The Wireless regulars knew of the jammers’ existence almost at once, but a strange taboo was in place from the start: you don’t rat on jammers. There wasn’t much logic behind the dictum. Jammers, by their very nature, represented opposition to, maybe destruction of, the exact medium that gave radio freaks value and meaning in their lives. But logical or not, the jammers were not only tolerated but fully accepted. Possibly they were considered the problemsome black sheep of an already somewhat ostracized family — the prodigal sons and daughters who, though you knew they were going to drain your wallet, break your heart, maybe rupture the very idea of Family that you cherished so much, you helped and protected and endured. Ferrie and Most knew instinctively that logic was not a key strand in the net that bound families — even the most oddly connected and fragile — together.
There was also an appealing aura that jammers seemed to give off when they weren’t obsessively concerned about remaining hidden, “deep in average-cover,” as Wallace Browning said, in “mole-mode,” as G.T. Flynn referred to it. Outside the solitude of their own homes, their hidden jamming stations and disruption rooms, the loosest a jammer could be was at Wireless. When their guards came down, even slightly, they let show just how noble and dangerous and frontline they thought their avocation was. And out of that attitude came a visible surety — not quite a cockiness, but more an assurance of self-worth that was vaguely manifested in their appearance or demeanor. They could throw on their oldest clothing and look hip and pricy. They could preach memorable sermons with the slight turning of eyes and tightening of the mouth. And they seemed to have an edge in the seduction department.
This is close to what Flynn is thinking, standing out in the parking lot, leaning against his car and taking in the beauty of the whole place and peering in a window, watching Hazel cadge drinks from a pair of college-boy d.j.’s with pockets of New York cash.
Is there anyone who knows how old Hazel really is? Best guesses range somewhere around the early twenties, but few of the regulars have ever seen her outside of Wireless and it’s hard to get a good look at her face in the dim blue light of the bar.
Hazel was one of the first jammers to start hanging at the bar, right after G.T. and before Wallace, though Wallace doesn’t really hang, just uses the place like a 3-D bulletin board. Hazel spends a lot of time teasing the curious newcomers. She allows rumors to spread, sometimes starts them herself. No one except Flynn knows what her day job is, if she has one. Some say hairdresser — based, most likely, on the several different colors and styles she might move through in a given season. Some say stewardess, since she tends to disappear for days at a time and has been seen drinking those tiny nip-bottles of airplane booze in the rest room. If Ferrie and Most know, they’re not telling.
Flynn probably knows more about Hazel than anyone else and that’s not a lot. He knows she was married once, a teenage romance that didn’t last the year. He once heard about a child put up for adoption, a boy that lives somewhere in the county.
A Volvo pulls up in front of him and Flynn smiles, leans to the car window, and says, “I thought you two would’ve taken home half the gold by now.”
Behind the wheel, Wallace Browning rolls his eyes. “We’re running late, as usual,” he says.
Browning’s wife, Olga, leans over and says, “Wish us luck, G.T.”
Flynn reaches in the window and grabs Olga’s hand. “You two don’t need luck, my friend. You’ve got magic feet.” He glances down to the floor, always intrigued by the customized pedals on the Volvo.
Wallace and Olga are both dwarfs. They each stand about three feet tall, but that doesn’t prevent them from being two of the most graceful and imaginative ballroom dancers Flynn has ever seen.
Wallace leans his head out the window a bit and whispers, “Did you talk to the problem child yet?”
Flynn sighs and shakes his head, a little annoyed. “I just got here, Wallace. The night is young.”
The dwarf makes a mild hissing noise. His voice rises and he says, “Mark my words, G.T. If we don’t—”
Flynn cuts him off with a pat on the arm.
“Wallace, leave the situation to me, okay? I’ll handle this. There’s no need to worry. You two get out of here and have a good time. Win one for your favorite life agent.” He shifts his head to see Olga. “Don’t let this guy slow you down, Olga. You look gorgeous, by the way.”
“We need to talk soon,” Wallace mutters, and shifts the car into drive.
“You worry too much,” Flynn says, and squeezes Browning’s shoulder. Then he steps back and watches the Volvo ease out of the lot.
Whenever he sees Wallace wearing that classic 1940s tuxedo, Flynn can’t help thinking the guy looks like some bizarre waiter in a decadent Nazi restaurant, a curiosity hired for the diversion he might provide the easily bored customers.
What must it have been like growing up a dwarf? Flynn wonders. Was it a matter of surviving an endless barrage of repeated, unfunny jokes and taunts? Or was it more a matter of isolation, of being set apart, unincorporated right from the womb, right from day one on the planet, no one pulling you into the breast of the normal, the full-grown?
He leaves the question in the parking lot, turns, and heads for Wireless.
Flynn enters through the diner entrance, stops in the doorway next to Tjun the bouncer, says, “What kind of a night?”
Tjun shrugs. He’s an Aborigine, tall, bearded, achingly slender, of indeterminate age, and, supposedly, deadly with a long-blade knife that has a name no one can pronounce. He showed up at Wireless five years ago, responding to a help-wanted ad in the Spy. He’s been the head bouncer ever since. No one seems to know where he lives. He keeps himself above the social politics of the bar and doesn’t even seem too interested in radio in general. When Flynn asked Ferrie about him once, the co-owner went melodramatic and said, “Guy saved my life once and I don’t want to say anything else about him.” Flynn treats Tjun with a rare respect, never uses his sarcastic brand of humor in the man’s presence.
“Hazel and her friends inside?” Flynn asks.
“At the bar,” Tjun says in an odd, clipped accent that Flynn loves.
Flynn moves past him, steps into the smoky-blue glow of the room, blinks a few times. Each time he steps inside Wireless, he has to give Ferrie and Most credit for achieving the atmosphere that almost all clubs reach for and the majority look foolish missing. Flynn thinks of it as expensive decadence, a place that can feel foreign even if you’ve spent a year’s worth of nights there, a place where all kinds of verbally coded purchase and sales agreements might take place and payouts feel like they could require three different types of currency. It’s even more amazing that the club has this feel when the fact is that most of the regulars are stunningly middle-class and usually short on funds. And yet, there’s no denying the room has a tone to it, an envelope of pure mood, a sensory tide produced by no more than two dreamy men with a vision of weird, unstriving hipness and the resurgence of an almost-bygone medium.
Flynn spots Hazel and slides up to the bar between the college boys, clamping an arm across each of their backs, saying, “Guys, I think there’s a free pool table around in the back.”
The two look at each other as if one should argue, then walk away in a slow double sulk. Flynn moves in close until his arm is touching Hazel and she says, “You really get off on screwing up my fantasies.”