Victor, Victrola

"Will this winter never end?" Jason Darius muttered.

Sitting at his kitchen table, bent over the task of repairing a sequined gown, Jason looked nothing like his alter ego, Jasmine Blowsum. There was nothing elegant about his tattered sweater, pulled over his grey sweatshirt and covered, in turn, by a frayed, dark blue hoodie. Jason's fingerless gloves provided a little warmth, but his hands still felt stiff with cold, and that only made it all the harder to ply the needle. If anything, Jason looked like an urchin from a Dickens novel, and not at all like the tall, slim drag performer whose white eyeliner, lipstick, and press-on nails glistened in perfect visual match with her sparkling attire.

Across the room, Jason's guitar leaned against his desk, where music paper in scattered sheaves made a nest for squat bottles of India ink to sit comfortably, several straight pens sticking out of the jumble at odd angles. He'd been lip-synching to a hit parade of other artists' work for far too long; he'd finally convinced Jerry at the club to give him the chance to put on a revue of his own material, sung in his own voice. The show was due to go up in June, for Pride Weekend, and Jason still had to work out a clutch of songs.

On the other hand, the way winter was hanging on, he was finding it harder and harder to believe that June would ever arrive at all. It was only mid-March, but it might as well be the heart of darkest January. Hell's Kitchen could have used some infernal heat; not even crocuses were daring to raise their heads into the gale-force winds that continued to howl. For the last few months, like clockwork, major blizzards had engulfed the city every three weeks.

Indeed, a number of different events seemed to be repeating themselves according to a twenty-one day cycle. An airliner crash was one repeating disaster; another was an oil platform either burning, or sinking, or both. The twin catastrophes kept occurring like clockwork -- not in exactly the same manner, or in the same place, but always on a Thursday, and always with a great loss of life, particularly last Thursday, when the double tragedy was the result of a jet liner crashing into an oil platform.

Other events kept repeating, too. Every third Monday brought news of a school bus crash; every third Friday, a stage collapse and stampede. It was bizarre how variations played out on the theme. One week the stage was part of a major stadium concert, and had involved the entire structure crashing down, lights and video screen and mammoth speakers and all. The band members had all escaped unharmed, but the packed mass of fans had panicked and fled, with fourteen people being trampled in the crush. But a few weeks later, the stage in question had been in the gymnasium of a small high school in a tiny Wyoming town, and it had buckled during a performance of "Flowers for Algernon."

Then there were the politicians. Two Republicans and a Democrat had all seen their careers and personal lives explode into flinders as sexually graphic selfies they'd taken and sent to lovers hit the Internet. (This was the high point of every third Tuesday.) The Republicans were two of the most zealous anti-gay lawmakers in the House, but in each case they'd been sending jaw-dropping explicit images of their own anatomies to young male associates. The Democrat was a state lawmaker from the South, and his equally filthy visual essay was a short video clip recorded on a smart phone, involving his private regions and a garter snake.

Large or small, and however they played out, the similarities between these events were so remarkable, and their metronomic recurrence so regular, that they had sparked a media conflagration. Even now, blurry voices on Jason's slightly-out-of-tune radio were debating what it all meant. Was it evidence of impending Apocalypse? Theologians thought so; but philosophers disagreed, arguing that this was not a sign of any ending, but rather a reminder of the cyclical nature of existence. A statistician was speaking at the moment, talking about confirmation bias and the fact that once you began looking for events that seemed to parallel one another, you were sure to find them.

Jason wasn't so sure. He had seen a lot of strange stuff -- you didn't sing in drag at Anna Purna's House of Boys and not see a lot of strange stuff -- but even his radar was starting to ping that something highly unusual was going on. Forget the wider world; in the realm of his own apartment, Jason had noticed some odd repetitions. Every third Saturday he'd managed to break one of the jam jars he used for water glasses; if this went on for much longer, he'd have to resort to drinking from his old tin cup. Then there was the matter of his shoestrings: Every Monday, without fail, one would snap as he tied his Converse sneakers. He retied the broken lengths and re-laced the shoes every time it happened; he was starting to look like a hobo. If things kept on this way, in a few weeks he'd look like a hipster.

But none of that rattled him as much as the ferocity of the repeating snowstorm, which brought him back to the question: When would this winter finally end? Jason resigned himself to listening to the lonely keening of the wind, and the radio's voices, which sounded distant and lost, a forlorn and doomed counterpoint to the blizzard spectral roar. Now and again the gale subsided, and the radio voices sounded different, almost cheerful. Sometimes there was a lull in both the wind and the bloviations of the radio voices, and then Jason could barely hear an odd drone emanating from across the hall, where Victor lived.

