Strange Signals

The radio does strange things in the middle of nowhere.

         In Nevada, there is a city of gold and light and dice and bankruptcy. Millions of people come to this illusory palace each year to spend their fortunes and their children's fortunes on spinning wheels and whirring machines and tumbling snake-eyes and somberly clad, spade-wielding kings and queens of the underworld. Las Vegas, they call it, The Meadows, though whoever sees meadows in this wasteland is obviously so far gone, they're already on their way to the meadows of Elysium.

         There is a wild, desperate hope in the casinos- they are the capricious makers and breakers of destiny, magical places where a nobody can become a millionaire and dangerous places that can strip the mightiest doctor or stockbroker or CEO of his savings on a bad night. Men with no control over their lives are drawn to the kingdom of brilliant red diamonds and hidden black clubs like moths to a neon, flashing bug-lamp.

         Others come for the booze, the hookers, the friendly hosts that put it all on your tab so you don't waste your time worrying about time and expenses. In this fairyland, you can spend an eternity in bliss and comfort in the six days your credit card will last and then be tossed with an empty wallet like nothing ever happened, like you've been mugged by an angel. Or you can go there for what seems like a day, leave, and find that the world has grown up, left you behind. This is your home now, where you can be a child that believes in magic and amusement and doesn't know any better. This is the retreat from reality that men have spent years trying to find- it is every poem, every song, every dream, every drug. And it is very expensive to live in the Kingdom of Gold.

         Surrounding the city is a sad little desert called the Mojave. It does not have the grandeur of Lawrence's Arabia, the fierce pride of Steinbeck's Great Basin, or the mystical potency of the Mongol Gobi; it is a sad, brush-covered sand moat around Vegas, full of spiky green Joshua trees raising their hands to heaven to pray for just another minute of sweet, ambrosial, sacred sunlight. They are like broken men who want a second chance, a third chance, a fourth chance, a fifth chance, who just need one more coin, who know that their luck must turn around any minute, for what just god would suffer such injustice and tragedy to strike the same faithful head twice? But the law is immutable in the Kingdom of God: that His harsh, scalding, hateful rays shall beat just as hard on every pair of shoulders. If you want mercy, you'd have better luck at the slots.

         From the tapered tips of silvery spires rising above the Mirage City pour radio waves, newly borne from the lips of shock jocks and sharp-but-calm reporters and baffled eye-witnesses and jaded Dj's and delivered by technicians and studio engineers and national broadcasting syndicates, the midwives of telecommunication. And they spill out from the clouds, washing over the ears and minds of the citizens and tourists below, but then like flood water they seep out of the edges of the city and leak into the Mojave countryside. News reports and singles off of the Top Ten lists send imperceptible tingles through the pious and penitent Joshuas. Words and voices and scripts and thoughts and recordings and tunes and buzzes and beeps and call-ins and listener requests all get lost in these sands of never-time and nowhere-space, and occasionally they thread and bind and coalesce together into a single, curious story.





         "...famous actor, disappeared sometime last night. He was last seen walking out of his Orange County home in a tuxedo, carrying a suitcase and a shotgun. The renowned star of..." Static. *Which* actor? Star of *what*? Dave throws up his hands in frustration, only to jerk them back down to the wheel and swerve around an armadillo sitting nonchalantly in the road. And the suitcase- is he just abandoning home all of a sudden? Just like that? A 'renowned star' packing up and taking a hike. And what the hell is he doing with a shotgun?

         "... million animals last year alone were victims of this corporate monster's pointless cruelty. With just five dollars, you can..." It's been like this the whole time. Fourteen straight hours driving from Seattle to wish Natalie a happy birthday in person- it sounded like a good idea at the time, especially since Dave hadn't seen his sister since her wedding to “the biggest jackass in the Western Hemisphere” (Dave was just a little drunk when he got the scar on his chin for saying that at the reception),  and she sounded so upset on the phone about reaching the big Five-O. Women are so goddamn sensitive about aging. It's not like it matters how young she looks anymore. She's married to that bastard Harvey, she knows he married her for the money, I mean, they live in Vegas for Christ's sake, the only city in America where he can get all the hookers he wants without having to strain his pea-brain trying to navigate the black market-

         "...you know, Donna, I hear they're actually going to have an open-casket funeral for her! Considering what happened, I just think that's tasteless. I mean, that's the family's business and all, but I sure as hell wouldn't show up to that, you know? Even if I were invited. Be cheaper to rent a Wes Craven flick, haha. Hey, I just call it like it is."

