June '04


HOBART #3

ANDREW BOMBACK 20 Stories About My Dead Brother, Ollie
DENNIS DILLINGHAM Two Octogenarians Sitting at a Starbucks Drinking Orange Juice
PIA EHRHARDT Hail
ELIZABETH ELLEN The Girl at the End of the Bar
LEE KLEIN Brave Men Run
JOHN LEARY Daddy
PASHA MALLA Three Penises of Adelaide, South Australia
SHAUNA MCKENNA Chance
MAX RUBACK Introduction to Still-Life
DAMON STEWART Lost in the Static
SUSAN TOWNSEND Family Therapy

Photo by Damon Stewart.

Walking up the staircase, I remember this particular feeling of dread, one that I always associate with Ray. It's hard to explain, but for years, late at night or sometimes when I was focused on a job or fixing something in the basement, suddenly Ray would pop into my head and I’d be worried about him. No particular reason, but it was like there's this hole in my heart, empty, just waiting to be lined with a pain that I've yet to discover. And it’s got something to do with Ray. I’d feel bad, for him and for me. Like I have just an inkling of his sorrow, and there's nothing I can do about it.

He was inside. The place wasn't clean, but it wasn't any worse by Ray standards. He was lying on the couch, face pale, dark circles under his eyes. But I wasn't thinking drugs or drinking. I mean, he's my brother, and I could always tell when the guy wasn't straight. Although I wasn't exactly relieved either; it was clear that he hadn't slept in awhile. A long while. But before I could ask him what was going on with Sandy, he launched right into it.

"Dave, listen, did you know that radio waves can bounce off the atmosphere? Especially AM waves; they can travel halfway across the country if conditions are right."

"Huh. Anyway, how you feeling? You look a little tired."

"So I'm thinking that "Land of the Heart" radio is coming from the Midwest. Makes sense, y’know? `Heartland’ and all that. I'm only getting it late at night when the conditions are right.” He saw the look on my face. “It's not me Dave, it’s true, there's lots of AM stations you can only get at night. Listen."

He got up and walked over to the stereo. It was already on and he turned up the volume, the speakers discharging a familiar scraping noise. "It's just crap now, but around midnight-one, that's a classical music station out of Binghamton. That must be what, 50, 70 miles from here? And this---" a twist of the dial, more of the same noise---"this is a heavy metal station, I’m pretty sure it’s from Philly. You gotta wait until at least 2:00 AM to hear it. Heavy metal on AM radio. That's weird."

"Right. Ray, I ran into Sandy today and---"

"Yeah, yeah, where have I been.” He turned the stereo off. “I got some vacation time coming. He'll just charge it against that."

"Yeah but Ray, why?"

"Why what?"

"Why aren't you working?"

He looked at me as if I'd asked him whether he considered breathing important to daily living.

"You wouldn't get it." He turned back to the stereo, switching it back on and peering intently at the dial.

"C'mon Ray---what's going on?"

"I have to find that station. I know it's taking a lot of time but I only need a few more days. I've been keeping this chart---" He reached behind the stereo and pulled out a pad of lined yellow paper, thick with blue ink, a handmade grid covering the entire page and tiny handwriting filling each block---"I've been pretty methodical about it. I'm keeping this chart so I don't keep finding the same stations. Whenever I get something I listen to it for awhile, make sure that's not it, then move on to the next one. I'm keeping track of both AM and FM.

"All that just to find a radio station? You just go up and down the dial, right?"

"It's not that easy. At night you might get two different stations on the same spot, depending on the time. 'Specially on AM. They fade in and out, so you have to keep the dial in one place for hours just to be sure. Like here, 590?" He turned and pointed at the stereo, near the lower end of the dial, "Last night I got two different stations. WBZX during the day, plays oldies. They sign off at midnight, then I get this country station out of Wilkes-Barre. Around four in the morning WBZX starts up again."

Well, I thought to myself, that explained the lack of sleep.

"So it's taking me awhile, you know? 'Course, as soon as I find that station . . .”

I waited for him to finish the sentence, but he just stared down at the stereo. After a few moments of silence I said goodbye and walked out, split between relief and worry. Relief, because Ray wasn't doing drugs or drinking (I mean Drinking; everything is relative). He was going through the standard girlfriend crisis, I told myself, just trying to deal with her leaving. Eventually he'd find the station, nothing would happen, and he'd get over it.