Victor was an ancient man whom Jason would sometimes see shuffling down the hall or along the thronged sidewalk to the local bodega. Jason fancied that Victor was from Eastern Europe: He had a certain look that invited the impression, forever clad in a greatcoat and a furry, Russian-style hat. The poor old man was stooped so badly that he looked like a hunchback, and though Jason had never seen him without his gloves -- Victor remained bundled up inside and out, in every season -- the shape of his hands was twisted, with long, bent fingers and torqued wrists that almost seemed to bend the wrong way. He must have been terribly arthritic; Jason felt sorry for him, because the way he shuffled along and struggled to carry his grocery bags looked awfully painful.

Once or twice... or maybe more like eighteen times... Jason had helped Victor haul his groceries up the stairs. He'd gotten a glimpse of Victor's apartment on those occasions, a run-down room that was kept scrupulously tidy, and was furnished with vintage pieces -- chairs and tables of heavy dark wood, china sporting thick, blurry patterns in Navy blue, and an ancient hand-cranked turntable that was still in beautiful shape: A true antique, with a great, shiny brass horn rising tulip-like and flaring with pomp and majesty. For someone like Jason -- someone who had put his dual degrees in musicology and theater arts to work, paltry as his wages might be -- the brief glimpse he'd had of the machine was enough to thrill him. He might have enjoyed a longer look, since a couple of times Victor had invited Jason to linger for a cup of tea, but Jason had declined the offer, being in a hurry to get to the club, or else to his part-time gig at the music store, and generally fearing that the tea would be strong and pungent, like something smuggled in a valise out of the heart of the Ukraine.

The idea of some hot tea was taking on a certain appeal about now. The cold was getting to be too much, and the clock was ticking toward the start time of his shift at work. Jason was almost grateful to lay aside his work and rise from his chair. He clicked off the radio, and set about adding still more layers to keep himself warm for the trudge to the music store, where he might hope to sell one or two pricey instruments or maybe a few first-rate amps. The way things were going, though, he'd probably sell little more than some sheet music.

When he stepped into the hallway Jason stopped short, arrested by the sight of Victor standing in his flat, door ajar, pacing fretfully and muttering in some foreign language.

Knocking on the doorframe, Jason called into the room. "Victor? Is everything okay?"

The old man looked up, his rheumy eyes rolling. "Jason? Oh, young man. Oh, Jason. No, nothing is okay..." He lifted an arm in a half-shrug, and let it fall; the gesture vaguely indicated the Victrola, which sat serenely on its table like a deity ensconced at a shrine.

Growing concerned, Jason stepped into Victor's apartment. "What's going on? Can I help?"

"You're so kind, so kind... but I don't know... what can you do? Even I do not know what is to be done." The old man shook his head, shuddering. Jason grew a little frightened: The Victor was really worked up. Could his heart stand such agitation?

"Calm down," Jason said, taking another step into the room. "Just tell me what the problem is. Maybe I can help, or maybe I can tell you where to go for help."

"What makes you think anybody can help me?" Victor cried, his agitation suddenly spilling over. "For weeks, I have tried to work it out; for weeks I have waited for help to arrive; for weeks I have despaired! How will it all end? Where will it all take us?"

Now Jason was really worried. Crossing the room, he took Victor's arm. "Try not to panic," he counseled. "Come on, sit down, take a breath..."

"Breathing won't help!" Victor exclaimed. "Never have I seen anything like it! Never in my long life, and young man, you have no idea how long I have lived already, or how long my life will continue. Unless..."

"Unless you have a heart attack and drop dead right now," Jason said sternly. Then, in a gentler tone, he added, "If you can just sit down and sort out your thoughts you can explain it to me. I'll bet I can help you. In this country we still have a few social services, and there are one or two faith based charities..."

"I don't need any charity," Victor screamed.?

"It's not a bad thing to accept help," Jason began, but Victor jumped in.

"Foolish young man, I am trying to tell you that charity will not do any good!"

Jason waited politely, giving Victor a moment to collect his wits.

Victor rubbed his eyes, sighing, and looked very tired. How long had he been working himself into such a state? And what could the problem possibly be? Was it the storm, besetting them yet again? Did the old man have all the supplies he needed?

Abruptly, Victor looked up at Jason, and there was a gleam in his eye. " 'In this country,' you have social services, eh? And what country you are thinking I am from, exactly?"

Taken aback, Jason stammered, "I -- well, I sort of thought maybe Eastern Europe?"

