Breaker Whiskey

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Fiction
**Breaker Whiskey**

BREAKER WHISKEY is an ongoing, daily microfiction podcast exploring one woman’s journey to find additional survivors in an America made empty by an unknown event in the late 1960s. In 1968, two women find themselves in rural Pennsylvania during what turns out to be some kind of apocalyptic event. By the time they discover that everyone else is gone, it’s too late to figure out what happened. Despite not liking each other at all, the women work together to survive, until six years later one of them sets out on her own, driving around the country to find other survivors. This is her, calling out to anyone who might listen. BREAKER WHISKEY is made by Lauren Shippen and recorded on a 1976 Midland CB Radio. Please visit breakerwhiskey.com for more information or to send a message to Whiskey.

Latest Episodes:

101 - One Hundred One Dec 11, 2023

Show notes

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Breaker, breaker, this is Whiskey calling out from…somewhere in Utah.

I don’t expect anyone to call back. I haven’t heard from you in days, Birdie, and you missed our date, so I’m assuming the worst. That you’ve decided you want nothing to do with me, or that—

Well, I don’t think anything happened to you. You’ve survived this long, so unless you had a heart attack and dropped dead—

[click static]

Shit, I really hope you didn’t have a heart attack and die. I’m gonna feel like a real asshole if you had a heart attack and died.

[click, static]

That’s what killed my dad, you know. A heart attack. Dad died of a heart attack, mom died of cancer, which I think makes my family the most statistically average it’s possible to be.

I think it’s fifty-fifty the way I’ll end up going. My life isn’t exactly stress-free and lord knows I’ve smoked enough in life to warrant lung cancer. At least I’ve had the goddamn pleasure of cigarettes. My mom, poor thing, just got fucking unlucky. She should’ve picked up smoking the moment she was diagnosed if you ask me. Enjoyed those last few months.

I used to think I’d die from sheer stupidity. By doing something dumb and reckless. A car accident, getting killed in the course of a robbery, doing the wrong drug.

Not that my drug phase was particularly long. Calling it a phase is probably even a stretch. I think I’ve done exactly two drugs. I prefer booze.

But even being drunk is…I’ve never liked having my objective perception of the world changed. My life has always had too many secrets and too few trusted confidantes, that letting myself get out of control, or slip into a different state of mind always felt too risky.

And now…well, I’m sharing every secret and stray thought I have with the entire world. And my perception of the world has been plenty challenged. Who needs drugs when you can just hallucinate ordinary men in hotel rooms?

[click, static]

I turn thirty-five next week. And it feels young. I mean, when I entered this whole new weird world back in ’68, I wasn’t even thirty yet. Thirty-five felt unfathomably far away. And now here it is, both like I blinked and woke up six years later and also like I’ve lived several decades in that time.

I could have a good thirty years left at minimum. I used to worry that I wouldn’t have enough time to soak up every little bit of the world that I wanted to, that I’d run out of time, die before I was full satiated.

Now I’m not sure what the best case scenario is. I have nothing but time to fill and what used to be an all-you-can-eat buffet is now an empty table. The only food on it is imaginary, the phantom tastes and smells of a world that no longer exists. That’s the thing about being so alone—you just stagnate. We need other people to provide variety, unpredictability. Otherwise we atrophy.

I’ve gotten unpredictability on the road, it’s true. Weird feelings, unexpected roadside attractions, tornado warnings. But I can’t rely on tourist traps and automated weather warning systems to provide all my life’s variety.

That’s what you were giving me, Birdie—one of the things, anyway. Unpredictability. The thrill of not knowing what you were going to say or when you were going to say it. You surprised me. Please keep surprising me.

[click, static]

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100 - One Hundred Dec 08, 2023

Show notes

As a patron, you will also receive each week's episodes as one longer episode every Monday.

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

“Dear Harry,

Today I saw the Grand Canyon. And it was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. The picture on this postcard doesn’t do it—“

And then my pen exploded, so there’s a big ink splatter on half the card now. Not a lot of room left to write. But if there were, I guess I’d say…

[click, static]

“The picture on this postcard doesn’t do it justice. The colors are what’s really hard to capture—there are too many of them for me to name. But you’d find them on your palette by taking four colors and blending them in various ways to get a dozen more. I never understood how you did that. How you started with a few bright tones and discovered every shade between that existed. How you did it so expertly, without any hesitation.

