Breaker Whiskey

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 got—Donnie and I, we rigged up a long range radio to transmit slightly off frequency— Apparently, after hearing snippets of my transmissions, Donnie got…uncharacteristically into radios. Being in New York, he had access to way more information than I did and has surpassed my knowledge by…a lot. I guess having a decently functioning radio and Birdie to occupy me early on left me less inclined to really dig in. Anyway, he figured out a way to transmit off the normal channels and still be received through my radio by me just turning the Delta Tune knob and thirty minutes ago— [click, static] Maybe I’m being worried over nothing. He’s been sending me updates, not extensive, just check-ins and little observations about how things have been going—we chose some predetermined times for me to switch over to the off-frequency and at our last check-in— It’s probably nothing. Interference or a bad connection, or something wrong with his push-to-talk. Because it sounded like— [click, static] It’s better to be safe rather than sorry. I’m only a few hours away—though still have several hours to go before I reach Harry, I think I over did it on the zagging—so I’m just gonna…I’m gonna go back. And I think I’m going to insist he comes with me. We can—we can find new supplies and all the rest as we go forward after picking up Harry. It’s more important now to stick together. Well, either way, I picked up the ingredients for ambrosia salad so…at the very least, I can make it for him now, rather than later. If a ladder has fallen on him or something, at least I’ll be able to cheer him up. [click, static]

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] Breaker, breaker, this is Whiskey Alpha Romeo calling out for anyone else who might be out there. [click, static] Maybe my mistake this whole time was not staying in the Northeast—everything is so close here, and now that I know why—or at least, I have an idea why certain people are here and others aren’t—it stands to reason that most of the people who’d be in this place would be in the Northeast. That’s where most of my life was centered and… Well, I guess there’s no point in using any callsign or code name. If I have other enemies out there beside Junior…well, I’m not sure who they’d be and I’m not sure how it gets worse, so… [click, static] Breaker, breaker, Channel 19, this is Abi Rogers driving through New England, looking for other survivors. [click, static] Maybe it’s strange to use that word. What did we survive? The last seven years living on our own I guess. Survivors of my mistake. In any case, I’m zig-zagging as I move up north, just to be safe, and I’m going to be on this channel all day on the off chance I come into someone’s radius. A long shot, I know, but I’ve been feeling more optimistic lately. It’s odd, isn’t it? Not too long ago, I came face to face with a man who wanted to kill me and then one of my mysterious fair weather friends tried to repeat that particularly unpleasant encounter. By all accounts, I should be feeling the most downtrodden and scared that I’ve felt since I got arrested. But finding an old friend, someone I truly never thought I would see again…it’s like air in my lungs. Despite being alone, Donnie really is so much the same person he was when we first met. It’s like a warm cup of coffee, talking to him, hearing his ridiculous stories, being teased by him. It’s easy to fall back into the regular patterns. The other day I said he thought I was softer than I was, but what he actually said was “you seem sadder than you were, Abi”. Which I guess I can’t fault him for noticing. Even with how happy I was to see him, there’s still this cloud… I don’t know if I realized how much it had sunk into who I am. Loneliness isn’t new for me, hardship, fear—while there have been new kinds of challenges these last seven years, the fundamentals of who I am haven’t encountered anything they can’t bear. I have been missing people more than I thought I would. As in—if you’d told me a decade ago that I’d be stuck in a place without strangers, a place where I just had to focus on living, and I could technically do whatever I want, I’m not sure I would’ve seen that as a bad deal. But the reality…well, being with Don has just put into stark focus just how much I miss talking to people. Being in New York reminded me just how much I loved getting lost in a crowd. So there was bound to be some change in demeanor, I think that’s pretty normal. I have no idea how Donnie was able to stay sane by himself all these years, how he was able to stay so much the same. I think being around Harry has been making me sad for a really long time. It’s a funny thing, that. When I first told Donnie that that’s where I’ve been—that Harry and I have been hiding out—he made a joke that I’d won the top prize in this shitty world. That he often felt like locking the two of us in a room until we could work things out. I had no idea—that our…dynamic was so apparent to other people. But according to him, it was a point of discussion amongst the other three. Which is absolutely mortifying and also, strangely validating. So he was plenty happy for me that I’d finally been given the time and space to knock down whatever wall was holding us back. He...

