The Toast Family’s Magic Radio.
R.F. Marazas
© 2006
There was no reason for him to notice
the new radio. Amid the clutter of his life it was just another possession, one
more thing. Yet he paused in his cramped basement office to stare at the sleek
black gadgetized rectangle. He read: AM-FM, marine band, police calls,
transoceanic pickup, super non-drift tuner.
Arthur Toast squeezed his eyes shut,
swaying with the force of his anger. Only after a half dozen long shuddering
breaths had smothered his rage was he able to open them again. The radio was
still there. He refused to look at it but its image burned in his brain. He
climbed the steps to the kitchen. His self-control bent his shoulders forward
in rigid stillness and set his jaw in a clenched ache.
The kitchen subdued him. The fabulous
Futuron kitchen. Spotless, self-cleaning home within a home. Operating room
green. A whirring mechanized hum (he’d never discovered its source) reassured
you that if needed, surgery could be performed here any time of day or night.
Arthur had long ago stopped eating breakfast here. He imagined that there were
robot hens hidden behind the walls, busy laying synthetic eggs.
Maureen Toast gulped coffee, dabbed her
lipsticked mouth with a napkin. When had she gained all that weight? He
couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen her, but surely it hadn’t been that
long.
“Where are you off to on Sunday night?”
She frowned at him, caressing the fur of
her mink jacket. “Arthur, you know very
well that tonight is the fund raising dinner for the new gymnasium.”
“See if you can raise some funds for the
Toast family,” he said.
“Don’t be silly. I’ve pledged five
hundred.”
“You did what?”
“Now Arthur, don’t look so shocked. Do
you want your children playing in a rundown old gym?”
“But we can’t afford---”
“I’m sure you’ll work something out,
dear. You always do. I have to rush now.”
The smudge of her lips on his cheek left
only a slight stirring of air around his face. He stood there dumb and
confused, trying to recall something.
The radio! I didn’t tell her about the
radio! We don’t need it, we can’t afford it, when will this family learn?
There was a sound to his right like a
nervous cough. He backed out of the kitchen, watchful. Perhaps the robot hens
were restless.
The radio had a fine sound. At least it
would serve some purpose. He would not allow it to lie in the basement
graveyard with the other relics. The four stacked, rusted bikes were down
there, and the roller skates and the pool table, the ping-pong table, the
countless games and toys, all untouched, forgotten. Their epitaphs the
collection of receipts and bills and cancelled checks in Arthur’s desk.
He would make use of the radio. It did
have a fine sound. As he gathered the new stack of bills in front of him, he
half-listened to the soothing music.
Matching the bills against the list of
credit cards, he groaned. Thirty-five credit cards for a family of five.
Incredible. The luminous clock on the radio blazed a warning. Self-pity was
time wasting. He must balance his accounts quickly if he was to work on the
report he volunteered to do for Detmar. A thorough report could mean a salary
increase. God knew he needed one!
Sometime later Arthur’s head snapped up.
He had worked too long, too hard. Muscles twitched between his aching shoulder
blades. He rubbed the pinching pain in his eyes. Something had broken his dogged
concentration. He wasn’t certain what---
“---
Fool radio was hooked onto the marine
band. What ever happened to that super non-drift tuner?
He twisted the dials, peering
suspiciously at the minuscule markings.
“---hello Cozy Cove Marina, request
dockage for twenty-four foot---”
Damn! And twist. And damn again.
“---this is Coast Guard 149, alert small
craft, repeat---”
Arthur sighed, snapping off the sound.
With all his other problems he was certainly not going to upset himself over a
damned radio. He would have it repaired. Turning off the light, he paused at
the door. The luminous clock had stopped.
Arthur Toast was plagued by nightmares
that spilled over into his waking hours, until dream and reality merged in his
mind. At times he would shed his skin, stand outside and watch his other self
play scene after ridiculous scene. The outside Arthur would laugh at the other
Arthur wandering about in openmouthed awe of what was happening to him.
Scene after scene---
“When did you buy that lovely radio,
dear?”
“Buy it! I didn’t buy it! You must have
bought it, did you forget?”
“I never bought it, perhaps one of the
children---”
“Damn radio. I had it fixed. Repairman
wouldn’t believe it was locked in on the marine band. Looked at me like I was
mad.”
“Our five hundred dollar pledge for the
gym is due next week.”
“Good God, Maureen I’ve told you we have
to curb this spending! We cannot go on keeping up with the Joneses!”
“Oh? Friends of yours? Do invite them
over some evening.”
