Breaker Whiskey

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111 - One Hundred Eleven Dec 25, 2023

Show notes

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

(sighs) I suppose I should thank you for the birthday wishes, but I’m not feeling particularly gracious. Instead, I’m frustrated. I’m nearly to California—I think LA is going to be my next big stop, seems like a good place to ring in the New Year—but, I’m nearly to the other coast and it has me thinking about…what this is all for.

I came out here to find other people. That’s what I told myself. But after the first week, when it became so clear that other people were going to be hard—if not impossible—to find, it became about something else. Or…I allowed it to be what it was always about. Which was me.

I needed to get away. I needed to move forward. Literally, I guess. And then you. Even in my heart of hearts I’m not sure I expected to find you. I’m not sure I thought I would ever speak to another person ever again. And it brought hope back into my life.

I hadn’t realized how much I was missing hope. How vital of an emotion it is. But with hope comes disappointment. And I didn’t think I could be disappointed with people anymore, not after—

[click, static]

Anyway. I’ve made it all the way across the country, nearly, and what do I have to show for it? A weird ghost story, Dean Martin’s suit, and a fair-weather friend. And maybe I was focused on just getting out, getting away, but I’m tired of not understanding the world.

It’ll be a new year soon. 1975. Halfway through a decade—a decade in which I’ve seen exactly one other person in flesh and blood. I don’t know that there will be people to find in Los Angeles—or any answers at all—but I think it’s time I settle in somewhere, maybe just for a bit, a few weeks, and figure out what the hell I’m doing. Because I can’t drive around this country forever. Moving continuously is not the same as moving forward.

[click, static]

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110 - One Hundred Ten Dec 22, 2023

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Dear Harry,

I’m goddamn sick of speaking to you already. At least with Birdie, there was some kind of response. And maybe you are responding. Maybe you’re somehow hearing this and shouting into your radio, trying to get me to hear you.

That’s sort of a funny image, actually. Finally, I’m frustrating you as much as you frustrate me.

Do you remember my last birthday? The bottle of wine and the game of Clue? Of course you do, you remember everything. Every shortcoming, every perceived slight,

This is the first birthday I’ve spent alone since my sixteenth. Isn’t that strange.

And that birthday…it snuck up on me. My dad had died so recently and—well, anyway, you know most of this already. Know more about my teen years than anyone in the world. We had to have something to talk about for all those years. The times before we knew each other always seemed like safe territory.

Even before I got to New York, before I made any kind of friend, I would at least try to celebrate in a bar, or a diner, or somewhere with people around. And then there were those years where I did have friends, even if they were fair weather ones, and then there was you and it’s hard to have a birthday party and not invite the person you live with and sometimes I think—well, we had fun sometimes, right? Celebrating things?

Anyway, it’s strange to be alone now. Stranger today than all the other days, though I can’t really explain why. There’s no difference in this day, not really.

I’m not sure what I expected in choosing Vegas to spend my birthday. It isn’t like I can play any of the games on my own or catch a show or go to a steakhouse. But it seemed…festive.

I keep thinking about what Birdie said when we talked. That I was wrong when I said my choices didn’t change the world. Maybe I misunderstood them, maybe they were messing with me, I don’t know but…

Sitting here, in a casino at the Sands, in Dean’s suit, drinking champagne that I’m fairly certain costs several hundred dollars a bottle, and looking out on an empty hall of chance, I…

Chance and choice. The only forces in the universe.

I have made a series of choices that have brought me here. You made a series of choices that pushed me here. Looking around…well, we — both of us — decided to spin the roulette wheel, if you want to put it that way. But we don’t decide where the ball lands. We have free will, but everything is a game of chance at the end of the day.

So why…why should I feel guilty over that? Why should you? I mean, there are other reasons you should feel guilty, but not for that. I know what you’d say—that it wasn’t chance that steered our hands, but choice. And I’d say that the choice to die or not die isn’t much of a choice at all.

