing to offer us anymore. It’s falling apart. From inside, the way these things always do. I don’t have time to go into the details, but trust Hazel, the break has already happened. There’s some very swinish behavior going on. Browning and all his old mothers have completely turned. There’s nothing more to discuss. It was bound to happen. I saw it coming. I told you all what I saw. Okay.”

She brings her hands together in a loud clap and stands back up.

“So, we are on our own and I don’t know about any of you, but it feels great to me. This means there’s nothing holding us back.”

She walks over next to Gabe, crouches, and puts a hand on his shoulder. “That makes me very excited,” she says. “Things get crazy from here on in. But we’ve got nothing against crazy, do we, Gabe?”

He looks into her firelit face, so thrilled to be singled out that he forgets to answer and one of the group laughs.

“No, we’ve got nothing against crazy, Hazel,” she answers for him.

She stands up again and moves back behind the fire. “We’ve been waiting for things to heat up forever”—another pause—“so let’s be clear about a few things. As good old Flynn used to say, let’s review the agenda. ’Cause there aren’t going to be a whole lot of these get-togethers from now on. This isn’t a joke anymore. There’s about to be some serious movement. Some serious relocation. As of tonight, this isn’t a social club. We’re not here for the secret handshakes and the passwords. What are we here for, Gabe?”

He’s ready this time, thankful for a second chance. As if reading from a book, he says, in a nervous, explicit voice, “We’re here to fuck up the normal modes of communication.”

The words slide out without a stutter or a stammer and he knows if he could just be next to Hazel twenty-four hours a day, he’d never have a problem with his tongue again.

“That’s right,” Hazel says, unable to stop a smile. “Very good, Gabe.”

She steps over to Eddie on the other side of the belt. He’s got the joint hanging from the corner of his lips. She puts a hand on Eddie’s shoulder and Gabe flinches.

“And with that in mind, Eddie, why don’t you tell everybody what we picked up tonight?”

He takes a hit off the joint and passes it to Diane, the redheaded cashier he lives with.

He stands up, though no one’s asked him to, puts his hands on his hips, and says, “Genuine, top-of-the-line plastique. Courtesy of our new friends the Hyenas.”

Hazel runs a hand through Eddie’s semipompadour, then wipes it across the back of his jacket.

“Oh, Eddie, you sweetheart,” she says, allowing herself just a little upbeat humor and enthusiasm.

She steps back to the center of the semicircle, squats down over her knees, and lets the fire illuminate her face.

“Flynn has asked for one more meeting, one more try at reconciliation, he says. I wasn’t even going to mention it to you. I thought I’d let them sit there in their little playroom and just wait all night. But I’ve changed my mind. We’ll go. We’ll make the break official. We’ll leave nothing to question.”

She stands up.

“I’m going to want to see every one of you back here afterward. Once we’ve established ourselves, security will become a big factor. After this first time, we’ll work in groups of two and three. But tonight I want everyone here.”

She indulges them with a last smile.

“Think of it as an Independence Day party. And Eddie, you’re in charge of the fireworks.”

Speer gives up trying to sleep after a half hour of tossing and turning. He pulls on a pair of pants, goes to the kitchen sink, and splashes several handfuls of cold water on his face. Then he moves to the refrigerator and takes out a half-empty can of Jolt soda. He takes a sip from the can, reaches into his pants pocket, and pulls out two white tablets. He blows a piece of lint off one of the pills, tosses them in his mouth, and washes them down with another hit of soda.