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] Okay, Donnie and I have been having a fun time playing, well, if not “house”…”normal weekend away and the world is just outside the door”, but now that we’ve just…agreed to disagree about Junior, we realized it’s time for the old crew reunion to be complete. Donnie thinks it’s going to be easier for me to just go get Harry, than to try and broadcast something to tell her where we are that could be picked up and deciphered by Junior. So I’m getting in the car today and head North. Once I get her and come back…we’ll figure it out from there. There’s no reason that Junior would be able to find us where we’re at—not if he hasn’t found us so far—so I think we’ve got a few more days at least before we need to seriously consider moving. But we’re rats in a maze here in the Northeast. It’s three against one now, so I’m not exactly concerned but after hearing about my whole encounter with Junior, Donnie went into that protective older brother mode he would get in sometimes, the one that led him to teach me self-defense. Another thing about him that hasn’t changed. He’s staying behind to “fortify” the place we’re staying, whatever that means, and to start building up the kind of supplies we’ll need to safely move to a new spot. Sounds to me like he’s expecting a war, but there really is no reasoning with him when he sets his mind to something. I don’t know, maybe war is exactly what we’re doing. If it is, we’ve got a much better chance of surviving now than I did a week ago. With both Donnie and Harry…well, trying to stay alive with two whole other people to pick up the slack feels like luxury. But I don’t want to be at war with anyone. Though, if I have to be, there’s no two people I’d rather have in the trenches with me. [click, static]

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] Okay, we’re at a bit of an impasse. Neither of us will budge on what we think the right way forward is so we’re going to… Well. I don’t know. We’ll figure something else out. A compromise. We need some more supplies first. We can’t actually survive on beer and beer alone. Though it has been nice to drink together like the old days. Donnie said he hasn’t had very much to drink the last few years, just a beer on special days or when things were particularly hard to handle. Sounds like he spent the first two years— I don’t know if this is okay to share. I guess he told me all this stuff. Not you. He agrees with me about the cigarettes. That it’s a fucking tragedy they taste the way they do now. There’s lots of things that we both miss from the real world, and not just sex and cigarettes. Donnie misses ambrosia. You know, the fruit salad? I could never stand the stuff, but he loved it. And I think…I mean, I could probably make that, right? With canned fruit? Any marshmallows I find might be pretty stale at this point but…yeah, I bet I could make it. One of us should have something we want. [click, static]

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] God, it’s fucking helpful having someone else around to bounce ideas off of. My stupid hungover brain wasn’t exactly functioning at the highest point this morning but I think we burned through so many conversational topics last night that over breakfast we actually talked seriously about this whole…deal. Not just the Junior of it all, not just the basics, but the particulars of how this fucked up world works. He agrees with most of my theories—that we’re in a separate place, but time marched on normally without us somewhere else. That the photographs are a glance into that place. He’s heard some weird sounds though the years too, so the sounds of cars, the tornado siren…all that stuff, everything he’s heard, he agrees that it’s probably bleeding in from that place. From home. Or maybe other timelines, because we’re definitely not the only people stuck in a place like this. That wouldn’t make any kind of sense. He’s less certain to say with any finality what he thinks the situation with Birdie and Fox is. We both have a hard time with the idea of any kind of all-knowing, all-powerful entity, but we’re also both familiar with being on a government’s wanted list so…the idea of some kind of surveilling body isn’t crazy. That’s what he thinks they are. That they’re supposed to be monitoring us, monitoring the other timelines, which is why Birdie disappears sometimes. And he had the thought—the idea that maybe that’s why they use morse code too. That maybe it’s easier to transmit over long distances using only morse, that maybe they’ve got some kind of relay system built into the country. Which would make sense, I guess—something that existed before the timeline split off, something that’s maybe operating off of old telegraph lines. What’s a longer distance than trying to communicate across all of space and time? That still doesn’t answer the question of where Birdie and Fox are. Are they here in this timeline? Are they in the real world? In somewhere in between? And…who are they? Part of the US government? Independent scientists? Something other than human? I’m not sure we’ll ever know, but it’s been nice to theorize with someone. And I’m not holding my breath that Birdie or Fox will respond—and I’m not sure I even want to hear from Fox—but that’s bothering me less than it usually would. It’s easier to bear not knowing when I’ve got someone else who is equally as clueless as me. [click, static]