Choice brought me to Vegas but chance drove me to the Sands and to Dean Martin’s suit and this bottle of champagne. Chance led to both of these things being ultimately valueless, except for the value they provide to me. It doesn’t matter what happened in ’68, what kind of choices people made, there isn’t any choice a single person could’ve made that led to all this. There’s some other force at play here, something bigger than me or you or anyone. Something bigger maybe even than chance.

Happy Birthday to me.

[click, static]

[a voice almost cuts through the static]

[beeps]

.... .- .--. .--. -.-- / -... .. .-. - .... -.. .- -.--

Happy Birthday

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109 - One Hundred Nine Dec 21, 2023

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Dear Harry,

To think I was craving unpredictability just last week.

I’ve had to leave the Caesar—or, I guess I didn’t have to, but—well, I was working on getting the record player going this morning when the fire alarm started blaring. Scared me right out of my skin, let me tell you.

So I gathered up my things and did what any sane person would do and evacuated. I’d gone through my usual safety checks before settling in, but it’s a huge hotel, so I didn’t get to all of it—with all this power actually working, I wouldn’t be surprised if something sparked and caught fire. But there wasn’t any evidence of smoke or fire, so who knows. Better safe than sorry, I say.

God, thank god for automated emergency systems. Whoever came up with those really did the apocalypse a favor. Without the tornado warning and the fire warning and everything…well, I could be dead several times over. It’s a pretty good argument for sticking to hotels over homes, I guess. If only people had these things in their homes.

Anyway. Fire or not, I’m out of Caesar’s now. And moving hotels actually proved to be an excellent choice, because I got to the Sands—that’s the only other hotel I recognized the name of, mostly because of Frank Sinatra at the Sands, the record. And I guess he and the rest of the rat pack must have come here a lot because guess what? I think I’m in their room.

That’s right—I got to the Sands and came up to the fanciest suite I could find and what does the wardrobe have in it but Dean Martin’s suits. His name is stitched right into the collar and everything! I couldn’t believe it.

It’s pretty late now, but tomorrow is the big 3-5 and now I know what I’m going to be wearing as I fix myself up whatever celebration I can. I think I’ve earned a day of treating myself, even if treating myself in this case means wearing a dead man’s suit.

Night, Harry.

[click, static]

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108 - One Hundred Eight Dec 20, 2023

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Dear Harry,

You would hate Las Vegas.

There are so many places I’ve gone over the last few months that you’d hate. The cheap roadside motels, the kitschy tourist attractions, the dive bars I’ve frequented.

That’s something I haven’t been all that forthcoming about. I mean, there’s plenty I do during my days that I don’t talk about on here. Some of its mundane but some of it is…

Well, I have a ritual, of sorts. Before I leave a state, I find a bar—usually a dive bar, but sometimes I go for the really fancy hotel bars if I’m in a city—and I pick a bottle from the very top shelf and I pour myself a finger of whatever it is and I toast to all the people who have passed through that state, that city, that bar; all the people who are no longer here for reasons that I don’t understand and it’s…well, it helps keep me grounded, I think. Doing that in each and every state I go to. It’s the closest thing I’ve had to praying in a long time.

You’d like the hotel bars, I think. Maybe you’d find some of the stops I’ve made silly or unappealing, but there are things about this whole winding road trip that I think you’d enjoy. Fancy hotels being one of them.

I’m staying at Caesars Palace right now because…of course I am. It’s the most iconic hotel on the Strip and I don’t have to pay anyone to stay at it.

I’m actually not sure if it’s the most iconic, it’s just the first one I saw that I recognized the name of. As much as you would hate Vegas—and you would, you would hate it—I do think you’d appreciate just how plush the beds are and the soft hotel robes and the truly top shelf liquor they’ve got. My stately toasts aren’t the only time I pour myself a glass of something, obviously, so I will definitely be partaking tonight, once I’ve figured out how to route the power to a record player in this place.

