The Listeners

by Jordan Tannahill

  One night, after Paul had already gone upstairs to bed, I was sitting with my laptop in the dark of the living room. I googled ‘most beautiful sound in the world,’ and spent an hour listening to frogs singing in a Malaysian swamp, the cascades of the Neretva River, the chirruping of thrushes at dawn, the wind whipping itself against an ocean cliffside in Sonoma. But when I thought of it, the most beautiful sound I had probably ever heard was a lawn mower. When I was a girl, lying in the hot summer grass of my grandma’s bungalow, listening to the sound of her neighbour cutting his lawn in the distance, I remember feeling like I would live forever. The purr of that lawn mower, three or four houses over, was like the sound of eternity itself. Sitting there in the living room, it occurred to me—the entire story of my life could be told through the sounds that have surrounded it. A continuous forty-year playback. A biography of room tones, bird calls, pop songs, voice messages, laughter, train whistles, dog barks, and wind moving through innumerable leaves.

  Once I returned to work, I pretended to no longer hear the hum. It was a convincing performance. Paul let me sleep in our bed again, like a dog being let back into the house if it didn’t piss on the carpet. Ashley stuck her tongue out at me at her games and poked my bum as I passed her in the halls. I got through my lessons, cracked jokes in the staff lounge, and colleagues resumed sharing the minutiae of their marital dysfunction with me. In other words, things were back on track.

  Fast-forward two weeks. About forty-five minutes after the final school bell of the day one evening, I locked my classroom door, walked through the halls nodding goodbye to the cleaning staff, and stepped out into the staff parking lot, which was all but empty. The yellow school buses were gone. A few kids were still waiting across the street for the city bus, smoking. I got into my silver Toyota, drove three blocks, rounded the corner, and pulled over beside a small, shady park. The park was connected, by way of an overgrown path, and the adjacent elementary school’s playground, to the back field of the high school. I pretended to be looking for something in the glove compartment so as not to seem suspicious, even though there was no one around. After about five minutes, Kyle appeared in the small park with his hood pulled up, crossed to my car, and climbed into the passenger seat. We drove without talking for a few moments, scanning the nearby streets, before he took off his hood, and we eased into our usual dynamic.

  Kyle and I had started meeting up after class. At first, it was just to talk and share experiences. And then, we began to share theories. Neither of us was prepared to believe the sound was in our heads. We figured there must be a source, and if there was a source, then it must be possible to find it. We compared articles we found online, combed through comment threads, and drafted up a list of possible culprits, which we plotted on a map of the neighbourhood—nine computer pages of Google Maps satellite views that we printed out, taped together, and laminated. Before long one thing became abundantly clear—if we wanted to track down the source, we would have to leave the classroom.

  We pulled off onto the gravel shoulder of Ranchlands Road, alongside the perimeter fence of the industrial park. We were about as close as we could get to the Grenadier factory without having an employee’s pass. I checked my mirrors for passing cars or onlookers and gave the all-clear. Stepping out of the car, I was immediately struck by the din coming from the factory; though I wasn’t quite sure the sound was low or reverberant enough to be our hum. Between the gravel shoulder and the fence was a shallow ditch choked with scrub grass and wildflowers. The cicadas screamed as we waded through the overgrowth, burrs sticking to our jeans, until we reached the chain-link fence on the other side.

  Kyle removed his phone from his pocket and brought up his audio app. We stood quietly for a moment while he took a measurement. He squinted against the evening sun, small beads of sweat clinging to the translucent hairs above his lip. The air was thick and still. I looked out over the badlands that stretched beyond the industrial park, still untouched by developers. A landscape of horizons and subtle gradations of light. A landscape like an Agnes Martin painting, pure form and colour. The purple geometry of mountains in the distance, and lines receding into oblivion.

  The cicadas are throwing it off, Kyle muttered. I noticed a car appear in the dancing heat to the south. I turned my body away from the road. Kyle did the same.

