Casual Listener (4:00)
Here instead of there. Written by Elizabeth Behr Narrated by Jess Lewis Waking up sick in a punk house shouldn't be a surprise to anybody, so I don't know why it always came as a surprise to me. My head throbbed so bad I couldn't tell the difference between the hangover, my sinus headache, and Kai pummeling the drum set over in the yacht hangar. The Kai part also wasn't unusual. The Crash's drummer is our early riser. That's the devil's pre hell punishment on us all. But even hungover, I never woke up with a head this full of pain. Henry must have seen me twitch because five people racked out between me and the galley all said woof in a row. Suddenly my arms were full of wriggling beagle mutton stank. At least the sovsit types who left this pod a wreck before we squatted in it didn't leave it full of fleas as well as trash and feces. I choose to believe that the feces were from a dog rather than a toddler, and there aren't any ticks this far from shore. I thought about pushing Henry away, rummaging in my pack for some tramadol, and going back to sleep. But Henry was standing on my bladder and I heard clattering in the kitchen. If I was lucky, Miriam was up and there was about to be food happening. If I was unlucky. One of the dirtbag thugs dossing with us was raiding the last of the veggie chili without having kicked in anything to support the house. Not all the dirtbag fucks I know, just the 10% that get my grind on the regular. Either way, I had to piss. I staggered to my feet, guts playing the marimba room spinning. I managed to roll up my bag and pad without barfing. I needed to get some protein and Electrolyte on board pronto. The floor space was wall to wall. Dirtbags snoring, drooling generally rendering the place impassable. Crashpod living up to its house name as usual. Crashpod. The dumbest available name. But I wasn't going to tell Miriam that. It was on the long list of things I was never going to tell Miriam, such as looking at her made my chest ache. Henry did his best impersonation of a minefield as I wove and stumbled to the head. I managed to only step on one dude's elbow and he was too passed out to care. Henry stepped on all of them indiscriminately. Got one guy in the balls. Should probably trim his toenails. Oh well. The head was a pest hole and I was glad I didn't eat to take a dump. I stood as far from the bowl as possible while doing what I had to do. At least my aim was better than most. Then I did what the last three people should have done and flushed. It was nearly too late. Sewage rose to the rim of the bowl. I was lunging for the valve to shut off the flow when some obstruction gave and the whole mess swirled down into the septic tank with a rancid bullet dodged. But for how long? Probably time to figure out how to get that pumped out. Which meant figuring out how to pay for getting it pumped out. Miriam would get mad if I just opened the valves and let all the shit dump into the sea, which is how the previous inhabitants had handled things. And I had 78 of a climate science degree to argue with the oppositional defiance that told me to do it. Anyway. So I washed my hands and dry swallowed that tramadol and some Pepcid too. Henry wagged his tail at me from the doorway. In my mind I could already hear the riot act Miriam was going to read us. At least the galley didn't smell like an orgy in the locker room of a sewage treatment plant. It smelled like vinegar and ginger, which suggested that Miriam was making tsukemono. A different organ did a backflip when I saw her. I bit my lip on a sigh. Wash your hands half, she said as I peeked over the threshold. I washed them in the bathroom. Sure, and then you touched the faucet and the door handle, didn't you? I left the door open. She sighed like a much larger dog than Henry. Henry huffed in appreciation, went to sit at her feet and beg for radish slices. That dog no loyalty. I looked in the head. This morning we are going to have A crash pot house meeting about that half. Wash your hands. Miriam has her own bedroom and her own en suite head since she's basically the den mother for everybody and also the best guitarist I know and she does most of the cooking. She earns her privacy. Also, there is only so much sharing she can tolerate even in a share house and none of us want her to leave. I wash my hands. What are you making? An end conversation is what I was making apparently. Brown rice in the rice cooker, daikon and sweet vinegar, pickled turnips and kombu. I thought kombu was Japanese, but what the fuck do I know? Maybe it grows in the Atlantic too. Maybe Miriam just picked some random edible algae off the stations and decided to call it kombu. I assume she knows what's edible anyway, she hasn't poisoned or dosed us yet. No, there was that mushroom incident, but that was on purpose. I would kill somebody for a chicken sandwich. Which is how I know Sator was wrong. Hell is a seabit full of vegan macrobiotic gluten free punks who unfortunately were the best band I've ever been part of. And also there was Miriam. At least the Crash weren't Straight Edge. Fuck, does Straight Edge even exist anymore? I met some straightedge hippies once and that was just weird. My eyeball throbbing intensified as from behind the inadequately soundproof hangar door Kai hit a crescendo. I leaned my butt on the counter edge, suffering too much to even take my usual pleasure in watching the swing of Miriam's black and acid purple hair or her efficient grace as she danced around the kitchen. She never tripped over Henry, no matter how hard he worked at being an obstacle. Can I have some? I'm starving. It'll be a couple hours before it's ready. Have some chili. I sighed and turned towards the fridge, which was probably worth more than some people's cars. It was big enough to hold food for 20 people, or at least two corpses. 