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] (tipsy) Donnie and I have kissed and made up. Well, obviously we haven’t kissed. But, you know what I mean. We drank a lot of beer—apparently the moment he got to Massachusetts, he started stockpiling, which is really so typical. But it helped. Our issues are resolved. Without anyone having to kiss anybody else. (a laugh) Poor Donnie. He was pretty sad when I told him I hadn’t found anyone else beside Leann and Junior. Not that there’s no one else out there to find but…you know. The odds don’t look great. But the poor guy hasn’t had sex in seven years and I think it’s making him crazier than not having anyone to talk— [click, static] (off mic)—c'mon [click, static] (off mic) —not. Sh! (on mic) Anyway, not like I’ve seen any action in the last seven years because I haven’t. Despite what some people might— [click, static] (off mic)—not ever, I promise. (on mic) He doesn’t believe me. But he should. If I did have anything to report, I’m sure you would’ve heard about it already, my night people, my listeners, because I’m not sure I would’ve ever been able to fucking shut up about it. Oh, come— [click, static] He’s laughing at me. This is an absurd conversation. (off mic) And you’re an absurd person. (laughing) Oh yeah, well how about the impressions, how do you— [click, static]

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] Okay, Donnie is driving me crazy, in that way that he always had, that I guess I’d just forgotten in the years and the distance. And I just need to… [click, static] I needed a break. I wonder if bull-headed people just draw in other bull-headed people. Like attracts like, right? Or maybe it’s simply a necessity of our profession. Or maybe we were drawn to criminal enterprises because we’re stubborn and immovable. Either way, it feels like every single person in my life—both back in the real world and here—is fucking…intractable. We’re still not agreeing on the best approach. I’m—well, I’m obviously not going to say what the nature of the disagreement is. Whatever we end up doing, if we end up doing anything, I clearly can’t tell you until after its done. If then, even. I will say, my need to speak my feelings and thoughts into my CB has definitely been tempered by finding Donnie. Sure, maybe I’m not as uncensored with him, but that has less to do with trust than with actually getting a response back. It is easier to say everything that comes into my head to a radio that doesn’t talk back. I trust Donnie with my life, would tell him practically anything he wants to know, but he has things to say to me, and it…I don’t know, it quiets everything in my brain. Even if he is driving me up the fucking wall. I hadn’t realized how much I’ve been inoculated to Harry’s particular form of crazy-making behavior. Not that I was unbothered by her—that isn’t the case at all, that’s for fucking sure—but more that I eventually stopped immediately blowing my top when we’d get into a snit. But even sharing a space with a new person, the littlest things are irritating. Tripping over his shoes, having him yell “what?” when I’m talking to myself and he thinks I’m talking to him. Hearing him talk to himself and doing the same. None of it…it’s not a problem. That’s not why I’m sitting in my car talking on this. The argument we had—it’s not about leaving your shoes out. I’m just. I guess I’m making an observation. About how ill-equipped I feel to be around other people, even when it’s all I want in this world. It doesn’t dull the joy—the argument, the annoyances. I’m still on the top of the world. Just hearing his voice in the morning as he grumbles about waking up feels like the sun coming out after a storm. I might want to throttle him right now, but I still wouldn’t let him go for anything. And I think he feels the same way. Anyway, I should get back to him. Signing off. [click, static]

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] Breaker, breaker, this is Whiskey calling out for Harry—I don’t know if you can hear this where you are, or if you’re even listening, or if you’re just waiting in that gallery for me to show up, but you might have to wait a little bit longer. Donnie wants to solve the Junior problem. And we both think it’s probably safer for you to stay put where you are while we figure it out. We’re currently…in disagreement over what solving that problem looks like. And Junior is probably listening to this, even if you’re not, so I shouldn’t say more. But you’ve got the radio and the car, and I’m sure you’ve been able to find supplies up there, so just…sit tight for a bit. There’s no point in all three of us being in mortal danger if we can help it. Whiskey out. [click, static]