         The radio picks up signals from towers all over Nevada. Tuning is virtually useless now; by the time Dave finds a station he likes, there'll be another soft electronic hiss and he'll have to start all over. Just like pushing a boulder up a mountain. You get to the top, and it just tumbles down the other side. Where have I heard that? Actually, it's a Greek myth. Sisyphus deceived the gods and tried to cheat death, so he was condemned to repeat the same strenuous task over and over for eternity in Tartarus. Debbie, Dave's sweet wife with a cloud-addled head, is a history major with a specialty in Greek mythology and tragedy, so Dave occasionally picks up bits of the stranger stories she tells at the dinner table, when he's listening. Which is not often. Dave never saw the point in history or spirituality or philosophy. Humanist/existentialist mumbo jumbo is unbecoming of a respectable real estate agent.

         “Nathan, you bastard! You can't just walk away from this! This is your goddamn responsibility! You promised my father when we got married that you would take over the business! What would Daddy think of you now, you pitiful, drunken, wretched..."

         What time is it back home? I wonder if Lily's in bed yet. Debbie better not be letting her stay up. She needs her beauty sleep. Damn it, I bet they're eating ice cream right now, watching all that prime-time cable rubbish and laughing and dancing on the sofa. Bad for her pretty white teeth. What would the dentist think? My baby can't grow into a healthy young woman without her beauty sleep. But Debbie always spoils her, she's too busy being her best friend to be her mother. Why do I have to be the bad guy? So I love her. So I care about her. So I don't want her to get toothaches and tummy-aches and broken bones and bad grades. How does that make me 'distant'? How am I 'mean'? Debbie's got to get her act together and realize that our relationship can't be fun and games anymore. We've got a responsibility now.

         "...killed 13 more before committing suicide. But police are baffled by the absence of the murder weapon. The security cameras show that nobody entered or left after the incident, so the gun could not have been stolen or..."

         Wait, that's right. God, I'm such an idiot. It's the same time in Seattle that it is here. Same time zone. It feels like I'm half a world away 'cause I've been driving so damn long, but Vegas is pretty much due south. Why'd I let Nat convince me into driving the whole freaking way? Planes hardly ever crash, and how many times have you heard about terrorists jacking one on the news? Just once, and security's tighter than a turtle's ass now, there isn't a snowman's chance in holy hell that it could happen again. I could have just taken the first flight down and lied to her. Buy myself some time to see the city, hang out for a day or two, then satisfy her with a cock-and-bull rant about the miserable 'road trip'.

         "...one rancher reports that they've 'lost the will to live'. This 'suicidal cattle' epidemic has not been linked to any known disease, and several veterinarians have even called it a psychological problem..."

         But I just can't lie to Nat. She knows me too well. She'd see right through my stories with the clarity of a child. She's always been a child, that's why she moved to that Neverland of a city with her Prince Charming. An idiotic jerk, sure, but charm's one thing that Harvey's got in spades; oily, slick charm, a gleaming eye, a wormy smile, and a toothy grin.

         "...leaving 66 dead and 132 wounded. The fire department has not yet ruled the tragedy an accident, and it is rumored that one of the nurses may be to blame."

         God damn, the things that people do these days... A grumble rumble screech cuts off Dave's pensive musings on the state of society as he grips the steering wheel and swings to the left. He was starting to drift off the road; lucky there isn't too much of a dip along this stretch. The last thing Dave needs is a blown out tire in the desert, with no gas station for miles in either direction and no one but Josh and Josh and Josh to keep him company.

         "And it looks like number 16's about to win the trophy, but- oh! Look at number 27, picking up speed... they're neck to neck... will 27 take home the... oh no! He's tripped! Looks like that leg's twisted up real bad. I guess somebody's gonna find out soon if there's a horse heaven. Meanwhile, 16 strides proudly across the finish line, his seventh win in a row this year. But really, did we expect anything else?"

         Ouch! Poor sucker. Starved and force-fed and beaten and dragged around training course after training course, a lifetime spent being honed into a single-minded, muscle-bound, iron-shod roulette wheel for equestrian enthusiasts looking to bet their immortal souls on number 27 with the wild shine in his rolling eyes. It's a wonder he fought to the very last; you'd think ambition and hope were human characteristics, and lucky ones at that. Well, Sasha, but he was an exception... sniff... A salty tear runs down the bag of Dave's tired eye, through the lazy stubble, and stops at the tender scar running down his lower jaw to his chin. Not even all men have the will to go down kicking and screaming- wait, what was that bit about the suicidal cattle?

