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My Grandpa’s Death Record

My grandfather's final message is not what I expected.

By Isaac ShapiroPublished 6 years ago 9 min read
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When my grandpa passed away, he didn’t want to be buried. He also didn’t want to be cremated and have his ashes kept in an urn or thrown off the side of a mountain or into the sea. You see there’s this company that compresses your remains and make a vinyl record from them. You can have just about anything printed on it. If want you can record your own karaoke rendition of Don’t Fear the Reaper played by the carbonized remains of your mortal form. Personally, I kind of found it a little creepy. It felt like you were having your body preserved by a taxidermist then having yourself mounted in a rocking chair forever.

But it was what my grandpa wanted. He was a musician, so I guess being remembered forever as music appealed to him. He used to play guitar as an in-house musician for a record label. Blues and jazz were his favorites, but you could find him on anything from bluegrass to gospel and even a few rock and roll records when a solo artist needed someone to accompany them.

Grandpa was never famous, but he made a good living, and when he died, in his will he wanted to have some of his favorite songs he’d performed in over the years pressed onto vinyl. And he willed it to me.

I had a pretty good relationship with my grandfather. He taught me how to play guitar, and I used to spend a lot of time with him. I even visited him every week when he was in the hospice. When he finally died, he willed me the record, a turntable, and a few hundred bucks in stocks.

I’m not exactly a hipster. I don’t own a vinyl collection, and I’d never even used a turntable before. I’ll be honest, I didn’t even play the record for at least six months after he died. Just the thought of hearing him play again gave me the shivers.

I mean, I listen to a lot of old music, and sure, a lot of those people are dead, but it’s different when you know the person playing… and it’s even weirder when you know the record you’re playing is his corpse, but I felt like I owed it to him.

So after watching some videos online, I got the turntable set up and ready to go and I was ready to hear my grandpa’s voice again. I got the vinyl fitted and put the needle on. I hesitated. I know it was just a vinyl record made out of the compressed carbon from his remains, but it just felt weird, like I was in a morgue looking at his corpse. I couldn’t shake the image of that old Disney cartoon “The Skeleton Dance.” I felt like I was about to start playing the xylophone on his ribs.

Shaking it off, I put the needle down. The first song came on it was a cover of The Thrill Has Gone. It was weird hearing my Grandpa play guitar again. He went through all his old favorites, and by the time the record was over, I’d completely gotten over the shivers, and I’d started crying like a little kid.

I listened to the album almost every day, and even played along with my own beat up box guitar. I took the record player and album with me after I moved out of my parents house after college, and the first thing I did after I finished moving in was put the record on in my cramped studio apartment.

I must have bumped the turntable during the move, because after a few seconds of popping and hissing, the track I was so used to hearing didn’t play. Looking closer, I realized the speed had been switched from 45 to 33 ⅓. I was about to stop the record and change the speed, but then I heard my grandfather. His voice was shaky and cracked, just like it was when he was in hospice.

It was like he was speaking to me in a soft whisper just barely under his breath, but I could still remember his rasp. It sounded like he was straining to speak to me.

“I can see so much now...”

A shiver went down my spine. I stammered out a reply.

“Grandpa is that you?”

“I took you out for ice cream when you passed that math test in third grade. I was so proud of you, but you cheated on that test. You lied to me.”

I froze. I’d never told anyone about that. I never cheated after that, I’d managed to get away with it, but the paranoia and guilt of being caught put a knot in my stomach for months. As pathetic as it sounds, that was the reason I never really did anything dangerous or exciting in my teen years or in college. Just the stomach rolling guilt that I might disappoint my grandpa was enough to keep me on the straight and narrow.

With shaking hands, I lifted the needle from the record. I didn’t want to hear any more. I didn’t even want to think that any of this might be real. After that, I tried to forget it. I tried to pretend like nothing ever happened. Unfortunately, all my family knew that my Grandpa had literally signed over his early remains to me, and after I moved out, most of my family was always asking me to bring it over so they could listen to it.

