The tape starts off with a tap as I set it down on the table. You hear the faint beating of the spinning reel throughout the whole thing. A faint tap, tap, tap keeping a steady meter to the conversation. You hear the ever-present analog hiss. If you listen closely enough, you can hear the rain beating down on the slate roof of his cottage. That sound could be my imagination, though.
“Do you mind if I record this, Mr. Stowell?” See that? You record first and ask permission later. Real professional.
“No, not at all, please.” You can hear his British accent and his Manx accent at the same time. Not quite like a mixture of both. Sort of like seeing one accent through a filter crafted from the other.
“And call me Brian.” You hear him roll his ‘r,’ then you hear him laugh.
You hear me cough, then you hear my chair squeak as I shift uncomfortably.
If you listen closely enough, you can just hear me screaming inside my head: “What the fuck am I doing here, I’ve never interviewed anyone before, I have no idea what I’m doing, nobody ever taught me how to do this, what the fuck am I doing on this fucking island.”
You can hear my frustration after I wandered around in the rain, up and down the country streets of Douglas trying to find 13 Mary Road before I realized that the roads don’t have names and the houses don’t have numbers. That sound could be my imagination, though.
“S-so, w-when did you find out you were the last person t-to speak Manx?”
If you listen closely enough, you hear inside my head: “I can’t fucking believe I just fucking stuttered.”
And for the next hour and a half, you hear Brian and I talking about the language he single-handedly saved, how the Island has changed since the 40s, how the Island has not changed since the 40s, a few bar fights, high school, college, grad school, a few women, his wife, a few other women, the language again, and:
“You know, in the British nuclear program- did I mention to you that I worked on that?” If you listen closely enough, you hear me shake my head. “Yes, well, back when the British were trying to develop The Bomb- yes, you Americans didn’t let us in on that one, did you?” You hear Brian’s old, gentlemanly accent trying to escape from the imperfections of the magnetic tape.
You hear the clink of porcelain as he sets his tea cup down. “Well, we were scrambling to catch up. But it was all hush-hush, of course. So I told them, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll write my notes down in Manx, I’m the only person alive who speaks it!’” You hear him grin.
“Well, what happened when- when you started teaching Manx and… and, other people started speaking it?” You hear Brian laugh again. You hear me force a nervous smile.
You hear the beat of the reel keeping the rhythm steady.
“Excellent question!” He laughs again. “I try not to mention it, but I did lose all those notes in the 70s. No idea where they went, really.”
You hear us imagine an Iranian scientist translating Brian’s crumpled-up notes with a Manx dictionary open next to him.
You hear Brian squint his wrinkled, gray-green eyes.
You hear the tap, tap, tap, tap of the tape.
You hear him stare out the window behind me, at the rain, at the mist lying heavy on the rolling fields, at a memory inside his own head.
You hear him sip his Darjeeling tea.
You hear the analog hiss.
You hear me look over my shoulder to follow Brian’s gaze and notice that his eyes are the same color as the sea he’s looking toward.
You hear me briefly consider burning my ticket back to Los Angeles.
If you listen closely enough.