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] So, today I asked Donnie what he remembered about me. I thought you all might enjoy an update. At first he, of course, turned the question around on me. I don’t think he heard my entire transmission the other day talking about it, about feeling safe around him, but he knows I’ve talked a little about everyone—and yeah, I think I’m okay to talk about my perception of Don, and how accurate it is, and still respect his rule that I don’t reveal too much about him or his life. Huh? [click, static] Yeah, he says it’s fine, as long as I’m being honest about what the says about me. Which is fair. And— [click, static] (laughing) I’ll take that as a compliment. Don says I’m a regular Jean Shepherd. Maybe that’s not a cultural reference that’ll land with everyone, I think he may have just been a New York guy—he had this radio show on WOR, for us “night people”. That’s what he calls—called—all of us who were fighting against the…what was it? [click, static] —that’s right, yeah. The “creeping meatballism”. Of course you remember that. Mediocrity, basically. And the celebration of it. Shep could talk and talk and talk and he’d talk about everything from his childhood in Indiana to railing against cultural conformity and, yeah, I guess I get the comparison. What can I say, I get why he did this for so many years. There’s something to speaking all your thoughts into a radio. But back to the point I’m trying to make—Don is basically who I remember him being. Yeah—I remember you being pretty easy-going and warm, when you know someone at least, but when you’re serious about something, you’re serious. There’s no arguing with you or talking you out of it. You also deflect questions about yourself or your feelings with humor, which— [click, static] Okay, yeah, that’s fair, I do that too. But you remember me differently than I was. I’m still pretty straight-forward, and I don’t take shit from you, which you always liked, but it’s…easier to be around me. Don’t shake your head, that’s right! You said I used to be harder. That living here, with Harry, has made me soft. What? [click, static] —not right now. Because I don’t want to— Okay, clearly there’s a reason Shep didn’t have a co-host. I think I’ll call it there. So goodnight, dear night people. Goodnight. [click, static]

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] You know, it’s so funny how people don’t change, even in the kind of extraordinary circumstance we’re in. The apocalypse, an empty world, seven years of trying to find each other and Donnie still cannot wake up before ten AM. I don’t know when I became an early riser. I thought it was one of those things that just happened as you got older, but it clearly doesn’t happen to everybody. Donnie’s older than me and he still sleeps like a teenager. I…I’m not sure where to begin in talking about him. We spent hours yesterday, sitting at the kitchen table and shooting the shit. We had a hell of a lot to catch up on. I know you might be curious, whoever you are, what Don was up to all this time. But that’s another thing he wants to keep to himself. I’m not sure why—from what he’s told me, it’s not like there’s anything particularly of note from the last seven years, aside from the particulars of surviving—but I’m going to respect his choice. I guess that’s another way that he hasn’t changed—you spend decades keeping certain information siloed from one part of your life and other information siloed from another part and that just becomes…normal. That was a bit of a theme among the crew, I guess. Pete was incredibly secretive about his home life—where he lived, who he lived with. He could’ve had a wife and kids for all we knew. Don didn’t talk much about his family, even though he saw them all the time, and they didn’t know about us; even Harry’s parents were still around, in New York no less, but I didn’t even know that until we were here. As far as they were concerned, she was a up-and-coming painter, which wasn’t untrue just…incomplete. But besides being nostalgic about Chicago sometimes, Richie seemed to be like me — his whole life was one complete piece. Maybe that’s why we always got together at his place. And I guess we each had people—girlfriends, mostly—who we didn’t introduce to our…professional life, but I’m not sure either of us really took pains to hide it. Or, ever got very serious or committed in those parts of our lives. I’m not good at compartmentalizing I don’t think. I guess that goes hand in hand with the way I tend to fixate on a particular thing or person, but I just don’t know how all of them could stand to lead such different lives depending on who they’re with. I don’t share Don’s inclination toward privacy, even knowing that talking on here might eventually lead to my ruin. Not that I’ve told you everything. Not everything I have told you is true. But I don’t feel like I’m hiding when I talk on here. That said…god, it is different talking to Don. (laughs) I mean, christ, it’s—it’s so good. To talk to someone who talks back, to talk to someone who knows me. I don’t have to explain certain things, I don’t have to make excuses for who I am or what I do. Not that I—well, I think I have done that a little, to you. Not knowing who I’m talking to, well, it makes me want to be a better version of myself, one who had a…I don’t know, dignified job. One who contributed to the world in a positive way instead of breaking it. Don, god bless him, does not seem that pissed about the fact that he’s here because of me. Don’t get me wrong, he hates being here, he’s furious he is, but when I explained everything—my theory that killing Billings created some sort of branching timeline that we’re all stuck in, everyone who was affected by that action—he…he got it. He got why I did what I did. And he doesn’t blame me for it. After all, how the hell would I have known what would happen? There is…there is some comfort to be taken in that. When he asked—I...

