“Ladies!” he says, into the microphone, “Gentlemen!” his voice self-consciously warm and rounded with a bonhomie belied by his focused concentration, his blinking eyes looked down, away, concerned, “Those otherwise addressed! by orientation, inclination, definition, affiliation, identification, sheer discretion, or just plain bloody-minded cussedness, welcome!” He sits back, only to immediately lean in close again. “Top of the hour, so I’m obliged to remind you all you’re listening to KOCC, the Voice of the Oregon Coast, nine oh point five on your FM dial, listener-supported community radio broadcasting at a strength of thirty-two watts and a stated radius of nine point three miles, but hey, when it’s a lovely Saturday afternoon like it is out there today, y’all can hear us all the way up in Lincoln City! Or anywhere else in the world you might have wandered, Kay Oh Cee Cee dot org on any interweb-enabled device,” looking up, that grey-flecked hair long enough in back to lop the collar of his blue and black plaid shirt, “from the Rez in Siletz to all the ships at sea,” tipped back down, lips close to the bright blue pop filter canted from a flexible clip before the gleaming mesh of the mike, “this is Billy Breaks, your host on the coast with the most, no boast, here with you till two, and then Jackie Shen’s coming in with her in-depth look at just what the heck’s been going on with the Aquarium’s expansion plans, you’re gonna want to stick around for that, but up till then it’s just li’l ol’ me, me and my exquisite taste for what might be made from nothing but vibrating waves of air and your ears. Before the break, that contemplatively textured caterwauling was Okay, Let’s Talk About Magic, by a band whose name I can’t even mention in front of a live mike due to certain FCC regulations, yes, even a PG-13 movie gets to drop one eff-bomb in the course of business, but we public stewards of the broadcast spectrum have to keep it clean for the sake of all you kids out there, you know who you are. Eff Buttons, we’ll call them, Talking About Magic, before that yeule, I think I’m saying her name right, fantastic artist, covering Broken Social Scene, Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl, and fronting that run was of course King Crimson, the Great Deceiver, off Starless and Bible Black,” leaning to one side, reaching for the switch at the base of one of the turntables, “and now,” he says, “kicking off another, here’s the inimitably impish mind behind Kittenhead, a rare track off a SuperStump vinyl compilation,” flicking the switch, leaning forward to the board before him, fingertips now to the bulky headphones over his ears, “a glitchcore rendition,” punching a button that lights up white, “of Nardis, yes, kids, you heard me, the old Bill Evans standard,” punching another button that lights up red, then goes dark as he releases it, leans back, lifts off the headphones to release a squiggle of ecstatic synth sounds and a popping crackle of percussion from the cans. Hangs them from a hook on the front of the board. Lets out a gust of a sigh, turning about in his chair, one eye on the silently spinning turntable. That plaid shirt of his hung open over a black T-shirt that says SCP Secure, Contain, Protect in faded, anachronistically rounded white letters, stretched by the swell of his belly. A red light’s blinking, up at the top of the board, and when he sees it he spins about in the chair to face the equipment across from the turntables, taps a button on a small console haphazardly wedged beneath an enormous reel-to-reel tape deck that doesn’t start spinning, just a small light there, winking whitely on, as he snatches up a dull green Bakelite handset, “Hey,” he says, into the mouthpiece, “you’re on with the Breaker, hello.”
And then, “Billy Breaks, KOCC, hello.”
