1610 AM Read a Name I Knew

pulled over. engine off. you are not supposed to stop. i stopped.

Short one. I do not want to write it long.

Tuesday, on the stretch past the parish line where it comes in clear, after midnight, the woman read a name I knew. First, middle, last. Pause. Next name.

I have logged that station for a year and a half and every name has been a stranger, and that was the arrangement. I could sit with the names of the 1927 drowned because they were a list, and a list is history, and history does not know you are listening. This was not on any list I have. This was somebody who, as far as I know, as far as anybody at the landing knows, is alive and in Houma.

I am not printing it. I am not going to call them, because what would I say. I have written it in the notebook and dated it and put the notebook where I put the things I cannot throw away.

If your radio did the thing this week, the check-in thread is open. Names stay out of it. Just the night, and whether she paused longer than usual before the next one. She did for me.

I relay. You decide.

In Truth and Terror.
— Beau