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] So…I found him! I fucking found him. I don’t even— [click, static] The whistling. I thought I was losing my mind at first. It was so weak, and kept going out before I could catch all of it but I knew— I mean, that’s our whistle. Our lookout whistle. Who else could it be but Don? And after all this time and so many attempts to find Birdie or…or anyone, driving around until the signal got stronger actually fucking worked. I— what? [click, static] (calling out off mic) —because I have to! Just—hold on a sec, okay? Sorry, he— Don doesn’t get why I’m telling the radio this news when there’s a guy out there trying to kill me but I want Harry to know and I— I want you to know. I don’t—I’m not sure who you are in this scenario. Maybe Birdie, my first friend in this world, even if I’m not sure they are a friend. Maybe… Look, the fact that my transmissions got all the way to Harry when I was in fucking Los Angeles…maybe…maybe other people are out there, hearing me. If there’s even the slightest chance— [click, static] —(off mic) you could just tell them yourself. (to the mic) Alright. (off mic) Yeah, that’s fine, just let me finish— [click, static] Donnie refuses to come onto the radio. Apparently whistling is as much as he’s willing to reveal about what he sounds like. So those “morse code freaks” don’t have more intel on him. He’s also requested that I stop talking about him and his family on here. Which I will do. But I’m still…well, I think you deserve to know, dear listener, what it’s like to finally be with someone after all this time. God, I still can’t believe it. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy. It’s like every holiday ever all at once. Like I’ve been walking through the desert for years and finally, finally stumbled on an oasis. [click, static] Don’s laughing at being called an oasis. (off mic) Yeah, I would never have guessed it either! (to mic) Sorry, things are a little chaotic, clearly. I—well, I’m going to go have a goddamn conversation with a goddamn human being, in person and everything. So…signing off. [click, static]

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] Except I don’t, remember? Because I had to abandon the car that I’d been driving and all the supplies I’d built up over the last few months after the last time Junior tried to kill me. [click, static] “You have gun too”…I swear to fucking god. What is your game Fox? Who are you? Are you just bored? Has my intrepid journey through the country not been enough entertainment for you? Are you hoping to manipulate me into some kind of OK Corral final stand? It’s not going to work. I don’t have a gun anymore and even if I did, I wouldn’t—I will defend myself, and I’ll defend Harry, but I’m going to do everything in my power to avoid a situation in which I would have to defend us. Fuck this. Fuck you. I’m—I’m done. Birdie, if you’ve got any opinions or insight on any of this, now would be a great time to pipe up. [click, static] [a strange whistling sound]

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] You said it could be fixed. Weeks ago, Fox you said—I think you only sent the message once, maybe because you were worried Birdie would interfere, but I—I heard it. And I…I couldn’t think about it, couldn’t let myself hope yet, not when I was already so hopeful I would find Don. Was this what you meant by it being fixable? Is my death at the hands of that boy the way to fix this? Did you send me to Junior so that he’d shoot me and everything would go back to the way it was? God, that can’t really be the answer, can it? I know I’ve said—I mean, I’ve wondered. It does make a certain kind of sense—my actions brought us all here, all these people are being collectively punished for something I did or, at the very least, were punted here because of something I didn’t do or…something I would’ve done. I would’ve done something back in the real world that would’ve eventually affected Leann’s life in some way. And because I’m not there… I’m guessing that’s why Don is here too. Because Harry is. And maybe without her, because he wasn’t actually in the building at the time, there wasn’t enough evidence to— [click, static] Why am I even trying to work this all out? What does it matter? We’re here, with each other, and I don’t see how that changes. Because I’m not going to just walk into my own execution, not now, not when I’m on my way to— [click, static] I just don’t believe that the solution to this is going to be in the barrel of an angry boy’s gun. [click, static] [beeps] -.-- --- ..- / .... .- ...- . / --. ..- -. / - --- --- you have gun too

