WT. That is correct.
PD. Where did he go?
WT. Into this building. There was a security guard in the lobby.
PD. An apartment building?
WT. I don't know. It was bright inside.
PD. But you couldn't follow him.
WT. That is correct.
PD. What did you do?
WT. Walked through Central Park. For years and years. I like the boat pond. I like all the people with their little toy boats in the morning. And that fountain. With the statue of the angel.
PD. Bethesda?
WT. That is correct.
PD. But the messages kept coming.
WT. That is correct.
PD. Where did you stay all that time?
WT. Hotels. Shelters. I watched a lot of TV. I like Friends. I like the way Janice says Oh my god. Oh. My. God. Like that. It's funny.
PD. Friends is on NBC? Isn't that right?
WT. That is correct.
PD. Is that where you got the idea for what you did next? WT. They were sending waves through the TV set at the shelter. PD. What sort of waves?
WT. All I can tell you at this point in time is the dose exceeded thirty-five hundred ergs. They were impossible to block. It felt like thousands of ants were eating my thoughts.
PD. And you wanted those to cease.
WT. I needed to find somebody who understood the nature of waveform oscillations.
PD. And so what did you do?
WT. Saved some money. Bought a gun. A box of bullets.
PD. And then you went down to Rockefeller Center.
WT. On the B train. Yes. It was very humid. Very hot and very humid.
PD. This would be August 31, 1994. Last August.
WT. I'm not very good with dates.
PD. What did you do next?
WT. Hung around the entrance on 49th Street.
PD. Why did you do that — hang around like that?
WT. I was waiting for a physicist.
PD. You believed one would come out of the NBC Studios?
WT. I knew one would come out. He was in his thirties. He had attractive hair.
PD. This would be Campbell Montgomery? WT. I don't know.
PD. Had you thought in any way at that point that you might want to hurt him?
WT. I just wanted to use the gun to get the correct frequency from him and stop the waves. I feel very strongly about celebrities, audiences — all those who make TV shows what they are. They are good people. I didn't want to endanger them.
PD. But you did endanger Campbell Montgomery.
WT. My hand did.
PD. You shot him.
WT. My hand did. In the back.
PD. You control your hand, don't you, Bill?
WT. My hand was holding the gun. I hadn't noticed at the time. But there it was. When the physicist exited the building, I asked him about the frequency. He looked at me. He looked at the gun. Then he turned and ran.
PD. That's when you shot him.
WT. That is incorrect.
PD. When did you shoot him?
WT. When he began screaming.
PD. What was he screaming?
WT. That there was this man with a gun. I looked around me, frightened. It took me a minute to figure out who he was talking about.
PD. That's when you pulled the trigger.
WT. That's when the trigger was pulled.
PD. Explain your reasoning to me here, Bill. Why was the trigger pulled?
WT. There was nothing else for my hand to do.
PD. You believed someone else was controlling your hand.
WT. What is belief?
PD. Who was controlling your hand?
WT. Kenneth Burrows.
PD. The other Kenneth Burrows. The Vice President back on your world.
WT. That is correct.
PD. How?
WT. Through the transmitter.
PD. How many times did you fire?
WT. I would say my hand fired once.
PD. And Montgomery died five hours later at Bellevue.
WT. I don't know anything about that.
PD. He died because the bullet you fired punctured his lung and a major artery. He bled to death on the operating table.
WT. People don't know.
PD. What don't they know, Bill?
WT. That the thing about the peanut butter and jelly sandwich is that it is a complete nutritious meal in itself. It's an easy point to overlook.
PD. And the messages didn't stop. Killing Montgomery didn't help.
WT. Twelve grams of protein, for instance. On average.
PD. They just keep arriving every twenty minutes.
WT. The diagonal cut releases the flavor most effectively, as we've just seen.
PD. And the medications. They don't help much, either.
WT. Because of the triangular resonance. You know. Let A, B, and C be the vertices of a right triangle. This was common knowledge to Euclid. I'm tired.
PD. Maybe we should call it a day?
WT. Yes.
PD. We can pick up later when you're feeling rested.
WT. Yes.
PD. That's fine, Bill. I'll, uh, I'll call in an officer. Thank you for talking with me. I appreciate it a great deal. I always learn something new.
WT. You're welcome.
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April
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Welcome to another episode of my own little pirate podcast coming to you semi-live and completely indirect every week from a different corner of the godforsaken Salton Sea, deadest body of saline solution on the deadest stretch of southwestern desert you'll ever want to forget.
You're listening to Jolly Roger and his whole sick crew… and that means you, too, baby.
Remember: all you have to do to set sail with us is search out my revolving website. You can find its latest incarnation by paying close attention to what that homeless guy talking to himself next to you on the bus is saying. Or by clicking that unassuming link on the website you'll happen upon at two tomorrow morning. O-or maybe just by committing to making each and every piece of spam that arrives in your inbox your long lost friend. Then scroll down to the lower left-hand corner. That's where you'll find my cell phone number. It's good for twenty-four hours, give or take, más o menos, very roughly speaking.
Do as you like, and do it in your own time, for Jolly Roger plans on sticking around long enough to hear what everybody has to say who The Man and His Minions have banished from thought…
Let me begin this evening by painting you a little picture. I'm recording this message in a digital bottle in the back seat of my faithful blue Saab. The engine is off, the windows rolled down. The temperature is in the middling desert-night eighties. My battery icon tells me I have just over an hour and a half of electric spirit left. My clock icon tells me it's barely tipped eleven in the p.m.