You rarely hesitate. It’s one of the things I envy about you. It’s one of the things that made you so good at your job. You didn’t rush, you were always so intentional and careful and sure of yourself. And I didn’t hesitate on the job either, but in other things…

The only time I saw you hesitate when it mattered was—

Well, I guess the important thing was that I didn’t hesitate.

Did you…did you try to reach me? Did you get another radio? Are you calling out? Can you hear this somehow?

What—

[click, static]

What did you want? Are you okay? Are you just bored? Do you want to talk to me specifically or are you just lonely?

Never mind. I’m not sure I want the answer to that question even if you could reply.

I hope you’re okay at least. I trust that you are. You can take care of yourself. And you don’t need me for anything, you made that very clear.”

[click, static]

I guess all of that wouldn’t really fit on a postcard.

Probably for the best.

[click, static]

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099 - Ninety-Nine Dec 07, 2023

Show notes

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098 - Ninety-Eight Dec 06, 2023

Show notes

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

I was writing a postcard from the Grand Canyon to Harry and my pen exploded. My fingers are covered in ink and it made me think—

[click, static]

Harry’s hands always had something on them. Paint usually, or dirt from the garden…ink even. She found this old typewriter in the house and got me to fix it up for her despite the fact that I knew nothing about typewriters. I was able to figure it out—you work on enough mechanics, including really tiny ones, like the electrical wiring for the miniatures, and you can figure out pretty much anything that’s designed well.

And typewriters are beautiful machines it turns out. I hadn’t used one very much before then—it’s not like I ever needed to for my job and I never took typing classes or anything—but I fell in love with this one. It was an old model—from the thirties, if I had to guess—and the design was both beautiful and complex. Intricate but obvious.

(huff of laughter) God, what a metaphor that is, huh? (mumbling) Harry sure knew how to pick interests that perfectly reflected her.

But anyway, Harry spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to refill the ink reel. It had obviously dried out long ago, but she was convinced she could resoak it in ink and it would work again. Turns out, it’s not quite as straightforward as that. But she kept at it, trying paint, ink from the pens we had, whatever she could. After the first few attempts, it was something she only ever worked on when she was particularly angry with me.

That’s how I knew we couldn’t repair what got broken in that last big argument. Every day, she had ink on her hands.

[click, static]

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097 - Ninety-Seven Dec 05, 2023

Show notes

Please visit breakerwhiskey.com for more information or to send a message to Whiskey's radio. Breaker Whiskey is an Atypical Artists production created by Lauren Shippen. If you'd like to support the show, please visit patreon.com/breakerwhiskey. As a patron, you will also receive each week's episodes as one longer episode every Monday.

------

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

I’m on my way to Salt Lake City, land of the Mormons. I have no idea what to expect from a city built by people who don’t drink or smoke or, god, even have caffeine. Maybe it’ll be just the same as every other city in America - half of the ones back East were founded by Puritans and teetotalers.

I never had much use for religion. I remember my parents bringing me to church sometimes when I was a kid, but they weren’t that devout themselves so it never really sunk in.

And no, my weeks on the road have not changed my mind about God. Not even that weird encounter in Colorado. Whether it was a trick of the light or a hallucination I was having…

[click, static]

Who am I kidding. Trick of the light? It wasn’t a trick of the light. And I’ve never hallucinated in my entire goddamn life, I can’t imagine that all this driving has had such an impact on me that I’ve suddenly started now.

I’ve mostly been trying not to think about it. A ghost, a spirit, some kind of angel or demon…whatever it was, I haven’t seen anything like it since and I’m—

Even if it was a ghost, just because I believe in the afterlife doesn’t mean I believe in gods. And I’m not sure that’s what it was! I’m not sure I do believe in the afterlife! Maybe it was just…

[click, static]

Maybe I should pick up some Mormon writing in Utah, see if they have anything to say about it.

I have always wondered about the multiple wives thing. How does that work exactly? Even if all the women really were happy with the situation—which I’m not saying is impossible, it just seems like a system where maybe they don’t get that much say either way—I can’t really fit the puzzle pieces together in my head. Is it easier if you all have one relationship within the larger…structure, or does everyone have relationships with everyone? I mean, I lived in New York for years and hung out in the art scene, I knew people who had both kinds of situations, and it never made sense to me in those cases either. Not to say it didn’t work for the people I knew, I’m just not sure it’d work for me.

