The Signal Read online

  Grover smiled. “Rotgut, as usual.”

  “Laphroig, I presume,” the voice came back.

  “Lagavulin, actually, how about you,” Grover asked.

  “Some crap from Kentucky,” the voice said.

  Tom turned to Lincoln and gave him a quizzical look. Lincoln smiled and tilted his head for effect, “It’s whisky for the Whiskey Men.”

  Chapter 7

  Dante stood near his mixing set-up, a version of a song he was working on blaring from the speakers. His eyes were closed so as to not see the reaction from Kaylinne, who sat on the couch in the living room listening to her performance. If physical beauty mattered, Kaylinne is star material already, and it was clear that the song writers using her for her vocals were employing her for more than just her vocal talents, although Dante had never made a move on her.

  The song ended and Dante bent over the computer. “Before you say anything, I just want to say I think your vocals are perfect.”

  Kaylinne’s eyes bugged out and she leaned forward on the couch. “Scots Tape! It’s not perfect. You changed the levels all over the place, I sound like I’m singing on some sort of merry-go-round with my voice coming in and out like that.”

  Dante turned to face her and put his arms up. “KL, come on! It’s called “bounced sound” for crying out loud. That’s the concept I’m working on. It’s perfect,” Dante said, staring at Kaylinne for a few moments before weakening. “Well, almost, sure. It needs some work, yeah, but it’s almost perfect. I want your voice soaring in and out. It’s just missing something, some sort of sound I haven’t found, yet.”

  Kaylinne rolled her eyes. “What was that other stuff you mixed in real low? It sounded like somebody doing the alphabet or something.”

  Dante shrugged. “Its call signs for ham radio operators.”

  Kaylinne screwed up her face. “Ham radio call signs?”

  Dante nodded. “Yeah, guys out there using ham radios to talk to each other and shit like that. Just something I’m trying out. Might not make it to the final cut, though. You have to listen to a lot of boring crap to get a good snippet to mix into the background.”

  Dante turned and tapped a few keys on the computer keyboard, and a moment later the speakers played the beginning of a conversation.

  “This in uniform eight three oscar, howya doing hotel three?”

  “Doing fine, I got my daughter here right now and she’d like to say something,” Uniform three said. “Go ahead, honey.”

  Dante clicked on stop and looked at Kaylinne. “His daughter doesn’t say anything interesting, and the conversation goes on for like fifteen minutes.”

  “And you’re recording this why?” Kaylinne asked.

  “Because this stuff is out there, I guess. Just people talking into the air, and you can capture it. I dunno, just because it hasn’t been done before. You know, the sound of the planet, of people talking to people all over the world or just next door,” Dante said. “I’m thinking I’m going to sample commercial radio, television, anything I can grab from the air, anything that’s bouncing through the sky. And, then, I want to take all that sound and turn it into music. Not just by sampling it, but re-working it into music.”

  Dante stopped himself and noticed the clock on the wall. “Jeez, let’s get of here. It’s Saturday night and I don’t want to spend it all in here.”

  Kaylinne looked up, “Who’s spinning?”

  “firearm, why?”

  Kaylinne played dumb. “Just curious.”

  Dante softened. “He’s gonna play it for sure. It’s good. It’s gonna be fantastic. Come on, he’s not going to spin it until he knows you’re there.”

  Kaylinne shrugged, stood, and followed Dante to the door of the apartment, giving a last glance back at the radio equipment and shaking her head in disbelief at Dante’s most recent muse.

  Chapter 8

  Carla and Bill sat on their back deck, enjoying the early evening, cocktails sitting on the table between them. Bill maneuvered a cigar in his fingers, took a puff, and blew the smoke upward into the night air. He was glad his wife was back and life had returned to normal. He didn’t exactly hate the yearly week of “total dad 24/7” when he had to do everything for their three children, but it was always much more work than he anticipated. And, finding marijuana in Jenny’s bicycle saddle bag had only increased the difficulty level. Bill relaxed and took another puff.

  “You know, one of the things that gives me comfort in life is knowing that there’s some other guy out there my age drinking a single malt and smoking a cigar,” Bill said.

