Long Distance DJ
Two siblings clean house after the death of their father and find a little magic in the process.
Collecting Dust is...One part Nostalgia. One part strange magic. All inspired by photos of real objects begging to tell a story if only we will pay attention.
I hope you enjoy this month’s short story inspired by my own set of speakers that have been a bit glitchy of late!
Long Distance DJ*
When their father died they came to claim what was valuable and sell the rest. Everything split 50-50, like conjoined twins ripped down the middle.
From opposite sides of the country they met in the middle after ten years. East coast Junie, in her wide legged linen jumpsuit and West coast Lou, in his cowboy hat and Lucchese boots.
The house was cleaner than expected given that their mother had died ten years earlier and their stubborn father had refused in home help.
“Minimal,” Junie would call it.
“Practical,” Lou would say.
But when they got to the basement none of that applied.
They could hardly make it down the stairs for the junk—piles of jigsaw puzzles that had been their mother’s, milk crates of dusty records, old bowling trophies, Christmas decorations, and boxes and boxes of their own long forgotten childhood memorabilia.
“One box at a time,” Junie said, whipping out her phone to text her husband she'd be gone longer than she thought.
“Let’s just trash it all,” Lou said, echoing what Junie now thought of as every man’s mentality when it came to the dilemma between buying new or fixing old. Her husband had ruined her on that account.
“Even this?” Junie held up Lou’s beloved Teddy Ruxpin, its jaw hanging loose, one eye missing.
Lou lunged for it, hugging it to his chest. “Well, we could sell everything then. At least it would go to a good home and not the dump. One of those estate thingies.”
“An estate sale will take too long. They assess and tag everything to make as much as possible. Like selling dad’s underwear as “vintage.”
“Sick.” Lou pulled a massive pink plastic contraption from the pile. “What do you think Barbie’s Dreamhouse would fetch?”
She ripped it out of his hands. A flimsy column snapped. “We have to handle this ourselves.”
“Someone might want some of this junk.” Lou shrugged.
They frowned at each other. They had their own lives—their own homes, obligations to their own families, careers.
“We split everything down the middle as planned,” Junie said.
And falling into their old hierarchy, Lou conceded.
“Then we can get the hell out of here.” He craned his neck, eyes on the beams that held up the floor of their childhood home. As if in apology to his father for not allowing some vintage record hunting vulture to assess and approve of his collection, Lou blinked rapidly and said, “It’s the only way—”
They nodded in unison. Back to the plan.
Piece by piece they spent the day lifting each object and making a choice—yours or mine? They threw old toys at each other, long forgotten games and family catch phrases flying to their lips without the hesitation of years like popcorn erupting at just the right temperature from somewhere in the recesses of their memory. It was all there waiting—the garage expeditions by flashlight, the dinosaur world beneath the stairs, the lava country in the water heater closet.
Two piles gradually emerged, and when they finally finished, they rented matching U-Hauls and took everything home—Junie to the east and Lou to the west. The house they left in the care of the realtor.
When each got home they showed their haul to their families but were greeted with only shakes of the head. Their spouses had already been through this with their own parents and assured them everything ended up in the trash eventually. Why did you waste the money and gas on the U-Haul? Their eyebrows asked.
Now home, the old bits of plastic and scratched china that had sparkled with such an unexplainable energy in their childhood home’s basement had morphed into the noontime dregs of a yard sale.
Junie put her pile into her triple car garage. Lou put his in the shed out back, the one place his wife still allowed him the freedom to choose what to do with, for now.
Eventually the siblings forgot about the things until the next spring when their spouses hounded them to clear out the mess.
It’s been long enough, they didn’t say. “You haven’t touched it since you brought it home,” they did.
It was true. The house had long since sold. This was all that was left. Besides, they needed to make room for Junie’s husband’s new car and Lou’s wife was itching to commandeer the shed for her own projects.
Piece by piece, Junie and Lou went through the things again, this time alone. It was more practical, the aura of memory didn’t tingle their fingers. Their eyes were dry.
Until they found the speakers. Well, one speaker, each.
They lifted the soundless box with its dangling wires empty of current and shook their heads, grinning at the absurdity.
Split down the middle. That was the deal.