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] (a slight intake of breath) [click, static] Do you think I’m a fucking idiot, Fox? Did you think that you’d earned my trust simply by the virtue of being one of the few people in the world I talk to? Did you think that having sent me Leann’s coordinates before meant I would blindly follow wherever you led? I know I said there was no harm in trying, that it’s good to have hope, but that doesn’t mean that I’m new to this. That doesn’t mean I was going to be fucking stupid about it. [click, static] I think you’ve forgotten who I am. I wasn’t some sort of criminal mastermind, or bad-ass GI Joe, but I spent my life sneaking and thieving and never getting caught. In fact I wouldn’t have been caught if— I’ve been taking care of myself since I was fifteen years old. I’ve learned when to trust people and when not to and I’m fucking good at calculating risk. And maybe I’ve let myself get soft this last year, maybe I’ve wanted to trust a little more than usual but that trust has always been conditional. I don’t know what you’re playing at, but if you were banking on me just driving right up to the coordinates and announcing myself, you’re not very good at whatever you’re trying to do. And I know what you’ll say—maybe Junior just also heard the coordinates and just beat me there. Except I didn’t say how close I was to the coordinates you gave. I was fucking close. And he was already there. I even checked the hood of his car, that stupid VW—it was cold. He’d been there for a while. You sent me to him. You sent me to him and either you knew exactly where he was or you told him where to go first. Because it looked like he was waiting. And he had—he had a gun, Fox, and I’m sure he would’ve shot me on the spot. He was waiting for something. For someone. So I waited too. I watched him for two hours. And you know why I think you told him where to go and then gave me those coordinates? Because he started to talk. I’m not someone who is going to judge someone else for talking to themselves, I would be a fucking hypocrite if I did. But he was…he was yelling. He was yelling for me. He was furious when I didn’t show up. And it…it made him look even more frail. Like the scared little kid he practically is. The gun was shaking in his hand. I doubt he could’ve shot straight if he’d tried. Junior might be inexperienced, he might be ill-equipped, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous. The way he was shouting, the anger that’s inside him…you don’t have to know what you’re doing to be a threat. [click, static]

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] Maybe it’s fucking foolish of me to even attempt it, but the coordinates aren’t far and the last time I found a dead body—if these are really coordinates of someone alive and I have a chance to get to them before anything happens…I’m not taking that risk. It’s a small diversion but Don didn’t show up at the house. No one did. And maybe…maybe Fox is doing me an actual favor and there will be someone at these coordinates, someone who is alive and well and maybe…maybe it's even Don. Maybe this is how I find him. And if not…well, there’s no harm in trying. There’s no harm in having hope. I’m pretty sure hope is what’s kept me alive this long. [click, static]

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 think I’m close. To finding Don that is. I got to his uncle’s house and there’s definitely evidence that someone’s been living here. I guess it’s possible that his uncle, or his cousins, were also affected by the ripple, but…how? Don kept what he did from his family. Then again, I still don’t know how Leann ended up here—I have a feeling I’ll never really know. I guess, in the end, it isn’t all that important. She met her fate, and there’s nothing I can do about it now. I just have to live with it. But Don, I can still find him. There’s open cans in this house, the place is in a certain amount of disarray that makes me think…someone’s been here. It’s dusty, but I swear there’s some tracks through the dust, like someone’s walked through. So I’m gonna stay here for the night, and see if he comes back. Or, if whoever lives here comes back. [click, static] I’m sorry for taking too long to get there, Harry. But just think—maybe by the time I drive up to the gallery, I’ll have Don in my passenger seat. It won’t be just us anymore. We’ll actually have someone else to talk to. Someone to mediate, more likely, not that Don is the paragon of diplomacy. But it’ll be good for us, I think. Yeah, it’ll be good for things to not be just us anymore. [click, static] And we—we don’t need to tell him everything, okay? I’ll tell him what happened, why were here—he needs to know, especially with Junior out there. But I won’t tell him what you did unless you decide to. And I’m not sure it’d be the best idea. So…your secret is safe with me. [click, static] [beeps] ....- ..--- / ..--- ..... / ....- ..--- / --... .---- / .---- ....- / ----. 42 25 42 71 14 9