3 if you used the freezer, but then you'd have to defrost it and get the body out again. My hand closed on the handle. I tugged. It didn't budge. I tugged harder. The whole gigantic restaurant sized edifice rocked on its little rubber feet. What the. Don't yank on that, Miriam said. You're gonna break it. Henry jumped up helpfully and patted with his paws against the scratched stainless finish. The screen on the front flashed. Lock engaged. Did you lock this? She had come over to stand next to me. I held my breath so I didn't Bump her by accident. She shook her head. Shit, I said. We must have gotten another push up date. She cocked her head and blinked at me with wide fringed eyes. What does that have to do with the fridge locking? It worked five minutes ago. Yeah. I sighed and pulled the kitchen console around. We kept it tucked up against the wall so drunk punks wouldn't snap it off the stand by leaning on it. Can you make some coffee? I probably have a half dozen bullshit glitches to fix. They want us to buy a new pod. A new what? It was a good thing my fingers knew their way around the keyboard because my vision was still a little swimmy. Hmm. I wondered if it was a migraine aura. I wasn't sure. I'd never had a migraine. C bit, I said tiredly. Thanks. You ought to buy a new c bit every 35 years or so. So they intentionally break the functionality. Existing one. Over time you think the thing is wearing out. So you buy a new one. Planned obsolescence. No right to repair. Well, that's some bullshit, maryam said. Like rent seeking, but worse. Subscription model housing, I agreed. She put the drop lid on top of her pickles and two canning weights on top of that. Jokes on them, though, since we don't pay for it in the first place. And you can hack it, right? The crash is no object. 775, but we do okay. Even so, punk bands can't usually afford their own seastead. Fortunately, anarchists are pretty good at building communities, and rich seasteading advocates are terrible at getting along with each other, especially when it involves deciding who's going to do the unpleasant job or pay to have them done. And you'd be shocked at what people with too much money will just up and walk away from if it's inconvenient. Maritime salvage laws still apply, or so Irwin, our rhythm guitarist and bunkhouse lawyer, says. I bet we'd lose if they took us to court, but nobody's showed up to evict us so far. Could I hack it through the pain? I determined the extent of the problem. My turn to sigh. Henry flopped down on my foot for a nap. My head throbbed harder. Is there anything not in the fridge that I can eat? I begged. You're winning. Caspian took the launch into town to dumpster dive. I guess they'll be back in a few hours. She sounded pissed and unhelpful. I didn't think she was pissed at me. I tried not to roll my eyes. Shelf stable. Tofu stays good. Or as good as it ever was for years past the sell by date and Irwin always wants to dumpster dive the health food store. I knew what we'd be eating for the next week, assuming we had any way to cook. Looked like most of the pod's appliances were fucked. Christ. I pressed the heels of my hand into my eyes. I need some electrolytes. I've got some limeade with coconut water, turmeric, honey, and cider vinegar. Also some cold coffee. I'll get the fridge working in a few minutes, I promised, just to keep the caffeine coming. The limeade was actually pretty good, and along with the room temperature coffee, it eased the pounding. With the hangover easing up and Kai taking a break from drum practice, I could tell how much of the remaining headache was sinus pressure. Sadly, a lot of it. I looked out the window, but the sky was cloudless except for a layer of stratocumulus undulatas. Narrow parallel stripes lit gold from beneath by a gently setting sun. The Fugs were waking up, finally dragging themselves out of their sleeping bags and into the galley in ones and twos. That let Miriam get most of the yelling out of her system. Oh my head. And gave her an excuse to assign them all housekeeping chores in advance of breakfast. This is a punk house, not a plague pit, she snarled at the last filthy underaged kid to drag herself out of her grimy dos kit. Communalism doesn't have to mean drowning in filth. It's a protest against bourgeoisie stanzas of cleanliness, the kid said haughtily, reaching across me for the coffee pot. I kept my eyes on the screen, my fingers on the keyboard. Miriam brushed