Library of Lost Memories

The Library of Lost Memories

My life seems to be a series of lost memories, because the events in my past life are so forgettable.  I don’t mean to be a whiner or someone who always sees the glass as half full, it’s just that the difference between a happy outcome and a melancholy one rests on a fulcrum that always seems to be weighted against me.  I know, I’m a cry-baby with a poor-me complex. Been to a lot of therapists who would agree with the prognosis. Anyway to get to the strange events of the past week, I guess I’d better start telling you what happened.  

Brooklyn is the borough across from Manhattan which is what comes to mind when someone says, “New York City,” whereas Sunnyside in Brooklyn is what Hollywood uses for a post-apocalyptic setting with a bunch of zombies walking around looking to feast on brains.  Fact is, these of undead would most likely starve to death in Sunnyside. Anyway, I am distracted again.

I’ve spent my entire life of forty eight years haunting this corner of the world, hustling for chump change and doing odd jobs for don’t-ask-me-where-the-money- came-from.  To give you an example of my total lack of character and moral fiber, my mother was dying of cancer six years ago and when I went to visit her, I saw her purse on the table.  I got curious, so I rummaged through it and found over a thousand dollars in cabbage with no way of knowing that money was earmarked for her cancer treatment. Hey, I was in a tight spot.  Mickey’s boys came looking for me to make a collection. As it turned out she did make it to the end of the month, so that money would have been wasted.

So I was on the south side around 48th Street.  These are the neighborhoods your mother tells you to stay away from especially after dark, but I was once again in a tight spot on the run from some less than friendly thugs.  The sun went down and the streets were shining from all the rain giving off this eerie glow that you see in them movies just before the killer pops out. There were a couple of soulless hooded junkies populating some of the darker alleys and some people dressed in cast off coats pushing shopping carts filled with all of their worldly possessions floating down the streets.  No one would look up and say, “Hello.” It was like a ritualistic dance choreographed by some sadistic guy named Barry.  

When I first saw the small hand painted signed, I thought it was some kind of joke, but the front door was propped open and there was no one hovering around there, so I went over to see if my eyes were getting this right.

Library of Lost Memories.   3811 East Memory Lane. I had lived in this area my whole life, but never heard of this street and coincidence was just too much for me to just walk on by.  

Yeah, sure as shooting.  Standing there in the open maw of the of the building, I could not help but walk in the open door.  The first thing I noticed was the overpowering musty odor of mildew that hung in the stale heavy air.  The place was lit by a couple of fluorescent lights attached to ancient fixtures overhead on a vaulted ceiling.  In the dark shadows of the ceiling tiles depicted portraits of gargoyles in various poses baring savage teeth offering a somewhat uneasy ambience. 

Books were stacked on a haphazard arrangement of bookshelves with ancient tomes placed upon the shelves with no rhyme or reason to their placement.  The aisles between the shelves were narrow, almost impossible to navigate in between stacks of books left on the well worn wooden floors that bore no hint of polish or attempt to make the planks seem at all cared for.  

“May I help you?” A voice sounded from thin air, but when I looked up, I saw a man standing there wearing a long coat and boots.  He did not seem as though he belonged here, but he repeated his question.

“Yeah, what is this place?” I asked hoping for a clue about why this place was in a forgotten neighborhood tucked in the corner of Sunnyside.

“Did you see the sign?” He smiled and held out a glove hand toward the door.

“Yeah, I saw it.” I began to suspect he was playing with me in a way I did not care for.

“This is the library of lost memories.” He smiled, but his smile did not seem to fit his austerely thin face.  

“Yeah, yeah, and just what is that?  Memories? Books?” I sniffed not enjoying the riddle at all. 

“Have you opened a book yet?” He put his hand on a particularly thick volume on a shelf near where he was standing.

Nope.” I shook my head.

“Well, I think you should.” His smile returned looking every bit as sinister as it had the first time as he handed me a book. “Mr. Alvetti you should look inside.”

“Hey, how did you know my name?” I was a bit startled since I had not revealed my name and he said it as if we had been friends our entire life.

“I am a librarian.  I cross reference everything.  Occupational hazard.” He assured me, but it wasn’t at all reassuring.  “Please read, Mr. Alvetti.”

I opened the book slowly, the pages crinkled as I turned the pages.  He nodded toward the book, so I turned my eyes back inside.

It was a snowy  Christmas eve. My old man was at the bar tying one on as he usually did for the holidays.  When he came home, he was staggering. He called out for mom and when she came downstairs wearing her bathrobe to see what all the commotion was about, he slugged her and she doubled over.

I shut the book and coughed, “That was a dirty trick.”

“No trick about it, Mr. Alvetti.” He shrugged as if this was enough of a gesture to dissuade me.  

“So what kind of other creepy things do you have in this rattrap?” I asked as he handed me another book.  Taking a deep breath, I opened the book he had handed me.