I shouldn’t be surprised that the one place I’ve been to that has multiple buildings lit up in power is Las Vegas. Whatever grid they’re on, whatever generators they had running the lights and the slot machines and the stages, well, they’re clearly powerful as hell, because huge portions of Caesar’s has power. Currently, I’m talking to you from my hotel room. Well, apartment more like. It’s got a fucking staircase in it. A little balcony that overlooks the living room, where there is, I kid you not, a grand piano. And everything is really…pink, for some reason.

It is the biggest and nicest hotel room I have ever been to by miles. And there’s a record player here—with a huge, phenomenal sound system, but for some reason that’s not working, I think because some of the outlets in here are dead. Once I get off the horn, that’s going to be my project. Well, maybe my project for tomorrow, it is pretty late.

I took a big break in the middle of the day today and sat out on top of my car just…looking over the desert. Nevada really is something else, like being on another planet. And then to have Vegas just pop out in the middle of nowhere, like a mirage—it’s a real trip. Beautiful, in its own way, but weird. And weirdly exhausting too—you see Vegas long before you get to it, which makes driving down the road toward it feel like you’re not moving at all. You can see it, you can see your speedometer all the way up at eighty and the city isn’t getting any closer. It’s like you’re standing still.

All in all, it’s been a pretty tiring day. And I’ve got lots to explore tomorrow so…I guess I’ll go now.

Goodnight, Harry.

[click, static]

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107 - One Hundred Seven Dec 19, 2023

Show notes

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Dear Harry,

I have no postcard to write on, but I’m still going to address this missive to you. I need to—it’s hard, to go back to talking to everyone after so many months of talking to someone. And you’re the only other someone I know, so you’ll serve as stand-in for the time being.

You’ve probably never been ignored by a friend. You’ve been ignored by me, but I’m not sure you ever considered me a friend.

I don’t know what I consider you. A pain in the ass, a force of nature, the only person I trust.

That’s…that’s quite the realization to have, actually. But it’s true. You’re the only person alive I trust. Though that trust is conditional. It didn’t used to be. I used to trust you with everything—the truth, my life. I thought I could trust you with—

[click, static]

Well, the truth and my life should have been enough. And it wasn’t…it wasn’t just because I had to. It wasn’t just default. You’d always been honest with me—brutally so—and you’d kept me alive these past six years, even when it would have been easier not to bother. But then you had to go and—

[click, static]

I don’t know why I still trust you. With the truth and with my life. Maybe it’s because I think you should trust me. I think I—I’ve earned it, I—

And not because—I never wanted you to trust me because how it all began, I never wanted to hold that over you. Make you feel as though you owed me. Maybe you do owe me. I don’t know, I don’t know what to think now.

That was something you put on yourself. You could’ve left at any time, you didn’t need to repent or—

[click, static]

I think, you know, if you can hear this, you’re probably disagreeing with me out loud as you sit in your studio. That’s where I’m imagining you’re keeping the radio.

But maybe that’s wishful thinking, maybe I just like the idea of you having it nearby, so you can hear anything that might come through—

[click, static]

Oh, you got me all mixed up.

[click, static]

Anyway. I know you disagree with me. I know you think that the choice I made was extreme, that we could’ve figured something else out, but…I don’t think that’s true. I think it was the best option we had and I think if I hadn’t been there, you would, you would have made the same choice. You think that you can outsmart anyone, that you can clever your way out of any situation, but that is provably not true. You would do what had to be done.

“But that’s what I’m saying, Abigail, it didn’t have to be done at all” —that’s what you’re saying right now, I can hear it perfectly in my head. And not just because it’s a conversation we’ve had before. Because I know—I know you. And I know…I know you. Despite everything, despite what you—

[click, static]

See? I don’t even need you to radio back, I can do both sides of this conversation. I don’t need anyone to be on the other side.

