Radiomen (12 page)

And I was right. There was a letter inside, typed on the same heavy, ivory-colored stock, but I had to read it twice to grasp what it said because the message was so . . . well, bizarre. Crazy. I mean, the language wasn’t crazy—just the opposite; it was clipped, precise and to the point—but the message was decidedly outrageous. It was from a law firm called Robinson and Reynolds and the letter was signed by someone named Henry Robinson, Esq., writing in his capacity as counsel for Raymond Gilmartin, who was referred to as the “Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center of the Blue Awareness.” After imparting this information, the letter went on to say that it had recently come to the attention of Mr. Gilmartin that I was in possession of a Blue Box. Blue Boxes, Henry Robinson, Esq., stated, were religious, i.e., “devotional” items sacred to the Blue Awareness and, as such, should be returned to the church, specifically to Mr. Gilmartin, who in the second reference to his exalted personage, was described as the “paramount ecclesiastical authority” of the Blue Awareness. This return of said devotional item should be carried out, stated Mr. Robinson, “forthwith.”

The letter seemed so ridiculous to me that my first reaction was just to stuff it in the garbage and forget about it. To begin with, what I had was not really a Blue Box. Further, what were they going to do if I did not—
forthwith
—get in touch with Mr. Robinson and arrange for the handover of this sacred item? That is, if I could even find it.

I got up off the couch and went into my bedroom, where I rummaged around in my closet for a while. Somewhere in the back, I found what I was looking for: a battered old valise with leather straps that had once belonged to my father. Inside were the few things I always wanted to keep, but had no real use for, including some costume jewelry of my mother’s, a couple of photo albums, and assorted other mementos—including the “toy” that I had taken from Avi’s apartment after he died. The supposed Blue Box. Since I had never explained to Ravenette how I happened to have this device—and since she was obviously the person who had reported to the Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center of the Blue Awareness, and/or his representatives, that I had a Blue Box—she must have really believed the accusation she’d leveled at me: that I had somehow stolen the thing or otherwise acquired it in some devious manner. I still didn’t think it was any of her business, but I also had the feeling that the only way I was going to stop her and the chairman from hounding me about this was to write back to Mr. Robinson and explain to him that I was not in possession of a sacred religious object but rather, as I now knew, a simple electronic device that my uncle had built himself.

Even so, I expected to be obsessing about the attorney’s letter for the rest of the night, which was going to make it even more difficult for me to unwind. But that turned out not to be the case. Having come to the decision to write back and, essentially, just say
fuck off
(actually, to say that for the second time in one day, which might have been a personal record, but maybe not) made me feel a lot better than I had since I’d left Jack’s studio. I took myself off to bed and slept soundly until late the next morning.

And when I woke up, I had what I thought was a great idea: instead of writing back to the Blue Awareness attorney myself, why didn’t I get my own attorney to send an equally snotty letter to Mr. Robinson, Esq.? That would certainly help me feel a lot less like I was just letting myself be victimized by all these crazy people. And I knew just where to find an attorney without too much trouble; every day, as I rode the bus to the airport, I passed a strip mall where there was a storefront lawyer’s office. There was a sign in the window advertising the fact that the attorney, whose name I couldn’t recall at the moment, was an immigration specialist, but I imagined that even so, I could get him to write a letter for me. I already knew what I wanted to say; I just wanted the message to come from someone who could also put “Esq.” after his name.

I looked up the attorney online and found that his name was Victor Haberman. I called, explained what I needed to the receptionist (saying I wanted to respond to a letter I’d received about the disputed ownership of a piece of property) and was told that, indeed, Mr. Haberman could help me with that. I made an appointment for the following afternoon.

The next day, I left earlier than usual and rode the bus only as far as the strip mall. Though the weather was milder than it had been for weeks, the lawyer’s office was close enough to the airport for even light gusts of wind to bring with them the strong odor of jet fuel. Still, there was enough sunshine to suggest that maybe the season was finally going to change itself from winter to spring. A clump of bushes bordering the parking area outside the storefronts was beginning to display some ragged greenery and it felt good to be able to shrug off my jacket as I crossed the parking lot without feeling like I was going to freeze.