         "You just heard his Quartet for the End of Time, which he actually wrote in a Nazi prison camp for the four available instruments..."

         Dave had a cat, once. Feisty little bastard, and every week Dave had fresh scratches to prove it. Loud and belligerent and arrogant, he had the self-assuredness and sheer force of will to be a dictator in the feline community. He went by Sasha, or grudgingly Sashiash, but he hated it to high heaven when Dave called him that. Dave once scheduled an appointment to have him neutered (as a matter of course, for an outdoor cat in a suburban community). He shredded every single piece of fabric in the house and disappeared for a full week, until he was certain he'd gotten the message across. Clever little cat.

         "Frankly, I pity these immigrants. They risk their lives coming into this country like it's some kind of Promised Land, only to be beset on all sides by Minute Men, overzealous law enforcement officials, and thugs taking advantage of their illegitimate status. America's no Promised Land anymore. What're they supposed to dream of now?"

         As he got older, Sasha got fatter and grumpier and, strangely, more affectionate. He lost some of his edge, almost as if his youthful pride was being replaced by a fear of death and an appreciation for life. But he began to meow more desperately and frequently, and one day Dave got a call from the neighborhood constable that Sasha had attacked a toddler that was playing with his father in their yard across the street. For an old cat, Sasha still had a hell of a lot of fight left in him, and the kid had to get stitches. The terrified and indignant parents wanted blood. A court-appointed veterinarian ruled that the attack was the result of stress from aging and chronic psychosomatic pain, and that violent outbursts could be expected to continue until he was nailed shut in his coffin. The county ordered that he be euthanized, and as Dave watched the blurry image of his ornery but faithful friend being murdered through hot tears and red, swollen eyes, he saw a mixture of terror and relief in the dying cat's eyes as the needle was removed from his side, but mostly he saw tense confusion and apprehension as the cat pondered his last ponder: is there, indeed, a cat heaven? And do I deserve to go there?

         "...after taking her purse, this guy immediately tosses it into the river without so much as taking a peek! Then he snatches her keys, gets in her car, and drives it into a brick wall! Of course, the sucker instantly bit the dust, but no one else was hurt, thank God. Weirdest mugging I've ever seen."

         It's strange, what people will do to get away from it all. Suicide, nihilism... losing the will to live is chilling enough, but what dark revelation could fuel the will to die? A troublesome question, but Dave doesn't feel much like pursuing it further. As the sun sets, the lack of sleep is getting to him, and his mind is starting to- well, not wander exactly, to expand, to morph, and Dave's contingent reality morphs with it...

         ...a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas; you've just crossed over...






         Fourteen hours is way too long to spend behind a wheel. A round window peering into a distant horizon, a fuzzy black line meets it in the middle, the sky isn't quite blue- yawning tears have refracted the light, the golden sands twist up into the sky and glow behind clouds. It's more of a bluish yellow- not really green, colors don't quite seem to mix the way they told you in art class. Outside that corridor of vision, it's just gray-white. Like in a dream sequence, only more pronounced, and it's slowly encroaching on the scene, blurring it out as the grisly numbers on the gas pump and Natalie's nagging whine and that spilled cup of coffee steaming all over your lap and the worlds on the other side of the radio frequencies all become very real, very visible and audible and painfully tangible, damn! Not these pants too...

         Thump, and an armadillo gets to find out if there's a rodent heaven. At the sound of the thump, Dave does a little jump, and glances at the rear-view mirror to see the lump of flesh clumped in the middle of the road. At least it woke him up.

         Where am I now? 153 miles to go. Well, no point stopping now. As long as there's armadillos looking out for me, I'll be fine.

         The sunset's not something you see often in the city. Tall buildings scramble to screen the horizon whichever way you look, saying, "It's okay, just move along. Nothing to see here. Nope, no frontier, no solar climax, no celestial infinity. Glowing ball of flame? Preposterous! That'd put the streetlight operators out of business!" And in the suburbs, it's no big deal. Plasma screen TVs and Dell monitors can outshine even the Sun, if you're close enough to them. But on the interstate, with nothing to stare at but government-issued helpful direction signs for the helpless taxpayer, cows that vacantly stare back like an abyss of complacency and ignorant bliss (or oblivion), and a huge orb of gas and fire that has inspired awe, terror, and worship for millions of years, bleeding all over the cosmic curtain but nobly devoid of any frantic struggle or despairing death throes, it's hard to ignore or obfuscate the universal troupe's final act of the day's play.