I told the officer my name was Eddie Browman as he put the cuffs on me.  I had just done my first bank job and my partner was being loaded in a meat wagon while I was put in the back of a cherry top.  Things did not go as planned. My partner panicked when the teller pulled the alarm and he shot her in the face. A security guard rushed over and I gut shot him.  He was being loaded into an ambulance as we pulled away.

“Familiar?” He asked as he gave me an accusatory sidelong glance. 

“What kind of trickery is this?  No one knows this stuff. No one.  I never talk about it.” I felt a surge of electricity run through me.

“This library contains pieces of memory that have been put aside and yet these memories are very much part of us whether we acknowledge them or not.  Memory is a funny thing sometimes. You’ll be walking down the street and a certain aroma will be in the air and the next thing you know, you are bawling like a baby.” He nodded with that smile of his.

“So who are you?” I asked.

“Not important.” He said quickly as he pulled another book off the dusty shelf and opened it himself. “What is important is that what was and what is remembered coincide.  Sometimes memories collect a lot of extraneous details and become part of the memory.”

He began to read from the open book in his hand:

She was barely breathing when I got to the hospital.  My mom had cancer and I was called from my office in Tampa to come to see her for the last time.  My brother Vinny was there by her bedside and when he saw me, his whole body stiffened and he bent down to her ear, “Ma, Eddie is here to see ya.”  Her eyes opened as her raspy voice echoed, “Eddie? Eddie is here?” “Hey ma, it’s me.” She smiled, “Ya came all the way up here to see me.”  

He stopped reading.

“She died the following day.” I sighed, “She was a saint, my ma, a saint.”

“And you let her down?” He nodded as that wretched smile returned again. 

“Mister, I let everybody down.  It’s who I am. Eddie Alvetti the kid who could not play straight.  Always looking for a weakness, a way to beat you, a stooge, a thug, whatever you want to call me is fine. I’ve heard it all.  Been called it all. Vinny was always quick to remind me how I broke ma’s heart. Insurance salesman. Nothing different between what I was and what he was except his stuff is legal.  Married a good Catholic girl, had a bunch of kids, but you wanna know something. He envied me. He was ticked off, because Big Gino didn’t recruit him like he did me. I own what I done, but Vinnie went off and had this affair.  Never told his wife. Thought he was cooler than ice until he got a call on the phone from some schmoe wanting a payoff for all the pictures he had of Vinnie and his bit of stuff. And he paid it. What a schmuck.” I could not believe that this memory had come screaming back into my head. 

I looked around as a horrible feeling shot through me.  Swallowing hard, I asked the question that suddenly occurred to me, "Do all these memories belong to me?"

He nodded, "Of course, what good would having someone else's memory do for You?"

I suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Gulping, I began to feel as If all of the oxygen had been sucked out of the room and I swooned.  The reality was overwhelming. There must be over a thousand books on these rickety shelves and they all belonged to me. What kind of place was This?  What kind of sick joke was being played at my expense? I felt sick to my stomach. The room began to spin wildly. My knees were weak and then everything went dark.

When my eyes fluttered and light streaked in again, I was sitting in a cushioned chair as the fuzzy image of the librarian came into focus, "Mr. Alvetti, are you still with us?"

Numbskull, of course I was, where else would I be? The next disturbing sensation I felt was the piercing pain going through my head like a locomotive.  My hand shot up from my side and landed on my eyes in a desperate attempt to keep the bright light of reality from blinding me. The nausea filled my gut and I felt as if I was being thrown back into the hostile darkness.

"Mr. Alvetti!" His voice a very distant echo now.

The rotor blade beat against the heavy air causing the helicopter to shudder.  I was strapped into my seat with dark sunglasses protecting my eyes from the azure blue horizon.  Below was the thick carpet of jungle without a break anywhere to be seen. We began to descend. Landing?  My stomach folded on itself as we were only twenty feet from crashing into the thick copse of jungle trees.  I heard the pilot consult with the man in the seat next to him in the Huey, but I could not make out what they were saying over the steady beat of the rotors. The ship banked sharply putting me at a sharp angle to the ground as my undigested lunch threatened to reappear.  No sooner had I tasted bile then we landed safe and sound. There was a screech as the blades came to a stop. With plugged ears, the man in the seat stood hunched before me,with sunglasses like mine, saying, "Okay Eddie, we're here." I unbuckled my belt and could only come to a squatting stance in the cramped cabin.  At the edge of the clearing, I saw a couple dozen men dressed in jungle camouflage carrying AK-47. My eyes went wide as they came walking toward the helicopter, guns pointed at the ground. They did not speak English, but the man seemed to understand what they were saying. I was in a situation where I had to trust that everything was hunky-dory and I've never been a trusting person, but I was grateful to have my feet on solid terra firma once again. One of the armed men handed the man a package in brown butcher paper.  Removing a pocket knife from the hip pocket of his kanhi cargo pants, he cut away the paper, penetrating the plastic bag holding the white powder. Taking his pinky, he ran it through the substance and put it in his mouth. A smile appeared on his face and he nodded to the soldier. Four men entered the chopper and within minutes several crates were removed from the bay and placed on the thick carpet of grass. One of the soldiers wielding an ax opened one of the crates revealing the contents; two dozen brand new AK 47 automatic weapon.  Smiles were exchanged and once again I as back in the chopper as the soldiers disappeared with the crates into the jungle. The man smiled and shouted to me over the deafening sound of the blades, "War has been good business, eh?"  

