016 - Sixteen

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static] 

Breaker, breaker, this is Whiskey, once again crossing a state line. 

Let’s see, in three weeks, I’ve been to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois—briefly—West Virginia, Virginia, and now back through both those states to Kentucky. 

[click, static]

That’s not actually that many places for three weeks. I guess I’ve been doing a lot of aimless driving. 

Aimless is probably not a bad way to describe my whole life, if I’m honest. I never had any kind of plan. That wasn’t my job. Peter was always the brains of the operation, the planning guy. I worked with other guys leading the charge before, but he was always my favorite. 

[click, static]

Hear that Petey? You were my favorite. 

[click, static]

He probably wouldn’t care. He definitely hated being called Petey. But he otherwise didn’t care all that much what people thought of him as long as they got the job done. 

I don’t know if I should be thinking of him in past tense. But what other information do I have to go on? He wasn’t headed anywhere good the last time I saw him and I doubt he got lucky like Harry and I did…

[click, static]

Jesus, not that we were lucky. It was…horrible, one of the worst—

[click, static]

(clears throat)

In some ways that is just part of life, isn’t it? Losing track of where someone is, if they’re even still alive. The older you get, the more people you have in your past. And I don’t even mean strangers—I’m talking about close friends, long time colleagues, exes. It’s not like you can subscribe to a magazine called “Everyone you’ve ever cared about! Where are they now?”

[click, static]

Like my best friend when I was a kid — Mildred Wilcox. Millie and I were thick as thieves from the time we were seven years old until we were fifteen and I left home. She was everything to me—my confidant, my partner in crime, my…sister. And I haven’t spoken to her in nearly twenty years. 

We kept in touch a little after I first left home—I’d send her letters and postcards from the places I went. But then she went to college and her family moved addresses or something, because all my letters came back to me, with “wrong address” stamps all over them. And I never had a reliable address to receive mail—not until I got my act together and at least got myself a PO Box, so we just…lost each other. I never got the phone number for her dorm and half the time I didn’t even have a phone myself…

So we went from two people who were the closest of friends, to two people who tried to keep in touch as best they could to…never speaking again. 

I don’t even remember the last time I talked to her. It wouldn’t have stood out as remarkable at the time because I’d had no idea it would be the last time. 

[click, static]

Did people know? That they were talking to their loved ones for the last time? Was it sudden or slow? Harry and I…we didn’t see anything, we didn’t hear anything. We didn’t know. We didn’t know there was anything to know until it was too late. What happened had already come to pass and hadn’t left enough evidence behind for us to put the pieces together. 

Six months we laid low, had no contact with anyone. I didn’t know it was the last time then either. If I had, I think I would’ve risked it. Would’ve risked being caught just so I could have a conversation with a stranger one more time. Even if it was just to say goodbye. 

Did anyone get a chance to say goodbye?

[click, static]

[beeps]

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