Chapter 8

 

 

 

Almost half a century has passed since that night, and time and I never really reconciled. In the same way that it’s betrayed me so often by skipping ahead at the most inopportune moments, time has somehow now perpetrated the most reprehensible disservice of all. I find myself old and nostalgic, wondering at its tricks, and how so many years could have slipped by so quickly.

I’m told that time is a relative concept and everyone interprets it differently. I suppose that holds true because my interpretation of time on that drive to Ambassador Bridge really was skewed. Gail said I didn’t start speaking Russian until we were already pulling onto the Bridge. The last thing I remember was that I had spoken Russian all my life.

Gail ended up being the real hero of this account. I may have found that proverbial cork to stick back into the genie’s bottle, but she was the one who actually popped it in. Without Gail, I’d be nothing but a specter in Rasputin’s forest, chanting for eternity alongside Joey and Ray and the others.

She said I frightened her like nobody’s business once I started chanting. She drove for about a quarter mile across the river while I looked right at her and spoke a steady stream of Russian, as if I were trying to convince her of something. I popped the latches of the suitcase open, and she saw the gramophone moving inside, struggling like a dog locked in a cage that’s too small.

That’s when she pulled over.

The way Gail tells it, I put up a good fight. But like I said before, I hit like a pansy, and she beat the stuffing out of me, tearing that suitcase from my cold, curled fingers. I’ve even got a thin scar on my lip where she punched me with the small diamond ring I’d given her. To this day, I don’t know how she knew to throw it in the river, and Gail still doesn’t know either. Plain ol’ woman’s intuition, I guess. She closed the suitcase’s latches again, just as the needle fell against a record and began to play. She took that case and heaved it with the strength of a dozen lumberjacks far over the railing and into the dark water below. It sank like an anchor and a puff of steam billowed up.

One night a long time ago—but also a long time after that affair on the bridge—Gail woke from a bad dream and urgently confessed something that since then she’s never repeated. While the record player was sailing through the air, before it drowned in the river, she heard voices singing: Terrible, chanting voices, overlaying music that sounded like out-of-tune instruments filled with rattling teeth. She said she heard Joey’s voice on that record. Never mind that the words were Russian, or that they were muffled through the leather case, or that she was frantic and near screaming…she knew Joey’s voice, and she knew it was him.

Anyway, once the suitcase went underwater, it was all over. That was Rasputin’s weakness—drowning—and it translated to the record player. Gail said I then fell asleep, and I slept for three days straight. She brought me back to her house and nursed me until I woke. After I regained consciousness, she offered to take me home to Les Deux Oies, but I declined. I figured there was nothing of value left there, and I have no idea whatever became of the items in my apartment.

We’re married and live in Manhattan now. I’ve never attended a baggage auction since the last one with Ray, in which I blew twenty bucks just because I had to bid on something. I guess that’s a symptom of gambling addiction and a sign to call it quits. Of course I knew I wouldn’t attend another auction anyway, because I wouldn’t be able to stomach living through the memories, standing before an auctioneer and imagining Joey next to me waving his crippled hand up in the air.

I still watch the pony races from time-to-time, and I still collect, but only one thing, and Gail keeps a tight rein on that. I maintain a collection of postcards from Detroit. Old postcards, nothing newer than 1970, and only those showing scenic locations of the city. Another stipulation of the collection is that the cards must have been postmarked and sent. Unused postcards that never served their purpose—never traveled as they should—just wouldn’t do.

I used to visit antique stores, perusing for these old cards, but the first time I saw a gramophone for sale I walked out and haven’t set foot in any such place again. It’s easier now with the internet, and I can search online for them. I’ve not returned to Motor City, and all my own photographs are gone, left behind in the apartment, so each old postcard I collect is meaningful.

A new millennium is coming, but the passage of decades does nothing to diminish the pain and sorrow of what occurred that long-ago summer. I suppose that’s why I collect old Detroit postcards. Although my last week there was spent in the shadows of a nightmare, the cards harken back to all the other good years. They feature landmarks I was familiar with and often bring rise to fond memories, like the Penobscot Building, Belle Isle Park, and Tiger Stadium. I’ve got countless cards showing Ambassador Bridge, and I even have one featuring a front view of Les Deux Oies. Imagine my astonishment when I read the script at the bottom of that card’s backside, sharing well wishes to his grandchildren: it was signed from George R. Landis…the oldest tenant of the building.

There might even be another reason I collect old postcards. It reminds me of the views of peoples’ lives I once stored in trunks and chests, glimpses into their existence. I once collected their trappings and memories in my room, keeping them alive simply by my acknowledgement and my possession. If I’d destroyed those items, it would have been as if they never existed. But I kept them around, and their stories persevered.

And isn’t perseverance what immortality is all about?

I’m keeping alive my memories of Detroit through these postcards, and maybe someone will keep alive my memories after I pass.

And that gets me wondering if there might even be another reason I collect…was there an underlying motive I kept sent postcards? Why was I compelled to continue to save people’s voices? Postcards, like photographs, like albums, are recordings of people’s existence. During the time Rasputin had a hold on me, how much of my soul did he carry away? Are there bits and flakes missing, screaming somewhere for me to resurrect them through a few magic words? Does a little part of me still reside in that nightmare land and, when I die, will it return to me, or I to it?

Perhaps saving voices is a means of self-preservation.

Or, perhaps, I’m wasting too much thought worrying about it. I’m an old man without many years left. I won’t let time take those while I’m not paying attention to what really matters in life.

Gail’s in the next room, and I might just go in there and kiss her with my scarred lip. I might just tell her something that I’ve said a hundred times before, though I don’t think she ever tires of hearing it…

She’s the best bid I ever won.

 

 

The End