On Air (Credit: Alex Lawrence)
Now Playing: “Beautiful Beat” – Nada Surf
There’s something heartwarming about Martin waiting for me to get home like a puppy waiting for its owner. Allison took over driving when we stopped at her insistence for lobster rolls in Mystic, Connecticut. I appreciate the fact that she drove the last stretch across the state for me, because she can go to sleep for a few hours this afternoon while I have a girlfriend to meet for a late lunch or early dinner, and a radio show to host.
“Hey gang, what’s jumping?” Martin greets as we hop out of the car and I grab my bag. The late afternoon sun would make this idyllic if we didn’t just spend several hours in the car and I didn’t have a metric ton of things to get done by this evening.
“What are we, in a production of West Side Story?” I quip dismissively.
“Okay asshole, I don’t need this.”
“You two were apart for three whole days, and now true loves reunite,” Allison makes her own snarky contributions before sticking her tongue out at both of us. Martin and I respond by flipping her the bird.
“We have a lead!” I draw the last word out as if to savor it. Martin’s eyes light up the way mine did when my uncle handed me the letters, and I swear he bounces a slight bit in sympathetic excitement.
“Spill it!”
“My uncle gave me a bunch of letters from my mom. We didn’t get the chance to go through them yet, we were thinking of working on that tonight after I sign off. We figured we’d order pizza and the three of us could comb through them and put together a timeline.”
Martin smacks his head into his hands. “Shit, I can’t, I got my cousin’s birthday dinner tonight. The one in Andover. I won’t be back until late.”
“That’s cool man, let’s do it first thing tomorrow morning. I could probably use the extra sleep,” I assure him. The fact that we have a trail to follow is enough for me right now. I enjoyed my adventure but I’m glad to be home. There’ll probably have to be a lot of cross-referencing with items in my mom’s book, so honestly, a drawn out puzzle-solving escapade after the last forty-eight hours is one of the last things I want to do. We’ll do better work fresh in the morning, and I tell him as much.
“We got another lead too,” Allison interjects. I snap my fingers and point at her like she just gave the winning answer on a game show. She’s right.
“My mom was in Asbury Park a few months ago.”
“WHAT!?” Martin can probably be heard down the street, but I don’t care right now if the neighbors gawk. The awkward half-open mouth and wide eyes on his face are the same disbelief I felt at our stroke of luck about twenty-four hours ago when we got the news.
My mouth starts running a mile a minute. “Yeah! We went to see Catherine Cold last night at the Stone Pony and met this really sweet girl who works there. Sydney. You’d love her. Anyways, she said that she saw my mom in there a few months ago.”
“And you’re sure?” Martin presses me.
“Syd said, and I quote, ‘You don’t forget a woman like that. I never saw anyone make jeans and a leather jacket feel so unique.’ Which, if that doesn’t sound like mom, I don’t know what does.”
“Dude, your mom was totally at the Stone Pony a few months ago,” Martin agrees.
“And Mister Rockstar over here played with the band.”
“WHAT!?” Martin repeats himself.
“So, their keyboardist is Bryce Tanner, you remember?”
“Yeah, I remember him. How’d he join up with them?”
I tell Martin the story of how Bryce ended up with the band, and then how because of that, and their excitement to be on the show, he invited me to play a song with them and I ended up playing a few. I then ask him about his weekend events.
“Oh, Cory and I went out with Amber, Jordan, and some of her friends last night. Cory and I bailed to play Halo back at his dorm for a while before I bounced home, because the girls wanted to go to a house party and we said fuck that,” Martin summarizes his Friday night with his typical easygoing nature.
“You know, you could have just texted us,” Allison states.
“Yeah, but I wanted to hear in person. It’s big news, and I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go grab lunch while Casey goes to lunch with his girlfriend,” Martin responds with a shrug.
“I haven’t eaten anything since that lobster roll, so I’m starving. I’m down,” Allison agrees, “Let me just drop my bag inside.”
She does so, and Martin turns to me. He drops his cheeriness dramatically.
“Hey man, just want you to know I’m here for you no matter what.”