Inside, I gave my name to the receptionist, a bored-looking young woman sitting at a metal desk with nothing on it but a calendar, a phone and a computer that she stared at once in a while, tapping a few keys with a decided lack of enthusiasm. I settled myself into a chair and, since there wasn’t a magazine or newspaper around to read, passed the time watching the sunlight and shadows drift across the parking lot that divided the strip mall from the highway beyond.

After a while, the phone on the receptionist’s desk buzzed. Without even answering it, she pointed me toward a door at the end of a short hallway behind where she was seated and told me that Mr. Haberman was now ready to see me.

Victor Haberman turned out to be a slightly overfed middle-aged man with a very businesslike air about him. However, in contrast to his receptionist’s barren terrain, Mr. Haberman’s office was something of an organized mess: there were papers everywhere—on his desk, in piles on the floor, in boxes on the sagging couch shoved up against a wall. It occurred to me that perhaps people just got off the airplanes landing half a mile away and showed up in Haberman’s office asking for help with their immigration status, and that all these papers were really piles of problems and woe.

Haberman shook my hand and then fitted himself into a big, tired-looking leather chair waiting for him behind his desk. I sat opposite him, facing a window that framed a view of the highway. From this vantage point the sky looked white-washed; in the distance, I could see the control tower at the airport, a pale monolith that had the misleading appearance of being empty, abandoned.

“So,” Haberman said, folding his hands in front of him on the desk, “what can I do for you? You said something about a property dispute? That’s really not my field but if it’s a straightforward issue . . .”

“It is,” I interrupted. “At least, I think so. It’s not really about property—I mean, not land or anything like that. It’s about an electrical device my uncle built.”

Hearing that, Mr. Haberman looked interested; maybe he welcomed a change from his usual cases. He stood up, took off his jacket, and draped it across the back of his chair. When he was seated again, he leaned forward and said, “What kind of device?”

“Have you ever heard of the Blue Awareness?” I asked him.

“It’s that celebrity religion, right?” Since I’d walked into his office, the attorney had kept a dour expression on his face that signaled he was a serious man doing serious work, but now, he almost smiled. “My daughter watches those entertainment news shows,” he explained.

I said yes, and added what I knew that was relevant. “As part of the way you advance through the levels of their religion, you go through a process they call scanning, which involves being hooked up to a contraption—a Blue Box is the name they use—that supposedly measures the resistance emanating from your body when you discuss experiences in your past. The memories of those experiences are called engrams. Anyway, my uncle built one of these devices. Now, an attorney for the Blue Awareness wants me to turn it over to them.”

I showed Haberman the letter and, after he’d had a chance to read it, explained as much as I thought would be helpful, including how Avi had built the box as evidence for an FDA lawsuit. “I can’t imagine why I would have to give it to them when it never belonged to them in the first place.”

“Is your uncle still living?” Haberman asked.

“No,” I told him.

“But you have the box?”

“I do. I’ve had it for years—since he died.”

“Do you have any kind of proof that he built the device and didn’t somehow acquire it from these people? Something relating to the FDA lawsuit, for example? That material should be part of the public record.”

I thought immediately of Jack’s thick file. I had no doubt that the kind of documents Haberman was asking for were in there somewhere. Still, I wasn’t eager to get back in touch with Jack Shepherd right now.

“I know who probably has those kinds of documents,” I told the attorney. “But is it really necessary for me to get them?”

“Is that going to be a problem?” Haberman asked, sounding a little suspicious.

“I’d have to talk to . . . a friend of mine,” I explained. “He has a bunch of stuff he obtained through a Freedom of Information Act inquiry.”

