The Great Big One Read online

  Very small card. Maybe half of it had vanished in the time it took to cross the lawn.

  Poor-resolution picture of tents. A white statue on a hill. Arms up.

  Touchdown Jesus.

  On the back, three words: I miss you.

  THIRTY-THREE

  ONE NIGHT IN JUNE, HE WOKE UP.

  Something did it. A sound, like a slamming door.

  Griff was sitting in the red roller chair at K-NOW. And beside him—Thomas. Still there. Thomas looked okay. Maybe the only one who still looked like himself. It was like time travel, looking at Thomas. A flood of love and relief for his friend. He wanted to scream:

  “You’re alive!”

  That would be strange because they’d ridden to the station together.

  Thomas with his hand on the dial, tongue twiddling out from the corner of his mouth. Tuning the radio, navigating through the static, like he’d never stopped.

  What had woken him—sound or light? The moon? A full white disk.

  WHOOMP!

  Yellow light. The lighthouse! Still there.

  “What is it?” Thomas asked.

  More static. SHhhhhhhtttttttttfffffff

  “I think I heard something,” Griff said.

  Thomas looked at him, startled. As if a statue had spoken. Thomas turned the static up, moved the dial through warbling voices, a baseball game.

  “Maybe a little farther,” Griff said.

  Griff stared at Thomas. Thomas pinched him.

  “Ouch!” Griff said.

  “Unbelievable,” Thomas said. “He speaks! The boy still feels pain.”

  Thomas reached out to pinch him again and Griff knocked his hand away.

  “Don’t Tase me, bro,” Thomas said.

  Griff looked down. On his hip, cradled in a leather pouch. A Taser. A foggy meeting with his father, the sizing of the thing at a gun shop. Griff reached for the knob and Thomas slapped his hand.

  “Why do you keep hitting me?” Griff asked.

  Thomas stared at him. Jaw trembling.

  “Are you back?” Thomas asked.

  “Back?” Griff said. “Let’s move a little slower with the receiver. I think—”

  “I know what I’m doing, Tripp,” Thomas said. “Do you even remember? Or realize—”

  His voice choked off.

  “What?”

  “It’s been eight months! What do you think I’ve been doing for the last fucking eight months with you at this radio station? Since the funeral. You’re like a goddamn catatonic war vet. Like some mumbling creature I can only soothe with the fucking hiss of the radio or you start wandering around, fucking with the disaster board, interrupting the broadcasts while I’m on-air—”

  Thomas’s comments, like striking matches in dark corridors of memory, images leaping to life. He was not wrong about any of it.

  “Thank you,” Griff said. His eyes stung.

  “Thank you,” Thomas said. “Yeah.”

  Thomas looked back at the radio monitor. Shook his head. The lighthouse swung.

  WHOOMP!

  “But,” Griff said.

  “What?”

  “I think I heard something.”

  “Okay!” Thomas shouted. “Well, strap in, buddy!”

  He shoved headphones over Griff’s head. Yanked on his own. Blaring static. He turned it up. More. Twisted the dial to maximum, thundering volume, and Griff flung off the headphones.

  “Jesus, Thomas!”

  “Oops!” Thomas said.

  “What’s your problem?”

  “You want to know what’s on the Skip, Griff? And listen closely, because—unlike you—I’ve been here for the last eight months listening to this shit. Shortwave radio is a bullshitty hobby for old bullshitty people—you know why? There is nothing. West Coast garbage, East Coast horseshit, and miles of Midwestern nightmares. The only thing you discover on AM radio are more ways to hate the people on AM radio, and the people who listen to AM radio, and the people who make you listen to AM radio.”

  Thomas was shaking. He looked the same but was not the same. His lips trembled.

  “What about the Band?” Griff asked.

  “The Band,” Thomas said immediately. “Didn’t happen.”

  “We were there,” Griff said.

  “D. H. Rawcliffe,” Thomas said, as if reciting Scripture. “Where belief in miracles exists, the belief produces the hallucination, and the hallucination confirms the belief. It was great, Griff, goddammit, holding, all touchy-happy, it was the sweetest fucking night of my life. But I can tell you from the data, from the charts, from months of work, this band is some underbelly of the Amazon, Lost City of Z, Heart of Darkness bullshit and the only thing you will find at the end of that tunnel is madness or death.”

