The Victrola

My father brought home the wind up record player when I was ninteen years old.  It wasn't much to look at, to be honest.  The thing largely consisted of a beat up wooden box with a crank at on end that sat on a cabinet with doors, once opened, would change the volume at which the music played.  

Father was always bringing home antiques when he went out on his days off from the factory.  I was old enough, by far, to look after myself so when I turned down his casual invitations to go he'd trundle off by himself to see what treasures he could find to bring home.

 To date we had three lamps that almost worked, glass cake dishes (too bad they couldn't fill themselves) and a jar full of marbles in the most exotic colors I'd ever seen trapped to swirl in glass.  There of course, were other things he'd picked up here and there, the fruits of endeavors spent traveling hours to see what was worth bidding on.

 I was a homebody and going to school full time so I didn't have the patience or the desire to stand around in musty places, trying not to sneeze and attempting to keep myself entertained by people watching.  Once I'd spent four hours making up an imaginary life for a women who spent the whole auction bent over a case of costume jewelry.  

 Don't worry, it ended happy.  Her son came home from the war and her husband really did love her; the frolic with the French Maid really didn't mean anything after all.

 As a woman of my own mind, I kept myself at home where I could busy myself with house keeping and a variety of other chores.  Our home was rather large for two people to be knocking about in and keeping it to standard was a full time job in and of itself.

 So yes, the day he'd brought home the Victrola I'd just finished dusting his many antiques, things I weren't even sure what they did but seemed interesting never the less.  

 “Come quick, I need your help.  It's going to rain soon!”

 He had to get my help to carry it in and once we had it in the house he put it to rights, pulling out a variety of 'needles' that didn't look like much of anything.  Opening the top he plugged the needle in and from below, he pulled out a record.  Winding the dusty machine up, he set the needle down on the record, carefully placed on the base.  

 “This is a Victrola 'Terpsichore'.  See, it says right on the plaque.”  

I bent down and looked, impressed.  I had no idea what that meant, exactly, but I didn't want to illicit that grunt of disapproval in my father regarding my lack of education on such things.  Sure, ask me about mythology, folk tales, fictional things and I could have someone dead to rights.  However, history was not my strong suit.  So far as I was concerned Caesar was a salad best served with chicken. 

“Now, I looked and there is no such thing, at least not listed in the old catalogs.  I figure this was a one run, a single off they didn't bother listing.  There might be something wrong with it.”

When the needle settled the music blasted the house and we had to shut almost all of the doors in the front to keep the volume down. If we were going to air the thing out it would have to be while it wasn't playing, that was for sure.

The music it brought forth reminded me of listening to the first recordings of music as experiments by individuals who had first invented the permanent entrapment of sound on glass.  Rocking back on my bare feet, now dusty and dirty I listened to the crooning of the woman on the record.  She sounded vaguely familiar but I couldn't place her, not at all.  However, my father did.  Slightly sad, he pulled the needle up, careful not to scratch the disk and set it to rest.

“Perhaps,” He said, “We had best see about dinner, don't you think?”

I agreed and we had beef stew that night.  As typical, he inquired about my day and we ate in silence.  That night he went to his room after cake, where we had moved the Victrola, and took his glass of wine with him.

Knowing better than to disturb him when he was in an introspective state, I cleaned up the kitchen once more and set about reading a book I'd acquired from the local library.  It was full of action, adventure, swashbucklers and a maiden in distress.  I was entirely hooked, entranced, so much so that when the music started again I didn't pay it much mind, nor realized what it was.

However, it was the sort of sound that haunts, lurks in the back of your brain so when I finally dressed myself to bed and saw to shutting the house down I noticed my father sitting in his chair, glass of wine empty, slumped with the evidence of tears on his face.  Keeping quiet, so as not to wake him, I shut the Victrola up and went to my own bed.

It carried on for days like that, we would have a quiet dinner and then father would go to his room, start the record player and fall asleep in his chair.  He had established a routine around his new artifact and I was okay with it.  After all, who was I to complain?  So far as I could tell, the old man needed something to distract him.

However, the next night he said that he felt ill when he came home from work and wanted no food.  Instead, he went straight to bed and he hadn't been there long when I heard the Victrola start up.  Leaning against the wall I listened to the haunting music.  It took me some time to realize that the woman on the recording really wasn't singing words – just notes. It was as if she were providing background music for something else.  I'd been sitting there, listening for an hour before I knew it.  The only thing that distracted me was the chime of the grandfather's clock in the living room, marking the hour.

Pushing myself up to my feet I knew that something was wrong, in the pit of my stomach wrong.  It was the sort of feeling that lingers with you like a nasty odor that won't go away.  I looked over my shoulder, at my father's door, and went to my own room.

It was irrational to think that the old record player could do such a thing but there I was, wanting nothing more than to go back and listen to it again, wind up the old crank and lose myself.

As a rational woman, I doubted myself every step but I knew that if my father's behavior continued as it was I'd have to take drastic action.  After all, perhaps Victrolas like this one were no longer made for just this reason. Ridiculous, yet oddly plausible.  

When father went to work the next morning, though he still seemed a bit under the weather, I went into his room to check out this player.  It was forbidden territory, had been since I was a child but here I was, delving into the lion's den.  I checked the record player all over, inside and out but I didn't see any runes or odd markings other than some strange scratches in a line unlike any I'd ever seen.  They were so faded it was hard to tell if they were there on purpose or had been pressed into the wood by accident.

Rising to my feet I did the only sensible thing that I could do and that was call my older sister, Nancy.  After the fifth ring she finally picked up, sounding breathless and busy as usual.  She'd moved out into the city proper, some time back, and married a man of numbers.  Since going out there, she always sounded rushed, as if she just no longer had much time.