“Bro, what the hell does that even mean?” I affix him with the same stare I use when he says weird stuff, because this feels like it’s coming out of nowhere. Unless he knows something I don’t, which he wouldn’t because he doesn’t keep things from me. We never have.
“I’m nervous about what happens if none of this pans out. I know you’ve been focused on finding your mom so much lately,” he trails off while staring past the house out at the ocean. He shakes his head, turns back to me, and clears his throat. “You know what? It’s not important right now. We’re going to be positive. I’m happy you guys got some leads to follow.”
It’s not exactly the truth, but it’s not a lie either. Shit, I wonder if he ran into my ex on Friday night. Or worse, called his. Whatever it may be, it’s a problem for the two of us to deal with as his happy face and cheery demeanor go right back up once Allison returns from dumping her bag inside.
“Casey, want a ride to your girl?” Allison offers with a forced smile.
I shake my head and wave her off. “Nah, I want to walk. Pretty soon it’ll be too cold to do that super often.”
My friends bid me farewell and Allison’s much abused car grumbles to life once more and they head off. I take a deep breath, center myself. I’m still tired from last night’s shenanigans and driving longer. Truth be told, I didn’t want more time in a car right now, and if I can get some space from Allison before seeing Jordan, I think it’d be a good move.
I set my bag just inside the front door and lock the house up again before setting out.
Now Playing: “Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect” – The Decemberists
The moment the door releases my key from its lock, I exhale a deep breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. A million words rip across my brain at mach Jesus, the chorus of sonic booms threatening to rattle everything between my ears until it’s a fine jelly. I take off down Siren Road towards the center of town.
October is drawing to its close. Halloween is coming up and then it will be November. My sister called us this morning to tell me about her engagement party in a few weeks, the weekend before Thanksgiving. That’s my deadline for getting mom home. It would be the best gift I could ever give Reilly.
The other thought that crossed my mind during Allison’s nap between Elizabeth, New Jersey and the Bronx was that I’m increasingly uneasy about my subconscious habit during our trip to think of us as a singular unit. Not uneasy in the sense that it felt wrong, uneasy in the sense that it felt right. I am a taken man. It shouldn’t feel right, and I think it’s high time I faced the fact that there is something stronger than just a long-neglected friendship here. Denial is a hell of a drug and I’ve been high as hell for weeks.
Which brings me to the other uncomfortable truth that as much as I like Jordan, and even love her, she’s not the right fit to spend the rest of my life with, and I shouldn’t ever give her the hopes that she is. It’s too cruel to do to someone who has treated me far too well for the way I’ve treated her. She deserves far better than me.
Late October brings a sad melancholy with it. The full trees with their colors are sights of joy, and they’ve always fit well with the old brick and stone which make up this town by the sea, but the leaves clinging to mostly barren branches come November always felt a bit pathetic to me. Reminders that we are all halfway stuck between life and death, warmth and cold, sweet and sorrow. The middle of a gradient can be such a soul-sucking place to reside.
The coffee shop we planned to meet at is just up the block. So lost in my thoughts, I barely noticed the walk here. It spooks the hell out of me to suddenly be ripped off autopilot, bewildered as to how I got wherever I meant to go without having a memory of getting there. I spot my girlfriend through the big window. Jordan looks distressed. She’s clasping her hands on the table, tightly, to keep from biting her nails. I don’t know if something happened in class or with volleyball, or if it’s family stuff or what.
“Hey, Case,” she greets me somberly. Distractedly. Lacking her usual excitement and charm. Her eyes are fixed on me, but she’s staring right through me.
“Hey Jordan.” My voice matches her, and I sit down.
We sit for several moments. Perhaps minutes, perhaps seconds, perhaps hours. I would know if this was hours if the sun had moved, but it still feels like an infinite amount of time. My lungs half their capacity and a knot grows in my chest until my whole ribcage feels wrapped in rope being pulled together. Tight knots are needed to move the sails, and I’m about to be crushed against the mast by a hundred hearty sailors made up of troubled emotions and bitter regrets.
I break the silence. This doesn’t feel like a conversation to have indoors or in front of people. “Want to get out of here? Walk in the park?”