  Thomas stared at him.

  “I think—” Griff said.

  “What?”

  “Can we go back a few clicks to the left.”

  “Go ahead!” Thomas threw the headphones at Griff. Walked away. Griff turned down the volume. Easier to search when it was quiet. He threaded back to the short, rumbling gap between the baseball game and a big-band concert, kept going. A deeper pocket of static, something tangled inside.

  “Thomas?”

  “What!”

  “Can you help me clean up the sound?”

  “Someone has to run a fucking radio show! This is why we’re here! Right?”

  Griff watched him, silent. Thomas shook his head. Stood.

  “Fine,” he said. “Fine! Fine! You want help?”

  Thomas went to a stack of programming materials—reports, brochures. He picked them up and flung them against the window. A giant confetti burst of paper. He walked over to Dunbar’s neat black plastic pen holder. Smashed it on the ground, ka-rack! Pens leapt, somersaulted, rolled. Chest heaving, he stared at Griff. Walked slowly. Jerked his chair over to the engineer console. Pulled on his headphones.

  While Griff moved the dial, Thomas cleaned the sound.

  “‘The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’?” Thomas asked.

  “Just wait,” Griff said. He eased the dial, could feel hidden sounds like bumps under a rug. Music receded to the hiss of a record run to dead wax, then something like a propeller churning underwater, wet and warbling schwooop schwooop—and—THEN—

  “No,” Thomas said.

  Griff felt it before he heard it. The brain-prickling tingle of a perfect song.

  Thomas bucked up from his rolling chair. It hit the ground. He hunched over the mixer, face down close, tweaking dials. He smoothed the sound, set the hook:

  In the cold, we hunt the dark, sing on the waves that come at night—

  Shiver from shoulder blades to the backs of his legs. New lyrics. New voices, but THEM. Thomas jerked open a drawer, pulled out a cassette tape shrink-wrapped in plastic, he fumbled, cursing—

  “Keep them on the line!” Thomas said.

  He pulled a knife from his belt, liberated the tape in a crinkling flash of plastic, bolted across the room, snapped it into place, and pressed RECORD. Red light, blinking. His breathing, ragged. Hands clasped as if in prayer, he watched the spools move and Griff looked beyond him, to the town.

  Seeing it as if for the first time.

  Little windows, tiny headlights, everything dim. Like the ashed-over embers of a burned-down campfire but if you just blew across them—WHOOMP—tongues of fire and spark!

  Griff looked at the switch.

  NO GO. GO.

  A one-inch journey, traversable by index finger.

  “It’s recording,” Thomas said. “My god. We have a recording.”

  Griff turned on the studio monitor. The song flooded the space with strings, percussion, the harmonized vocals—

  —When you told me that, you told it true so tell it again, you—

  “Still think it’s a hallucination?” Griff said.

  “We won’t know till we play the tape back,” Thomas said, “if you got sane or I went crazy.”

  Griff reached fo
r the switch. Thomas laughed, clapped his hands.

  “You’re are crazy,” Thomas said. “You want to play them on the air for these idiots?”

  “We promised,” Griff said. “If we found them, we’d play them.”

  Thomas raced to the computer, braced his hands on the keys.

  “Armed, captain,” Thomas said. “Launch at will.”

  Griff’s finger hovered. He considered Specific Absorption Rate. Measured radiation from radio waves—the way sound actually penetrates your body, down to the cellular level. The whole town would be able to feel it.

  “Standing by,” Thomas said.

  He stared at the ocean. Was anyone listening?

  “Now,” Griff said. He flipped the switch.

  “Kaboom,” Thomas said.

  The sound filled K-NOW studio—not the auxiliary monitors, the luxurious boom of the ON AIR speakers. Guitar looping in wild, trancey beats, more strings. The Band had gotten better. Thomas came closer to Griff. They stood shoulder to shoulder. The sound blanketed their town. Filled the invisible spaces behind speakers, car stereos, headphones.

  “Love you, buddy,” Griff said.

  He and Thomas hugged. It had been a very long time.

  “Caller,” Thomas said.

  On the board, a single yellow light. Flashing.

  “K-NOW Radio,” Thomas said. “Hello? Hello?”

  He looked at Griff, shrugged.

