What Goes Up

by Allen Weiner

  Tex was the Chronicle’s long-standing writer/reporter who once worked out of the paper’s Allentown office. After winning several state and national awards for his writing, the paper graciously allowed Tex to work out of the bureau, which was only twenty minutes from his home in New Philadelphia. Tex had a colorful past. In addition to being a former trucker, he had lived on a commune in Tennessee and painted houses in Alaska. There were rumors that Tex once worked for the CIA, but that was never confirmed.

  Max and Tex left the office and walked up Catawissa Street a few blocks to a family-run coffee shop, Nuggles. Nuggles was a popular local hangout that was popular long before Starbucks made its way to Carbon County, and a decent coffee cup was difficult to find. Years later, when Max’s reporting career would take him to Seattle, his appreciation for coffee would expand. But for now, if it was hot and not instant, it was fine.

  “So, here’s the problem,” Tex mumbled between sips of his piping hot caffeine fix. “You had the right idea by trying to keep your ear to the ground and impress everyone with a scoop. I get it. What you need to do is refine your technique and not get ahead of yourself.”

  “Wait,” Max replied. “Are you saying that what I did was not as big a deal as everyone says?”

  Tex chuckled and put his mug down. “No, you shit the bed, my friend. What I am telling you is that your instinct is right on. You also don’t know the people in these parts; folks here can be dense, both inside the office and outside. And because you are an outsider, you have to tread lightly and go the extra mile to prove your worth.”

  Max Rosen’s head spun with Tex’s words of counsel.

  “To put it simply,” Tex said in his elongated delivery, “you were in the right church, but the wrong pew.”

  The pair left Nuggles and Max headed home. At this time, his home was a recently renovated second-floor one-bedroom apartment a few blocks north of the office in Nesquehoning. His conversation/pep talk with Tex lit a fuse in Max, and the suspended reporter had two days to bring some genius scheme to fruition.

  And Max knew just the right person to consult for help to bring the scheme to reality.

  Chapter Two

  Memorial Day, 1978: six months before Max’s career crossroads. Max and Barrett Fine stood outside a side entrance to Resorts International Casino in Atlantic City. After decades of political chatter, Atlantic City, once a proud summer escape for working-class Philadelphians, was about to open its first legal gambling joint—Resorts International.

  Friends since age seven, Fine was eager to demonstrate to Max one of his newly discovered passions, that of a card counter at blackjack. Barrett was prone to developing various challenging skills such as performing elaborate memory tricks and becoming a nationally ranked table tennis player. At the time, Fine was an out-of-work attorney who had made a killing buying condos before AC legalized gambling, and reselling them for a handsome profit after the controversial bill was passed.

  The front entrance to the hotel/casino faced the famed Atlantic City Boardwalk. Decades earlier, Fine and Rosen’s families would vacation at the shore—Fine’s at the luxurious Sheraton Deauville; Rosen’s at a rooming house or thirty-dollar-a-night motel a block away from the beach. The Boardwalk was different this Memorial Day weekend as a sea change took place when such icons as Steel Pier, Captain Starn’s, and the 500 Club were shoved aside for slot machines, video poker tables, buses of seniors, and all-you-can-eat, artery-clogging buffets.

  None of that mattered to Barrett Fine—he wanted to play blackjack and impress his friend with the ability to outsmart the house and win big. The crowd at the Boardwalk entrance to Resorts showed no sign of thinning out as the muggy late-May midafternoon became early evening. Fine grabbed Rosen by the arm and said, “Let’s head around the side and see if we can sneak in.”

  The oddly mismatched duo—Rosen, five inches taller than his friend, tended to dress down for any occasion—walked toward Pennsylvania Avenue to the workers’ entrance. A few stragglers hung around outside the side door when Fine walked up to a bored Hispanic security guard and offered him twenty dollars to let the two men into the building.