her hand away. You're incubating versa. I refuse to let you trash this place worse than a bunch of neoliberals. You want to stay in how this house is run, you need to contribute. I don't want to live in filth, and the pod needs upkeep or it falls into the sea. That is non negotiable. The kid gaped at her. Wow. Miriam's eyes rolled so hard I almost heard them rattle. Go snake out the shower drain. Then you can have coffee. Not that we used the shower much. It was a saltwater shower, and it was just as easy to give yourself a horse bath with a rag when you started to itch and save the sticky skin. Some people didn't bother with the horse bath, but as Miriam said, their abscess is their problem. Ha, I said as the refrigerator emitted a satisfying click. And I'm in. Miriam lunged to yank the door open. You'll let the cold out, I said. It can make more cold. Will it stay unlocked until the next time they break it? I convinced the firmware it was still 2043. I won't be able to order groceries for us when we run low on caviar and smoked oysters. She snorted and pulled out the leftover chili. Unlike some people have you have earned breakfast. The chili was fine. One nice thing about chili, it's got so many spices in it it doesn't matter what you use as a base, it just tastes like chili. I miss the sour cream and cheese, though, and I had to hack the microwave before I could warm it up. Miriam saw me poking mournfully at the food with my spoon. With the exasperation of a mind reader, she said, you're the climate scientist. You of all people ought to be against eating animal products. I am, I assured her. But my taste buds are hypocrites anyway. I'm not a real climate scientist. I'm a washout. Acknowledging my pun was beneath her dignity. Go mope someplace that isn't my kitchen, she pointed out at the deck. I took my headache, my chili, my and a second glass of lime, ate and went. Henry, the household's only non vegan, stayed behind to beg Miriam for scraps. I would have to let him lick my bowl, too, and Miriam would have to contend with the doggy bean farts. I may be infatuated, but that doesn't stop me from being petty. For a while we had somebody crashing here with a foul mouthed parrot, a yellow fronted Amazon. Now there's an animal that really enjoys shitting all over everything. I dawdled over the chilly, looking out at that sunset, which now glittered vermilion and crimson off the facets of a flat, calm sea. A dozen other sea bits spread on an arc to either side of the crash pod. One or two had been completely abandoned. One still had the original inhabitant in residence, though he only came out on weekends, which is how we kept track of when the weekends were. Our nearest neighbor, Dr. X, was on her deck doing qigong in the ruddy light. I waved. She nodded. I pushed the last few mouthfoods of food around my bowl, feeling both overstuffed and vaguely unsatisfied. If anybody but Irwin and Caspian were doing the food run, there might be treats when the launch finished its 24mil round trip to shore and back again. But Erwin was a true believer, and the best I could hope for was overripe avocados whipped into a mousse with maple syrup and cocoa powder. It's better than it sounds, but it's not actually chocolate pudding. Maybe the next time we went in for a gig I could ditch everybody and get Popeyes. Whether it was a lack of drumming, the hydration, the tramadol, or the sea air, my pain was subsiding. Kai's a good drummer. Don't get me wrong, I'm probably the worst musician in the group. Fortunately, I'm also the bassist, and if I'm not nimble fingered, I have extremely solid rhythm. A punk band doesn't need to be fancy. The Crash wasn't fancy. Miriam and Caspian have picked the name over my protest. Too derivative, and I honestly thought it was just so we could call our house the Crash podcast. Even worse, Dr. X's wife brought her out a beer and they hugged briefly, leaning on each other and looking at the sunset. For a moment, I felt the peace of the evening. The air was buttery and still. It smelled of clean salt and pina colada, which probably meant one of the Fugs had spilled cheap coconut rum all over a deck chair. What is it with kids too young to drink legally in Malibu? The doc's wife went back inside. The doc wandered over to the rail with her beer and leaned on it. Hey, half. She yelled. Hey Doc. I yelled back. The doc is cool. She and her wife are out here past the 10 mile limit because they run a secret illegal reproductive health clinic out of the pod on their other side. Because I was looking at her and our weather station was in that direction, I noticed the orange light blinking on its panel. Oh, cheese nuts, I muttered. I put the chili I was never going to finish on a deck chair. Miriam would yell at me for wasting food, and Henry was still inside. But was it my fault if a girl stole it? While I was investigating a potentially serious warning light, my brain provided a brief, unlikely fantasy of me saving the day. Miriam hailing me as as a conquering hero, and the two of us consummating our long denied passions for one another and penning a platinum album together based on the emotional catharsis. I