"No," Victor said simply.

"Oh. Um... sorry."

"Sorry?" Victor smiled then. "And why you should be sorry? Why I shouldn't be Eastern European?"

"Wait... Did I misunderstand? Are you Eastern European?"

"No," Victor said again.

Jason frowned, confounded.

"But why shouldn't I be?" Victor added.

Before Jason could think what to say to this, the old man muttered, "So you want to help. Well, maybe... Yes, maybe you can help. Who knows? Maybe a child can see a solution where a wise man sees none..." Victor seemed to think it over a moment more, staring into a far corner, and then shrugged once again and looked at Jason. "The problem is very simple to see," he said, in his usual declarative voice, sounding very much like his old self. Jason wondered whether, whatever was worrying him, Victor might not be relishing the moment -- seeing what the whippersnapper could do. "The solution? I don't know. If you can see one, I implore you to share it with me."

"Okay," Jason said. "So the problem is...?"

"Why, young man, the universe is skipping."

Jason wondered if he had heard right, and, if he had, if he should call for an ambulance.

"You've seen it, you've heard about it; everyone is noticing," Victor continued. "It's the talk of the street and the newspaper. Oh, my. I hoped that it would correct itself or maybe I would receive a visitor to help with the problem before anybody would realize it was happening... But nothing, nothing. The problem continues and there is no help, and what sort of unspeakable disaster awaits?"

"Um, look..." Jason's pity for the old man ramped up tenfold. He'd seen his grandfather succumb to dementia. It hadn't been pretty. Vaguely, he started wondering what he could do to look out for Victor if he could not arrange for some sort of social services intervention. Did the old man have any family? If he did, would they be in... whatever not-Eastern European country? Or might there be someone in the United States, maybe even right there in the city...?

"You don't believe me?" Victor snapped, irritated at his hesitation. "Look yourself at the phonograph. Go and look! I am not some addlebrained elder from your 1950s watching too much Fox News."

Jason smiled. Obviously, the venerable Victor still had some sharp knives in his drawer. But Jason still didn't see what an old hand-cranked phonograph had to do with the weather and plane crashes and school bus tragedies.

Still, out of curiosity as much as to humor Victor, Jason rose to his feet and crossed the room. Now that he could study it at his leisure, Jason saw that his impressions of the phonograph had been accurate. It looked just like an old fashioned Victrola, or what Jason had always assumed Victrolas from, say, 1918 would look like: The varnished wood was cherry, Jason guessed, or perhaps something more exotic. The large brass horn gleamed without a trace of corrosion, and showed not a dent or scratch; it was decorated with elaborate whorls, and its edges were shaped into a sweeping floral motif. In line and construction, the antique was simple, classic, atavistically recognizable for what it was.

But standing over the machine, Jason could suddenly see that there was no brittle wax record spinning on the turntable; rather, there was what looked like a Laser Disc taken out of its plastic sleeve. A Laser Disc made of mercury, Jason corrected himself; the silvery, multicolored surface undulated slowly, fluidly.
There was another crucial difference, and Jason almost missed it, so transfixed he was by the liquid silvery phonograph. There was no needle scratching at the iridescent surface: Rather, there was a hair-thin beam of light, bright blue in color, probing down from the arm and into the mirrored depths.

"I'll be goddamned," Jason breathed, nosing closer and inspecting the apparatus with close attention. "What the hell is this?"

"Well," Victor's thickly accented voice suddenly startled him, "I suppose you could say that what you have playing there is the Akashic Record." The old man wheezed a little -- was that a rueful laugh? "Anything you want to call it, what it remains is the universe."

"That?" Jason pointed at the liquid silvery disc. "That is the universe?"

"Not the big space of the universe, and not the mass of the universe, but the story... I mean, the song," Victor said. "That is everything of thought and deed, accident and action... everything that happens in this universe. But it's skipping."

Jason bent back over the machine for another look. "I see," he murmured distractedly. The laser-like "needle" had tracked about a sixth, maybe a fifth, of the way from the outer edge toward the center; at least, Jason assumed so. But maybe this was like a CD, maybe the laser read from the center outward.
Or maybe neither of those things was true. Maybe this machine was, despite its appearance, something truly and incomprehensibly Other.

The blue beam of light probed steadily.

If this record was skipping, how was it happening? Was the disc actually turning? Was the needle actually passing over some sort of groove over and over again? Maybe a nudge would move things along --

"Don't touch that!" screamed Victor, as Jason reached for the arm. Startled, Jason whirled to face him.