The speakers were the last remnants of their father’s sound system, an amalgamation of the best tech of the sixties, the rest of the equipment long gone. Their mother had always said their father would take this junk to the grave, but here it was. He used to wake Junie and Lou on weekend mornings, announcing from the living room the artist, album title, year of production, and a running color commentary of each artist’s inspirations. The first track always came in low as he spoke, then he’d raise the volume to shake them out of bed, letting the music do the rest.
Junie had always loved the Rolling Stones with their dancey rhythm and fake cowboy British accents. Lou, Johnny Cash.
With the memory of those mornings thumping in her head, Junie carried the speaker into the house and hooked it to her music producer husband’s state of the art sound board.
Lou took his speaker to the pawn shop where he’d trade guns from time to time to look for the box thing that transmitted the sound. He couldn’t remember the name, but knew it when he saw it. The shop owner twisted the wires, added a tab of duct tape.
Each speaker popped once then a low buzzing sound rumbled through the room. The echo of a distant voice suddenly crystal clear, announced the next track.
“Here's Lady Jane by the Rolling Stones from Aftermath, 1966.”
Ears pressed gently to the frayed straw covers, they listened, holding their breath.
Junie saw herself at eight years old, coming down the stairs in her oversized Bugs Bunny tee shirt, eyes clogged with sleep, being thrown over her father’s shoulders, his body spinning, her hair whirling. The music rumbled through her body then the vision faded.
“Next up,” the voice announced, “We have Folsom Prison Blues.” Clearly meant for Lou. Elbows on the pawn store’s glass counters, Lou tapped his cowboy boots and shook his hips to the twanging guitar, envisioning himself twisting the knob of the speaker to max volume. As a child he would do this, relishing Junie’s rising horror and his father’s smile of approval then run around pretending to be a freight train and bowl them both over in a fit of laughter.
Impatient, the half-deaf pawn shop owner shook his head and grumbled about the sound quality, clearly unable to hear what Junie and Lou could. Then he coughed, spit into his cup and turned the dial on the amplifier. Something inside the speaker popped.
Two thousand miles away, Junie’s soundboard squeaked and the sound died.
Brother and sister took their speakers back to their pile of useless memories, wondering at the provenance of the distant voice, both asking themselves if they’d really heard it and worried they’d never hear it again.
That night Lou had an argument with his wife about the junk. She wanted to use the shed to prepare seedlings for their spring garden. Like the good husband he was, he went out to do as she’d asked. The sound of static hummed, at first too low to hear beneath the sound of his cleaning and the scraping of cardboard boxes being shuffled around. But soon the buzzing filled the rafters of the shed like angry hornets.
While Lou cleaned, Junie went to her garage to fetch fresh batteries for her daughter’s nightlight, a lantern that projected stars on the ceiling, which she couldn’t sleep without. Stepping into the room, the vibration surrounded Junie like water; the tingle of electricity ran up her neck and around her ear.
A deep throated laughter bubbled beneath the white noise.
She looked around and saw nothing, shook off the sensation, and grabbed the door handle to leave.
Then a lone acoustic guitar echoed through the room, its lilting slide a call to wait.
In the shed, Lou pulled the speaker from the pile where he’d stacked everything against one wall; wires dangled like whips connected to nothing. The static filled his brain, vertigo rising. He closed his eyes, clamped his teeth together, and groaned.
“So, so you think you can tell…” A warbled voice sang.
Junie reached toward the speaker high on the shelf where she’d left it, assumed broken.
“Heaven from hell…”
A white line of static jumped to her finger. She yelped.
“Junie?” Lou said, his voice far away.
“Lou? Is that—?”
The song swelled, drowning them out, and they fell silent, hoping to hear their father announce the next song once more, together.
When the music receded the air was heavy with silence, a question waiting to be answered. Brother and sister dared not speak. Both waited, feeling the other’s presence as proof, but Junie refused to acknowledge the lump in her throat, and Lou, the tension in his jaw.
Finally, the noise of their families beyond stirred them into motion, and they each packed away the memory of their father with the rest.
Thanks for reading.
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-What songs would your loved ones use to communicate with you from the grave?
*Title inspired by “Long Distance Call,” a story by Richard Matheson adapted as an episode of the Twilight Zone called “Night Call.”
Great timing to encouter your haunting story when I am reminding myself to dispose of my crap now before the family has to deal with the piles of useless stuff. My family of origin got into fights over Mom's stuff not because we wanted to keep a particular item but because it triggered old rivalries.
Thanks for a great reminder.