“Yeah.” Her voice is so small I barely hear it, but she picks up the cup of coffee she’s been nursing and shuffles out the door, the bell ringing once more as she opens it. We head towards Merrick Park, my second time going this week. The fall foliage looks pretty in the golden hues of late afternoon sun. It’s a day that should feel perfect, not a cloud in sight and a lack of seasonal chill in the air. Instead, the storm clouds are ones we conjured and no matter where in town we head, we can’t escape them.
The last time I was here, it felt so joyous, so fun. Time spent with Allison has felt so light and yet so heavy lately. Above all, though, she has always been on my mind. I barely thought about Jordan during my trip unless we were actively texting each other at the moment. That’s shitty. I’m shitty. I’ve been neglectful.
“Casey,” she stops on the path, under a tree where a bird is singing. The last one to get ready to head south for the winter I’m sure, all its friends waiting on it to migrate. We all have that friend. “I have something to tell you.”
“What’s up Jordan?” I face her and look her in the eyes. She takes a deep breath and quickly breaks eye contact. A tear in the corner of her eye and her lip starts trembling. Wordlessly, I pull her into a tight hug, but she pushes me away just as fast.
“I, uh, I don’t know, um, on Friday.” She sighs. I gently rub her shoulder and give her a little squeeze. “I went out on Friday. Martin, he, well, let slip Allison was with you. I got drunk, and,” she trails off. I pull her into another hug and don’t let her push me away. She squeezes tighter and I feel the teardrops on my sweater.
“It’s okay, honey, it’s okay,” I whisper into her ear. “It’s all my fault.”
“How can you say that?” she sobs.
“I was a bad boyfriend. I neglected you for so long because of Allison and searching for my mom, and I took you for granted. It only makes sense, everyone’s human. I don’t hold it against you. Give yourself some grace.”
I didn’t lie to her. I’m not upset. From a craven standpoint, it gives me the out that I needed to do. But it always sickens me to my stomach about myself. Truth be told again, I don’t hold it against her. She’s not to blame for being a royal fuckup. I am. I got into a relationship with this wonderful girl who is now blaming herself for being abandoned without being left, because I was too chickenshit to be honest and do the hard decisions. So, no, she is not really at fault.
“I was a terrible girlfriend.”
“You were an excellent girlfriend. I was a terrible boyfriend. I shouldn’t have,” I stop myself. I was about to talk so coldly and say that I shouldn’t have kept her out of the loop about my trip. That’s not honest, that’s being distant. I hate myself. I hate myself. I’m a fucking asshole. “I should have told you Allison was coming with me. It was wrong of me to keep that to you, I lied and it was wrong.”
“Yeah, it fucking was.” She loosens the hug enough to pound a fist on my chest. “I’m still sorry.” She collapses back into me with more tears. I hold her for a while longer, letting her just cry. No words, no argument, nothing needs to be said. Eventually, I offer to walk her back to campus and her dorm building, which she accepts.
We exit the park and head back through the town streets towards Bishop. I still walk on the outside of the sidewalk, and despite her being mere inches away, there’s a fissure between us the likes of which can never be healed. It’s shitty what she did, but I was worse.
“I don’t hold it against you.” If I don’t say anything now, I will never get the chance to say anything again. “Truly, I don’t.”
“You’re too nice.” She’s not complimenting me, there’s bitter venom in her voice. Again, I do not blame her one bit. It’d be easier to hate me if I was reacting like, well, like I probably should. Maybe I should be that guy to give her peace and not twist the knife, but I’ve performed enough senseless cruelty to her. It’s a shit situation that I made even worse by being a complete and total fuckwit.
“Jordan, I drove you to the brink because I was a shit partner. Some basic kindness is quite literally the least you deserve from me.”
She remains silent for the rest of the walk to her door building. Past the old stone halls and the students on the quad studying or socializing or scorning obligations in favor of frivolity. It’s a cruel evil the situation I put her into, and mercy may not be easy to come by anytime soon, from myself or her.
“We had a good run, though,” she offers a sad smile at the door of her building.
“That we did. You’re something special, Summers. Don’t you ever forget that. Good luck, I’ll always be rooting for you.”