  Outside, lights flashed. The tower walls strobed red and blue. Brighter, flooding the space. Thomas ran to the window.

  “Shit,” he said. “Dunbarred.”

  “That was fast,” Griff said.

  Thomas leapt to the computer and stopped the song dead with a station ID—You’re at the last point of the dial on the Lost Coast of Oregon, K-NOW 1590—quick, springing footfalls on the ladder as if Dunbar had transformed into a fast-climbing super primate—Thomas ejected the cassette and the door burst open, a quick tunnel of wind, swirling the fallen brochures. Very quiet. Lights flashed.

  “You both okay?” Dunbar said.

  “What?” Griff asked.

  “Your dad had me swing by,” Dunbar said. “He’s on the way.” Dunbar’s posture relaxed. He turned his head down, spoke to his shoulder-mounted radio. “Ten twenty-three.”

  “Is this because of the playlist?” Thomas asked.

  “Playlist? Tripp said he was worried,” Dunbar said. “Hey. What happened to my pens?” They lay spread across the floor.

  “The wind,” Thomas said. Dunbar stared at him. “When you opened the door.”

  Griff’s father came fast. He must’ve driven 60, blown stop signs. Mr. Tripp climbed into the red-and-blue-flashing fun house almost unrecognizable, frantic eyes, crease between the brows hatchet-deep. Like he’d been awake for days.

  “All good?” Dunbar asked.

  “Yes, thanks,” Griff’s dad said. “What was that, boys?”

  “A band we found,” Griff said.

  “Right in the middle of a PSA? Not on the playlist?”

  His expression became recognizable. Ruddy cheeks. Eyes heating up.

  “Sorry,” Griff said. “Why is it such a big deal?”

  “Because I didn’t know what was going on, Griff!” his dad said. “You two up here alone, three stories up, suddenly a strange song cuts in. Thomas, not responding to messages—”

  “Sorry, sir,” Thomas said.

  Griff felt himself dislocating from his body. Drifting toward the dark space outside the window that could swallow him up for months. He fought to stay. Anchored himself, heels to floor. Hands clenched to fists.

  “I’m sorry,” Thomas said. “I was distracted.”

  But Griff’s dad was already barreling down the road to a consequence in an eighteen-wheeler of parental authority shredding apologies like toothpick roadblocks—“I think SubWatch for the next month. Keep your feet on the ground.”

  “SubWatch?” Thomas said. “Jesus fuck.”

  “Oops!” Dunbar said. “I’ll see if Scruggs can cover their shifts.”

  “Give us a second, boys,” his dad said. “Head out.”

  Griff and Thomas climbed down the cold, bony rungs. They tucked themselves into the sheltered space beneath the station. Griff looked up, judging the distance. Far enough to break something. Or die. Thomas pulled a small Tupperware container from his pocket, and three emerald gummy bears. He chewed them frantically, like a dog eats bacon.

  “Are those drugs?” Griff asked.

  “Of course they’re drugs,” Thomas said. “How do you get through the day?”

  Griff looked back up. Remembered his father’s face.

  “You, I think,” Griff said.

  Thomas smiled. A genuine smile. Like before October. He took out the cassette tape and held it up to the moonlight.

  “Looks like we got about seven minutes of tape.”

  “I can’t wait to listen,” Griff said.

  “Yeah,” Thomas said. “I just hope we hear something.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  BECAUSE THEY DID NOT RIDE HOME TOGETHER, THEY COULD NOT listen to the tape. Thomas agreed they would listen together at SubWatch, Wednesday night.

  He texted Thomas three times Wednesday morning.

  TAPE STILL THERE? STILL THERE NOW? ARE YOU SURE?

  I SLEPT WITH IT UNDER MY PILLOW, Thomas responded. IT NEVER LEAVES MY POCKET.

  KEEP AWAY FROM MAGNETS, Griff reminded him. DON’T FALL ON IT.

  SHUT UP, Thomas responded.

  Wednesday afternoon, he had a presentation with Slim and Jonesy at the public library. In the Clade City Public Library Community Room, Slim talked about the Knock for a Neighbor program. Jonesy, about the New Duck and Cover. Griff scanned the faces of the crowd. Had anyone heard the song last night? Had life changed for anyone? When they finished the presentation, he exited alone through the front doors and found Charity Simms waiting for him.