I just couldn’t escape it. Even some of my friends were curious. One of my college buddies even wanted to use it for his DJ gig because he knew if he could get hold of my Grandpa’s corpse, he’d have a stupid gimmick that no one else could match. He apologized after I refused to speak to him for a month, but the whole situation was driving me insane. I tried so hard to forget the voice, to try and convince myself I didn’t hear anything. I needed to prove that it was all just some weird dream and I didn’t hear anything.

I decided to bring it over to my friend Jaime. He was my oldest friend; we’d been in the same classes from kindergarten through high school. We even went to the same college. If there was anyone I could stomach knowing my stupid little secret, It was him.

So, I told him something was weird with the record, and I asked if I could bring it over so we could try to replicate the effect by lowering the speed. He’d be my system of proof. That way I could know I was sane. He could tell me it was all nothing. It didn’t hurt that he’d heard me play the record hundreds of times before, so he knew exactly what it was supposed to sound like... So I’d have no problem getting him to listen to it.

I went over on last Saturday, and I brought the portable turntable with me as well. I met him in the living room. His sister was in the corning doodling in a coloring book. I asked Jaime if he was okay with me playing it while she was around since I didn’t want to freak a little kid out, but he said not to worry about it. I knew Lisa, and she was pretty much in her own world most of the time anyway, so Jamie was probably right.

I put the needle down, and played the record normally for Jamie first, just to show him everything was still the same. He looked at me like I was crazy, but he was at least respectful enough not to make fun of me while I played my dead grandfather’s record.

When it was over, I reset the needle and changed the speed and put the needle down again. Just like the last time, there was nothing but hissing and popping for almost thirty seconds. And then my grandfather’s voice came on, weak and rasping.

“You poisoned a little boy when you were in third grade.”

My mouth hung open. What the hell? Jamie's eyes widened and he stared at me. I’m not quite sure what shocked him more the fact that hear heard my dead Grandpa’s voice or what he said.

“He won a race during field day, and you wanted his trophy. When he wouldn’t give it to you, you slipped rat poison into his milk during lunch. He died in the middle of the cafeteria, but you never did get that trophy. Sometimes you still think about stealing it from his parents if you could figure out where he lived.”

I stood there in shock. I’d known Jamie my whole life. I looked at him, taking a step away from him. “Man, what the fuck?” Had he killed someone? It had been over a decade since we’d graduated elementary school. I didn’t remember anyone dying, and we ate lunch together every day… Maybe I had been sick? Why didn’t I remember that?

Jamie shook his head, looking at me the same way. “I thought you said you just cheated on a test.”

I felt sick. “I have no idea what he’s talking about. That’s about the worst thing I’ve ever done. Maybe you want to tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Dude, I don’t know! We were both in the same grade. Nobody ever died when we were…” He trailed off, and then looked at his little sister still drawing with her crayons and ignoring both of us. The color drained out of Jamie’s face. “Ethan Colt.” His voice sounded weak and quavering.

I followed his gaze, trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about. “What?”

“Ethan Colt. He was a kid in my little sister’s school last year. He died. The school sent home papers with all the kids explaining what happened and offering grief counseling. There was supposedly some kind of impurity in the milk. It was even in the news.”

We both looked at his sister still coloring in the corner like she hadn’t heard a thing. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she was just pretending like she didn’t. We didn’t know what to do next. We had no evidence except a record which as far as we know we’d never be able to reproduce. I never played it ever again after that. That was the end of it for me. I packed the damn thing away in a closet and told my parents it was too painful to listen to. They had all the records he was on anyway, so it wasn’t exactly like they couldn’t hear his music.

But I still worried for Jamie. He used to live at home, but after that, he moved out as soon as he could. His parents would never listen to him when he told them not to trust his little sister, and just last week, when she was at a birthday party, her friend died.

The girl’s parents said they were suing the baker who made their cake. They said they told him repeatedly that their little girl was deathly allergic to nuts, but somehow, peanut dust found its way into the icing. Jamie said he’d been visiting his parents while Lisa was getting ready. All Lisa could talk about was the new bike her best friend said her parents were getting her for her birthday.

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About the Creator

Isaac Shapiro

When not scrounging the internet for the best content for Jerrick Media, Isaac can be found giving scritches to feathery friend Captain Crunch.

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