Dreamrail

by Michael Ripley

She held the bright red notebook in her left hand while she wrote with the thick black pen in her right. The page was full so she flipped to the next, and then flipped through the pages again. The thick cardboard end-page was all that remained. We were ten minutes into the interview. She had started with a nearly full pad, and from the look on her face, didn’t have another.

“I’m afraid I’m not very well prepared,” she said.

“Well it only took two months for us to get our schedules aligned, and I’ve got another thirty minutes, tops.”

“We’ll keep going.”

“Do you have a recorder?” I asked.

“No. I’ll remember,”

“What?”

“I’ll remember. I have a good memory.” She smiled, and I thought maybe she could remember after all, but then her eyes glassed over. She was worried.

“We can find some paper,” I said.

“No, let’s go on. It’ll be more natural this way. We’ll get your story out in the open. I’ll remember it the best I can. Would it be all right if I email it to you before I give it to my editor?”

“Why?” I asked.

“So you can tell me if I misrepresented anything.”

“It’s your magazine. Represent it however you want.”

“I meant you. I don’t want to misrepresent you.”

“You won’t. You couldn’t.”

“Just the same, will you look it over?”

“No. I only have twenty-five minutes left. Do you want to do this?”

“Yes,” she said as she folded the pad and threw it on the table. “Let’s get this show going.”

Linda McKnight had been after this interview for some time. When I agreed a couple months ago, she immediately sold the interview to Rolling Stone; I never understood why people would be interested in my story. Aside from arriving late, she had wasted most of the hour I had promised her. I could easily have extended the time; I had nothing else to do. However, I’ve found that I must set deadlines, because people will use up as much time as you give them; and besides, one hour is plenty if we know that’s all we have.

“My grandmother was a full-blooded Indian,” I started on the story again. “Natchez Indian. They’re in Oklahoma for the most part. Some from my family wound up in Missouri and Arkansas. I remember her pretty well, even though she died a long time ago. Things from those days are pretty well etched in my memory. She passed about the same day John Kennedy died. My dad wasn’t over her death when the news hit that President Kennedy had been shot. In the middle of the broadcast, dad picked the television up and dropped it back to the floor. We had an old console set, big and heavy with tubes in it. When he dropped it, I remember it popping and crackling. I thought it would catch on fire.”

“How old were you then?” the reporter asked.

“I must have been nine. I should have been in school that day, but I was sick. My mom was at work, and my dad had to leave. He worked shift work, and started on the afternoon shift that day. He was taking me to my aunt’s house where I would stay until my mom got home. We were about to leave, but the news came on and they said the president had been shot. They didn’t say he was dead. My dad said he’s dead all right, and then broke the set like I told you. He sent me to my room to get ready and took me to my aunt’s house.”

“What about your grandmother? You were telling me about her.”

“I’m getting to that. She came in at my aunt’s house.”

“But you said she was already dead.”

“She was. You telling this story now?”

“No, please go on.”

“My aunt wasn’t the type to let me sit around the house, watching television or playing games. If I was sick, I had to go to bed. Anyway, she put me in this big old feather bed.”

“Where were you living at the time? I’m sorry, I didn’t get that earlier.”

“We were in Indiana, but everybody was from Arkansas. I imagine they brought that bed with them from a little town in the hills called Bald Knob or Walnut Ridge or one of those places by the river where you drove through creeks without bridges to get to peoples houses. That’s where the phrase, ‘God willin’ and the creek don’t rise,’ comes from. My family came from those parts, and my aunt had just moved north a short while before this all happened, probably sixty-one or sixty-two.”

“Your father dropped you off at your aunt’s and went to work, right?”

“Right. Like I said, my aunt put me to bed as soon as I got there. I really felt fine, but everybody was upset about the president. That was the big thing that day. I wasn’t really very sick. She stayed in the living room watching the news, and I heard her cry at some point. I remember thinking that’s when he died, but I never was sure. The next time I saw the news, they were talking about him being dead, and they talked about it non-stop for two weeks at least. Anyway, I fell asleep in that bed.”

“And what happened?”