  Her hair was longer. Between the way it had been before and the way it had been immediately afterward. She had life back in her cheeks and skin—he wanted to apologize. Sorry might fit safely through the tight slot of his mouth. Or the levee might break in an endless gush of apologies, sorry for not talking, for Leo, the Urchin, for asking you to be in the band, for—

  “You played the Band,” she said. “Last night.”

  “You listened,” Griff said.

  “I listen every night,” she said. “I called, too. Thomas answered. I didn’t even know if you were there. You never say anything.”

  Griff’s phone chirped. Slim and Jonesy were looking for him.

  “We made a tape,” Griff said.

  Charity’s face fell. The opposite of what he expected.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I don’t know if you should have a tape,” she said. “Have you played it yet?”

  “No,” he said. “Tonight.”

  Around the corner, coming through the back entrance, Slim and Jonesy. Both in camo. He’d been with them all day but noticed them now. Sunglasses. Boots. Like a two-person invasion. Charity saw them, turned back.

  “Are you still playing piano?”

  Sorry for not playing piano—

  “No,” he said. “Are you singing?”

  “Yes.”

  But he already knew, just by looking at her. What happened with Leo had stripped away a few soft layers—but whatever inner glow Charity had was just closer to the surface now.

  “Griffy!” Jonesy called, approaching his truck. “Time to go.”

  “Hi,” Slim said, waving to Charity. The pair got into the truck.

  “I want to see you,” Charity said.

  “Yes,” Griff said.

  Jonesy honked. Griff found himself saying goodbye, leaving. No hugs, no handshakes—just walking. His body trained to follow Jonesy. Jonesy?! Griffy? Slim opened the truck door and bent the seat forward, reminding Griff where he sat.

  On the radio, the same station.

  “Can you turn it down?” G
riff asked.

  “What’s up with you and the brown beauty?” Jonesy asked. “I liked the short hair better, personally.”

  The Urchin snapped right back. The smell of it. Jonesy’s sweating glass of Coca-Cola. Jonesy, singing. Screaming that voice at Charity. How had he forgotten? How was he in this truck right now? Griff shifted in his seat. Fire, inside him. He imagined steam in his guts, not venting.

  “Heard you pulled SubWatch,” Slim said, changing the subject. “Ain’t too bad, if you’re out with Thomas. If you need help—”

  Griff’s throat full of smoke, and Jonesy said—

  “Remember that night at the bar, though? She sure could sing.”

  Jonesy did the voice.

  Reeeemmmwweeeber—

  He stopped singing because Griff was crushing his windpipe with his right arm. Jonesy went soundless. He swerved and Griff’s head knocked against window glass. The truck fishtailed and rocked and skidded onto the gravel shoulder, where they all opened the doors and got out on the shoulder. Slim stood between them.

  “Try it again, you chickenshit,” Jonesy said. “Do it—”

  Griff charged past Slim. He collided with Jonesy and got his arm back across his throat.

  He was doing it again.

  Slim broke Griff’s hold and yanked him off.

  “Calm down, Tripp, okay? Calm on down.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Jonesy said. “If you want to go off and—”

  “Cool it,” Slim said, moving between them. “Guy lost his brother, Jonesy.”

  “Shut up, Slim,” Griff said.

  “Yeah,” Jonesy said. “Shut up, Slim.”

  Griff stood breathing, deflated. He’d gone from angry god to boneless rag. Jonesy could probably flick him into the ocean.

  “You know what we’ve all done for you?” Jonesy said. “How many meetings?”

  Griff had just enough energy to lift one finger.

  “Oh is that so?” Jonesy said. “Well, I’m done! Enjoy your walk along the cliffs—Mr. Suicide Watch. Don’t get any crazy ideas.”

  “Jonesy,” Slim said, “shut your stupid mouth.”

  Slim suddenly looked bigger. Ropy muscles taut—like, wow, Slim could thrash a fool. Griff turned to walk. A moment later, footsteps. Quick scuttling behind him and he spun in time to see Jonesy leaping—Griff jerked his arms up, but Jonesy just slapped his backpack and turned tail, running, scuffing up dust on the way to his truck, where he clapped himself inside. Slim called out the window. Looked worried.