Marvin Bucholz is Listening

                       Marvin Bucholz is Listening




         Marvin Bucholz listened intently to the sounds being piped through his earpiece.  The needle ever so slowly scaled the band as he adjusted the dial taking great care to not miss any sound floating on airwaves.
         Hiding in a dark corner of the barn behind piles of wrecked machinery and years of collected junk, Marvin stretched out his legs as he sat on the dirt floor.  His hand froze on the dial and his eyes shifted as he could hear his stepfather screaming whiskey-fueled threats at him.  Marvin prayed his stepfather would not find this place, though he knew it was only a matter of time.  He held his breath, trembling, until his lunatic stepfather echoed off in another direction.  Marvin breathed a sigh of relief and returned to dialing through the static.          
         For now the radio was Marvin’s only escape from the farm.  He tried to run away a few months earlier, but got caught a few miles down the highway by the local sheriff who promptly returned him. 
                Marvin pleaded with the sheriff not to take him back to the farm.  He told the sheriff of the horrible abuses his stepfather committed against him and his mother, but the sheriff did not believe him.  There had never been any complaint against his stepfather’s behavior.  And what’s more, the sheriff could not find the slightest bruise on Marvin.
         Marvin’s stepfather put on quite a show for the sheriff, feigning concern for the boy’s well being and joy at his return.  But later, after a better part of the whiskey bottle had been drained, he showed Marvin just how disappointed and angry he was.  When Marvin’s mother tried to stop him, he gave her a fistful of understanding.
         Marvin could not understand why his mother never took him and left.  “I love him,” she would say.  “And he loves us.  It will be okay.  He’ll give up drinking one day and everything will be fine.”
         Marvin knew he was leaving the farm one day, one way or another.  Until that day was to come, Marvin kept himself entertained and distracted from his dismal, painful situation with the hobby of building radios.  Often times, when he was done with his chores and had finished his homework, he would retreat to the solace of his room where he would study the technical aspects of signal transmission and reception.  He always seemed to be able to find the parts he needed and tediously begin piecing them together, out of the eye of his stepfather filling up on whiskey.
         Marvin became thoroughly fascinated with the science of radio.  He marveled at the ability to pull something invisible from the air and turn it to something tangible.  This was creation, magical necromancing. 
         Marvin built his first radio his freshman year of high school.  Two years later his skills of identifying and putting together intricate pieces of for signal reception had become quite efficient.  Fine-tuned one might say. 
Several months ago Marvin had built a large radio.  It was more of a stereo, really.  He had built speakers and he made the band very long, so as to be able to precisely identify the number of megahertz for every signal captured by his antennae.  Marvin was proud of his creation and listened to it often. 
         One night while listening to music his stepfather barged into the room, spectacularly inebriated.  He began yelling at Marvin for being lazy and wasting his time building radios.  He screamed at Marvin, demanding he leave his hobby to spend more time in the fields or doing extra work around the farm.  His stepfather ranted on, working himself to frenzy.  Finally, he picked up a bat and smashed Marvin’s creation.  When Marvin protested, his stepfather put the wood to him.
         However, Marvin kept quietly defiant of his stepfather and continued to pursue his passion for building radios.  In fact, the next day Marvin began working on a small radio, one he could keep in his pocket and easily hide.  This was the radio he currently listened to.
         Marvin carefully ran the needle up the band, swimming through static until finally catching a distant signal.  His brow wrinkled as he concentrated on a voice.  He played the dial a bit, finding better reception, but it was still difficult to understand what the voice was saying.  After listening a few minutes, Marvin was able to distinguish three voices – two men and a woman.  He listened more intently and determined he was listening to a radio play, though he could not discern all the dialogue.
         Footsteps from the other side of the barn wall caused Marvin to sink down, taking deeper cover in his hiding place.  On the radio the two men and the woman began arguing.  Marvin’s brow furled.  He stuck his index finger in his empty ear.  The arguing grew louder and more intense.  Still, he could not tell what the argument was about.  The yelling actors grew louder and louder, reaching a fever pitch, suddenly being silenced with gunshots.
         The gunshot echoed through Marvin.  Waves of bloody memory and vile emotion washed over him as he found himself in the kitchen.  His stomach knotted.  Before him his stepfather was screaming at his mother.  His open hand suddenly catching her in the face, driving her to the floor with a shriek. 
         “Goddamit!  Leave her alone!”  Marvin yelled.
         His stepfather snapped around, teeth gnashed, eyes burning through Marvin.  “You want a piece of this?”  Foamy white beads of spit flew from the corners of his mouth as he screamed at Marvin. 
         “No Paul!”  Marvin’s weeping mother pleaded from a prone position on the floor.  “Leave Marvin alone!”
         His stepfather whipped back to her.  “What did you say to me?”  He yelled grabbing her by the hair. 
         Beset by anger and fear, Marvin could not think.  Nor could he truly realize his actions.  Rather, he moved instinctively.  Chasing upstairs, he found himself in his stepfather’s closet.  There he took the shotgun from the back corner.  After loading three rounds of buckshot, he returned downstairs.          
         Heavy silence enveloped the house.  Marvin cautiously moved to the kitchen.  A fly buzzed past his forehead.  He found his stepfather sitting at the table taking gulps of whiskey from the bottle.  His mother lay heaped on the floor.
         “Oh Christ!  What the fuck are you doing?”  Demanded his stepfather slamming the bottle on the table. 
         Fear, anger, contempt, disgust, all these feelings for the drunken wife beater filled Marvin until hatred finally overwhelmed him.  Marvin pumped a round into the chamber.  Leveling the gun at his stepfather, he fired once, polka-dotting the white paint-peeled kitchen walls with the drunkard’s blood. 
         Marvin slowly lowered the gun.  He began to weep as he felt joy and anguish.  He began to know the true meanings of hope and despair.  Finally realizing freedom and condemnation he turned the gun on himself. 
         Cold, cold darkness enveloped him.  He seemed to float for hours through freezing abyss.  Finally, as if waking from a deep sleep, he found himself sitting in the familiar corner of the barn.
         Marvin Bucholz listened intently to sounds being piped through his earpiece.  The needle ever so slowly scaling the band as he adjusted the dial taking care to not miss any sound floating on the airwaves.
         Hiding in a dark corner of the barn, behind piles of wrecked machinery and years of collected junk, Marvin stretched out his legs on the dirt floor….