Jack O'Connell - Wireless

I know that when all is said and done, the papers will attempt to distort the truth in their inimitable way. I am prepared for this. There may be mentions of Oswald and Ray, Sirhan and Ali Agca. But we both know I am nothing like these pawns. I know who holds my strings. I know their purposes and so, for the moment, I allow us to use one another. But I always hold the scissors. I am more than myself now, my love. Remember how I once told you that I loved holding my weapon because it made my hand feel better than it was?

Do you?

This feeling is like that feeling. I performed a baptism tonight, darling. And I have heard the call of a new Gabriel. But this one announces death rather than life. The storm before the calm. The rapture before a divine infinity.

I will finish up my business soon, Margie. And then I will come for you.

“You sure this place will hold our weight?” Diane says to Eddie as she awkwardly climbs up an old rope ladder to the roof of the airport terminal.

Eddie follows her, one hand reaching up to goose her behind. “It’ll hold everyone,” he says. “Trust me.”

They’re the last to arrive. Hazel and the rest have been sitting on the roof for almost a half hour, huddling against the drizzle, whispering predictions and gossip, trying to control their excitement like greed-crazed kids on Christmas Eve.

Hazel gives Diane a hand until she gets both feet planted and gains her balance. The roof pitches at a mild angle and the asphalt shingles are coming loose from the nails in a few places. Eddie hoists himself to the top with more strength than grace. He takes a few hesitant steps up the slope, then seats himself next to Hazel. He shakes water from his hair like a clumsy but perpetually happy dog.

Hazel has an old pair of Bushnell binoculars up to her eyes. She’s looking to the west of the city, fiddling with the focus ring. They’re Gabe’s binoculars and she doesn’t think focus ring works anymore.

“You sure this is the best spot to be?” Eddie asks, pulling a can of Colt.45 from his jacket pocket, popping the top, and letting a line of foam bubble over the can, over his hands and down the rooftop in a mini-river.

“Great view,” Hazel says. “Nothing blocking us from this angle.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “It’s not the view I’m talking about.”

Hazel lets the binoculars drop and dangle on a black strap around her neck.

“I’m saying we’re not hidden at all,” Eddie says. “We’re wide open here.”

“Little fear is good for us,” Hazel says, like she’s not very interested in the topic. “It’ll keep us careful right from the start.”

“You call this careful?” Eddie asks.

She brings the binoculars back up to her eyes, turns her head slowly to the side, and says, “You’re going to have to trust me tonight, okay, Eddie? It’s real important that we see everything from up here tonight. We’re elevated. We’re away from the major part of the city lights. We’re under the stars. Vision’ll be at its best up here. It’ll make a real impression. Something everyone’ll remember. I promise.”

She hands the binoculars to Eddie and looks at her watch. “And there’s no chance of something blocking our signal,” she says. “Speaking of which …”

Eddie stares at her for a second, then catches on and wedges his Colt can in his crotch while he digs in his pocket. He pulls out a small rectangle of gray plastic that has a square red button protruding from its side and a silver antenna knob mounted at its top. There are little silver lightning bolts raised on its face below a round mesh speaker.

It’s a standard kid’s play walkie-talkie, the kind you’d buy in any mall electronics shop. It had belonged to Gabe. Like the binoculars, he was thrilled to have donated it to Hazel and the group. Hazel’s more than a little bothered by Gabe’s absence. It was clear that the kid was in love with her. What could possibly have caused him to bolt on her biggest night? She knows he felt some respect for Flynn, that he trusted him and maybe looked at him as a weird kind of father figure. But Hazel knows Gabe had it bad for her and he would’ve been the last person she’d have picked for defector.

Eddie hands the walkie-talkie to Hazel and she pulls the antenna out to full extension, then she stretches her arm out and points westward. Eddie thinks it looks like she’s pointing a magician’s wand and the feeling on the roof is weird enough so that he can imagine a cloud of smoke swarming into view with a classic fire-burst sound and a rabbit or a dove appearing in the air at the end of the antenna. But instead, Hazel just points and bites down on a growing smile.

“You have any problems I should know about?” she asks Eddie.

“This time it was cake,” he answers. “I’m not even thinking about what it’ll be like next time.”

“And no one saw you?”

“There’s nothing out there but raccoons and squirrels.”

“And driving back?”

“I was just driving. Like everyone else.”

“Okay.” Hazel nods, then leans over and puts a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, brings her head across, and kisses him on the mouth. The can of Colt drops from its wedge, rolls down the roof, and explodes onto the cement below.

“Hey,” Diane says, and Hazel looks up at her and says, “Good job. Both of you.”

She gets up on her knee, pivots slightly till she’s facing Diane, then cuffs her behind the neck, pulls her forward, and lands a second, identical kiss. Diane jerks away and Eddie can see Hazel holding down a laugh.

Hazel stands up, looks from face to face while using the antenna to scratch at the back of her neck.

“Tonight,” she says, in a voice that sounds like she’s reading from a prepared script, “we make our first big blow against the order of things. We’re about to make some pretty big confusion. And confusion is life. Confusion is antistagnation. Anarchy,” and she draws out the word, “has become a word in the dictionary. But in about ten seconds, we’re going to define it, right out loud, right up against the sky where it can’t be missed, for the whole freaking city of Quinsigamond—”

“And a few towns beyond,” Eddie says, and his mouth spreads with a weird, proud smile.

Eddie can tell Hazel doesn’t like being interrupted, that she hates having a joke spliced into this important moment. But to stop and smack him with an insult would only compound the disruption, so she nods and keeps going.

“I know you’re all clear that once the shit hits the fan tonight, it’s a new situation. There’s going to be some real consequences here. But no one forced you to come up here and sit on this roof. You’re here ’cause you’ve made a decision. And I congratulate you on it.”

She pauses, again looks at each individual face, slightly blue in the moonlight. Then, in a low, dramatic voice, she says, “So, I guess it’s showtime.”

She turns her head and extends her arm and points the walkie-talkie antenna out toward Devlin Hill, a mile west, where WQSG’s broadcast tower stands like an enormous museum piece, a classic example of industrial ego and the power of metal and height.

Everyone on the terminal rooftop stares out at it. It rises up like some enormous iron age pseudo-crucifix or the skeleton of some gigantic but primitive missile, nothing streamlined, all harsh corners and crisscrossing support struts. To Hazel, the longer she looks, it starts to seem like something more than a radio antenna. It starts to take on the feel of an icon, something with an aura of historical or even religious importance. She wonders if anyone else feels this way.

“Everybody have a clear view?” Hazel asks.

A few people adjust themselves slightly and everyone else just nods.