  Carla smiled wickedly. “Why? Because it somehow makes your smoking more acceptable in society?”

  “No,” Bill said too quickly, pausing to consider his cigar. “Well, maybe. I’ve never thought of it that way.

  “I mean it more as a universal constant: guys like me aren’t anomalies, we’re the norm. This is life. At the end of the day, on a perfectly normal Saturday evening like this one, part of the embroidery of life is unwinding with a drink and a cigar,” Bill continued. “I might not agree with his politics, his music sensibilities or his taste in fiction, but I’ll know one thing: he’s a normal guy. And we’ll just sit and chat about cigars and Scotch all night and agree on that.”

  “What if he drinks cheap blends and smokes flavored blunts?” Carla asked.

  Bill shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Boil it down; it’s the same thing, just an appreciation for it at a different level. Not a worse level, just different. You don’t have to be able to afford the finest to enjoy the situation, and the situations are the same.”

  Carla tilted her head up and looked into the night sky, glancing from star to star as they twinkled. “What about up there? Think there are people up there doing the same?”

  Bill looked up. “Sure. There’s probably a plane flying into L-A-X with a guy jonesing for the chance to light a cigar to go along with his mini-bottle of Dewar’s in his hotel room.”

  Carla turned in her chair and stared incredulously at her husband. “No. Not up ‘there,’ I mean way out there. Around one of those distant points of light. Do you think they have drinks and cigars and politics and all the other stuff we have down here?”

  “You know I do,” Bill said, grabbing his glass and walking to the railing of the deck. He leaned against it and looked up.

  “It’s a universal constant. Not Scotch. Not cigars. But this activity of actually enjoying life. Of living, of trying to send your kids off into life right,” Bill said. “If the people you’re looking for up there actually live any way we can imagine, then, yeah, some of them are sitting around their version of home, relaxing, and looking up into their night sky wondering the same thing.

  “I mean, you know this, life can’t be just this, just here. Even if there isn’t a god with a master plan, we can’t be the only ones. I don’t believe we are. It wouldn’t make sense.”

  Carla shrugged slightly and took a sip of her drink. “It doesn’t have to make sense, Bill,” Carla said softly. “There’s at least one possibility that we are the only intelligent, sentient species in the universe. We could be alone.”

  Carla looked up. “Right now, we are alone.”

  Bill took a deep puff on his cigar and held the smoke in his mouth a moment, felt the tingle of nicotine on his lips and cheeks, and exhaled slowly. He turned to Carla.

  “But you don’t really believe that possibility is the reality,” Bill said. “You can’t keep looking at millions of stars and really think there’s nothing else up there.”

  “Oh, really?” Carla said.

  “Yeah, Bill said, a trace of a smile on his lips. “Or you wouldn’t keep looking.”

  Chapter 9

  Peter Jenkins stepped out his apartment building and into the brisk morning air of his neighborhood. There was no traffic on the streets and the early foot traffic was limited to joggers, dog walkers and those unfortunate enough to have to make their way to work on Sunday morning. Peter walke
d to the pile of newspapers dumped at the building’s entrance and picked one up, tucked it under his arm and began his way down the sidewalk to the nearby coffee bar.

  He pushed through the doors of The Daily Dose and swam in the aroma of coffee, the scent Peter felt most defined the goodness of the planet. It was rich, intoxicating and luxuriant, a smell that had taste and a tactile element, a smell that worked it’s way over the pores of your body just standing in it. Whoever decided to turn a coffee bean into a beverage however-many-thousands of years ago was owed a debt all subsequent generations would never be able to repay, and if all that could be done to immortalize that person was to create a lasting advertizing campaign image of Juan Valdez, well, that was good enough for Peter. At least people would know someone had come up with the idea.

  Peter walked up to the coffee bar and stood in line, looking up at the menu. He always got the same thing, so why he looked was always a mystery to him, though he often wondered when a new item might be put on it that he’d want to try. On the other side of the counter, Chloe took notice of him and moved toward him.