"You know the universe has billions of years? The song has progressed for all that time? You see how small that record is? What do you think will happen if you push the needle?"

"I don't know," Jason responded honestly. "You tell me."

"I don't know either," Victor said, looking miserable. "They only told me to watch over it. They didn't explain it to me. They didn't give me a... what you call it? Manual for the purchaser?"

" 'They?' Who's 'they?' For that matter..." Jason peered at Victor as intently as he'd been studying the machine at his elbow. "Who are you?"

Victor only shrugged, but Jason was now seeing the old man more clearly than he ever had before. He'd expected to see a stooped elder, and until this moment that was all he had seen; but now, Jason looked closer and saw those rheumy eyes were not clouded with cataracts, as he'd always assumed: They were actually silver! And those strangely shaped hands with their bent fingers... was that really the work of arthritis? And the bulge beneath the great coat... it was more than a hump due to age or congenital deformation. Jason fancied it could be a pair of folded wings...

"So?" Victor pointed. "You asked what's the problem. I told you. Now, do you have a solution?"

"Maybe... Well, maybe..." Jason bent over the Victrola more carefully, mindful not to bump the machine... through he was starting to doubt he could perturb the arm or the needle if he tried. If however many billions of years of events were encoded on that silvery liquid disc, then the grooves, or the lines of optical information, or the cosmic code... whatever the blue beam was reading, it must be minutely traced and densely packed. If the arm and needle were not invulnerable to shock and disturbance, then any vibration, even air currents, could scramble the way the universe was supposed to unfold.

Still, it seemed best not to take chances, especially with Victor in such a lather. Jason scrutinized every centimeter of the device, and finally decided that his initial idea was the most likely to help.

"Hold on one moment," he said.

***

Jason was gone for some time, When he returned, it was in full drag regalia. Victor raised his eyebrows. "Jason, for this you took so much time?"

"A girl does her best when she looks her best," came the reply. "And when I'm in my lady garb, you can call me Jasmine."

Victor merely waved a hand. "Jasmine, fine then. Can you fix it?"

"That's what we are about to discover." Jasmine showed him the black bottle she'd retrieved from her nightstand drawer. Then, carefully, she positioned the applicator tip over the joint where the arm met the body of the machine. Assuming this magic Victrola was essentially like any other, the arm would be on a swivel that allowed it to track across the breadth of the phonograph it played, whether that disc was made of wax or vinyl or the ichor of the gods. Jasmine theorized that maybe the swivel just needed a little lubrication. If she'd been the butch sort, she might have had some 3-in-1 oil or some WD40 around her place, but she didn't; so, she made do with what she did have on hand.

Sexual lubricant.

" 'Gun Oil?' " Victor asked, reading the label on the bottle. "Something created for the upkeep of weapons that murder and maim, you use it on this machine that runs all of history?"

" 'They will beat their swords into ploughshares,' " Jasmine quoted, smiling and thinking to herself, Also, they will beat their meat and, yea verily, it will save all of creation as a handy by-product.

"And you think it works, this oil?"

Jasmine counted as three drops formed and fell on the spot she'd decided was most likely her target. "Time will tell."

***

So it did: Three weeks later, the sun was shining and spring had finally sprung. No planes had come down, and no oil rigs had burned, blown up, or sunk. Rattled parents were letting their children back on school buses; constituents in Republican districts gradually stopped holding their breath in anxiety. Jason was eating more jam, to build up his supply of drinking glasses. His shoelaces were still a mangled mess, but he seemed to have started a trend: He was noticing more young men around the neighborhood with similarly snapped and re-tied laces.

So, Jason mused to himself as he teased the tangles out of a platinum blonde wig and listened to a crappy recording of his newest drag ditty, which he'd committed to a creaky old cassette tape. The universe was one long song being played on a classic Victrola. Who would have guessed? That was even better than the time he'd traveled to the Underworld to argue the Devil out of his plan to close Hell, send the souls of the damned packing -- to Cincinnati, of all places -- and retire to the Azores. Or the time he'd brokered a deal between rival factions of seraphim whose aggravation with one another over how to interpret a single line of the Talmud had threatened to spill into a fresh conflagration -- as if one war in Heaven hadn't been enough. (Naturally, none of the archangels could be bothered to set their own house in order; they were all too busy paying Texas Hold 'Em and other online games of chance.)

Now, Jason sighed, if only the hosts of Heaven, Hell, and everything in between would just leave him be for a while, he had a show to prepare. And it was going to be saddle-up, drop-dead fabulous.

For James