Janie Johnson - Voice On The Radio Part 2

Brian Spring and his mother were still at Price Club. Mom's workdays were long, and by the time dinner was over, and homework supervised, and she could think of shopping, it was always late. In their new Dodge Caravan, they had headed out to stockpile food and drink and plastic bags and detergents.

When the twins were little (actually, a year ago), both Brendan and Brian loved shopping days. The huge warehouse was as awesome as an airplane hangar, with checkouts like tollbooths. You bought vast quant.i.ties of food-a case of hot dogs, econopacks of towels, a gallon of Wesson Oil.

Now Brendan scorned shopping. Brendan had better things to do. Along with the soccer team, he'd added weight lifting and swimming, so that he could become one of those guys who are scary before they're even out of junior high. He was planning to shave his head and get a tattoo.

For thirteen years the two boys had been sealed up like an envelope. They had lived in synchrony, without effort or bickering.

But now Brendan was a sports star and Brian hadn't even made the team. Brendan was quick to accuse people, including his twin, of being a girl. There was nothing worse than somebody who threw like a girl, or ran like a girl. When Mom asked who wanted to go shopping, Brendan said, "Shopping! That's for girls." He gave Brian his look of contempt reserved for people who were girls.

Jodie also refused to go shopping. She had college catalogs to study.

So Brian had to go because his mother looked lost.

It was during shopping that they had lost Janie all those years ago. Whenever she took the remaining four children shopping, their mother was a dog trainer, her children on mental and eyeball leashes. You did not scout out a different display, because kidnappers might lurk only an aisle away.

But they were too old for that now. If somebody rotten appeared~ they'd just whap the kidnapper with a gallon of applesauce.

Now Mom was the one who was lost. Mom was trying to get her bearings in a world that had changed as much for her as school had changed for Brian.

School this fall had ended Brian's twinny life.

Since he and Brendan were reflections of each other, Brian had studied and read not one minute more than his twin, which was pretty much zero minutes. ~ On his own in a new school, and on his own in the huge, new house, with a private room for the first time in his life, Brian found out that he and Brendan were twins only on the surface. While Brendan was off being a star, Brian found himself in an American history cla.s.s with the best teacher he had ever had: the only teacher to whom he had ever really paid attention.

He loved the conquistadors, the explorers of the Northwest Pa.s.sage, the frontiersmen, the Indians who fought back.

Book bags were key.

People thought you were carrying extra sneakers. n.o.body, including your twin, suspected that you had library books. Brendan, who thought reading was for geeks who hit b.a.l.l.s like girls, did not know that his very own twin had fallen in love with information.

The Springs were not an academic family.

Mom and Dad expected their children to do well in school. Stephen did well because he wanted to get into a distant college. Jodie did well because she liked to come in first. Brendan did well because the school imposed standards on athletes.

Only Brian did well because he loved learning. I didn't know that before, he thought. It took a room to myself to find out what I love.

Whenever Stephen telephoned, Brian wanted to tell his big brother everything. But no useful sentences came out of his mouth. He said things like "Hey, Steve, how's Colorado? You climbed any mountains yet?"

Stephen-who had wanted so much to be a different person with a different family-would be happy for him. Stephen referred to his twin brothers as wasps. Friendly, but ready to sting if anybody interfered with their twinny lives. Brian wanted to tell Stephen that he didn't have a twinny life anymore: He missed it terribly, it hurt him like knives, and yet he was glad it was gone. Like Janie, he thought.

But he told Stephen nothing, and in return Stephen told him nothing, and Brian thought: No fair.

Mom piloted an immense shopping cart down wide aisles at Price Club. It was shrink-wrap heaven. Brian wished he had invented shrink wrap. Toothpaste, tuna fish, paint cans-all secured with plastic wrap so strong it might have been fending off chunks of s.p.a.ce debris.

And the new house had acres of storage, so n.o.body had to surrender precious closet s.p.a.ce to ten-packs of paper towels. Mom could buy meat lockers of hamburger, a dozen boxes of Cheerios.

Brian thought of early settlers planting a few grains of corn in a hill, a few seeds of squash to encircle them. He thought of little boys fending off crows and rabbits, of mothers drying and storing that grain, of long winters without enough to eat.

His mother heaved an immense strip of plastic-jacketed barbecued ribs into the cart. His mother seemed a complete stranger to him, just as his twin, now seemed a stranger. Like Janie, he thought again. I stand around watching strangers who are related to me. I love them, but who are they? And why?

His mother suddenly whipped around, eyes too wide, hands out.

"I'm here, Mom," he said rea.s.suringly. "I'm right behind you."

His mother tried to laugh. Tried to act casual.