She laughs exactly once. A weary, exhausted, sorrowful laugh. But she pulls me into one last hug. “See you around, Case.” She plants one last kiss on my cheek and disappears into her building. As far as forever farewells go, I’ve had worse.
The sonic booms return with a vengeance as I make my way off campus. Suddenly my second home for four years, the constant site of recreation and knowledge around town, feels like hostile territory. This is Jordan’s turf now, my temporary pass has been revoked. I pull out my phone and text Martin what went down.
‘Yeah, I knew. Didn’t want to tell you before she did. Will talk on it later.’
Fucking great. My best friend knew, that’s why he was cagey. I hope he doesn’t take this as a time to lecture me. Anything he says, I will have said to myself a thousand times over. While on this radio broadcast. Fuck me with a rusty chainsaw.
The studio awaits, unfortunately. I’ve always been a big proponent of broadcasting the old-fashioned way: at the mixer and mic, walking listeners through the show live. One of my favorite pieces of history is Howard Stern’s show from 9/11. Listening to this comedy talk radio host become air traffic controller for news and speculation and raw reactions on one of the most insane days in the nation’s history is kind of fascinating. It’s one of those things that can only happen when you go out live.
Taking callers is another great joy of mine on my normal show. It allows me to react to what people want to hear, and we’ve had many great moments on air that would never have happened with pre-recorded automated shows. I’m grateful that Dan doesn’t buy into removing the human touch from all of it, and it’s one of the reasons our small but mighty operation is known nationwide.
There’s a certain freedom sitting behind the desk. I set my laptop up to work on whatever personal projects I might do while the show is airing, and I prepare for my sign-on. I’ve been neglectful of my duties at the radio station this time, so I intend on getting some chores done around here while some of the blocks of songs are playing. I’m feeling a melancholy show tonight. Wonder fucking why.
“Hello Massachusetts and around the world, have I got a special show for you tonight!” My radio voice is so good that my parents would buy the enthusiasm as genuine even with the scowl on my face and tears welling up in my eyes. “I’m back from an excursion I’ll tell you all about later. But for now, we’re going to kick things off with a John Mayer deep cut, which is one of my favorites from him. And after that, we have a whole lot of other great stuff. Don’t touch that dial, close that app, or walk out of earshot, because we’re WARP, and we take you where you want to go.”
I play the live version of John Mayer’s “Covered in Rain” to give myself a nice ten minutes to sit in my sorrow.
Maybe I was wrong about myself. Maybe I’m not really the noble-hearted soul I’ve always thought of myself as. Maybe I’m just as capable of ugly shit as everyone else around me. Maybe I deserve a mother who walked out on me because who the fuck would want to put up with my bullshit for too long? I certainly wouldn’t. What kind of dumbass fucking boyfriend was I? Really? How could I have been so fucking stupid?
I double check to ensure I’m muted before letting loose. “Great job there, Casey, really fucking great! It’s over. Done. Finished. Kaput. End of Line. That’s it for the ball game! The house lights have come up and the audience is leaving! The Beatles have left the building! And you’re the stupid shitheel who caused all of it, you loathsome motherfucker!” I’m screaming and red in the face by the end of my torrent of castigation. If I was remotely in a place to care that someone might hear me despite the soundproofing of the booth, I wouldn’t be making my voice hoarse. But I don’t give a shit.
I’m breathing heavily, sweating profusely. I can’t think of anything but fire. Why did I continue wasting my time? Why did I continue wasting her time? Why did I think it was even okay to be in such situations with another girl, let alone one who admitted a crush on me and made an attempt to kiss me after knowing I was in a relationship?
Allison’s own poor timing and impulsive nature are not my enemy right now. I am. My own poor decision making has led me here. I’ve made my bed, and I must lie in it.
I feel tight as a bowstring. I pull open the drawer with the false back and pop it open. Dan’s emergency whiskey and the glasses are exactly where they’re supposed to be. I pour a little bit and study it for a few moments. The amber in the glass won’t give me salvation, it will only bring destruction. Tonight, oblivion is the preferable option.