And then, turning away, looking over to the turntables opposite, “Still shy?” he says. “I am recording, but only if, y’know, something interesting happens. It’s the job. Say the word, I’ll shut it off.” Looking back, leaning over, he taps that button again, the white light goes dark. “There,” he says. “Off. Scout’s honor. Whaddaya got for me. Why’d you call.” Sat perfectly still for a moment, two, looking to the headphones on their hook, to the turntable arm a-wobble with the wobble of the turning disk. “Hey,” he says. “I’m gonna have to swap out the music here in a minute. I’m gonna have to hang up, but, call back whenever, okay? Drive time, Mondays and Wednesdays, Saturdays one to three, or just, leave a message. Billy Breaks. But you already knew that.” Leaned back, inclining his head and the handset, “Okay?” he says, and then, a moment, he shrugs, lets the handset fall home with a clatter. Spins about, busy of a sudden, reaching for headphones, punching a button that this time sets the reels turning, one hand on the board to deftly work two slides at once, one down from the top, the other up from the bottom, even as he’s gently lifting arm from vinyl, switching off the turntable. Sits back with a creak, stilled, again, for a moment, one hand on the headphones, listening. “Okay,” he says. Leans over, reaching for a milk crate in the shadows under the board, filled with album jackets, edges feathered with much handling, and here and there a corner bent, and all of them of a size.
“Oh my God!” she cries, Jo’s hand caught up in both of hers on the table between them, “you have got to take better care of yourself. All those industrial strength cleaners. Bad for the skin,” as Jo draws her hand back to herself, the tumbler there before her filled with ice and a finger of something ruddily brown, “Trust me, Kirsten,” and a flick of a glance to the woman across from her, trimly blond, sharp-chinned, unconcerned, “industrial strength they ain’t.”
“Well, still,” says the blond woman, lifting a coupe of something pink, “I have this apricot scrub, exfoliates like nobody’s business.”
“Oil of Olay,” says the woman beside her, glossily dark, the glass before her tall and slender, filled with ice and something fizzily clear, topped by a translucent slice of lime. “All I’m saying, grandma knew the score.”
“I’m fine,” says Jo. “I’m fine. I don’t–”
“You’re fine?” says Kirsten, incredulous. “You’re fine. Where the hell have you been?”
“Portland?” says Jo, brow cocked, why are you asking.
“No, I mean, what, what,” that blond head irritatedly shook, a hand lifted, frustrated, “what were you doing, how were you, it’s been, forever, and not a fucking word, but, but, here you are now, back, again, finally, so, so,” whoops and cheers from the crowd at the bar, intent on a baseball game on the television above, “where were you?” says Kirsten. “Where have you been?”
“Well,” says Jo, sitting back, “like I said. Portland. Had an apartment downtown, and then I got a, a,” lifting her tumbler, “roommate,” she says, “we shared a really nice little place in Southeast. Had a couple jobs, made some friends,” she sips, “what’s to tell?” Her saggy, short-sleeved shirt buttoned up to a collar that’s the same royal blue as the palm’s width placket, paneled to either side with paler cornflower. “I mean, you were setting up to be a hotshot lawyer, how’s that working out.”
“Delay is not defeat,” says Kirsten, and the woman beside her snorts. “Pre-law takes time, and money. But U of O is a very prestigious, a lot of judges came up out of U of O, okay? So–”
“Go Ducks,” says the woman beside her, a wry twist to her smile, top locks of her black hair tied back in a single thin knot, but otherwise hung loose. Her T-shirt, green, says H&R Stables in faded blue. “I’m just working my way through Carlson,” she says. “Once a horse girl,” lifting her glass to sip through a gleaming silver straw.
“Yeah?” says Jo. “Gary still there? You could tell him I said hi, but, I don’t know if he’d remember me, it was only for a couple of summers,” but “That was high school,” Kirsten’s saying, “and we aren’t talking about Bex, we’re talking about you, and we’re talking about Portland. What kind of jobs? Details, Joliet. Details make a story sing.”
“Well, first,” says Jo, “I was, I called people, on the phone, and asked them, you know, if they liked stuff. Market research,” she says, quickly, “not telemarketing. Not sales. But then I, ah. Found, something else. Sort of, ah. Middle-management type of deal. A couple-dozen direct, what do they call it, reports. It was,” she shrugs, “challenging. But I had to quit. So,” spreading her hands, “here I am.”
