Sebastian Gibbs had never been a leaver before; not when his parents died and his brother needed him, not when times were hard on the wharf, not when the Crumbs were fearing for their livelihood.
But now he had nowhere else to turn. He had nothing else to offer to his friends. It was the first time he felt utterly alone in the world, like nobody, including himself, was there to save him one more time.
Maybe the Crumbs hated him for walking away after losing the station. Maybe that was a good thing.
He walked the length of London, past Big Ben, past Buckingham Palace, and even as late afternoon began to settle in the sky he had no intentions of stopping anytime soon.
As long as he was walking, he was going somewhere. And that was a good feeling for someone who had just lost everything.
Bash did not put it upon himself to understand the inner workings of the universe. He had never even tried. But to put so much work, so much effort into the radio; to have a shockingly successful concert that pulled the Crumbs from the dregs and placed them at the top, only to have the BBC make their own pop station could only beg one question: why?
It was almost too coincidental. Laughable, even.
Bash could take some small comfort in knowing that it took something cosmically out of their control to bring down Crumb Radio. Because as long as there was something, a mere finger hold, to have on that station, the Crumbs would have hung on forever.
As he walked, Bash's steps took him somewhere he hadn't been in five years.
The whites of his Keds stood in contrast to the dark green grass at the edge of the gate. Golden sunshine bathed the cemetery in a shimmering hue, cascading up and down the rolling hills and making the wildflowers shiver with a subtle breeze.
This was not an old, barren cemetery where Edwardian vicars and mournful widows were buried. It wasn't ugly or haunted or ancient, but beautiful in a way that honored the people beneath the soil.
That was why Bash and Smiley had picked it.
They hadn't wanted their parents to have to deal with wailing ghosts and dying trees. Instead, they had wanted their parents buried under an oak tree, where they could sit together and watch Big Ben chime on the hour. Where they could still hear music playing from the pub down the street. Where they could dance and sing.
Bash's heart began to pound as he stepped closer and closer to that exact tree. When he'd buried his parents, he'd sworn to visit them every day. He had promised them he wouldn't forget and that he'd bring a new record every time for them to listen to.
He'd never done any of those things. He hadn't visited, not once.
Maybe it was because it was too painful. Maybe he'd been too scared.
But now, as he crested the hill, he saw their names as bright and as clear as the day he'd left their grave sight.
Anne Marie Gibbs: Born September 5, 1936 - Died June 15, 1962
Markham Jude Gibbs: Born February 26, 1933 - Died June 15, 1962
It was strange that that was all anybody who was passing by knew about his parents. To a stranger, it was just another gravesite implicating a tragedy. Did anybody know that Anne Marie Gibbs could sing like Mahalia Jackson while baking the best blueberry torte the world had ever seen? Or that Markham Jude Gibbs played the meanest fiddle this side of the pond?
That was the problem with graves, Bash thought. Life could never survive on stone.
He knelt on the grass, desperately wishing Smiley was here with him, but knowing that it was his own fault that he wasn't.
"I didn't bring you any music," Bash said, his throat tight.
The tears came slowly at first, trailing down his cheeks in crooked patterns, then they came all at once in a rhythm that said, You can't do this, you can't, you can't, you can't....
He cried because he was scared. He cried because it felt like the only thing to do now. He cried because he needed to.
Finally, he sat back on his heels and scrubbed his tears away with the back of his hand.
"You weren't supposed to leave so soon," he told the graves. "If you were, I would have been okay on my own. I would've taken better care of Smiles. I swear. But I've been trying my best, I just can't...I don't know what to do now. Maybe it was all a mistake to begin with but..."
But it wasn't. Bash knew that. If the Crumbs had been a mistake, he knew he would make it a thousand times over.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat. "You'd be proud of Smiles, Mum. He's a maestro on the keys; he closes his eyes just like you do. Did. And there's Kathy Donovan...she's a spitfire, but she works creative magic wherever she goes. And Syl..." Bash laughed quietly under his breath. "She's pure starlight. Mum always said there wouldn't be anybody good enough for me, which was never true, but both of you would like her, I think." He bowed his head and sighed deeply. "We've lost everything we've worked for."
"You're not the only one."
Bash straightened at the sound of the newcomer's voice.
He stood all the way up to examine the boy in front of him.
He looked nothing like the Greg Whitman Bash had seen before. His eyes were bleary, much like Bash's own, and his black curls were smashed beneath a faded ball cap. He wore jeans and a t-shirt, which somehow made him look like the boy he really was instead of the rogue he often portrayed.
Greg nodded toward the graves. "I'm sorry."
Bash instinctively bristled. "Why are you here?"
"Same as you." Greg's eyes drifted to somewhere else in the cemetery. "My Mum."
"I'm sorry."
Silence filled the gap between them.
Greg said, "I wish I could say that the competition was over, but I think we both know who really won in the end." He gave a shallow laugh that wasn't sneering like usual. He closed the space to stand beside Bash and they both looked at the graves in front of them.
"I can't figure it out," Greg mused. "We had all the money. All the equipment. And if the BBC hadn't put everything to rot and it would have still just been Mad Teddy Radio versus Crumb Radio, I still think you would have won."
Bash gave a halfhearted smile and glanced at Greg. "Some things can't be bought with money, Whitman. We did radio because we loved it. Because it was all we had."
The past-tense words stung as Bash said them.
"So what do the Crumbs do now?" Greg asked.
Bash inhaled deeply, watching as the shadows shifted over the graveyard. There had never been a plan B.
"Dunno," he answered. "I guess we just keep doing what we've always done; find a way to survive. What about the Teddy's?"
"Ha." Greg pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it, taking a long drag before saying, "We go back to our parents' houses. Back to the old life. Back to school. None of us can't be too disappointed because this whole endeavor was only temporary. A bit of fun for the summer."
"You all must be disappointed."
He studied his shoes for a moment, jaw clenching. "None of the boys seem to care, really. Barely batted an eye when The Big Man told us he was closing up shop. Most of them left the yacht a few hours later, taking what they'd come with and leaving behind whatever they didn't care about."
"And you? Were you disappointed?"
Greg gave a short laugh. "Blast it all, I'm devastated. I finally had freedom...or, at least, it felt like I had freedom. My father gave me what I wanted and left me alone. And for a moment there I almost thought...I almost thought he was proud of me."
Greg shook his head and flicked his cigarette onto the grass, grinding it down with his shoe. "That's the problem with dreams, though, isn't it? You have to wake up sometime."
At first, Bash would have assumed Greg had nothing to complain about. Pirate radio being abolished only meant he had one less hobby.
Now, Bash realized that, in some ways, they were both losing the same game. One that either brought freedom or shackles. Love or pain. Passion or desperation.
"The BBC really tried to kick our arses every way it could," Bash said.
"Bloody right."
Bash turned to Greg and stuck out his hand. "We both gave it our all."
Greg shook his hand in a melancholy way. "We did. And do you know what? It might've been the happiest I've ever been."
Bash recalled all the anger and poisonous words that had filled Greg's composure. What had his life been like before the radio?
"See you around, Whitman."
"See you, Crumb."
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