  The factory had been on our list of possible sound sources from the start. Grenadier was a major defence contractor, manufacturing aerospace and military parts. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of production activity went on there, but Kyle had read that some industrial furnaces can cause low-frequency rumbles and pressure waves. For now, it was as good a lead as any, even if it didn’t quite square with our hum, which, if anything, only grew louder at night, when the factory was closed. And it didn’t explain why we only began hearing the hum recently, despite the factory operating since before our neighbourhood was built. Nevertheless, we were too early in our mission to rule out any possibilities.

  Kyle looked up from his phone. Seventy-eight hertz, he said. And thirty-two decibels, from about two hundred metres away.

  That’s a pretty low frequency, I replied, recording the measurements in my notebook, beside the words ‘Grenadier plant, Ranchlands Industrial Park.’ But we both knew, without having to say it, that it was not low enough. Our theory—well Kyle’s theory, really—was that the hum must be an extremely low frequency, just on the threshold of human hearing. Most humans could just about register sound at twenty hertz. It seemed possible that we were simply hearing a sound lower than most people are able to perceive.

  Lots of animals can hear and make infrasonic sounds. Some are even thought to be able to perceive infrasonic waves travelling through the Earth in the wake of natural disasters and use these waves as a kind of early warning system. Like the rats and snakes deserting the ancient Greek city of Helike, before it was devastated by an earthquake. Or the animals that fled the areas affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami, hours before disaster struck. I once read that some church organs can produce infrasonic bass notes that induce feelings of transcendence by increasing heart rates and releasing endorphins, causing congregants to tear up, shiver, or feel as if they’re communing with God. It wasn’t far off the effect the hum had on me, to be honest. The crying and shivering at least.

  Once back in the car, I pulled out our map of the neighbourhood. Laying it across the dash, I placed a small yellow sticker over the pixelated aerial view of the industrial park and jotted down the measurements with a thin-tipped black marker. Red stickers would indicate sites producing sounds over a hundred hertz, yellow stickers would indicate sounds over fifty hertz, and green stickers would indicate sounds in the sweet spot—sounds which could be our hum. Hopefully a pattern, or hot spot, would slowly emerge. I folded away the map and shifted the car into drive as we set off towards our next site—the electrical substation on San Mateo Road.

  I still think we should visit Harding, Kyle said, pulling out his vape from his pocket.

  Hey, what did I say? Not in the car.

  I thought it was fine if the window was down.

  I bit the inside of my cheek. Sometimes he really tested my patience. I couldn’t stand the smell of his flavoured vape: a sickly sweet cherry, which reminded me of childhood cough syrup. The windows were automatic, so I turned the key in the ignition.

  Who knows what kind of aircraft or low-frequency weapons they’re testing over there, he said, blowing a little aromatic cloud out the window.

  We’re not driving to Harding, I said. He knew this and didn’t press it. The military base in Harding was almost a two-hour round trip. Driving around the neighbourhood together was risky enough, though at least I could always concoct some half-viable excuse that I was dropping him off at home, he having missed his bus, and it being on my way, or some such thing. I’m not quite sure how I rationalized it to myself at the time; particularly as our drives grew gradually longer each passing week, as we expanded the radius of our search. U
ltimately, it wasn’t about reason. I knew there was no defence of it on professional grounds. But on grounds of emotional welfare and mental health, it was essential. We refused to be victims. We refused to believe we were hallucinating. We were too resourceful, and too proactive to sit back and suffer. If you are being tormented, tortured, you don’t sit around talking about it forever. You take action.

  As we drove towards San Mateo Road, I pulled my sun visor down against the evening light, and Kyle plugged his phone into the car’s sound system. It began to play a plaintive, downtempo R&B song I recognized from the radio. It underscored our drive through the neighbourhood like a soundtrack; though what kind of film this was, and what kind of characters we were, didn’t feel immediately clear to me. I couldn’t help but feel, sometimes, like the antagonist of my own story. Covertly undermining all the goodwill and stability I had worked tirelessly, for decades, to accrue. As we coasted down sleepy residential streets, I began turning the word predator over in my mind. Perhaps because there was a seventeen-year-old boy in my car. Perhaps because we were both on a hunt, our senses tuned. Or perhaps because we had both been preyed upon by this noise; torn apart and devoured by it. I was taking a slightly roundabout route through the neighbourhood to avoid passing near the school, or any more heavily trafficked areas like the mall or the arena. The sunset filled the car with warm orange light.

