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48 My Grandparents’ Victrola Bored, shirking real work on the farm, I’d sneak in to hear its tinny, timewarped mechanical voice. Dark tunesmith of the parlor corner, larder stocked with thick black platters heavy as rock, its crank-wound guts rumbled under rhythms like it was having an earthquake. Opening its doors amped the volume, exposed gloss-rich mahogany rooms. My spine conducted its vibrations, the fine hairs on my nape spiking like seismograph needles. A little dizzy, I’d jam on the Georgia Peach Pickers and Toots Paka Hawaiian Troupe while Granddad’s tractor groaned through the soybeans and Granny’s wringer washer wobbled on the porch. Now, with both of them dead, the farmhouse collapsed but still haunted, haunting, out of place, dense and stalwart as a jeweler’s safe, 49 this relic darkens a corner of my den, exploited for the sake of conversation, laughs, amazed, awkward giggles when I crank it up to whang out its intestinal disturbances, its own coiled innards thumping as they fight to unwind, trembling weird underfoot like a stream of bumblebees so that guests step back, grow quiet, and never ask to hear it again. ...

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