Audio Ghosts on the Island

The story of discovery on the rock island seemed to take a turn last week when an observer reported human voices and music emanating from the well, dubbed by observers lately the "Boston Well" from the preponderance of Boston album jackets discovered around its mouth. The words, he said, "sounded like Québécois" and in fact sounded like a broadcast of a Montreal Canadiens game; he stated positively that he heard the word "but" repeated several times. He also claimed a liberal sprinkling of mellotron figures in snippets of studio-recorded music, but this claim could not be substantiated.

In fact, none of the observer's testimony could be confirmed by other observers or a team of experts recently stationed there on a research vessel. The experts, headed by a university professor who is researching the connection between independently confirmed "provisions", or oddly relevant objects discovered at extreme need by the observers, and their experience before their time on the island, were the first to hear the observer's report, in a dramatic sequence of events that began with a flare signal from the island.

Professor Wygant of the University of Washington recorded the observer's report, a man referred to in reports as the "climber" or "well climber" for his discovery of the Boston Well.

WYGANT: You awake? You okay? Can I get you something?

THE CLIMBER: Huh? What am– What's this?

WYGANT: You're on the Architeuthis, our research vessel. We saw your flare.

THE CLIMBER: We've gotta– there's someone down there.

WYGANT: Down where?

THE CLIMBER: Down there, you know, the well. We've gotta get him. Her. Whoever. They're down there.

WYGANT: Some of my students are there now. They're radioing me with reports. They haven't heard anything.

THE CLIMBER: Well, that– They could be in trouble. We've gotta go down there. (THE CLIMBER GETS UP, FALLS DOWN AGAIN) Ohhhh fuck, FUCK. My head. My head.

WYGANT: How about some aspirin?

THE CLIMBER: No, no, makes me sick. Look, you've gotta find a climber, someone to– (THE CLIMBER MOVES HIS LIPS SILENTLY. HE CRIES SILENTLY, CLOSES EYES) Noone'll ever find him– her– who– (THE CLIMBER FALLS ALSEEP).

WYGANT: (SIGHS, SHUTS OFF TAPE MACHINE)

WYGANT: How's it going?

THE CLIMBER: Okay.

WYGANT: You seem better.

THE CLIMBER: Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks for picking me up.

WYGANT: It's okay.

THE CLIMBER: So, you're the research boat? I saw you guys off the coast. We've been watching each other.

WYGANT: Yes, we have. We try not to be too obvious about it.

THE CLIMBER: Well, you are in the–

WYGANT: –The boat?

THE CLIMBER: –Boat. Pretty hard to miss.

WYGANT: Yeah. Yeah. Hard to miss. (LONG PAUSE) So, uh– you remember anything around the time we picked you up?

THE CLIMBER: No. I was getting ready for another climb, and, uh, must've hit my head or something. Next thing I know I'm in here.

WYGANT: Hm. You know you were awake a while ago, said there was someone in the well?

THE CLIMBER: No, really? I mean, really? No, I was looking for more jackets... Don't remember hearing any voices. I mean, I heard a radio...

WYGANT: A radio?

THE CLIMBER: Yeah, a radio. A little one, mono, like one of those old transistors or a weather radio or something. It was a Montreal game.

WYGANT: A Montreal game.

THE CLIMBER: Yeah, the Canadiens. And the broadcast was in Québécois.

WYGANT: You could hear that?

THE CLIMBER: Yeah, yeah, it sounded like it was right next to me. Some kind of audio effect caused by a reticulation in the rock. I've heard those before, said something into the well and heard it whispered in my ear. And not always what I said.

WYGANT: You mean you say one thing and hear another?

THE CLIMBER: Yeah. One time I heard my girlfriend from college, telling me not to get all salty.

WYGANT: Salty?

THE CLIMBER: Yeah, that was her way of saying 'don't cry'. I was on one of my jags.

WYGANT: A provision?

THE CLIMBER: Yeah, a bottle of Dewar's. The only time I've ever found alcohol in the cabin. Normally it's an object, you know? Not a consumable. But this time it was a bottle of Dewar's. Right there above the sink. And the other thing that was weird– alcohol was the last thing on my mind. It was almost like the cabin was foisting it on me. I almost thought it would be– well–

WYGANT: Impolite?

THE CLIMBER: Impolitic. Impolitic to refuse the cabin. I mean, if I'm ungrateful this time, what happens when I really need it? So I took a swig. And, you know, one thing led to another–

WYGANT: So that was the only time? The cabin provided alcohol, I mean.

THE CLIMBER: Yeah, the only time. And after I heard my girlfriend I passed out and woke up with a terrible headache. I did some rock fishing and it went away. That was a couple weeks ago.

WYGANT: And today you heard a radio?

THE CLIMBER: Yeah. I mean, I think it was a radio... What else could it be? I mean, I heard a mellotron. And the word "but, but"... (Québécois for "goal")... Then a boom of surf and nothing.

WYGANT: Well, you told us a couple hours ago that there was someone in the well that needed rescue. You tried to get out of the bed. My students have been in constant radio contact since then and I've heard no reports of any more sounds.