          As Dave admires the superb dramatic talents of the stellar stage veteran, the hum of the engine grows richer, echoed by a celestial chorus heard from somewhere on high. A single-note harmony lends a shivering intensity to the slow sinking of the sun- the strophes shake the stage with their mournful murmur. It is a crucifixion! The Sun dies tonight that man may dream peacefully and guiltlessly. The Sun does this every day because it loves us, and though it pains it to withdraw its warm affection every night, it is for love that it abandons its children, always to return-

         But the Sun is a ball of gas and fire, a phenomenon of physics that was born by cosmic coincidence and shall not die, per se, as it was never alive, but shall dissipate and abandon forever the hairless apes that fancy themselves its charges and children. The martyr and parent is merely a metaphor constructed to imbue gestalt significance on unrelated images, and we call the happenstance arrangement a painting. Struck by this tragic revelation, the antistrophes shriek in horror and agony, just as Dave slams into a white, battered Mercedes.

         The strophes, no longer given voice by either Dave's car or the approaching backstage automobile, are cut off, and Dave sits dazed behind a crushed hood, feeling angry and stupid. Getting lost in metaphor can be a beautiful experience, but should not be attempted while operating heavy machinery.
         





         “...the second installment of our Masters of the Macabre series, Dr. Leonard Fenkel, Professor of American Poetry of Sierra Nevada College, will be reading selected works of  Edgar...” Well, at least the radio's still working. Thank God for that. Dave pulls the key out of the ignition and struggles with the mangled door. He eventually manages to pry it open a hair and squeeze out of the car like toothpaste through a tube, whereupon he falls onto the asphalt and writhes for a moment like an inadequately deceased fish on a hot skillet before struggling to his feet. He stands for but a moment, shaken and dazed, when a pair of old, dry cowboy boots kicks open the Mercedes- “Banners yellow, glorious, golden, on its roof did float and flow-” and a wiry young man leaps out like a jack-in-the-box into the red Mojave dusk. He brushes himself off, flashes a toothy, yellow grin at Dave, and dives back in, this time emerging with small, battered radio, the kind they sold in kits for kids to put together back when radios were on the bleeding edge of wonder. “Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, in there stepped...”

         Covered from head to toe with scars, and sporting a nose that had obviously been broken more than once, he has an air of impetuous immortality, like the smug narrator of a tragic tale of carnage and loss. Even his smile issues a challenge to any who would test his impervious attitude, and he looks as though he could bear cross and crown alike with the same sardonic nonchalance and perverse amusement. Oily black hair falls unevenly around his shoulders, and his dark brown eyes almost look totally pupil-less and black like the sockets of a skull. A gaudy, sequin-covered salt-and-pepper vest flashes the dying rays of the sun at Dave, flickering black and white like the static on a television set.

         “God damn, Dave. You really did a number on my locomotive. Now, how the hell am I supposed to get to... wherever I was going to?”

         Dave answers the drifter with a blank, slightly confused stare.

         “...the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe...”

         “C'mon, Dave. What's the matter? Sasha got your tongue? Took it with him up the stairway to nowhere. Is it frustrating, Dave? Screaming mutely at the empty sky like a dog vainly howling through its muzzle at the new moon?”

         What the hell...? “How do you know my name?”

         “I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?”

         The hacking laugh of a hyena bites at the night. “Whoa, really? Ha! No freakin' way! I just figured you looked kinda like a 'Dave' to me. Maybe a 'Steve' or even a 'Jacob', but definitely not a 'Thomas' or 'Edward'. Say, Dave, you wouldn't happen to have a light, would you? Or did you quit smoking two years ago after your mother died of lung cancer?”

         “Who the hell are you? Do I know you?”

         “Well,” he says as he pulls a match out of his pocket and strikes it on his puckered red wrist, “since you'll only ever talk to me vis-a-vis anyway, I don't really need a name. Just call me 'You', and I'll call you 'You' too, and you and I and 'You' and 'You' can chat the evening through and through. How do You do?” He lights his cigarette and puts out the match with his long, bony fingers. Dave flinches as he hears the sound of searing flesh.

         “And you already know the answer to your second question. If you knew me, you wouldn't have had to ask, would you? I'm just a drifter. I... well, you know... drift. Down the road, in my late and dearly departed vehicle.” He glances at the deceased car and grimaces. “Damn, you banged her up real bad. Devil's luck you're liable for it, too- I don't have insurance or a penny in the bank, for that matter.”

         “Now, just hold a minute, there! Who says I'm at fault here? You swerved in front of my...”