"You don't have to stay with me, Br!. You can wander off and see what you turn up. Might be something special over in Hardware."

Brian's heart broke for his mother. All these years. of restrictions and rules, of tension and anxi ety: that iron grip she had kept on her children she could let go.

She knew that. But her body's reactions weren't trained to the new life yet.

It occurred to Brian that he and his twin had been pushed so hard into sports because a sport kept them in one place. When your children were at baseball practice, you knew where they were. You knew there was a coach keeping watch. You could breathe.

We're going to become the family we should have been, thought Brian.

A family that can let go, and have s.p.a.ce, and not whip around in stores, sick with fear.

Reeve felt as if he had reached another plane of living, the kind people talked about on the talk shows that weren't into s.e.x or violence. A plane of joy and light.

The mike was his; he was the mike.

The audience was his; he was theirs.

The milk carton became Janie's blanket. She used my penknife to slit it open, so she could flatten it out. She carried it under the clip in her blue-cloth three-ring binder. You know the kind. Where you write in ballpoint pert on the cover. After the milk carton, she was still my dizzy redhead, but dizzy meant stumbling and scared. If the milk carton was right, she had been kidnapped when she was three. Janie sort of moved deeper toward being a three-year-old, as that way, she could understand. Maybe even remember. It was just a matter of time before she started sucking her thumb. Meantime, a flattened milk carton from' Flower Dairy became her blankie.

Vinnie, Cal and Derek were motionless with listening.

"Well," said Reeve breezily, knowing the incredible pride that comes from owning an audience, "I really liked that number by Visionary a.s.sa.s.sins, didn't you? Hey, a.s.sa.s.sins! Revere is my dorm, too; come visit me. I've never met any a.s.sa.s.sins, let alone a.s.sa.s.sins with vision. Let's listen to another song from the a.s.sa.s.sins."

S S *.

The phone lit up at WSCK. Vinnie answered. Vinnie was a neoconservative who hated all ethnic groups, all causes and all man- and womankind. He made a perfect station manager, since he never worried about hurting anybody's feelings. Vinnie took four phone calls.

He looked happy, which was not like Vinnie.

Visionary a.s.sa.s.sins shrieked on, their lyrics grim and their chords threatening.

The phone lit up again and again.

Vinrjie said, "Reeve. The callers want more about Janie."

CHAPTER.

THREE.

All talk-ups were automatically recorded on a tape called the air check. It was a reel-to-reel tape, the big, old-fas.h.i.+oned kind you didn't think existed anymore.

Vinnie, Cal, Derek and Reeve played back Reeve's hour. With no music in between, it was much shorter than Reeve had expected.

His own voice sounded unfamiliar. He would not have known it was him. He felt uncomfortable, as if that voice were somebody else, using his words.

"You have a great radio voice," said Vinnie, who despised everybody and their voice. If Vinnie said Reeve had a great radio voice, it was true.

Reeve listened to his great radio voice saying that any minute now, Janie would start sucking her thumb.

Reeve had made that up.

It was a good line. Dramatic. But it wasn't true. Janie had not acted three. She had acted the way any stricken person would, trying to protect the parents she loved from the truth she feared.

Live, Reeve's words had felt quite literally airy. The airwaves were his; and the power and the voice were his also.

But now the words were not air. They were per- manent. They were, like the name of the station, SCK.

For a inoment Janie was there with him, in the comfort posture she liked, tight against his chest, her eyes closed inside his hug.

What would she think of this broadcast?

He felt as if air had entered his gut, not his lungs. It was a sick floater feeling, like a drowning person.

Oh, well, he thought, she'll never know. Next time I'll talk about baseball. I've followed the Red Sox my whole life, and this year they actually might not screw up, so there's lots to talk about.

Vinnie said, "When it sounded as if you were finished talking, Reeve, 'we got thirty-nine calls wanting more about Janie!" Vinnie slammed his fist against a flimsy desk. A row of ca.s.settes toppled. High numbers made him joyful. "It's only your first night!"

Which certainly implied Reeve would get a second night.

A CD by the Fog was coming to a close. Derek Himself signaled for silence. Vinnie, Cal and Reeve moved into the hall so that they could talk. Reeve watched Derek through the gla.s.s walls.

Deejays adjusted the mike every time they spoke. The need to touch the mike and be sure of it was strong. Derek actually launched his body with each sentence; a tiny dive into the deep, cold waters of an audience. Derek could not sit when he was talking. Nervous energy kept him on his feet. Vivid expressions crossed his face, as if the audience were in the room.

An hour ago, Reeve had hated Derek. Now he watched avidly, drinking up the techniques of someone who'd been doing this for a long time.