THE CLIMBER: Is that right? Well... I guess there could be someone... But I mean how? After all this time? And I saw the last observer, the fisher, at his shop, so it couldn'ta been him... Someone down there? I said that?

WYGANT: Yeah, and you were adamant. I mean, you tried to jump out of that bed.

THE CLIMBER: Jump out. Well I'll be damned.

Professor Wygant escorted the Climber on a jollyboat back to the island and interviewed him again, but the Climber seemed to have forgotten most of the particulars about the individual or group he claimed was trapped in the well. His spirits were good and he didn't seem confused about his whereabouts or identity. He was cordial and invited the professor back any time he felt like it. "Maybe the cabin'll provide another bottle of Dewar's," he said. He didn't say anything else about the audio apparition of his girlfriend. The professor watched him from the jollyboat, with his binoculars. He insists he saw the climber pull a bottle out of his parka and swig on it while staring at the site of the well. He said the climber didn't change his position the whole time the jollyboat was in the water.

Portland May Day Demonstration 2011

Celeste says she intends to make a sign for the May Day demonstration, one that reads "Scott Walker: Nineteenth-Century Man." I agree that this is a clever joke for fans of the singer and a good slogan for everyone else, but I'm afraid the effort will be wasted. She intends to go and I resign myself to another trip downtown, more to see the architecture and treescapes than for any other reason.

Sunday morning the sun glows bright green through the leaves of the quince outside the bedroom window. The warm breeze coming through the front windows soothes the tension I feel at the thought of the crowds and loudness at the demonstration. I drink my coffee. My own paper life is a shambles, my political life a story that some time ago entered an uncomfortably empty Middle Period, and so these things don't seem the same to me that they did fifteen years ago. But the bus comes on time and it's not too crowded.

The first people we see are bored-looking bicycle cops, standing over their machines in a long line. Beyond the cops are a crowd of anarchists– or so they call themselves– carrying red flags and selling t-shirts under the statue of Lincoln. They're smiling and larking. The great bronze president gazes impassively down on the children of his republic. Beyond these and to the north is a red and white crowd, clumping finally around a sandstone fountain at that end of the South Park Blocks.

A woman down there is shouting through a bullhorn, about anti-abortion legislation. It's so loud that by the time I'm a hundred yards away my ears are hurting. The anger that is missing from the crowd is all reserved for the bullhorn, and it is the type that is turned on and off judiciously, like water in a drought. What the crowd takes to be the vehemence of conviction is more the desperation of a speaker who's losing her audience, sustained and distilled into a sort of public-speaking chant. Because the crowd does not need to be convinced. The mood is one of fervent, almost anxious agreement. And the speaker knows all this. She begins chanting for real, waiting for a response from the crowd that eventually comes, but muted and scattered.

Dotting the crowd are red balloons, brought by the ever-present Wobblies. Many of their intended audience stroll along as pairs and individuals, with beatific smiles on their faces. Those who are unconvinced remain so and walk through the crowd a bit offbeat, to make it obvious they have somewhere else to go. I do this too. Canvassers and socialist workers hurry through the crowd with their clipboards and pamphlets like waiters at a cocktail party. The few trade and industrial union workers we could find– and we looked for them, up and down the crowd– seem to be waiting for something: their turn at the mike? Someone to ask them about their union? Someone to start an argument? It is hard to say. We found only two banners: one for the AFL-CIO, and one for the Painters. The only other two signs we found were a SEIU t-shirt and a sign that said "Fred Meyer Settle The Dalles". It looked like a sign from the big Fred Meyer strike back in the '90s, so I assume the UFCW printed it. The sign, of course, is stuck into the ground.

Eventually the shrieking bullhorn drives everything out of my head and I decide to walk towards the Federal Building. A pair of Tea Party workers walk by with chunky, expensive cameras around their necks. Even this glimmer of confrontation has a dreary regularity: after all, everyone must be represented.

At the site of the Federal Building we find another disappointment: the Federal Building has been gutted, a project of the GSA that will ultimately "modernize" the building. It is all far beyond me; the building was an immense tower of white stone and black glass and seemed in no urgent need of "modernization". Now it is an ugly skeleton of rusting girders covered with what appears to be dirty shaving cream. The listing I found for the U.S. Government Book Store, the real object of my search, is a deserted-looking office with a Providence Health Care sign in the window.

We make our way to the Plaza blocks. The Spanish-American War infantryman still advances with a grim look on his face. A slight breeze dances through the ferns on a great limb of elm. Celeste is disappointed and surprised; I am just disappointed. I did not really expect to see the big-bellied trade union guys, a bit dazed but finding their rhythm in front of the mike, warming to tales of the United Auto Workers in Michigan in the '30s... Radicalized in spite of themselves by this shrill anti-labor reaction that endlessly strives to out-shout its bullhorn counterpart... Suddenly formidable again, aware of their own strength again.... I did not really expect all this... Did I?

No, no.