"Drink this." The librarian insisted handing me a cup and saucer filled with brown steaming liquid, "Your memories are distressing indeed."

"You have no idea." I sipped the tea.  Normally I am not a tea drinker, but for some reason I found it soothing and needed.  It was true, my life was full of dark, despicable places filled with shadows.  

"You need this." He handed me an unsealed envelope.  Turning it over in my hand, I pulled out a ticket to a Caribbean cruise.

"Are you kidding me?" I chuckled, but he did not smile, his dark eyes met mine as I held the ticket in my hands.  It must be some kind of sick joke, I thought, but he continued to stare at me with sympathetic eyes. "How will this help me?"

"These shelves, you call memories are filled with a sadness that is unfathomable to me. Never in all the time I've tended this library have I seen such desolation and misery.  This is all you've had." His hands swept the cramped room.

"I'm okay with my life. I don't need some fake guru telling me I need a change of scenery." My hands shook in rage as I tore the ticket in two and put the pieces on the counter.

"Your time is running out." His voice exuded pity as I walked to the door.

"Our time is always running out. One day we are all going to die. I'll take my chances."  I did not look back.

I continued to walk the dark streets of the strange neighborhood as a light rain continued to fall, but my mind was still in a fog.  

“Hey Eddie.” I heard a familiar voice call out from the darkness.  Turning, I saw him standing by an abandoned storefront wearing his famous trenchcoat and fedora set at a crooked angle on his massive head.  My heart skipped a beat, because I knew his goons were lurking in the shadows. I stopped walking.

“Long time, no see.” His laughing grated on my already fragile nerves. “How ‘bout we go for a ride.” 

People that went for a ride with Big Jim were never seen or heard from again, but I knew I would not be able to refuse the offer.  Sure enough, one of his gorillas stepped out pointing a pistol at my mid section. I put my hands up. “You got me. I will go peacefully.” 

“You always were a sharp cookie, kid.  Shame I’ve gotta off ya.” He sighed heavily.  I shook my head slowly as more gorillas stepped from the shadows.  There was a glint of light. All of them turned their heads figuring it was a cop light.  I took my leave and ran down the alley. With a couple of them on my heels, I looked for the library where I could hide out for a while.  But as I ran in the darkness, I could not find Memory Lane. It was just a hint of a street crammed in between two busy thoroughfares without good lighting.  I could hear the goons hot on my heels and I knew my time was running out. Where was this Library of Lost Memories that I had spent some idle time perusing the bookshelves.  Now with my life on the line, I could not find the strange little closet of a place or the street for that matter. Sighing, I put my hands on my knees and sucked wind for a moment.

Christie was my kid sister when I got hired by the boys uptown to run numbers and small copious amounts of cocaine to some of the Negro jazz musicians down in Harlem.  I had my bag in my room. She looked up to me. I never had the nerve to tell her I was just some thug that my mother prayed for every week in church. I had no idea she had gone through my bag.  I had a .38 revolver tucked in one pocket. That gun was nearly as big as her tiny arm, but she managed to pull it out without anyone knowing. When I heard the crack, I knew what had happened. I ran upstairs to where I was staying.  She was lying on the floor, the rug soaked in blood and the top part of her head was gone. I puked right there when I saw her tiny body lying there, her big brown eyes staring up at the ceiling. My life just about ended then. I picked up that gun.  I put the barrel in my mouth as the tears ran like a river down my cheeks, sobbing like a baby. I felt the cold metal resting on my tongue, but I did not have the guts to pull the trigger. I should have. I should have done it right then. I did not deserve to live.  I got my bag, like a coward and left that house without a word. My mom would find her when she got home from church. I could not bear to hear her scream even though, I heard her scream in my mind...and heart. Why could I not get rid of that memory. Every time I thought I was free, I’d see her lying there and I knew…that librarian he knew...he knew...

I heard the first crack, the bullet stopped me as I tried to hop the chain link fence.  The second crack and the world went to shadow and then darkness. I heard Christie’s voice calling me, “Eddie, are you there?”  Yes, sweetie, I am here and I’m walking in the direction of your voice. I’m coming...