"Okay, now, tomorrow night, Reeve," said Vinnie, "same format. A little on Janie, some music, another taste of Janie."

"Or do you think," said Cal seriously, "that he should just be on two nights a week? Say, Tuesday, Thursday. We don't want the audience to overdose."

This is me they're talking about, thought Reeve.

"Kind of save it," Vinnie said, nodding, "keep 'em coming back."

I don't belong at three A.M. I'm prime-time.

The room where Derek was now Himself had been designed for quiet and calm: soft gray carpet coated not just the floors, but also the walls. You could not write on those walls, but you could pin. The wall carpet was carpeted itself with concert posters and sick jokes and photographs of those immortal jocks who had been suspended for foul language or disgusting suggestions.

Everybody wanted to get suspended at least once.

Reeve thought of the suspension Janie Johnson would give him if she knew about this. Janie was a private person. Many a counselor, social worker or friend had expected to gain Janie's trust, and had failed. "No," he said awkwardly, "I'd better not do it again. Thanks for giving me a chance, it was fun."

"What do you mean-it was fun? It was brilliant," said Vinnie. "Reeve, this is the break we need. I could get a real job if I turn this pathetic, worthless college station into something. Thirty- nine calls? And they weren't nut cases. They were listeners." He said the word listener reverently, because listeners were precious. "You'll do another janie tomorrow night." Vinnie said this as if it were a new noun: an object; a janie.

"I don't think Janie would like it," said Reeve.

"You didn't even change her name to protect the innocent?" said Cal. "Some boyfriend. Listen, Reeve, you got style. Style is rare. You been on the air once and already people recognize your 'style and they're calling in for more."

The word style hung nicely, like great clothes.

"How many people could start out 'Once upon a time' and make it work?" said Vinnie. "You had great timing. The way you segued into Visionary a.s.sa.s.sins-the way you slowed down your speech at the creepy parts-you're a natural, Reeve."

I'm a natural, thought Reeve.

Derek Himself put on a CD, turned off the mike and sagged back into his everyday person. Vinnie, Cal and Reeve entered the broadcast room again. Derek scribbled on the playlist taped above the control board, inserted a CD for the next song and checked to be sure he had it on the correct track.

"Come on," said Vinnie, laughing at Reeve in a good-friends, we're-all-in-this-together way, "we have a broadcast range measured in city blocks. She's not gonna hear you down in Connecticut. She's still in high school! She's probably thinking about algebra or something. Do another one. Who's it gonna hurt?"

Reeve was surprised, almost embarra.s.sed, to find himself missing Janie painfully,, as if he'd got his fingers caught in a slammed door. It had al ways been Janie who closed her eyes, but now Reeve's closed, and she was there, complete with color and heat and voice.

The final chords on the tape disappeared like the back of a parade. Derek became Derek Himself again, jumping into the mike, eyebrows up and earrings swaying, punching On/Offs, sliding sliders, attacking the gooseneck of the mike.

winding up another loooooong commercial-free music sweep with Fast Liars!" shouted Derek Himself. "Singing their new recording! 'Choke Collar'!"

Reeve loved the names of bands. Visionary a.s.sa.s.sins. The Fog. Fast Liars. What a great world music was.

"I lied," said Derek Himself into the mike. "There is no band called Fast Liars and no song called 'Choke Collar.' But there would be if I could sing and write."

This is so much fun, thought Reeve. These guys are so great. This is why I came to college.

"No, what's really coming up," said Derek Himself, "is what's hot, what's big, what youuuuuuu've been on the phone demanding from us. Heeere's Reeve! With another janie."

"Shall we look for a six-bedroom house," Stephen's father had said uncertainly, when they'd started house-shopping the previous June, "so' if Janie ever comes back, she'll have her own room?"

How Stephen hated it when his father sounded uncertain. He hated it that they had given up calling her Jennie, and everybody had agreed that Jennie really had vanished more than a decade ago and his sister was really and truly Janie Johnson. He hated Jennie for having been kidnapped, for forcing him to lead the most protected life in New Jersey. "If she ever comes back," Stephen had said, "I'd rather she slept in a coffin."

"Shut up," Jodie had said. "If Janie ever comes back, Dad, she can share with me. You know she won't come for more than a weekend, and my new room has plenty of s.p.a.ce for two beds."

Jodie's old room had fit two beds, too, but Janie hadn't wanted hers.

The Springs had found and bought a house within days, because Mom had said, "I can't wait," and Stephen knew this was literally true. For twelve terrible years, Mom had waited for the return of her daughter, and she could not keep waiting. "What color do you want your room to be?" she had asked Stephen a dozen times.