With the benefit of hindsight and plenty of time to reflect over the last few years, I’ve come to recognize that I…fixate. It hasn’t happened very often in my life, but when I lo—when I like someone, really like someone, I get a little bit of tunnel vision about them, whether I realize or not. And if I ever got that person, I don’t think I’d be selfless enough to share.

Maybe that’s unhealthy, I don’t know. It certainly hasn’t helped me have good romantic relationships. I think one of the reasons I never was really able to commit to Martha is because by that point I was already crazy—

[click, static]

It wasn’t fair to Martha. The way I was I just wish I’d figured it out at the time, either to tell Martha the truth, make her understand it was never about her or to, ideally, give myself a smack upside the head and get over whatever feelings my heart decided to develop without my consent. If I’d known what I felt back then—really felt—I would’ve done everything in my power to make sure I stopped feeling that way.

[click, static]

What about you, Birdie? Did you leave a partner behind? If the world were suddenly full of people, is that something you’d want?

I guess I can ask you about it on Thursday. Whiskey out.

[click, static]

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

096 - Ninety-Six Dec 04, 2023

Show notes

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Okay so…  (sighs) “What choice marks”. That’s what you sent. I guess I should have seen that coming. It’s the question I’d ask too.

[click, static]

I’m surprised you haven’t put it together yet. We both know I haven’t been careful about what I say on here, what I say to you. I know you figured out that I was an art thief long before I told you. And I’ve already said a lot about…

[click, static]

We got caught, right? I’ve told you that. That last job…we got caught. I’m still not sure how, but I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. And that was a few months before we—

[click, static]

We were being transported. Harry and I. There’s a—um, there’s a federal prison in Pennsylvania and the two of us had gotten into a little trouble at the county jail that we’d been in before that so we were sent up the river.

I guess it isn’t really called that if you’re sent to Pennsylvania. We weren’t going up the Hudson to Sing-Sing, we were—

[click, static]

You know, I don’t actually like talking about it very much. It wasn't a particularly shining time in my life, you know? It’s not like I hadn’t spent time in jail before—a night here or there throughout my twenties for one thing or another, but this was…

I don’t even know where the guys ended up. I guess I should’ve been thankful that Harry was on the job with us, otherwise I’d have been entirely alone. It’s not like we shared a cell or anything, though if you count six years trapped in a house together in the woods then…

[click, static]

I shouldn’t joke about that. It’s not the same. Yeah, I complain about the last six years with Harry, how suffocating they were, how lonely and isolating and stifling it all was, how frustrating to be stuck with her and have no idea what was going on in the wider world but it beat the alternative by a long shot. Even before I knew there was a chance I could go back into the world, even when it seemed like the smart thing to do was stay in that house with her for the rest of time, it was still better than being where we were headed. A cage of your own choosing right? And even if the world hadn’t been flipped upside down, maybe enough years would’ve passed that we could’ve gone somewhere and started over.

[click, static]

I don’t mean together necessarily. I mean, we each could’ve gone wherever we want, taken on new names, dyed our hair…I don’t know. We assumed that our escape would’ve made us wanted fugitives—and I’m sure it would’ve if there’d been anyone to do the chasing—but I don’t know, I have to think that two art thieves would hardly have been on the FBI’s most wanted list forever or even to begin with. We could’ve figured something out once the initial heat had died down. I mean, it’s not like we were murderers or—

[click, static]

I don’t—

Look, it’s not important. What’s done is done and I’m not sure I owe you an explanation, not when you haven’t given me one for why you feel so guilty about your job. Other than the vague assertion that you’ve “hurt people”.

And you know what? You don’t have to tell me. Let’s just agree to skate past those parts of each other and move on, okay? There’s nothing to be gained from pulling out the skeletons from each other’s closets.

[click, static]

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

095 - Ninety-Five Dec 01, 2023

Show notes

[click, static]

Hey Birdie.

I got to the Grand Canyon.

I can’t believe I called it a hole in the ground. It is…so much more than that.

I’ve never seen anything like it.

I drove right up to the edge—who was gonna stop me, right? And now I’m sitting on the hood of my car, watching the sun rise.

The colors are extraordinary. The light and the shadows, the different shades of the earth. The bits of reflected light from the river down below.

