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, for two reasons. One, there’s a lock and no key. 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. And two, if I could open the trunk, would I really want to know what’s inside? After all, it is quite heavy and big enough to fit a body–in pieces.
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. Did the Egyptians seize it during a raid on the Temple of Jerusalem? Was it secreted in Ethiopia or taken to England during the Crusades? And if the Ark does exist, what lies inside?
Not that I believe the Ten Commandments have been stowed away in Arlington, Virginia. But curiosity simply got the better of me–are we talking about old clothes, personal records, books? 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. Naturally he opens it and is ripped apart by a bloodthirsty creature. 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 finding much of anything.
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.”
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. When she first moved into my apartment three years ago, we lugged that trunk into our bedroom, where it sat unopened. Movers then carried it over to our new house. Whenever I ask “What’s in it?” she replies cryptically, “Memorabilia.”
Now this could mean anything–including old love letters and photos from before my time. (Yes, I too was shocked to learn she had dated before we met.) So again, I ask myself, is it any of my business? Do I really want to see pictures from her unmentioned vacation to Hedonism III Jamaica? On the other hand, do I want future generations opening the trunk and reading letters straight out of The Bridges of Madison County?
Not on my watch. So one night last week, before the Mrs. returned home from work, I went down to the basement and within minutes managed to unlock the trunk–by breaking it open.
No turning back now, I thought. 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). 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. 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. There was a lamp and a miniature Christmas tree. My wife had also saved a bull’s-eye sheet from the time my friend took her to a target range. The paper was riddled with bullet holes, mostly near the center. I’ve since learned the handgun she fired was a .44 Ruger.
You’re probably wondering by now if I felt dirty and ashamed. But, frankly, knowing that she has deadly aim with a heavy-duty firearm and that in a few hours I’d have to explain the broken lock to her had me terrified.
Joking aside, I pretty much knew there wasn’t going to be a bombshell discovery. Pretty much. 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. Wouldn’t any married man have done the same? Maybe? Ultimately my better half rolled her eyes and laughed at my paranoia when I informed her about the trunk. I’m just relieved she wasn’t hiding pictures from Hedonism III Jamaica. I hope she doesn’t find mine.
VICTORINO MATUS