  Have you heard the story about the loneliest whale in the world? Kyle asked. I shook my head, smiling. Well it’s not a story, he continued, I mean it’s a true story, it’s not made up. He’s been dubbed the fifty-two-hertz whale. He glanced over at me, but I kept my eyes on the road. He told me about how there was a single lone whale, of unknown species, who had been recorded producing a totally unique fifty-two-hertz call. The call had the sonic signature of a whale, but it didn’t resemble any known species, being much higher-pitched, shorter, and more frequent.

  Blue whales and fin whales, for instance, Kyle said, using his hands to shape a small whale in front of him, they vocalize around twenty hertz.

  This, I had come to learn, was classic Kyle: riffing on an obscure factoid he had gleaned from the Internet to simulate a far vaster knowledge than he really possessed on any given topic. He told me the migration of the fifty-two-hertz whale through the Pacific was strange, in that it didn’t match the movement of any other known whale species. It was a mystery. But the same, singular fifty-two-hertz call has been recorded every year since first being detected two decades ago. Calling forever into the void of the dark Pacific. Never to find another of its kind.

  The loneliest whale in the world, I said, nodding. I looked up into the sky, as if I might find it hiding in the clouds. A moment later, we pulled off onto the gravel shoulder of San Mateo Road, alongside the electrical substation, with its humming transformers and power towers. I checked my mirrors for passing cars or onlookers, and after a deep breath, gave the all-clear.

  5

  PAUL AND I REPLACED SEX WITH AUDIOBOOKS. IT WAS A gradual process, over four or five years. Occasionally, we still managed both. After I moved back into our bedroom, following my exile in The Gym, we began listening to The Magic Mountain. One night, as the plummy British narration played from the Bluetooth speaker, I was standing at the window, struggling to unclasp my bra, lost in the Alpine majesty of the prose, the long sentences, full of switchbacks, when Paul came up behind me and undid my bra clasp with a dexterousness that belied his big hands.

  Who is this again? he asked.

  Thomas Mann.

  Oh man, oh man, he murmured, sliding his hands over my breasts and cupping them, and I laughed, for when Paul played smooth, it was a caricature of smoothness. There has always been something of a joke about sex for Paul, which probably arose from some innate discomfort with his own, ungainly body. One of us tackled the other down onto the bed, and we were both laughing, which we hadn’t done together in a while, and honestly it was probably the laughing more than anything that began to turn me on. I reached over and switched off the speaker, and when I turned back to Paul, he had a truly impressive boner sheathed below his underwear, which he sprang free with gusto.

  What’re you challenging me to a duel?

  He swished it around, En garde!

  Sir Gawain, and his Walmart boxers.

  Prepare to be run through the gauntlet.

  I flopped onto my back, chortling. He lay down beside me with a dopey grin. What? he asked.

  You can’t run someone through the gauntlet, you’re putting two things together.

  Sure you can, with a sword.

  No, you ‘run someone through.’ You ‘run the gauntlet’ when you like—

  Oh right.

  —do something really hard.

  Paul gestured to his jaunty member—Well.

  I rolled my eyes, and he climbed on top of me, rubbing his cock against my thigh.

  Forged in the smithy of desire, he murmured.

  Okay Chaucer, get off, I wheezed, you’re crushing me.

  He relaxed and splayed himself atop me. I’m dead, he said.

  I can’t breathe.

  Your corpse groom.

  I’m serious, get off me.

  I actually couldn’t breathe and grew panicked and told him firmly again to get off. His smile disappeared as he slid off of me. I could tell he felt rejected, which wasn’t my intention. I felt a heaviness descend between us. I wanted to keep things light, so I turned to him and smiled.

  Fatso.

  He chuckled, and I rubbed my hand over his belly. It had just the right amount of hair. Not too coarse or thick. My big bear, I said, in a silly voice, my big, pregnant bear.

  Don’t.

  Third trimester.