         “Cut the bullshit, Dave. You had your glassy eyes on the sky and your mind even higher. You have no bloody clue whether I swerved in front of you or innocently passed you with ample warning. I could have even been waiting there the whole time for this fateful encounter. How about you just write a check and I give you a big hug and we both walk away more alive than dead?”

         “I can't just sign you a big, fat check and go on my merry damn way!” Dave slams his fist into the hood of his car, putting a decent dent in it as the drifter stifles a snicker. “I have a family to feed! I send my daughter to a good school! I need to buy my sister something nice when I get to town. I can't afford to hand out my paycheck to some wandering creep-”

         “Of course not, Dave. You're too busy handing it out to your darling wife who, bless her soul, won't handle practical affairs; or your sweet little girl who, much to your chagrin, is already beginning to hate you for a thousand early mornings and late nights spent at your office outside her known universe;” “Get thee back into the tempest...” “or your poor, whining sister who 'd rather suffer the lashing of a drunken belt to being lonely...”

         “Look, you son of a bitch!” Dave is redder and hotter than blood in the dim light of the parked Mercedes as he hurls each word at the drifter. “I don't know who you are or how you know my family, but stay the hell away from us! I could've done without ever meeting you, you sick freak, and I sure as hell didn't ask for your goddamn opinion about my wife or my sister or my... why, don't you dare come near my daughter, you bastard, or I'll...”

         “What would you do, Daddy? Would you bash my skull in? Would you keep your little girl safe? Just like you protected Natalie from that, what's his name... Why, you knew he was trouble for her from the start, and you wouldn't let him anywhere near her, no sir!”

         Dave's throat clenches slightly. “I tried to...”

         “Really? Did you really try, Dave? You must not have tried very hard, seeing as she's wearing the snake's ring and they sleep in the same bed now. Why didn't you stop the wedding, Dave?”

         I tried to...

          “Take thy beak from out my heart...”

         “But they kicked you out! Because you're disgusting and violent and rude and you couldn't control yourself just long enough to calmly talk your sister out of it.”

         I tried to...

         “You couldn't control yourself, you ape! That's why she doesn't trust you. That's why she never would have listened anyway. Ever since you were kids and you used to play cops and robbers and smack her around like a true boy in blue-”

         I didn't mean to hurt her...

         “-or when you were teens and she got home late with a drunk loser on her arm and you lost it-”

         I just wanted to protect her...

         “-or when she had to walk down the aisle with purple and black bruises under her white veil!”

         Dave's stony fist sends the drifter reeling. The man cracks his jaw back into place and smiles. Two teeth are missing and blood smears his lips. He licks them and says,

         “God damn! I haven't taken a wallop like that in years! It's a wonder poor Nat can still talk. Or do you hold back a little for girls?”

         Smack, Dave plows into his gut and knocks the wind out of him.

         “*Ach*-and they sa- *ugh*- say chivalry is- *cough*- chivalry is dead. Hah!”

         “Respite, respite, and nepenthe from thy memories...”

         “Why are you doing this to me? I haven't struck a soul in years, you bastard!”

         “My blood's all over his knuckles, and he's complaining about what I'm doing to him? Get a load of this guy!” the drifter says to nobody in particular.

         “For fifteen years I've kept my hands off of her...”

         A rib crunches as Dave's shoe dislodges it.

         “I swore I wouldn't lay a finger on my dear Debbie...”

         “And you were on -*cough*- such a roll...”

         “But she could see it in my...”

         A kick in the shin brings the drifter to his knees, and Dave plants the other foot square in his face, driving him onto his back.

         “Could see the violence in my eyes whenever she spilled wine on my nice linen sheets...”

         One, two, three in the kidney, all the old scars covering the drifter's body are coming alive and drooling blood and screaming...

         “When we were pulled over for speeding that night...”

         “In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, in a mad expostulation to the deaf and frantic fire...”

         “When Ms. Krakowski turned my sweet, immortal Lily down for the lead role in the class play...”

         The drifter is laughing hysterically. Blood and teeth fly out of his mouth as he writhes with mirth.

         “The girl! The girl! She is your golden egg of innocence! Living proof of your salvation! If she cracks, your immortal soul cracks with her, your sanity will ooze out like a gooey, wet yolk... haha! What a sad little man, to put your egg in your daughter's basket...”

         “Debbie doesn't understand...”

         “Oh, no, she doesn't understand at all! She thinks her Lily is just a little girl, a daughter whom she loves with all the love of a mother and a friend. Debbie has no idea her dear baby is your tool for self-approbation, your anchor of hope!”