This isn’t—I don’t know what you meant yesterday in saying I was wrong about the impression I’ve left on the world, but I don’t think you really appreciate the comparison I’m making. I’m not denying that I’ve made choices that have had…devastating consequence. Even if you take some of the lesser choices—the ones that I don’t feel regret over—they obviously still had an effect on people. Every piece of art I helped steal had some kind of ripple effect.

But the real mark—the one, the last one I left, I guess…I know—I mean, I can only imagine the, not even ripple, the wave that that left. I know that there are some decisions that will leave permanent marks. On you just as much as others.

But I’ve—I guess I’ve comforted myself with the fact that it didn’t matter after all. Even if we hadn’t—even if I hadn’t done what I did, everything was about to change anyway. The “incident” or whatever it was happened and changed the world overnight—or maybe really gradually, I don’t know. Everyone either died or was…raptured? Moved into underground cities? Abducted by aliens?

I was a meteor, maybe. But the crater is impossible to see because a much bigger meteor came along and blew away the earth around my crater. I’m one wave inside of a tsunami.

I—I think maybe I know what you were trying to say though. I’ve been thinking about it—and about you and what I know about you—and you seem to walk around your life with this immense burden of responsibility on your shoulders. You told me that what you did—whatever happened with your job—still matters. And I'm sorry, I’m sorry it’s still haunting you.

But if you’re trying to tell me that what I do matters, that it matters just as much as whatever happened with you? Trust me, I get it. I heard that particular lecture pretty often, for six straight years, I don’t need it from you. Don’t project your guilt onto me.

So I’m just going to sit here, watching the sun rise over this beautiful, natural phenomenon, and marvel at the fact that as much as I matter, nothing I could ever do would erase this view from the world.

[click, static]

[beeps]

.-- .... .- - / -.-. .... --- .. -.-. . / -- .- .-. -.- ... ..--.. What choice marks?

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

094 - Ninety-Four Nov 30, 2023

Show notes

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Breaker breaker, this is Whiskey calling out for Birdie. You here?

[one beep]

Hell yes. How long’ve we got today?

[five beeps]

Five…five minutes? We have five minutes?

[one beep]

Okay, Jesus Christ. Well, I’ve been thinking about this, what I would ask. So let’s go, one beep for yes, two for no, three beeps when the answer is too complicated, and one dash for I don’t know. Alright?

[one beep]

Okay. Have you known who I am this whole time?

[two beeps]

No…okay, did you guess my name?

[two beeps]

Then how—  Have you—have you seen me, in person somehow? Not that that would help you know my name…

[two beeps]

Did I—this is embarrassing but—have I told you my name and I just forgot?

[two beeps]

Okay, well, that’s a relief that I’m not broadcasting my name everywhere.

[two beeps]

No? I am broadcasting my name?

[two beeps]

No again—

[dash dot dash dot; dash dash dot dash]

Can you do that again?

[dash dot dash dot; dash dash dot dash]

CQ - oh, seek you. Um…there was—there was a CQ for me?

[one beep]

What—you mean, so, you did hear my name over a broadcast?

[one beep]

Holy shit…what else did they say?

[two beeps]

So you just heard my name?

[one beep]

Do you know who it was?

[two beeps]

No, why would you. I don’t even know why I’m asking really…there’s only one person it could’ve been. And considering you sent me a message of my full first name, despite it being more to tap out…well, she’s the only one who doesn’t use the shortened version. Harry, that is. She’s the only one who knows I exist other than you. Who else would it have been?

So…Harry got a radio, learned how to use it, and broadcast something to me. Looking for me.

[one beep]

Jesus, okay. How did I miss this?

[click, static]

Right, um, was it the middle of the night?

[two beeps]

Hm…oh- was it while I was camping? When I left the radio behind?

[one beep]

Shit. I wonder—god, I mean if I had been there would I have been able to…

Have you been able to get into contact with her?

[two beeps]

Have you tried?

[two beeps]

Would you try? I mean—what am I saying, I don’t know why I—

[click, static]

Do you think I should try to contact her?

[click, static]

I guess that’s not something you can really decide, huh? Do you think you have the capability to contact her? I’m not sure I do.

[one long beep]

One dash— don’t know, right?

[one beep]

Okay, so you’re not sure if you could contact her, but you did pick up her broadcast. But not on purpose?

[one beep]

Yes, it was on purpose?

[two beeps]

Wha—oh, yes as in ‘that’s right’, it wasn’t on purpose. Okay, I clearly need to be more intentional in my phrasing. Do you think you picked her up on skip?