“Managing, ah, retail?” says the black-haired woman, probing. “Fast food?”
“Oh my God!” erupts Kirsten, “fast food! What was it, Burgerville? Louisiana Kitchen? Dave’s Hot Chicken? What!”
Jo lifts her tumbler from the table, drinks off what’s left, sets it back down with an icy chime. “I,” she says, “was a shot-caller. We ran a drug so obscure they hadn’t figured out how to make it illegal yet.”
Kirsten, frowning, looks to Bex there beside her, “Wait,” she says, but then, “right,” and a shake of her head, turning back to Jo, “as if.” Jo’s lifting a hand, slowly, palm forward, fingers up, scout’s honor, “For the Queen of Portland’s underworld,” she says.
“Queen,” says Bex.
“I was also her button man,” says Jo. “Woman. Person. Whatever.”
“Button man?” says Kirsten, and “Hitman,” says Bex, leaned toward her, and Kirsten stifles a scoffing guffaw. “Okay,” she says, “so,” gold thread shining about her neck, her polo shirt a charcoal grey, “killer,” she says, “what’s your body count. How many you murked.”
“Sixteen,” says Jo.
Kirsten blinks. Bex, rolling her eyes, looks away, turning back as Jo’s shoulders start to shake, the grim thin line of her lips curl into a smirk, laughter leaks from her eyes, a snort of her own, and “Aw, geeze,” says Bex. “Fuck you, Jo.”
“Maybe later,” a scrape, Jo’s pushing back her chair, lifting her glass as she gets to her feet but, eyeing the ice that’s left, thumps it back to the table, “I’ll be back,” she says, and squeezes through the space between their table and the next too close beside, out in the middle of the floor, the couple sat there, poking at plates of popcorn chicken and tempura’d zucchini batons. Something of interest happens in the game on the television, and the crowd’s ebulliently cheerful.
Two sinks in an alcove beneath a mirror, white tiles, beige paint, chrome trim tinted gold in the reflection, despite the fluorescent light. Water crashes in the one basin, interrupted by her hands beneath the faucet cupped, lifted to splash, and again, reaching to yank, dripping silence. Straightening, looking, up. Those eyes, the color of mud. That nose. Her hair, she shoves it back, translucent, on the brink of any possible shade. Her shirt. A hand to her breast. The collar and the palm’s width placket, the cuffs of those short sleeves, all of a dull but warmly orange, the loosely sagging panels and those tails a creamy eggshell. “Stop it,” she whispers, to herself, her reflection, her hand pressed tightly enough to crumple and twist the fabric.
There he is, in the tightly brief hall when she steps out, loose poplin shirt in a vibrant madras untucked, only a couple-three buttons done up, dirty blond hair just long enough to manage unruly, it’s been a few days since he’s shaved those cheeks, “oh,” he says, “sorry,” pressed back against the wall to make some room, but Jo, a moment, and Jo steps closer, close, “I,” he says, shifting to one side, he’s smiling, not so much trying to get out of her way as to make his own, but she presses even more closely, and looks from his eyes, to his mouth, and back again, “do I,” he says, but he shakes his head, but he smiles, “know? You?” and the slightest shake of Jo’s head in return. She’s looking to his lips again, she’s lifted her chin, tipped back her head, he’s still smiling, he’s stopped sidling, his one hand finds her shoulder, his other her hip, he looks to her lips parted, smiling, closer, to her eyes, the lids of them drifting shut, she’s smiling, but all in a quiet breathy rush she says, “Get me the fuck out of here,” and kisses him, hard.
“Okay, Let’s talk about Magic,” written by Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power, ©2008. “Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl,” written mostly by Emily Haines, ©2002. “The Great Deceiver,” written by Richard Palmer-James, Robert Fripp, and John Wetton, ©1974. “Nardis,” written by Miles Davis, ©1958. The SCP Foundation has been associated with the SCP Wiki since 2008.