“June, what do you need? I'm heading out for a meeting here shortly.”  she said.  Her impatience was palpable.

Pinching the bridge of my nose between two fingers I explained the Victrola and dad and the whole bit. I was sure not to leave anything out, including the markings. 

When she spoke, her voice was flat. “You're telling me that a record player is making dad sick and you want me to do something about it.  Look, I know I took care of you, after mom left but honestly, such a sad thing to get my attention!  Of course the record player isn't making anyone sick and your fascination with it is a sign you're not focusing on what you should be.  How is school?”  Her words had been clipped, shortened in pronunciation since she'd moved into the city as if you had to talk fast there in order to be heard because no one had the time to actually listen.

I assured her all was well with my studies but I worked the conversation back to the record player.  I had to.  Something was really wrong and now I realized why all the detectives in the books I read got mad when no one seemed to see what they could.

“Look, Junie, why don't we get together in a week, okay?  You can come out here and we'll get some tea together, all right?”  Nancy sounded distracted by something else already. 

I knew, then, that it was no use.  After assuring her I'd come up for tea and an afternoon I hung up the phone and went back to the Victrola.  I was half way down the hall to Father's room when he came home.  The front door shut in a not so nice way that he'd often yelled at me for and he came inside.  

“Bad day at work,  I'm going to bed.  Take the phone off the hook. Don’t disturb me.”  He brushed past me, with barely a look in my direction.

However, my relief at not getting into trouble for being in his room was swiftly replaced by horror.  He'd come home to listen to the record player again.  Resolving myself to action, I knew that I had to do something or this was going to get out of hand.

He didn't leave his room for the rest of the night and didn't get out of bed in the morning.  I fixed him a small tray, with a cup of coffee and hoped that he'd take it.  Knocking on his door with my knuckles I found him, fully dressed from the night before, sitting in his chair.  His eyes were closed and the record player sat silent next to him.

Easing into his room, I shook his shoulder to wake him.  I wanted him to see the food I brought him. Moreover, I wanted him to actually eat it.  

 He opened his eyes and they looked gummy with sleep and tears. “She sounds like your mom, you know.”

I shook my head and told him I didn't but that the voice on the recording sounded familiar.

“She left all those years ago, after having you, and I thought I'd never hear her voice again but there she is, in the recording.  I can hear her speaking to me.”

I asked what she said to him but the old man just shook his head.

“It's nothing for you to bother about.  Thank you for the food but I’m not hungry. I'll be going to sleep now.  Shut the door. Let me rest.”

I set the cup of coffee down but took the rest of the tray of food away with me.  Once he was asleep, and my father was a hard sleeper, I knew what I had to do.

I went to school, made myself physically present in my classes. The only rewarding part of the day, at that point, had been a brief trip to the school library. When I came home, I looked in on my father. He was still sleeping hard, a hard deep sleep. Resolute, I did what only dad did, I kept my shoes on the house. As quickly and as quietly as I could, I rolled in the dolly and pushed it under the bottom of the record player. It took some doing but eventually I scooted it back onto the metal shelf at the bottom of the dolly.

The player made some discordant sounds: groaned in distress, dismay, or complaining old wood; I don’t know. I only knew I had to get it out of there.  So I eased it from my father's room, carefully shutting the door and down the hallway.  I wanted to move fast but I had to be quiet. “Silent. Silent.” I chanted under my breath as if I could witch away all the noise from the victrola that echoed through the otherwise silent house.

My arms were screaming in pain before long and I knew I had to get this done soon or else I'd wear out.  I was used to hard work, we all were, but this was something else. With a good deal of effort, I'd gotten the Victrola all the way down the street and headed to the dark.  Getting it down hill should have been easier but instead, it was tougher.  The closer I got to the shoreline the more I wanted to turn back and go home, give up. My legs had joined my arms in a cacophony of aches and my head was echoing that pain.

When I finally reached the pier, I got a few sideways looks from the neighborhood boys who were skipping rocks as the Pacific was far too cold to swim in.  With an oomph of effort that I could barely afford I pushed/dragged/pulled the thing to the edge of the pier. I struggled to get it all the way there and then I tipped it.  It toppled towards the water, end over end until it hit the waves and I heard a sickening crunch, a cry, and then the sea swallowed the record player up.

I dragged the dolly back, the kids eyeballing me like I'd become someone deranged. I couldn’t blame them; I supposed I looked the part.  When I got back home I found father, sitting up in his favorite chair in the living room looking haggard, worn, and pale.

“What did you do with the Victrola, June?”  He asked.  He didn't sound mad or anything, simply listless.

“I put her back in the ocean so she can be with her daughters.” I wiped my sweaty palms on jeans that had seen better days and brushed my soaked bangs from my forehead.

Father looked at me, the lines in his face deeper than before, and nodded his head, “I’m hungry. Make me a sandwich, Junie?” His eyes were lidded with sleep and he rubbed at them with knuckles made large by arthritus.

I saw to making his food, lunch for him even though it was close to dinner time. After I brought it to him and set it on the rickety end table next to his chair, I looked out onto the water.  The Pacific looked uneasy, the waves crashing the rocky shore. Spitefully, I hoped to myself that the bloody thing had broken, shattered on the rocks, and wouldn't be bothering anyone else. 

“What are your plans for this weekend?”  He interrupted my ill wishing of the Victrola as I made his customary pot of black tea.

I told him I had nothing specific going on other than maybe taking some transportation to see Nancy. I was still annoyed with her, both sad and angry but I still wanted to see her. As always, those feelings I kept to myself. 

“There is an auction, a few hours away, I think I'll go to.  You never know what you'll find worth bidding on.”