Casual
MATUS, VICTORINO
Casual CRATE EXPECTATIONS Since we moved into our home last year, a secret has resided in our basement. It is a blue and black steamer trunk, and I’d never gotten around to opening it,...
...I’ve since learned the handgun she fi red was a .44 Ruger...
...returned home from work, I went down to the basement and within minutes managed to unlock the trunk—by breaking it open...
...When she fi rst moved into my apartment three years ago, we lugged that trunk into our bedroom, where it sat unopened...
...Do I really want to see pictures from her unmentioned vacation to Hedonism III Jamaica...
...Pretty much...
...There were mix tapes from 1995, photos from college graduation, a postcard from some guy named James saying how great it was to have met my (then unmarried) wife and inviting her to go biking with him to Mount Vernon...
...Not that I believe the Ten Commandments have been stowed away in Arlington, Virginia...
...At one point during the Stephen King movie Creepshow, a janitor at a university stumbles upon a cellar crate with markings from a polar expedition...
...Yes, I too was shocked to learn she had dated before we met...
...Ultimately my better half rolled her eyes and laughed at my paranoia when I informed her about the trunk...
...You’re probably wondering by now if I felt dirty and ashamed...
...Joking aside, I pretty much knew there wasn’t going to be a bombshell discovery...
...But, frankly, knowing that she has deadly aim with a heavy-duty fi rearm and that in a few hours I’d have to explain the broken lock to her had me terrifi ed...
...On the other hand, do I want future generations opening the trunk and reading letters straight out of The Bridges of Madison County...
...I’ve picked a few locks in my time (two, to be precise, and they were on luggage), but this particular one may require a device larger than a hairpin...
...I jokingly tell friends who overnight in our basement to beware of the trunk and hope they don’t hear a voice emanating from it like the one on that episode of The Brady Bunch when the girls played a prank on the boys involving a similar chest in the attic and a voice that whispered “Help me, I can’t breathe...
...Now this could mean anything— including old love letters and photos from before my time...
...she replies cryptically, “Memorabilia...
...Instead, what I found were mounds of papers: old emails from work, a newspaper dated September 12, 2001, a Pope John Paul II commemorative calendar from 2000, an invitation to a 1999 dinner gala honoring Henry Hyde...
...Did the Egyptians seize it during a raid on the Temple of Jerusalem...
...Recently, though, I was prompted to take action after catching a show on the National Geographic Channel about the Ark of the Covenant, the vessel containing the Ten Commandments...
...So again, I ask myself, is it any of my business...
...VICTORINO MATUS...
...I’m just relieved she wasn’t hiding pictures from Hedonism III Jamaica...
...And if the Ark does exist, what lies inside...
...But I also thought about “Al Capone’s Vaults,” in which investigative journalist Geraldo Rivera broke into a series of safes belonging to Scarface on live television, without fi nding much of anything...
...Wouldn’t any married man have done the same...
...I hope she doesn’t fi nd mine...
...One, there’s a lock and no key...
...Naturally he opens it and is ripped apart by a bloodthirsty creature...
...Whenever I ask “What’s in it...
...Although I acknowledge my wife had her own life before we dated and married, as man of the house, I felt compelled to know all...
...At this juncture I must disclose that although I am unaware of what lies inside the trunk, my wife knows because it belongs to her...
...So one night last week, before the Mrs...
...My wife had also saved a bull’s-eye sheet from the time my friend took her to a target range...
...And two, if I could open the trunk, would I really want to know what’s inside...
...No turning back now, I thought...
...There was a lamp and a miniature Christmas tree...
...Was it secreted in Ethiopia or taken to England during the Crusades...
...After taking a deep breath, I lifted the lid and hoped whatever was inside would not melt my face off (as happened in Raiders of the Lost Ark...
...It is a blue and black steamer trunk, and I’d never gotten around to opening it, for two reasons...
...After all, it is quite heavy and big enough to fi t a body—in pieces...
...Movers then carried it over to our new house...
...But curiosity simply got the better of me—are we talking about old clothes, personal records, books...
...Not on my watch...
...Maybe...
...The paper was riddled with bullet holes, mostly near the center...
Vol. 13 • December 2007 • No. 14