  The casino was straight ahead from the side door. The garish décor and overpowering smell of cigarette smoke was the perfect tableau for a once-vibrant city fallen to hard times. Fine, eager to become a blackjack legend, found the closest five-dollar table and proceeded to lose five straight hands. Not accustomed to losing, Fine got up, motioned Rosen that it was time to leave, and they left the way they came in. The trip back to Philadelphia was only ninety minutes, but Barrett Fine’s stone silence made it seem longer.

  Barrett Fine grew up in a two-story modest row home across from a large Catholic church some twelve blocks from Max Rosen in Northeast Philadelphia. Barrett was a rare prodigy whose diverse talents ranged from playing the piano to an accomplished athlete in multiple racquet sports. Few folks know that Barrett was polydactyl, which meant he was born with six fingers on his left hand. Occasionally he bragged about this physical anomaly, which was an asset in athletic endeavors. At other times, he did his best to hide his extra digit inside his pants pocket.

  Max met Barrett in second grade when elementary schools in Philadelphia had thirty kids in a classroom with three separate teachers for each grade. Even at age seven, because of their rare, yet distinctly different, intellectual gifts, Max and Barrett realized there was a predestined force that would forever connect them. Both had older sisters, mothers with unrealistic academic demands, and sympathetic fathers. Theirs would be an off-and-on brotherhood that would have its peaks and valleys for the next more than a half-century.

  At the time of Max’s work troubles, Barrett was living sixty miles away in a fashionable condo in a part of Philadelphia overlooking the Delaware River that was supposed to be the next big thing. Returning from an afternoon of hustling wannabe tennis pros at a nearby court, Fine saw the blinking light on his answering machine.

  “Call me when you get this,” the familiar voice said.

  Max Rosen placed the phone back onto its cradle on the wall outside his apartment’s small kitchen. It was ten thirty in the morning on day one of his suspension from work, and the day was dragging. He was not much for daytime TV, and the radio reception for his favorite stations in Philadelphia was fuzzy at best. Too antsy to read the free newspaper he had delivered every morning, Max took a folding chair, opened the sliding door to his balcony, and sat.

  The view from Rosen’s second-floor apartment was nothing to write home about. Miles and miles of desolate farmland were dotted with houses in disrepair and other reminders of a region that went downhill after unregulated coal mining took its toll on the local economy and health of its citizens.

  Max stared off into space, losing his sense of place in the cool autumn air. He appeared to be in some sort of trance, but it was what others might call an intellectual coma. The young reporter had an inexplicable ability to remember things from his past very closely and personally. He was not much for predicting the future, but when it came to remembering precisely how the furniture was laid out in his family’s home in 1965, Max was uncannily prodigious. It was the same native skill he used to successfully win bar bets over trivial matters, especially when they were related to sports. Max’s associative memory was akin to how internet search engines would work in the future, matching keywords to related content in nanoseconds.

  As Max’s mind wandered, going in varied self-charted directions, he thought back to an eventful day thirteen years earlier, which triggered the brainstorm that might lead to a spectacular comeback.

  It was November 1965. Walking home from junior high school, Max was stopped at the corner of his street by a tall, rugged-looking man holding a shiny badge who asked Max his name and address. What followed was a series of questions that were unusual to be fired at a twelve-year-old. Max Rosen later found out that his neighbor, Harry Gold, had been released from jail on good behavior. The FBI wanted to make sure everything was
in order before allowing the accused Cold War spy, a man instrumental in the conviction of Ethyl and Julius Rosenberg, to take up residence in his family’s crowded home in Northeast Philadelphia. Sadly, Harry Gold, let out of prison due to bad health, died a few years later.

  Here is the thought process that took Max Rosen from the notorious Harry Gold to his dilemma: Tex mentioned that the idea of surreptitiously getting tidbits of gossip could lead to a career-boosting scoop. As Max did at the Jim Thorpe town council meeting, overhearing conversations had a kernel of viability. But, as the currently suspended reporter later figured out, the two local men took advantage of the reporter’s inexperience and gullibility. Instead of discussing a matter of great importance in their just-loud-enough-to-be-overheard chat, the school board president and his buddy decided to deliberately feed Max a line of bullshit that would be a nice welcome gift to the area. Max’s ah-ha moment involved eavesdropping without being present, catching the local powers that be unaware of their most vulnerable moments.