         “...hark! louder! louder! louder! LOUDER!”

         “Someday you will point to a beautiful and tender young woman and say, 'Look! The fruit of my loins falls not far from the tree!' And her radiant smile will cast a shadow over the blood and the bruises and the rage and hide them forever.”

         The stars stare down from above in disapproval.

         The Joshua trees drop their arms and shake their heads in shame.

         The Sun turns in its grave.

        The drifter's blood-slick gab keeps flapping.

         “So, now...”

         Dave opens the trunk of his car and pulls out a tire iron...

         “...how many darling little angels...”

         ...slowly and deliberately strides to the drifter, lying in a bloodied heap on the pavement and still smiling...

         “...would it take...”

         ...raises the blunt guillotine above his head...

         “...to redeem...”

         ...a mighty swing at that evil mouth full of vile truth...

         “...a murderer?”

         ...and his will falters. The tire iron glances to the side, missing the man's head by a greasy hair. It slips out of Dave's limp hand as he collapses to the ground, crying.

         “Well, Dave? Make your decision, if you dare. Will you be a Deva, Dave, forging meaning from the depravity and desperation of this moral desert called earth? Or will you succumb to the Devil inside you, wreaking your demonic diablerie upon wicked and pure alike?”

         “I... don't... know...”

         “Are you Divine, Dave? Do you dive down from the heavenly dome to deliver righteous judgement on my impious head?”
         
        “I...don't...”

         “Or are you merely a Dervish, dancing daily without direction, spreading discord and destruction in a world devoid of hope?”

         “I...can't...”

         “...never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting...”

         The sound of a hundred firecrackers goes off as the drifter's mangled, broken body creaks and groans and climbs up to its feet.

         “...decide...”

         The drifter lifts the tire iron and brings it down on the sobbing skull of the sad little man lost in the middle of nowhere.
         
        “...fell as he found no spot of ground that looked like El Dorado.”






         Well, now that that's done with, let's have a look-see at the bloke's wallet.

         He sticks his hand in Dave's pocket and pulls out a ring of keys and the sought-after billfold. The driver's license catches his eye:

         “Walter Brooks, DoB 3-17-52, issued by the state of California...,” bearing the very likeness of the man who called himself Dave and claimed to be from Seattle.

         Huh, that's odd.

         The drifter rifles through “Dave's” receipts and cards and finds what appear to be pictures of his family. Two young men, college-bound, probably, stand smiling beside their father at a backyard barbeque. On the back it says, “for Mom: hope you can see this up there.” No sign of a little girl.

         The drifter pries the door open wider with the tire iron and crawls inside. Lying on the passenger seat are printed directions from L.A. to Reno, courtesy of Google.

         He scratches his head, shrugs, and puts the key in the ignition. The engine's still intact, and the radio crackles to life.
         
        “...and much of Madness, and more of Sin, and Horror the soul of the plot.”

         He sighs and backs the car out of the wreckage. The more you wander in the stranger places of the earth, the more you get used to this sort of thing. This is the world I live in, where radios and machines and skies and deserts and people can be inert and free one moment and props the next, props to tell a story that nobody will hear. And when you have little else to live for, well, the universe starts to act through you, and you find yourself drifting from setting to setting telling stories you don't understand.

         Walter Brooks, a recently laid off accountant and widowed father, set out from his home in Los Angeles to meet a potential employer in Reno. Walter had always had a petrifying fear of planes; he missed his father's funeral because, at the last minute, his courage failed him and he cancelled his flight to Chicago. His aunt Angela never forgave him, and the two have not spoken since.

         Walter drove into the desolate badlands of Nevada searching for a job to put his sons through college. What he found instead was a tire iron and a grim drama in need of a leading man. Walter will never be compensated for the life that God or Fate or The Vast Formless Things or The Author seized from him to tell the silly story of the fictional “Dave”, a parable about the human condition full of dervishes and death and desperation. Like a stage puppet, he has been used and retired. But did he really have anything better to do?

         A Cheshire Cat grin lights the drifter's face again as he lights another cigarette, drives over the corpse of Walter “Dave” Brooks, and cruises down the interstate into the yawning maw of the Nevada night.

         Not that I give a damn about the signal. I'm not the broadcast tower. I'm just the radio. And with that thought, he laughs, and the strophes shudder and the heavens shake and the angels in the radio uprise, unveil, and affirm that “...the play is the tragedy, Man...” beneath the cackles of the Conqueror Worm.