[one beep]

Right. Okay, I…I don’t know what to do with any of this, to be honest.

[click, static]

Shit, okay, I don’t want to run out of time with you. I need to ask about the message you sent last night. You said “you’re wrong”.

[one beep]

Wrong about what? I mean—was it something I said yesterday that I was wrong about?

[one beep]

Okay, I was talking about the meteor crater, right? So…I mean, I’m assuming it wasn’t about the crater itself. What else was I talking about…

The fact that we have no control over the impact that we make? You disagree?

[two beeps]

No, that’s not it.

[dot dash, dash dot dot dot, dot dot]

I recognize that—my name, right? Well, the shortened version.

[one beep]

So it was something about me that I said?

[one beep]

What, that the choices I’ve made didn’t change the world?

[one beep]

What? That’s what you think I’m wrong about?

[one beep]

Birdie, what does that mean?

[two long beeps]

What? Oh that’s—that’s goodbye isn’t it.

[one beep]

Wait, you can’t leave yet, what do you mean?

[two long beeps]

Ugh, fine. But you’ll be here next Thursday? Same time?

[one beep]

Alright, I guess I’ll have to just live with that—but explain in your next transmission please.

[two long beeps]

Whiskey out.

[click, static]

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

093 - Ninety-Three Nov 29, 2023

Show notes

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

So, I’m on my way to the Grand Canyon, but apparently Arizona is full of cavernous earth. Because I’m standing in front of an absolutely enormous hole in the ground.

A meteor crashed here. I had no idea. Which is weird, right? Isn’t that something that everybody should just know? That we have an enormous meteor crater in our country? It feels noteworthy.

But no, I only learned about it from a road sign on Route 66. Thank goodness for tourist trap advertising, I guess. There’s a little viewing deck and everything—apparently, the meteor crashed here over fifty thousand years ago. The viewing deck has a pair of binoculars pointed at an astronaut suit they put in the middle of the crater. Which is a bit of an odd choice if you ask me, but looking through it does give you an idea of the scale.

If this is just a random meteor crater, how big is the Grand Canyon going to be? Was this all mundane to the average Arizona resident? I don’t know that I could handle it—the idea of driving around my state and stumbling across these massive voids of space. It’s too much—it’s too much of a reminder.

A rock—a fucking rock—fell from the sky fifty thousand years ago and even now, this land is unusable. The Colorado River pushed through the ground for so long that it wore away at the very earth.

Random chance versus persistence. Two opposite ends of a spectrum with the same result—nothing where there used to be something. The world, reshaped.

There’s nothing we can do, is there? To ensure that we carve the path that we want or to be certain that we’re not eroding everything around us. It doesn’t matter if we make one spontaneous decision or we work hard at something for years—the result could be exactly the same. It could be the opposite of what we were going for. There are plenty of rivers in the world that have been flowing for just as long and haven’t made that kind of impact. There are plenty of meteors that hurdle through space without creating mass destruction.

I don’t know whether to be comforted or disappointed by that. I told you I left my mark on this world already and that I wasn’t sure if I liked what shape it took and that’s true—but maybe there was nothing I could’ve done to make it different. After all, I haven’t had the power of a strong current or a burning meteor.

I guess I should just be grateful that the impression I left wasn’t a mile wide. I left my mark, but it won’t still be visible in fifty thousand years. It didn’t change the curve of the world.

[click, static]

[long static]

[beeps]

You're wrong

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

092 - Ninety-Two Nov 28, 2023

Show notes

[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

I haven’t heard from you, which I’m trying not to read into too much. It’s not like we haven’t gone days—or weeks, even—without talking but I guess I’m feeling—

Well, between talking to you—actually talking to you—for the first time and you knowing my name…

Is this what it feels like to be…vulnerable? I know I’ve told you about K not calling me back and Millie moving away and my parents dying and—it’s not like I haven’t been vulnerable before. I have. Of course I have, I’m human.

But it’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to be. Well, I guess not that long if you count—

[click, static]

It doesn’t work out that well usually, does it? Caring about someone. Caring what they think about you, how they feel about you. Wanting to talk to them, to know them. There’s no way to do any of that—to have anything meaningful—without rolling over and showing your soft underbelly. And I’ve been kicked in the gut one too many times, Birdie.

I thought the last one might kill me.

But nothing has yet.

[click, static]

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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