By this time of night, there was no one but Nina at WDRK. The cinder-block studio was empty and quiet except for the final hum of commercials left pre-programmed by Hal, the jazz DJ who played his show just before hers. She poured coffee from her thermos and pulled herself closer to the microphone as her cue neared. "Nina the Nightfly here, with tunes to get you through the long dark night. My lines are open, so call me up and tell me what's on your mind. I bet I've got a song that'll fit how you're feeling."
Her first call of the night came in halfway through the narcotic growl of Tom Waits’ "Drunk On The Moon." "You're live with The Nightfly, what's on your mind?"
"Hi Nina, long-time listener here," he said. There was noise in the background, the squawk of bullhorns and the returning shouts. "We got students out here marching on the quad, you think you can play a song for them, keep their spirits up?"
"Only if you promise to hold up the boombox like John Cusack," she joked. "Tell me what ya'll are marching for and I'll play you a song."
The caller's voice turned sour. "We're pissed about what happened to Miriam," he said. "Aren't you?"
Miriam Dalir. Two weeks ago, cops had responded to a distress call at the college and shot Miriam Dalir, an Iranian exchange student, on sight. Claimed she was holding a knife, but all they found in her hand was a thick black marker. But everyone knew the threat wasn't a weapon. The threat was that she'd accused the police captain's son of drugging her at a party before assaulting her behind the science building. She'd filed paperwork two days before she was shot by the captain's old partner. News reports called it suicide by cop. Message boards called it an honor killing, complete with high-five emojis.
"This one goes out to Miriam," Nina said. "And everyone out there demanding justice. Keep walking, stay proud. Don't let anyone send you home. Not tonight. Here's The Coup with 'The Guillotine' to keep you strong."
She didn't know Miriam. It was hard to know people when your job kept you awake in the midnight hours. Hadn't followed the news much beyond the morning headlines. When she was awake, she was listening to records with the curtains drawn. Music didn't hurt. Music didn't make threats or demands except for you to swap out the CD or flip over the record.
She put on Tori Amos "Me and a Gun" and checked her phone. The reception in the studio wasn't great, but occasionally, a message got through. There was a text from her ex, Owen. Red cap frats moved in on us, he wrote. Cops too. They're threatening tear gas.
Damn it, Owen, she thought. Owen imagined himself a revolutionary, a beard-and-scarf hipster who never met a petition he didn't sign. He used to say he was the reincarnation of Bobby Sands and she used to think it was cute. The first mix she ever made for him opened with "Do You Hear The People Sing" from the original cast recording of Les Miserables. Of course he was protesting for Miriam. She couldn't fault him there. His sister took her life shortly after giving birth to her attacker's child; a grandson his parents were raising in the boonies of Indiana. He had every intention of taking Ryan when his parents turned 70. Nina gave herself a thousand reasons for the breakup, but the one she never voiced was her fear of having to raise a child. Not of being tied down, not even a betrayal of her own biology. The world was too ugly, too mean, and she couldn't shelter the two of them, let alone a small child, in a bunker of sound the way she could shelter herself. It wasn't fair any way she looked at it.
Stay safe, she wrote back.
You too, Nightfly. He had been the one to give her that nickname, from the Donald Fagen record they used to play before bed. She put on the title track. "This one goes out to Owen," she said. "Tonight, you're still on my mind." From her tray of pens and post-it notes she picked up a big green button that had fallen off his coat when he came to visit her in the studio one evening that felt like years ago, a broken promise that she'd sew it back on in the morning. It felt wrong to throw it out. He might need it someday. He might be cold without it.
She rubbed her thumb around the smooth surface and put on Joy Division, "Love Will Tear Us Apart." It was all true, every bleak word of it. She loved Owen, but she was never going to be the revolutionary he imagined her to be. He had the strength, but all she had was the soundtrack.
Another call. "You're live with the Nightfly, what's on your mind?"
"We're coming for you," a voice hissed. She imagined she could smell cheap beer on his breath. "We're coming for all of you."
"Bless your heart, sweetie," she cooed. It wasn't the first creeper call she got and it might not even be the last she got that night. They were a common enough occurrence that she didn't think much about them anymore. "Does your mom know you're using the phone this late at night?" She hung up and put on Hole's "Awful." She always played that song after creeper calls. It made her feel better, stronger somehow.