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 remembered that Don had family in Massachusetts. His uncle and cousins ran a deli in a town called Winchester—the way that man would talk about the sandwiches they’d make…god, what I wouldn’t do for one of them right now. Anyway, I figured it couldn’t hurt to check the place out. He wasn’t at the deli—I didn’t expect him to be, that would’ve been quite the fucking coincidence, but I did find exactly what I was hoping for. An address on an old bill. Presumably, his uncle’s home address. It’s a few towns over, so I’m headed there now. [click, static] This area is nice. I haven’t spent all that time in Massachusetts, at least outside of Boston and Provincetown. But it’s warm and sunny and there’s a little humidity creeping into the air and (deep breath), I don’t know, it’s nice. Despite everything, I’m feeling…hopeful. It reminds me a little of where I grew up. There are more houses and the houses are closer together—I’m sure there are parts of Massachusetts that are rural, but I am squarely in the suburbs. I don’t know, maybe it’s just that spring has finally arrived and the changing of the seasons always makes me think of home. [click, static] Huh. I haven’t thought about my childhood home as home in a long time. Home has been nebulous, ever-changing in my mind. But I guess if I’ve ever had a touchstone, it’s the house I grew up in and…New York City. Touchstones of a different kind. But places that my mind always leaps to if I’m confronted with something that reminds me in the slightest of them. I don’t think you can ever really run away from home. That’s more or less what I did, but it lingers, always. You can never undo the way that you’ve been shaped. You can pour new concrete over the broken sidewalk, but the footprints left on the previous layers will always be there, waiting to be revealed when the fresh new coat eventually erodes. [click, static] (a small laugh) I can hear Harry’s voice in my head correcting my metaphor. Making it about paint—where you grow up is the charcoal sketch and no matter how much you paint over a canvas, the layers and textures are always there. But I don’t know painting. Not that I know concrete but… That’s one of those things I always figured would be the deciding factor in whether or not Harry—I mean, she’s sophisticated, you know? I don’t know if she can hear this up in Maine—I’m sure she can, but maybe she doesn’t have the radio turned on. She’d probably be happy to hear it anyway. That I think of her as sophisticated. But she is. Her secret love for Hank Williams and all. She appreciates fine things, delicate things, beautiful things. And I’m not any of that. I’ve always been rough and blunt—the finest thing I do is picking a lock or breaking a safe and even then, sometimes brute force is the best way forward. Harry is a painting, and I’m a block of concrete. [click, static] God, I hope Don isn’t listening to this. He’d never let me live it down. [click, static]

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] Alright, I’ve done my final checks of all of Don’s regular hideouts and he’s still nowhere to be found. But I’m not giving up hope entirely. I guess I should say they’re my final checks for now. I figure after I go and find Harry we can come back to NY and look together. I realize he might not be in the city anymore, but I don’t know where else to look. And I don’t know, maybe it will be nice for Harry and I to revisit the old spots. Staying in Richie’s loft really has me thinking about all those old times. I think I’ve spent more time in this apartment than any apartment I’ve actually lived in. I guess that’s not true. Maybe spent more time awake than any apartment I ever lived in. Because I only slept over here a few times. But the times were always good, weren’t they. That’s how it feels now anyway. There’s a part of me that knows that can’t possibly be true. The version of Harry in the past, in my thoughts, changes all the time. I remember her at times harsher than she probably actually was and at other times sweeter and more forgiving. And maybe it’s because she was both those things—all of those things, all at once, all the time. Or maybe it’s because my feelings on her continue to change. I don’t remember when I first—I mean, I remember what I thought about her the first time I met her. And I remember what I thought about her when we were in that prison van, driving through the dark. Before I knew what I know now. Before I’d done what I did. But it’s the in between that’s…not hazy, but like a watercolor where all the paints have run together. In the near decade we knew each other before everything happened…I mean, I always felt strongly. When I disliked her, I hated her and when I liked her, I… I don’t remember when it started. I don’t remember when that swirl, that storm of feelings—well, it’s not that it ever went away, but there started to be this thing underneath it, informing everything. At a certain point, when I disliked her, I didn’t hate her anymore, I was just frustrated and tortured. And when I liked her, well, I was also frustrated and tortured. But I don’t know when that started, I don’t know when she became someone who was so far beneath my skin that it didn’t matter what I felt about her moment to moment because it never changed the fundamental truth that I wanted to be around her. Anyway, I don’t know if I’m making sense, it’s late and I’m planning to get up early tomorrow to start driving, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about it, being in this space. I couldn’t stop thinking about if this living room was the place that that feeling first started. I can't stop thinking about my own recollections of Pete and Don and Richie. Were they who I thought they were? Was Pete always this central, stable pillar in my life? This person I could lean on and rely on and who I still didn’t know all that much about. In my mind, he’s been such a morally upstanding figure, somebody that…somebody that I think about when I start to spiral about the things that I’ve done and I just think—Pete. Pete would still stand by me. He’s loyal and he’s good. Then I think, he was a criminal. Just like me. He lied and stole and tricked people. So that image in my head of him being…I don’t know, Captain America is…well, it must not be entirely true. And it’s the same with Don and Richie. I remember them being, well, knuckleheads, but knuckleheads who cared. Who I had started to feel safe around even if in the beginning I wasn't so sure about them. But again, is that just thinking about how I’d feel if I saw them now—that the mere presence of other people...

