Hiss Of Death

That same Friday evening, Al Vitebsk sat at his cleared dining room table. Nita perched across from him, computer up and running. Al used a yellow legal pad. White bankers’ boxes were stacked in two large groups. The group to his left had been reviewed. Those remaining on his right would take days.

Big Al kept his own advice. He put his own backup records for Pinnacle Storage into a self-storage unit in Waynesboro. His records, along with so much else at Pinnacle, had been destroyed.

He spent hours at the building with JoJo and his employees, ascertaining what had survived. Surprisingly, even with the intense heat, much of the material in the vaults remained intact, including old handwritten records. Stored outside the vaults in heavy metal trays lined with fire retardant, the floppy disks had melted. All those trays looked like rectangular candleholders filled with an odd wax. Any disks not in the vault suffered a similar fate. The thumb drives, in smaller, thick trays, also had incinerated.

Rental prices depended on the amount of space the records took up as well as the actual physical type of storage. The thick vaults carried the highest price tag. The price decreased according to the reduction of space and the manner of storage. A simple file cabinet was cheap but offered no protection against fire or flood.

Each type of storage carried its own waiver. The file-cabinet policy stated in bold print that those cabinets offered very little protection. Each renter signed a contract.

Big Al painstakingly combed through each signed waiver, which also included the type of stored materials: paper, floppy disks, disks, thumb drives.

Nita entered this on the computer as Big Al read off the information in the waivers. JoJo slept, his head on a fuzzy bear toy. The dog tried to stay awake to help, but hour after hour of two humans sitting opposite each other, with little to no movement, sent JoJo into dreamland.

Nita looked up from the screen. “Two four- by two-foot vault trays, locked. Cantor and Fowler.” She named a small, good law firm.

“Right. All records survived.”

Reaching into the banker’s box, his big hands grabbed a thin folder on top of three fat ones. He flipped it open. “Paula Benton. One four-drawer file cabinet, locks on each drawer.” He sighed. “All gone.”

“Do we notify her next of kin?” Nita, glasses pinching the bridge of her nose, removed them.

“Yes.”

Nita checked Paula’s name with a red pen. “We’re going to have to draw up form letters for each type of storage unit.”

“I know. I know.” Al shook his head. “That was a loss. Paula.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Let’s hope some of her stored materials might be on her home computer, but,” he read, “yearbooks. Paper files. Some floppy disks.”

“Ah.” Nita put another red check by Paula’s name. “Naturally, honey, I will personalize the form letters. The last paragraph will list what you have on the waivers.”

“The crew can help.”

By “crew,” Big Al meant the four people who worked in the building, their hours meticulously arranged so Pinnacle always had two people in it during business hours. No one worked at night, although there was a cleaning service that vacuumed, mopped up each evening from seven to nine. There wasn’t much to do, as Pinnacle Records didn’t generate much foot traffic. Still, Big Al wanted the place to be clean. For one thing, he believed dust destroyed records. Even the big vaults collected small amounts of dust. Each time those heavy doors were opened, dust entered. He’d unlock the vaults once a week and stayed while they were cleaned. They received the least traffic. Not many people visited their records or checked them out. If they did, they retired to a twelve-by-ten room with a long table, where they could place their boxes or papers to examine.

A few regulars would cross the threshold about once every two weeks. Big Al and Nita knew Pinnacle Records was not secured to store jewelry, money, or drugs. However, the closely knit couple also knew there had to be drugs or money kept in some of the storage units. There was no way for the couple to inspect what was stored. The contract stated that if a bill had not been paid in three months, they could remove and destroy records. A few times they had to do just that. However, renters with a pile of money or a cache of OxyContin tended to pay on time.

Neither husband nor wife ever went through the stored records. Each felt that would constitute a violation of trust.

There was no way to screen out anyone storing contraband. In Charlottesville, Jamaican drug gangs had moved in. But no Jamaican came to Pinnacle Records. And these days a drug dealer did not faintly resemble the stereotype beloved of cop shows. In fact, one of the biggest drug dealers was an eighty-two-year-old, well-dressed, well-connected matron. She was shrewd, at the center of a good network, and could not be touched. Her social position was unassailable. She had become tremendously rich. No surprise.

Thankfully, since the fire there had been no lawsuits filed against Big Al. Both husband and wife knew if someone had stored money or drugs, they would never file a suit. Accidents happen, and the contracts were clear as to the Vitebsks’ liability, but that wouldn’t stop an ambulance chaser from convincing someone the Vitebsks had been negligent.

JoJo let out a loud snore.

Nita wistfully said, “I wonder when either of us will sleep that soundly again.”

Big Al rested his chin on his fist for a moment. “Whiskey helps.”

“You.” She smiled at her husband of thirty-two years. “Babydoll, we’ll get through it. It’s a great big mess. It will eat up hours and hours of our time. We’re still keeping our people on payroll, so it will eat up money, too. Can we rebuild the building? No. Can we rebuild the business, yes, and I will oversee construction of a new building. I think I can build a near-impregnable building unless it gets a direct hit from the Taliban.”

“I know you can.” She thought for a moment. “But right now I’m tired. I don’t want to give up, but I’m lacking in enthusiasm.”

After a long pause he said, “Yep.”

An hour later, their eyes aching, they finally stopped for the evening.

Before turning off her computer, Nita said, “How many boxes do you have left to go through?”

He counted. “Eleven.”

“You finished up the L’s.”

“Tomorrow we start with the M’s, and so many last names start with M or S. Or maybe I just think so, but those are fat folders.”

“Well, everyone who paid for the vaults has come out okay. And the others, depends.”

It was ten P.M. already. Big Al fixed himself a double whiskey and soda. Nita sipped a little sherry as they slumped in their living room club chairs, so comfortable.

“I’m almost too tired to take a shower.” Big Al petted JoJo, who was now on his lap.

“You’ve taken a shower every night since I married you.”

He grinned. “I figure if I smell like a rose, you might be interested.”

She laughed at him. “Al, if either one of us loses our sense of humor, then we should worry.”

Halfway through his whiskey, relaxing at last, Big Al mused, “Odd, isn’t it? Records. A way to hang on to information, but maybe a way to hang on to the past.”

“What made you think of that?”

“Paula Benton’s contract. She’d written ‘Yearbooks, high school! The past.’ And she’d come in the week before she died. Signed in. Signed out.” He shook his head. “Her past burned up. Once her class is gone many years hence, those old yearbooks would be interesting only to a historian who might want to know something about that particular high school. Life really is fleeting.”

“In her case, far too short.”