rolled my eyes and went to inspect the weather station. That must have been one hell of a firmware update. As expected, the thing was offline. Feeling pretty practiced by now, I performed my system clock trick. In a few minutes, the barometer, barometer and other ohmmeters were back online. Except something was still wrong because the barometer pressure was 940 milliliters, catastrophically low for a warm, mild summer evening. Center of a hurricane low in fact, possibly. Was it pulling data from 2043? Hey, Doc, I called. Is your fridge working? I think so, she answered. How come we got a push patch that fucked up half our devices? Oh, LCGL broke both our pods when we moved in. They're off the network entirely. Intelligent, considering what they did out here and how secret they needed to keep it. Smart houses spy on you, and it's not like the Coast Guard has ever respected civil rights or the 10 mile limit when they're in hot pursuit of whoever they consider criminals. Have you looked at your instruments today? I wouldn't know how to read them. She kicked the deck with a canvas sneaker. We have a weather app. Aren't we a little off grid for that to be viable? It's all satellites, right? Isn't it the same stuff? Shipping is on my face. Must have done a thing because she laughed. Oh, right, miriam said. You are nearly a meteorologist. You must be killing yourself not to lay some deep deep nerdery on me. Miriam should mind her own business. I felt bad as soon as I said it. Feeling bad made me want to bluster more. It was nobody's business why I was playing base and hacking firmware in a squat, why I was here instead of there. I knew enough about there to know which place I'd rather be. Doc was still looking at me, eyebrows raised. Amazing how well you can see somebody through dusk on water when your eyes have adapted. The air goes full of light like a held breath for an instant. Sorry, I said, stepping on all my adolescent impulses. Can I come look at your weather station? I expected her to say no, because I had just bitten her head off. Instead, she gave me one of those inscrutable pursed lip expressions middle aged people use when they're trying not to condescend in failing. Then she pushed the button to send the catwalk over. I re entered the galley sometime later. The nightly party must have gotten rolling again while I was outside. As soon as everybody decided they'd done barely enough housework to placate Miriam, I felt muffled, isolated behind a wall of dire news. I moved through the raucous crowd like a floating island of anxiety adrift in a sparkling, crashing sea. Mirrin wasn't in a galley. She wasn't in her bedroom. She was in the practice room and concert space, the old yacht hangar we'd floored over with salvaged plywood and absolutely no regard for building codes. With Kai tuning her guitar, they were laughing. The smiles fell off both their faces when they got a look at mine. I need to see you both outside right now. Kai got up from their stool. Without a word. Miriam put her axe back on the stand. They followed me out the double doors to the outside, and we all jumped the railing to reach the deck. The sun was just closing the curtains on its vanishing act. The sky was as bloody as a Nick Cave song. Pretty sunset, kai said, shaking back their dreads. Sailors delight. Yeah, I said about that, and I pulled out my phone and showed them the data I'd hacked out of Doc's weather app. The barometric pressure, the shift off of the prevailing winds. What does that mean? Asked Miriam. My voice shook. My hand shook. In the pit of my stomach, ice rattled like dice. We've got a big fucking problem. I switched images and showed them the satellite images from the weather service that I had cracked and illegally downloaded. Water vapor, visible light, infrared, then the weather radar, then the drone probe and buoy data. A propdagnagian swirl of clouds and moisture and heat with a glaring perfect eye, a spiral like Fibonacci's own gate to hell. That's Kasmir, I said. It's a Category 6 and it's going to hit us at about 3 o' clock this morning. But Kai pulled out their phone and looked at it, shook it like they could shake some sense into it and the missing notification out. Shouldn't there be a warning? Do you pay for a premium weather service? Kai stared like I'd grown an extra mouth and was talking out of it. Oh, what now? Michelson vs. State of Vermont, I said. The Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for the government to compete with private industry in providing any service such as transportation, health care, prison services, and weather alerts. Fuck, said Miriam. Somehow I managed not to put my arms around her. Not because she looked like she needed a hug, because I needed a hug. The hurricane is payrolled, I said, just to have it out loud. If you don't pay for the subscription, you don't get the emergency alerts. Kai shook their head. How do they get away with paywalling a hurricane? How do they get away with anything? I said bitterly. They just do it. Erwin and Caspian are going to be on their way back when it hits, miriam said. At the same moment Kai said, can we evacuate in time?