  And that is where the ghost of Harry Gold came into play. If Max would learn and master the techniques that Cold War spies used to gather secrets, he could use that prowess to gather scoop-worthy nuggets and regain his footing on his tenuous career. He called Barrett back and arranged to meet for coffee in Quakertown, a city twenty miles outside of Allentown.

  Max had a thing for Dunkin’ Donuts dating back to his childhood when his mother would take him and share a powdered sugar cruller along with a coffee that was 80 percent milk. Memory lane was a tricky, chilling trip for the twenty-five-year-old man. Many of his earliest years were pocked with times of sadness and vulnerability that continued to haunt him and would for another quarter-century. There were great times, too, that, in retrospect, cushioned the blow of bad memories.

  As he sat at a cramped table by the window, Max saw his friend’s silver BMW pull up in front of the donut shop on West End Boulevard in Quakertown. Barrett called his friend in need back and agreed to meet Max. The message on his answering machine intrigued Barrett, who was always up for a challenge.

  Max, not fussy about his coffee, stared into his cup, swirling the grounds that sat at the bottom as Barrett sat down. It was fifty degrees outside, and the heat was on full blast at the Quakertown DD, so Barrett removed his imported cashmere jacket and folded it across his lap to be sure it didn’t come anywhere near the possibly dirty floor.

  “You want anything?” Max asked his friend.

  “Do you know if they have anything other than drip coffee here?” Barrett said smugly, knowing the answer.

  For the first time in several days, Max smiled and let loose what amounted to a semi-chuckle. “Yeah, right,” he said.

  “Okay, so you tell me you fucked up royally, and you’re looking for my help to follow people and learn their secrets?”

  “No, that’s not what I said,” Max responded, irritated over his friend’s typical obnoxious comment. “I said I need help in figuring out a way to secretly eavesdrop on important people to get information for award-winning new stories.”

  “Award-winning.” Barrett laughed. “From what you told me, you need to prove your worth or send out your resumes. Again. I’d say you may want to settle for coming up with the news that will keep you employed.”

  Ignoring most of what Fine said, Max went in for the kill, which meant stroking his buddy’s massive ego. “The Cold War. Didn’t you write your master’s thesis at Penn on the Cold War?”

  Barrett nodded with a curious look that made him close one eye and scrunch up his brow. He wondered what the favor would be and whether it would be something that would pique his intellectual curiosity and be worthy of his time.

  “I need some Cold War spycraft ideas. I remember you told me that the Soviets planted a bug in a replica of the Great Seal, which they had as a gift to Averell Harriman when he was ambassador. I need something like that.”

  Ever the wiseass, Barrett responded, “You want a replica of the Great Seal? Or do you want to know more about W. Averell Harriman?”

  “No,” Max responded. “I want to eavesdrop on people using some sort of bugging device that we can plant somewhere out of the way and listen in on private conversations.”

  Barrett listened intently while he turned and stared out the window into the distance as the August afternoon turned into the early evening. Barrett got up in one motion, walked to the door, and gave an insignificant wave goodbye.

  Max knew his friend well enough to know that he was not getting the brush-off. When faced with a challenge, Barrett liked to go off and let the idea rattle obsessively in his brain. The results were almost uniformly on point; the method was idiosyncratic. Rosen figured he would give Fine a few days to ponder.

  There was one day left in Max Rosen’s suspension from the Chronicle. He used that day to briefly visit his family in Philadelphia and ready himself to return to battle. Max decided he would take any assignment he was given and dive in headfirst, but with extreme caution to avoid blunders. He did not want to get the boot with a third strike before implementing his new plan—whatever it would be.

  After a dinner with his parents in Philadelphia, Max returned to the office. His suspension had ended, and he tried to act as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Still, ten sets of eyes were on him as he walked to his desk. After putting his briefcase down by the side of his well-worn faux leather chair, Max walked to the board that sat behind whoever was on duty as night editor. Luck not being on his side, it was Ervin, and the young reporter was assigned to cover the Coaldale Pysanky Egg Festival. It was the bottom of the barrel for even an entry-level reporter. Such social events were generally farmed out to freelancers, but Max smiled and told Ervin he would head over to Miner’s Memorial Park where the event was being held.