  “Hey, Peter, you’re back,” she said with a smile.

  “Yeah, a week, now,” Peter said.

  “A week? I haven’t seen you in here in almost a month,” Chloe said.

  Peter took no notice of this observation. “Been busy. No time to step out of the apartment. Woke up early and figured I’d come down with the laptop and paper and –“

  Chloe let a half-giggle out and waved her hand at him, “The usual, then?”

  Peter paused. “Uhh, yeah. You remember?”

  “Pete, you come in here every morning like clockwork and order the same thing. You think a couple of weeks off are going to make me forget?” Chloe asked.

  Peter was befuddled, not sure why – he checked her name tag – Chloe would have made a note of what he ordered, and how often. He made a vague sort of “yeah, sure” body language gesture to her and Chloe responded reassuringly with a head-bob.

  “Coming up,” Chloe said. “Go, sit, I’ll bring it to your table.”

  Peter was unsure what had just happened, but nodded and walked to a nearby table in the café. He sat down and booted up his laptop, checked the WiFi linkup, and logged onto the Internet.

  “So, any aliens out there?” Chloe said as she set down a large cup of coffee and a chocolate-chocolate chip muffin.

  “Hunh?”

  “Your trip,” Chloe said, straightening up.

  “Oh, no, nothing,” Peter said, trying to remember if he had told her something. “Another summer trip to the site and the aliens don’t bother to call. Typical.”

  “Do you really think they’re out there?” Chloe asked, leaning back a bit and trying to look non-threatening and interested in the answer.

  Peter took a sip of coffee and suddenly realized he was supposed to have something cool to say, that he was being flirted with – even if only for a better tip – by a cute girl. It was only measurable in microseconds, but Peter resorted to the only default position his memory had in store, which ended up as a mangled quote from the movie “Contact.”

  “Yeah,” Peter said. “What would be the point of the universe if we were the only ones here? That’s a waste of a lot of space.”

  Chloe tilted her head and laughed.

  Chapter 10

  Mary Gibson walked into the guest room of her house and looked at Tom, sleeping in the guest bed. She walked closer to him and smelled it – tobacco – emanating from his hair, his pile of clothes on the floor nearby, and wrinkled her nose in … distaste. She prodded Tom through the comforter.

  “Hey, Tommy-boy, time to get up. We have church in an hour,” Mary said, shaking Tom’s legs.

  Tom rolled over in bed and moaned softly. He opened his eyes. Closed them. Mary smiled.

  “You didn’t get drunk last night, did you?” Mary asked, her tone supporting and humorous, as if she had expected such an outcome, which she had.

  Tom moaned softly, again.

  “You shouldn’t have driven home, then,” Mary said.

  “Drunk?” Tom asked rhetorically.

  Mary didn’t say anything; she just sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed Tom’s legs.

  “For me … anymore … yes,” Tom said, his eyes closed. “According to the state, no. At least, I don’t think so.”

  Tom sat up in the bed and rolled over to where his legs dangled off the bed. Mary rubbed his back for a moment and then started stroking the back of his neck with her fingernails.

  “Why’d you sleep in here?” Mary asked.

  “Lincoln and the others were all smoking cigars and I didn’t want to crawl in bed and have you make me get out and take a shower,” Tom said, scratching his head. “Showering the smoke smell off would’ve been entirely out of the question last night.”

  “Hon, if I ever ask you to do something like that at that hour of the night, you just tell me to go back to sleep. I don’t want to become one of those kinds of naggy wives,” Mary said. “We both used to smoke, so it’s not like I don’t know the smell and, anyway, it’s not like you were smoking, right?”

  Tom waved his hand slightly. “No, no, not me. They offered, but, well, I’ve never smoked a cigar and I would’ve felt stupid pretending to know what I was doing.”

  Mary smiled. “Well, I guess you could have smoked a cigar if you needed to look cool in front of the guys.”

  Chapter 11

  Kendell and Dante walked down a city street on the way to work, their matching store uniforms giving nothing away as to the fiery musical creativity in their minds, which they were, at present, discussing.