[click, static]

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106 - One Hundred Six Dec 18, 2023

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

It’s been nearly two weeks since I last heard from you, Birdie. You asked about the difficult choices I’ve made in my life and then fucked off and it’s a little hard to think that those two things aren’t related.

God, to think I almost told—

[click, static]

I don’t know what’s going on with you. I don’t know why you haven’t sent me any messages since that one. I don’t know why you missed our…radio date, or whatever you want to call it. It’s not like this is the first time that you’ve gone silent for days or weeks, but this is the first time since we actually spoke to each other. And it’s a little hard to think that those two things aren’t related.

Wherever your head is at, I’m not interested in obsessing over it. I’ve done that before, the “I have all the freedom in the universe but I’m trapping myself in a cage on someone else’s behalf” and let me tell you, I have no interest in doing it again. If you exist, Birdie, I have to believe that someone else does. Possibly multiple someones. And as long as I keep moving, I increase my chances of actually finding one of those someones.

So you do whatever it is you’re doing, Birdie, and I’ll be just fine.

[click, static]

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105 - One Hundred Five Dec 15, 2023

Show notes

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Snagged another postcard today. Just a generic landscape of Utah, but it’s pretty. Rich oranges and warm sunlight. I’m not filling out an address obviously, which means I’ve got the whole postcard to write on and…anyway.

[click, static]

“Dear Harry,

It feels strange writing these postcards now, knowing you might be listening. My friend, Birdie—that’s right, I did meet somebody out here—picked up your transmission but I didn’t. They’ve got some wild setup that allows them to pick up a lot of frequencies from enormous distances. If you hear any morse code on your radio, that’s them.

So I’m not really sure that you are listening. I can’t hear you, so there’s a good chance you can’t hear me. But if you can…

The truck still works. Or, it should, if you’ve been taking care of it like I showed you. You could get in it right now and start driving. I’m going to Las Vegas for my birthday. You could meet me there.”

[click, static]

Anyway, I should get on the road. Whiskey out.

[click, static]

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104 - One Hundred Four Dec 14, 2023

Show notes

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Breaker, breaker, this is Whiskey, sitting on the hood of my car, looking at newspaper rock.

You know, the further West you go, the newer all the buildings get, but the older the land. Does that make sense? Maybe it’s just that there’s more of it out here—more land I mean—but it feels like back East we completely destroyed what evidence there was that people have lived on here for a long time. I don’t know of any place like this on the East Coast.

So. What is this place, you ask? Newspaper rock. Well, it’s a rock, obviously. And it’s got all these carvings on it. Petroglyphs, I think they’re called. From…I don’t know, thousands of years ago? And they’re of all sorts of things—animals, people, animals and people together, people riding horses, that kind of stuff. I can’t…I’m not sure if it’s telling some kind of story, but given the name, I assume historians think it’s a depiction of a significant event, or a few significant events.

I wonder how much we were really able to figure out about it. I don’t know anything about archeology or translation or if this is even a language or just, you know, a nice painting. I recognize the shapes, but I don’t understand what it’s trying to say.

There’s a metaphor for my whole life. Or, at least the last six years of it. Even now, talking to you, Birdie, I understand the words you’re using, and the order you’re putting them in makes sense, but I don’t know what you’re saying. Harry always spoke deliberately, with perfect diction and five dollar words and I’m not sure I ever really understood her. I’m not sure she ever really understood me, either. At least, not what I was really trying to say.

How do historians learn to translate dead languages? How do they know they’re right? How do I know that anything I ever say is being heard in the way I mean it?

Maybe this is all too philosophical for ten in the morning. I just…I wish I had my own Rosetta stone, you know? Something to make it all make sense. Something to tell me the meaning behind the words.

Signing off.