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] Okay, I think I’m—I’m ready to read this note now. Beyond just the date and the first few lines. “April 6th, 1975 Abigail— I’m okay. If you do find this, I have a feeling you’re going to have questions about the blood. You always have questions about everything. It’s one of your best qualities and also one of your most infuriating. Though I suppose I should be grateful you’ve been dogged in your pursuit of the truth. Maybe this can be repaired.” I don’t know if she means the jacket or… “It’s chicken blood. I am not as capable as you when it comes to butchery.” That’s…that’s as far as I got after finding the note. The relief hit me like a freight train but… I don’t want to be capable of butchery. I know that’s not what you meant but I… Anyway. Moving forward. “I’m sorry I didn’t reach our meeting in time, but after that man came to the house, I went to ground. I heard a car in the distance a few times over the last few days, but I couldn’t be sure it was you. I got the car you left me. And the radio. I’ve been transmitting out regularly but I’m going to guess that you haven’t heard me. That’s what I’m choosing to believe anyway, given I’ve sent you more than a few messages over the months, with no reply. And, yet, somehow, I’ve heard many of your transmissions—not all, and they are very often full of static and breaks in the signal, but you have reached our garage even from Los Angeles.” She crossed out something here. I think it says…(crinkle of paper) "I thought about joining you” but I can’t read the rest. Goddammit, Harry… “Do you remember that one diner that we went to every month for all of ’69? I know that you’ve been to a lot of roadside diners in the last ten months, so maybe they’ve run together in the way that they’re almost purpose built to do. The one down the street, the one we could walk to—we haven’t been back in ages, because I got spooked the one time the neon sign flickered back to life, but we’d carry thermoses of tea and pretend that we were going out for a morning cup, because the monotony of our existence was threatening to destroy us both. Whether you remember it or not, that diner has a working radio. I believe it too spooked me when there was a power surge, even if it was just static. In any case, I’m no longer at that diner, but I was briefly and heard several of your transmissions. There was no way to speak back to you, as it wasn’t that kind of radio, but it was picking up your signal just the same. I’m not in the state anymore. I threw the jacket from the car as I drove out of town, a final ditch attempt to contact you. I had a feeling you would take it with you if you found it, despite the state of it, and just had to hope that you would find these pages sewn inside the lining. I’ll keep transmitting, so we can find a time and place to meet, but there are conversations I don’t want to have over the airwaves, or in a letter. So I’m going to give you instructions now, that I’ll keep repeating on the radio, in the hopes that you’ve found this even if you can’t hear me. Do you remember the show I did up north at that gallery near the water? You’d been in Provincetown with Francis for a few days and he drove the both of you up for the opening. It wasn’t a particularly short journey, but manageable. You both stayed the weekend, at that little B&B that shares its name with one of the planets. I don’t think you thought very much of my show. It was one of my more abstract periods. I know you never cared much for that style, but I do have to wonder if you’d have been more generous to it if you’d known what inspired...

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] She’s alive. I can’t believe it but she— In the Carhartt—I, I put it on after I couldn’t go back to sleep and I was pulling it tight around me when I heard this crinkle—it’s like she knew— It’s fucking chicken blood— I’m sorry, I just need—a need a second, I— [click, static]