  “Kaylinne’s ‘n my song went down like crazy last night,” Kendell said, amazed, still, at the dance floor response to his single.

  Dante grunted out a muted laugh. “I knew it would.”

  “It jumped the place like nothing before,” Kendell said.

  Dante shrugged. “I told you it was good, but would you listen to me?”

  Kendell angled his head at Dante. “I did listen to you; you’re the one who said to add the extra bass line.”

  “Worked, didn’t it?” Dante said.

  “Shit, yeah, Scots, and I’m glad for the input,” Kendell said as they walked past a Korean BBQ street vendor and Kendell stopped to order.

  After they had started walking, again, Kendell stopped walking in mid-bite and his shoulders sagged. “We’re going to be so screwed if we keep using her.”

  “Nah, man, if anything, she’s gonna open the door for us,” Dante said, patting Kendell on the back. “People love the way she sings. Like I keep saying, we keep using her, so we must know something’s good about her.”

  “Yeah, but the industry will just swoop in and take her,” Kendell said, tossing his empty stick into a nearby trash can. “They won’t care about us. I’m sure they have a thousand Puffy’s and Jay-Zs just sitting around. Who needs a Scots Tape or a fireARM?”

  Dante laughed. “Kaylinne does. She’s never going to forget us if she makes it, because we helped make her. I keep telling you that, fire, you have to have trust me. She doesn’t write her own songs, she doesn’t pick her own songs, she just sings whatever anybody like you and me can pay her to sing. I mean, hell, she even cuts songs with Peepster Pro, and that fool couldn’t cut a new version of Jingle Bells that would get kindergarten kids to dance.”

  Kendell laughed hard at the thought, remembering Christmas from two years past. “Damn, I almost forgot what you and Kaylinne did with that song a couple of years ago. I thought for sure that was going to break you out, it was so damn original. The dance floor was so packed almost nobody could dance to the song.”

  “Yeah,” Dante said, thinking back.

  “You know, Scots, Kaylinne told me last night you were using a ham radio to make music. What’s that about?” Kendell asked. “Don’t you need a license to use a ham radio?”

  “Not to listen,” Dante said. “At least, I don’t think so. I don’t have
a mic for it, and I’m not broadcasting, so what’s the crime in listening?”

  “Yeah, but what’s the point?”

  Dante stopped and turned to Kendell. “Fire, its sound. Bounced sound. That’s the point. There are people out there sending out signals in the blind, hoping anyone will listen, and I’m listening.”

  “Okay, but does it make good music?” Kendell asked.

  Dante paused. “No, not most of it. But if you listen long enough, you hear stuff that’s real, authentic, and potentially musical. And you can use that,” Dante said. “Damn, Kendell, that’s the thing that really gets me.”

  “What?”

  “That everything around us is making sound, but we can’t hear most of it. I’m walking and my shoes make noise, my heart’s beating and that makes noise, probably the nerves in my brain make some sort of noise doing whatever the hell it is they do, I don’t know, like maybe when my stomach tells my brain I’m hungry, the nerves in my brain make a noise while moving that information.”

  Kendell laughed. “Scots, that’s your stomach grumbling. Anyone close enough to you can hear that.”

  Dante smiled. “Yeah, right. Not what I mean, though. I mean, the entire world is making noise right now,” Dante said, waving his arms out at the cityscape around them. “And if you know what to look for, you can turn it into something other than noise, static, and garbage. I guess that’s what I’m trying to do now: turn all that into something that makes sense.

  “But the major part of that is the intentional sound we create and send out on airwaves every day. I mean, you can’t hear it without a radio or a TV, but it’s there, right now, burning through the atmosphere. One moment, quiet, turn on the radio, you got sound.

  “I want to take all that sound traveling around and turn it into something nobody’s ever heard before,” Dante said. “Shit, fire, do you know the sun makes sound?”

  Dante and Kendell reached the front doors to the music shop and stopped. Kendell turned to Dante.

  “That’s gonna be one hell of a bill for sampling tracks, Scots, or a helluva lot of lawsuits,” Kendell said.