  Not being a major news event or breaking story such as a fire or plane crash, reporters were expected to take their photos, putting one in the win column for Max. His mother was a would-be professional photographer, which meant she had a darkroom in the basement but had never sold any pictures. Still, Max learned everything about photography and bought a Nikkormat camera in 1975 with his savings from working in a chain shoe store for two summers.

  Since Miner’s Park was only a few miles away, Max decided to take his car. On his way over, he fiddled with the Volvo’s car radio. Being too far from either Philadelphia or New York to get their radio stations, he had to settle for whatever would come in with minimum static. Between Philadelphia’s WFIL and New York’s WOR, Max found an odd station that was unusually clear for the area between Nesquehoning and Coaldale.

  When the song “My Best Friend’s Girl” by the Cars ended, an amateurish voice introduced the next song. There was a weird commotion in the background mixed with some high-pitched giggles. Holy shit, Max realized. I found a pirate radio station.

  At that point, Max’s associative memory kicked in. When he was eleven, Max’s older sister, Nancy, had a group of friends who devised a pirate radio station in the basement of one of their homes. Nancy’s friends gave themselves DJ names such as Steve Diamond (né Steve Polansky) and Fred Kay (né Fred Rabinowitz) and operated their illegal broadcast operation every weekend evening. While Nancy went on to medical school and became a respected ear, nose, and throat doctor, her radio friends never amounted to much.

  While Max was never invited to join the fun, he became somewhat—well, more than somewhat—of a radio nerd. He learned everything about pirate radio stations, including their rich and storied history, as well as the rudiments of setting one up. It was, as Rosen learned, as simple as taking, or building, an FM transmitter and directing its signal via an antenna to a set spot on the FM dial. You could play music or talk or, if the mood strikes, do nothing, and fill the airwaves with silence.

  Max arrived at Miner’s Park just as the awards were being announced. While the concept of decorating eggs in some intricate pattern escaped him, he wanted to knock this assignment out of the park. Claire Remington won
for the best overall design, and she proudly spoke of her family’s Ukrainian heritage, which made for a nice piece of news fluff. Remington’s picture was holding her multicolored egg made for a colorful story buried on page three of the local zoned edition of the Chronicle.

  Typical to morning newspapers, regular reporter shifts ended at 10 p.m. unless there was a breaking news story. Skipping the practice of joining his colleagues for a beer after work, Max headed home and called Barrett, going into detail about his brainstorm on how to eavesdrop on local bigwigs and gather worthy news nuggets that could become great stories. Barrett was quiet as he sat in his favorite reading chair sixty miles away, and Max took his silence to mean Barrett hadn’t come up with a better idea, and he was on board with the plan. They agreed to meet at the Carbon County Courthouse on Friday afternoon.

  The men’s room in the Carbon County Courthouse is empty at 5 p.m. on Friday. The last regular daytime cleaning crew leaves at 4 p.m., and the overnight crew reports to work at 7 p.m. The coast was clear for Max and Barrett as the building was empty, with the front and side doors locked. All that remained as an escape route was a fire door in the back that was easily sabotaged to stay partially open.

  Barrett shook his head in disbelief. His friend of eighteen years had asked for some favors over the years, but this one was close to a request too far. “So, you are Q, and I’m James Bond,” he whispered to Max.

  With a nervous smirk, Max replied, “Whatever you say.”

  The execution of the Rosen-Fine gambit—or Fine-Rosen if Barrett had any say in the matter—included hiding a small FM transmitter in the courthouse’s main elevator. There were two creaky old self-service lifts in the building, but the county officials used the larger one. There were three floors, with the top floor being the judges’ chambers and the county treasurer’s office. The second floor housed county records, meeting rooms, and the office of the sheriff and district attorney.