  He sat up and batted my hand away. I’m serious, he said, I’m sensitive about it.

  I propped my head up with my hand. Are you really?

  Yes. I am.

  I’m sorry.

  I made to kiss him on his cheek, but this seemed too impersonal, so I moved towards his lips, but in my indecision, ended up somewhere in between. This tiny failure robbed the kiss of any intimacy. In fact, it suddenly seemed to signify some larger misalignment.

  I’m always initiating and you’re never up for it, he said. I pointed out that we hadn’t been sleeping in the same room, and he asked me whose fault was that.

  I don’t know, why? I asked. Do you blame me?

  Well it’s not my fault, he said, lying back down and staring up at the ceiling, his erection subsiding. I asked him why it had to be about fault. There was something about his diminishing erection that I found deeply tragic.

  Fuck it, let’s do it, I said, getting onto all fours above him, and running my hand up his thigh.

  It’s fine.

  No I do, I really want to.

  The moment’s passed.

  No, I’m—look. I grabbed what remained of his boner. I’m seizing the moment, see? Based on his little jolt, perhaps a bit too forcefully.

  Wow, you certainly have.

  I slackened my grip a little, and leaned down to kiss him, this time confidently on the lips, open mouthed. Tongues darted, probing. It was a choreography at first. A mimicry. But gradually, it became real. Embodied. We lost ourselves in one another like we hadn’t for ages, until he pulled his head away and studied my face with a furtive smile.

  It’s nice to have you back, he said.

  I didn’t go anywhere.

  He nodded, looking at my eyes but also through me, lost in thought. Oh I was meaning to tell you … he said with a chuckle, his eyes focusing back on my face. Lucas sent me this crazy article today about this couple in Florida who reported hearing this humming sound in their house. It kept them up for days, and when they investigated they discovered this humongous wasps’ nest in a hollow wall and they had to tear down the entire—

  Why are you telling me this? I interrupted. My face felt hot.

  I just—

  Can we just kiss? I asked. We did for a few moments, until I fell ba
ck out of it. Why did you tell me that?

  Just forget about it.

  But I couldn’t. I was irritated and distracted now. Did you tell Lucas about me? I asked.

  No, he has no idea; he just sent it to me because he thought it was crazy.

  It didn’t sound like a wasps’ nest, I said, overtop of his reply.

  I know, I—

  I told him it sounded like distant thunder rumbling all the time, it wasn’t a wasps’ nest, it wasn’t just a funny story in some ‘crazy’ article. I disentangled myself from Paul and lay back on my side of the bed.

  I just thought it was funny.

  Well it’s not.

  Nothing much is anymore, is it, he said, sitting up. I lay there for a long moment, looking at the ceiling, fists balled at my side. I could hear him starting to check emails on his phone.

  Maybe I shouldn’t sleep here tonight, I mumbled.

  Oh c’mon.

  I don’t think we’re ready, I said, sliding out of bed. I started towards the door, but he got up and waylaid me in the middle of the room with a hug from behind. He wrapped his arms around my waist and held me there.

  Please, he whispered. I let him hold me, and slowly melt me against his big white slice of Wonder Bread chest. We just stood there, breathing together for a long while, until I felt him getting hard against my thigh.

  Oh, and we’re back, I said.

  I’m throwing down the gauntlet.

  I turned to face him. He wore a boyish, expectant look. I couldn’t help but smile. He leaned down and kissed me on the lips.

  I’m sorry, he murmured. I’m trying.

  I know, I said. And I kissed him back. He hovered his lips over my neck, as he slid his fingers down below my waistband. We made our way, fumblingly, back towards the bed, and tumbled down onto it, lips locked. He began pulling off my underwear, and I helped him, pushing it down my legs with my left foot. It felt strange to be aware of both the hum and Paul’s panting. I tried to tune out the hum, and focus only on our sharp, quaking exhales. Our grunts. On the moisture of our bodies. The smacking of our skin. I let myself get lost in these sounds—until my phone buzzed with a text on the bedside table. I ignored it, and tried focusing again on his breath, focusing on the sound of our bodies, until another buzz followed, and another. I slammed my hand down over my phone.