Jack O'Connell - Wireless

She moves up to the glass elevator affixed to the mall wall and says, “Girl, what is wrong with your brain?”

The elevator door opens and she enters and turns around to look out on the quad as she rises. She reaches under the olive-green flap of the knapsack, digs down into the canvas folds, pulls out with one hand an antique silver hip flask. She screws off the flask top and swallows a warm mouthful of mescal. She secures the flask, resacks it, and turns toward the inner wall just as the elevator arrives at the third floor. Once again, a master of timing.

She steps out onto the slippery Spanish-tile floor, lets her eyes adjust to the dimmed after-hours lighting of the mall. This is the only time she can stomach the mall, and thankfully ten-to-two has always been her shift since she came to the station. Sometimes, after she turns the mike over to Sonny, who does the two-to-six occult show, she goes window shopping. Security doesn’t seem to mind. She passes them on their rounds, makes risque comments that they love, scratches the German shepherd behind the ears.

Ronnie knows every store in the mall, but she’s never purchased a thing here. She buys everything mail-order, through catalogues. She wishes she could get her groceries this way. She doesn’t know what it is about the mall in daylight, when the stores are open for business, that repels her. She’s never stopped to analyze it, find a meaning that could alter things. She just takes it as a given that she can only accept the mall when it’s closed, a retail ghost town. Last month, peering into the display window of Lear Jeweler’s, she thought of herself as the vampire browser — she walks by night, skulks through the shadows of the Orange Julius kiosk, swoops past the crypt of the shoeshine bench.

Down the enclosed alley from the elevator, Wayne, the engineer, is playing catch, bouncing a red rubber ball off the cement wall that leads up to the studio. This is not a good sign. Beyond him, inside the huge plate-glass window that lets shoppers look in on the daytime announcers hard at work, like they were as interesting as pizza flippers, she can see Vinnie, the station manager, and Ray, the Nazi who mans the six-to-ten shift. They’re having another mini-fit, flailing arms and screaming at each other. The broadcast booth is soundproof and this turns their raging into a silent comedy, an Abbott and Costello bit set in the not-so-golden age of radio.

“Would this be a good night to call in sick?” she says, starting to approach Wayne.

He goes into his baseball routine. He makes exaggerated moves with his body, somehow jumps and leaps in slow motion, turns on his cigar-scarred, hysterical, play-by-play voice. “What a shot … the Wayne-man can kiss this one … No, no sir, no siree, it’s off the left-field wall … the runner is barreling around second … Mr. W fields it and fires for home … the runner is sliding … Wilcox takes position …”

He fires the rubber ball at her. She doesn’t stop, doesn’t break her stride. She punches her right arm upward, all confidence, and rips the ball out of its trajectory.

Wayne’s voice surges upward in pitch and volume. “She’s got him, she’s nailed him, she’s put the game away. The crowd goes insane …” He cuts into the garbled hiss of a capacity mob pumped up on immediate victory and does a solo version of the Wave.

“You missed your calling,” she says, moving up next to him, keeping an eye on the histrionics in the broadcast booth.

“The Voice of Baseball?”

“Terrorist. You’ve got that kind of ego.”

“And to think I was going to spring for the number four at Tiananmen Takeout.”

“Uh-uh. No more midnight buffets, Wayne. I’m turning into Ms. MSG.”

“Microphone’s Saving Grace.”

“Stop being funny. What’s the story with Schultzie and Klink?”

“Uh-oh, I guess someone didn’t have the station tuned in on the drive to work.”

“I can’t listen to Ray anymore. Throws my whole mood. Ruins my show.”

“You used to be amused and now you’re just disgusted.”

“Yeah, something like that. We’ve been hit again?”

““They’re still at it. We’re still off the air.”

“For Christ sake, Wayne, I’m on in twenty minutes.”

“That’s what I told them. Nothing to worry about.”

“There’s nothing you can do?”

“These guys get better every day. I’m a hack compared to some of them.”

“You tried everything?”

“All I know is it’s coming from the east side.”

“Vinnie’s not going to make it.”

“You should have been here when Federman called.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“I told Vinnie. I said, ‘Vinnie, we’ll be clear by ten. Ronnie’s on at ten and she’s their goddess.’”

“You charmer. Here we go, I’m blushing.”

“What? Es verdad , darling. They’ve hit every shift at the station, at least twice, except for ten-to-two. The Ronnie shift. Sweetheart of the subset.”

“Seriously, every shift?”

“They’ve hit Ray six times this month. Jesus, do they hate Ray.”

“So they’ve got taste on top of brains.”

“Speaking of taste, old pal …”

“Honest to God, Wayne, I can’t do Chinese tonight. Maybe nachos, later on. Did you fix the microwave?”

“I’m not talking Velveeta here, you know. I’m feeling pretty worn down tonight. Doing a lot of overtime. This could be a long night for your favorite tech-man.”

“Mr. Coffee broken?”

“Studio coffee? On my stomach?”

“Jesus, you’re a leech. Why don’t you ever bring the booze?”

“C’mon. You’re the big breadwinner around here. What do you say?”

“I say let’s see if we get our signal back up—”

“Guaranteed, fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah, well, you talk to me then.”

“So you’re saying it’s conditional? Your generosity to a friend is conditional? This is an either/or thing?”

Ronnie gives him a tight smile, throws the rubber ball into the air over his head, and starts to walk toward the studio door. Ray is breaking things, snapping pencils in two as she enters the broadcast booth. Vinnie has fallen into a silent depression. This always happens after a call from Mr. Federman.

“So, Raymie,” she says, dumping her knapsack onto the board, “the whole city shut you off tonight. What the hell did you say?”

Ray takes a breath and sits back in his chair, puts on his low, in-control voice. “That’s right, Wilcox, push some buttons. Brilliant move. Annoy me some more.”

She squints down at him, moves over to the-lump-called-Vinnie, and starts to massage his shoulders. “Relax, Raymond. Pull yourself together. Your status as a professional is on the line here.”

“Make some jokes, girl—”

“That’s bitch-goddess to you, Ray.”

“—be funny, be a wise-ass.”

“That’s what they pay me for, remember?”

“Shock-jock shrink with the whore’s mouth.”

“It’s a weird world, Ray. You have to know your market. There’re a lot more lovesick depressives out there than paranoid Nazis. That’s what I try to tell Federman over lunch. ‘ That’s the reason for Raymond’s numbers, Mr. F.’ So far he buys it.”

Ray loses his grip, goes for the bait like a dim trout. “You want to throw the numbers at me, you little bitch, you want to start in?”

“People,” Vinnie manages to say.

“Love to start in, Ray. I’m amazed these east-siders could jam your show. No one else seems to know it exists.”

“My freaking numbers would be fine if I had a little consistency, if I weren’t off the freaking air twice a week because some little delinquents are allowed—”

“Here we go, here it is. We’ve got to keep the little bastards out of the Radio Shacks, right? That’s the answer, right?”