“I felt somebody sit down near my feet, and I sat up a little. I saw my grandma sitting there looking at me.”

“But she had died. Right?”

“Well yeah, she had died just maybe two weeks before that day, but she was sitting there, and I remember it wasn’t like she was floating or she looked like a ghost. She looked like you or anybody else sitting there, and I felt her on my feet when she sat down.”

“What did she want?”

“Well, she said she just wanted to make sure I was all right. Then she asked if I remembered last night.”

“What did she mean? What was that about?”

“The previous night. The night before President Kennedy was shot. The strange thing was that I did remember something. I had totally forgotten it until she asked.”

“What did you remember?”

“She had been there that previous night as well. Not at my aunt’s house, not on that feather bed, but at my house during the middle of the night. She sat down just like she sat there and just looked at me. She reached over to my desk, which was next to my bed and picked up my bank. It was a copper bank about six or seven inches tall that my dad gave me. He opened an account somewhere and they gave it to him as the free present for a new account.”

“What about the bank? Why did she pick it up?”

“Well it didn’t mean anything to me at the time, but the little bank was a bust of President Kennedy. She just picked it up and held it to her breast like she was hugging it. I didn’t know what she was doing, and then I totally forgot about it until the next day at my aunt’s house when grandma asked me if I remembered.”
“Did you answer her?”

“Yes. I told her I remembered. She told me not to be afraid.”

“What did she do then?”

“She left. I didn’t see her after that for quite a while. Things were fine for a long time after that.”

“What do you mean by fine?”

“I just mean nothing bad happened. I didn’t see my grandma.”

“When did you see her next?”

“Is that what you really want to know?”

“Well yes. I think it’s the story isn’t it?”

“You don’t want to know about this morning? I mean you already know I saw her again. How about when I saw her last instead of when I saw her next?”

“So you still see her?”

“Yes.”

“How often do you see her?”

“Depends. Sometimes she comes ‘round pretty often. You know that; you read the papers. Other times she would go a year or more without showing up. Let me tell you about this morning. We only have ten minutes left.”

“Ok. Tell me about this morning.”

“She handed me a picture. I’d been asleep, but she grabbed my arm and pulled me up. People have seen that happen to me. They can’t see her, but suddenly I’m lifted up in some unnatural position, like in such a way they know I couldn’t have done it myself. That happened this morning, and she handed me a picture.”

“What was the picture of?”

“Not what, you mean who? It was you. I didn’t know it until you walked through that door a while ago. She handed me this picture of a young woman. She didn’t say a thing, just sat there, but she made sure I looked at it.”

“Can we get back to your story?”

“This is my story. It’s just the latest part.”

The young lady stood up and gave me a look that would cut through steel. “You’re just trying to scare me, and it isn’t working,” she said.

“No, really. Here, look at this.” I handed Ms. McKnight the picture. She looked at it and backed up without saying a word.

“I suppose those are a dime a dozen,” I said. “You probably don’t believe she gave it to me.”

“Where did you get this?”

“I told you where.”

“That can’t be it. This is real. This is private.”

“It’s not just a common press picture?” I asked.

“No, nobody has this. It’s in my scrapbook at home; it’s the only one.”

“Well then, I’d say that’s a pretty special copy you got there.”

“All those women?” she asked. “Did your grandma always give you a picture?”

“No. Some she just told me their names. It started with JFK; it was just a warning, I think. With him she showed me how much she knew of things before they happened. After that she would tell me about the women. Sometimes she would have a picture, but not that often.”

“Guard, I’m ready,” she yelled across the room.

“Where you going? We still have five minutes.”

The lock snapped open to the visiting area where she’d been sitting. I walked to the bars that separated us and watched her move toward the opening gate to take her leave.

“I’m really sorry, missy,” I said. “This is good for me, though. I’ll be in here. I can’t hurt you.”

She looked back. “You’re horrible. I hope they never let you out.”

“You’ll remember our hour without your notes, won’t you dear?” I said. “I’m sure you will. After all, it’s our story now; you’re part of it. And don’t forget. You have grandma’s picture.”

©

Michael Ripley

May 25, 2005