The whiskey goes down easy and I pour myself another and chuckle, “God, I am pathetic.”
I laugh maniacally, letting out weeks of pent up frustration. And then the tears come. Raindrops from my face reacting to the utter physical and emotional exhaustion that traveling and familial whiplash and the results of my own shitty decision making catching up with me finally hitting.
When my vision clears, I notice the song is coming to its end, and I scramble to set up another to play. After settling on an option, I take several deep breaths to settle myself, and despite my face looking like a mess in the reflection of the monitory, I have to put on the right show for the audience.
“This one goes out to a new friend. Here’s ‘Sydney’ by Legends of Et Cetera.”
Addressing the audience instead of myself feels strange, otherworldly. It deepens the disconnection. The tune’s upbeat melancholy fits the mood I’ve found myself in. While I chose it for the literally nominal connection to our newfound friend, which I should text her about, it gives me the kind of feeling I’ve been trying to describe for years.
I first found the song on a social media post back in college. There was an afternoon that I spent wandering the mall in early February, when the sun still set at like four o’clock but the world kept moving, just wandering. A place so full of life but felt so dark and disconnected outside. It was shortly before Paige and I met. I was aimless, listless, and idle in almost every way. Outside of work and school, I was barely conscious. Martin and I saw each other less in those days, I was still reeling from mom.
Maybe I’m better off following my mother’s example and blazing a trail into the great unknown, never to bother anyone else ever again. They will be free from my fuckups. Martin thinks I’m an asshole. I have no clue what dad will say. Allison will probably lose all respect for me, and I don’t think Jess will gain much more either. The rest of the band are wildcards, but I doubt any of this makes me look good to anyone. But if I became another mystery, maybe people won’t know enough to hate me.
Fuck that. I will not become my mother. I’m stronger than that. I have more reasons to be here than I do to leave. This is not the end of my story. There’s just a long road back to being remotely decent of a person. If such a thing is possible. Maybe I’ll just have to sit here and suffer with knowing I’m awful forevermore.
Telling Allison is an idea which inspires great conflict. On the one hand, she’s my best friend and deserves to know what’s going on. On the other hand, I hold her partially responsible. I suppose it’s time to face the other uncomfortable truths that there is something there worth exploring, and it could be very fulfilling if I wasn’t so fucking mad at her.
I should be mad at me. And I am, of course. But she’s induced chaos in my life since she came back, all because she’s got her own shit she never solved. Maybe we are perfect for each other. Not that it excuses the way I treated Jordan. Not that it means I don’t have some serious reckoning with my own decision making to do. But there’s a part of me that is so mad at Allison for coming back just when everything else gets more complicated to turn everything upside down. Why should she get to know? Why do I want her to know?
I want her to know so that it’ll change things between us. Which is the exact wrong reason she shouldn’t know. There’s a lot more riding on this than just following my adrenaline highs when a pretty girl bats her eyelashes at me. Hell, I don’t even know if I can simultaneously deal with processing this, my own self-loathing, and dealing with the start of, well, whatever the fuck we decide to be. On top of the already emotionally exhausting search for my mother.
FUCK! What the hell am I going to do about, well, everything?
Aaaaaaaaaand the song is ending, so it’s time to pull it together long enough to sound professional. Good thing I’ve got an idea as to what song is coming up next, which dovetails nicely into the announcement I teased at the top of the show. Or maybe I’m just impatient to reach the point where I can do the rest of the show on autopilot and brood in peace while I try to figure out how the hell to pull myself out of the royal mess I made for myself.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have a special announcement for you. The reason I swapped timeslots with Kate Kaplan this week is because I was in Asbury Park, New Jersey yesterday to catch Catherine Cold at the Stone Pony. I had the immense privilege of asking them if they’d like to come do the show. So, sometime in the coming weeks, they will appear for an interview during my normal Friday afternoon show and play a live set from the studio. The exact date is being finalized, but rest assured you will know as soon as I do. Anyways, here’s Catherine Cold with ‘Atomic Lighthouse.’”
Well, whatever the hell I’m going to do, I’ve got a couple hours alone with myself and several thousand other people to figure it out.
Ark of the Lost Angels 
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