[click, static]

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103 - One Hundred Three Dec 13, 2023

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

I’ve been…slowing down this week. Everything from the tornado in Kansas to Estes Park feels like a blur. It’s getting dark earlier and earlier now and I don’t much care for driving in the dark when I’m the only one on the road, so I’ve been taking longer to get from place to place…

I’m planning on going to Vegas for my birthday because…well, why the fuck not, right? And I think there’s a part of me that thinks if I just really drag out the process of getting there, I’ll delay my birthday somehow.

My last birthday…we were in a good period, actually. Or, at least, an okay period. Things were…peaceful. The falls in general were always pretty peaceful. We still had the optimism of people who’d spent the summer in the sunshine, and we’d finish up our harvest, start stocking up for winter…there was ritual in it.

Harry baked me a cake. A carrot cake, because we always had a ton of carrots, but she didn’t bother with frosting because, according to her, “carrot cake with anything other than cream cheese frosting is an abomination” and, well, obviously fresh cream cheese isn’t exactly easy to come by. But despite that, it was nice. It was…it was delicious, actually, she’s always been a very talented baker.

So we had dinner and cake and a bottle of wine that she’d stowed away early on—that was a surprise. Both that she’d had the foresight to stash it and that she brought it out for my birthday. When I asked her about it, she said…

Well, actually, she didn’t say anything. I’ve spent a lot of time playing that night over and over in my head, playing lots of nights over and over in my head, imagining how the conversations could have gone, that sometimes I forget what really happened. And what really happened that night is that I asked her why she was wasting a special bottle of wine on me and she just said “well, it’s not all for you”, and topped off both our glasses and that’s not really an answer to the question at all, is it? I wish she’d said—

[click, static]

We didn’t do presents, obviously. Not for birthdays or Christmas or anything. But we’d usually spend holidays playing some kind of game—chess or one of the few boardgames we had or whatever card game we could best remember. And that night, she suggested we play Clue, which was my favorite game and she never liked playing it much, so that…that felt like a weird sort of gift.

And for that whole night, it felt almost like the old days. Like we were in Richie’s Alphabet City loft, like we were standing on the edge of something; of finally getting along, of finally understanding each other.

Turns out we weren’t. Instead, that was just one of the last good days.

[click, static]

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102 - One Hundred Two Dec 12, 2023

Show notes

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Yeah, I’m just going to keep talking to you like you’re listening. Because the alternative is reminding myself that there’s a nonzero chance that Harry is the—

[click, static]

Anyway. Hey Birdie. You’ll never guess my luck today. I saw the lights on in a roadside diner—I still cannot put together why some places have power and some don’t—and when I walked in music was playing.

That’s right, their jukebox was working! And that was exciting enough as it is, but I did have this moment when I first heard tinny music playing that…well, someone had to have been there to pick a song right? Put in a quarter and everything. So I barged right in and searched the whole building—the kitchen, the back office, the bathrooms—and when that didn’t turn anything up, I pretty much ran circles around the property like a chicken with my head cut off.

There was nothing. And when I took a closer look at the jukebox, it seemed like it was a free one so…I guess there must have been some kind of power surge that caused a circuit to trip and turn it on or…

Who knows. I’m not an electrician, as much as I’ve very carefully tried to be throughout the years. Whatever happened, music was playing. It wouldn’t let me actually pick a record, but it didn’t matter. It was a dream to get to listen to some real music again. The Four Seasons, Peggy Lee, Elvis…it felt like the world was full again.

I’m getting used to too much weird shit, I think. The CB working without a power source, jukeboxes randomly tripping on, you sending me messages that contain all kinds of red flags and me just…

You kind of distracted me, you know that? I was pissed at you. The whole Denver thing, not responding to a lot of the stuff I’ve sent you that I think warrants a response—I don’t know, I’m starting to feel a little crazy, Birdie. But then you show up and talk to me live and it’s like…all that stuff ceases to matter. Because you’re there and you’re real and I never know what you’re going to say next, but none of that makes you trustworthy.

Give me a reason to trust you, Birdie.

[click, static]

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