He had been wrestling with his financial
juggling for over two hours when the radio began to change its sound. Sell some
stock to make up the five hundred and that would leave the mortgage and if he
could stall the car payment--- He stared at the radio. The super non-drift
tuner was picking up two stations simultaneously. He hunched over, fingertips
barely touching the dial, turning with infinite care. The radio spoke gibberish
to him far into the night.
Why should I make payments on three cars
when I’m not sure I own three cars? When was the last time I saw three cars in
my driveway? My wife, my children, maybe they’ve seen three cars. And what
makes me think I have three children? When was the last time I saw three
children in this house? They do leave clues around, expensive clues like ski
equipment and tennis rackets and movie cameras. Their names are on credit cards
so they must exist. Let me see that list of credit cards, I’ll remember their
names once I see them, Christ that radio had better work tomorrow---
Arthur decided to sleep in his office
study all week. He would be closer to his work, would polish that report, would
get that raise. The radio was there on his desk. Arthur set the clock each
night, then frowned and stared at the radio as if by sheer force of will he
might reach some kind of understanding with it.
The nightmares became routine. Arthur
climbed up an endless ladder of credit cards. Stacks of bills bulged all his
pockets, the sheer weight making it harder to climb. And when he reached the
top the last credit card buckled. He plunged down into blackness.
Fighting his way awake, groggy, the
first thing his bloodshot eyes saw was the radio. And he was late for work five
days in a row.
“Look, I don’t want a new radio. I want
this one fixed!”
“I keep telling you it is fixed. Don’t
you hear it? Now tell me that it doesn’t work. Tell me that.”
“What about the alarm? One day it won’t
go off, the next day it goes off too early, another day the clock stops.”
“The alarm checks out, let me show you.”
“What about the police calls? I get
nothing but police calls.”
“Mr. Toast, let me---”
“Then I can’t get anything but AM, then
nothing but FM.”
“Mr. Toast, are you sure you know how to
work this---”
“What about the Italian? I get this same
goddam Italian on every station, the same words, and I can’t understand
him---hey, are you fixing this goddam radio as a joke?”
“Look, you calm down, maybe you better
go to another repair shop---”
“You bet I will! I’ll get this radio
fixed, by God! It has to work! I need that soothing music when I pay all the bills---”
“Sure, Mr. Toast, sure---”
The report had been rejected. Too
sloppy. Not enough original thought. Poor research, poor organization, on and
on and how bad could a report possibly be?
Arthur stood in the hallway of his
house, quietly still. Maureen slowed her perpetual rush to glance at him.
“That radio again? Honestly dear, every
time I see you you have that radio tucked under your arm. Sometimes I think
it’s attached to you.”
“Got it fixed,” he mumbled. “It’s fixed
now.”
“By the by, we have a problem or two.
We’ll need tuition money for Jody for college in the fall. And Jason had a
slight accident with the car. The estimate is rather high, but you know how
prices are these days. Oh, and Judy needs braces. She’s absolutely mortified
about wearing them. But I insisted---
Jody-Jason-Judy. Where had he heard
those phantom names? A vaudeville act? He would remember later.
“No money, no money,” he mumbled.
“I’m sure you work something out, dear.
You always do.”
He sleepwalked into his study and
plugged in the radio. It did have a fine sound. Slumping into his chair, he
listened, stared, moved his hands in time to the music, conducting his phantom
orchestra. For a long time.
Then the radio stopped.
He looked at it. He rose, reaching for
the dial. It began playing again. He sat down, watching it, his hands poised to
conduct. It stopped. The trembling began in his fingers and coursed through his
whole body. He rose, shaking. The radio played. Not his orchestra but something
savage, drums and wailing saxophones. He grabbed the radio and lifted it over
his head, smashing it down hard on the desk. The volume rose out of control.
Arthur whirled, fists pressed against his ears. His foot caught in the cord
laying in an exposed tangle on the floor and he pitched forward. The radio
snap-jerked off the desk in a tight arc and smashed Arthur in the back of the
head.
Hours later Maureen opened the study
door. A shock wave of sound knocked her backward. She rushed in holding her
ears, reached down and yanked the plug from the socket. The radio lay silent,
shattered, but the sound, lower now, came from her right. Arthur sat on the
floor amid a clutter of crumpled bills, eyes wide and unseeing, mouth open.
From that black hole came a mellifluous voice in Italian, and then Greek, and
then Japanese, and marine weather forecasts and police calls and some of the
most beautiful music Maureen had ever heard. So beautiful she wept to hear it.
Author’s Bio: R.F. Marazas has been
writing since his teens. He’s had two stories placed in the annual Writer's
Digest contest and since retirement, He’s completed a novel, and published
stories in two anthologies and in on-line venues.