“Really?” Haberman said. “The Freedom of Information Act?” He picked up the letter again and studied it for a moment, as if it might have contained some hidden meaning he’d missed the first time he read it. “It’s hard to imagine that ownership of this thing is such an issue. But I suppose if they view it as some sort of religious object . . .”

“There is one thing that might help. The box I have was constructed from parts made by a company that used to manufacture kits to build radios and equipment related to radio broadcasting. The parts are clearly marked with the company name.”

“I don’t think that’s evidence enough to support your claim that it never belonged to anyone else—anyone outside your family. It could have been a prototype, for example. Or built by a member of the group for the purpose they state in their letter—a religious purpose. The problem is that you can’t prove how it came into your possession.” He frowned again. “It would be best if you could get me the backup material, and then I’ll respond to them on your behalf. I’ll need a small retainer up front.”

He wanted $150. Since I’d expected to have to pay something, I’d brought my checkbook with me. I wasn’t happy about having to spend so much money—including, he told me, another $150 once our business was concluded—but I wanted this issue dealt with and out of my life.

I left Haberman with the idea, not a promise, that I’d get the papers he wanted. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to make myself call Jack. I knew that I didn’t want to, but was debating with myself whether I should or not. It would mean telling him about this latest chapter in my unexpected and—well, bizarre, what other word was there for it?—run-in with the Blue Awareness. So far, all Jack had done was get me even more involved with them by pushing me to see Ravenette. Even if he couldn’t have foreseen the consequences, I blamed him for the crap I was dealing with now. On the other hand, of course, was Haberman’s insistence that he needed copies of the documents Jack had. As I waited outside for the next bus to come by, all I could think was
shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

That night, at The Endless Weekend, the waitress I was working with kept disappearing into the back to take calls from her boyfriend, which left me busier than I should have been. I didn’t mind it all that much, though, because running back and forth between the bar and the tables kept me too occupied with keeping orders straight and customers’ glasses full to obsess over what I should do. But some part of my mind must have been debating the question, because when the waitress finally decided to get back to work and try to earn some tips, I took a break to make a phone call of my own—one I would have bet another $150 that I would have ended up deciding not to. But I had come up with a plan.

Unfortunately, my plan—which was to ask for the copies but not exactly tell Jack why—had a very brief life span. I called him at midnight, when the various radio networks that syndicated his show took over the airwaves for about eight minutes for a news and weather update. I figured that would naturally limit our conversation. So, without mentioning anything about how unpleasantly our last meeting had ended, I simply asked him if he could fax me copies of the documents relating to my uncle’s role in the FDA lawsuit.

“Why?” Jack asked.

“Because I’d like to have them.”

“Why?” Jack asked again.

“Because I think it would be interesting to read them. Because I’d like to keep them with the Blue Box—I mean, the Wheatstone Bridge—I have. As a kind of record of Avi’s work.”

“Really?” Jack said.

“Really,” I replied.

“You know what?” Jack said. “I don’t think I believe you. From what you’ve told me, you’ve managed to get through your entire adult life without being interested in your uncle’s work. And now all of a sudden, you want to compile some sort of record about this particular aspect of it? Why? What’s going on?”

Even though I was not being honest about my motives, I was taken aback by what Jack had just said. He made it sound like I had no regard for Avi at all, which wasn’t true. Still, it made me feel bad—or maybe guilty. It was my father’s choice to more or less sever his ties with his brother, not mine. When I was a teenager, I could have made the effort to get back in touch with him again, but I had been too preoccupied with my own problems to even think of that. It was something to regret.

I must have fallen silent for a moment, because the next thing I heard from Jack was a sharp question. “Are you still there?”

“Can you just please let me have copies of the papers?” I asked. “I saw a fax machine in your office and we have one here, too. I’ll give you the number. Just send them over to me, okay?”

Maybe I sounded upset enough to make Jack decide to stop questioning me—or it could have just been the fact that the news broadcasts were about to come to an end and he had to get back on the air. “All right,” he said. “I’ll fax them over later. But if something’s happened . . . has Ravenette gotten in touch with you again?”