But tonight it didn't work. Something was still gnawing at her. Maybe it was that Owen hadn't texted her back. She brought up Twitter and saw that #JusticeForMiriam was trending. That couldn't be a good sign, not this late at night. There were pictures of fires, of cops in riot gear. When the phone rang, she nearly jumped out of her skin.
"This is Captain Fuller with the Hawthorn Police Department," a hard heavy voice said. "A curfew has been put in place, and by broadcasting, you're violating that curfew. You need to return home immed--"
She hung up. She knew her rights, and no way was she taking orders from a man who executed a girl to save his son's reputation. She cued up Oingo Boingo's "War Again" with shaking hands. She double-checked to make sure the door was locked and turned off all the lights except for an IKEA desk lamp in her studio. She disconnected the studio line. No more phone calls that night.
"The line is dark, I'm still here," she said into empty space. "If you're listening, put on headphones, don't give yourself away. If you're marching, Maalox and water helps with tear gas. Soak a rag in vinegar to put over your mouth. Protect yourself. But I'm here until dawn. You know I won't leave you."
She played Steely Dan's "King of The World" and Richard Thompson's "Dad's Gonna Kill Me" and the Beastie Boys’ "Sabotage" and the Talking Heads’ “Life During Wartime.” She waited for Owen to text, to let her know he was okay. It seemed every lifeline she had was gone. Six months ago, that might have been fine. Six months ago she convinced herself that she didn’t need anyone, that it was safer to go it alone. But that was bullshit then and it was bullshit now. She locked herself away because she was too afraid of the day when Owen might leave her behind—realizing she wasn’t a battle-hardened rebel, just a late night DJ. They had the same dreams for the rest of the world, but they dreamed them in different ways.
One song left. She put on The Vapors, "Letters From Hiro." She wondered if anyone was still listening. She mumbled a sign-off and put on her coat, half-expecting the cops to be waiting for her outside the studio. But she suspected they were too busy to be bothered with a 33 year old overnight radio DJ. Even if she called them about the threats, she didn't expect they'd show up to walk her to her car. She took the button out of the tray and put it in her pocket.
Outside, the snow was falling in thick, fat flakes. The streets were silent. For a moment, she was the last person on Earth. And she couldn’t stand it. Isolation was for cowards; shutting out the world didn’t make her stronger or tougher. It took courage to love someone against the risk that they might leave, that they might die, that they might fuck up sometimes. And now, standing completely alone, she felt braver than she ever had in her whole life.
A light came on in the bodega. A Pakistani man with a bandage across his face opened the door to let in a grey striped cat. They locked eyes. "Fresh coffee," he said. "Just put on the pot."
Her hands were shaking from the four cups she'd had throughout the night. But she followed him inside. He poured the coffee, pointed her towards the milk and sugar station. She put two dollars on the counter. She turned around and there was Owen, his hands in the pockets of his old army trench coat, his head wrapped in gauze, his eyes red from tear gas. No tailor or new girlfriend had sewn a new button onto his coat. There was fresh blood on his lapel.
She held out the coffee to him and he accepted it. His knuckles were busted open and starting to scab. She took the green button out of her pocket. "C'mon," she said, opening her hand. "I'll sew it back on for you."
Libby Cudmore's debut novel The Big Rewind (William Morrow, 2016) received a Starred Review from Kirkus, as well as praise from Publisher's Weekly and Booklist. She is a regular contributor to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and her stories and essays have appeared in Tough, The RS-500, Memoir Mixtape The Big Click, the Stoneslide Corrective, PANK, Vinyl Me Please, The Writer magazine and the anthologies Hanzai Japan, Welcome Home, Mixed Up and A Beast Without a Name: Crime Fiction Inspired By The Music of Steely Dan, as well as the forthcoming anthology Lawyers, Guns & Money: Crime Fiction Inspired By The Works of Warren Zevon (which she co-edited). She is an associate editor for Rock & A Hard Place. "The Nightfly" was written as part of the 2017 Barrelhouse Writer Camp and the first-prize winner in the 2018 Oregon Writers Colony contest. Twitter: @libbycudmore Instagram: @record_saturday