A Witness to Life (Ashland, 2) (19 page)

Randolph AFB

San Antonio, Texas

* Navy Annex Building

Washington, DC

* Marine Corps Headquarters

Washington, DC

* US Coast Guard

2100 2nd Street, SW

Washington, DC

* Retired Military and Civil Service Personnel

1900 E. Street, SW

Washington, DC

* General Services Administration

National Personnel Records Center

9700 Page Blvd.

St. Louis, Missouri

* * *

Director, Regional Office

Veterans Administration

(regional office address)

(date)

Re: John Francis (Jack) Radey

Date of Birth: April 30, 1911

Place of Birth: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Dear Sir:

I have an urgent reason for contacting the above individual. If he is in your file and you have a current address, would you please forward to him the enclosed stamped, unaddressed postcard. If you have no record of him, would you please return the postcard to me for my records.

Sincerely,
 

etc.

* * *

[POSTCARD]

DEAR JACK:

I ASKED THE VA TO FORWARD THIS CARD AS I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE YOU ARE AND WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU. PLEASE WRITE (238 GILMOUR AVE, TORONTO) OR CALL COLLECT (LY 6027).

FATHER

* * *

Edwards Investigation Services

212 Spadina Avenue, suite 100

Toronto, Ontario

July 8, 1946

Martin Radey

238 Gilmour Avenue

Toronto, Ontario

Dear Mr. Radey:

As it has been six weeks since the first steps of our investigation into the whereabouts of your son, John F. Radey, and since we have had no positive response as yet, I recommend that we proceed with the next phase of the search. To this end, I have enclosed a copy of the letter we discussed over the phone, addressed to the US Social Security Administration.

* * *

Director, Locator

Service Social Security Administration

6401 Security Blvd.

Baltimore, Maryland

Re: John Francis (Jack) Radey

Date of Birth: April 30, 1911

Place of Birth: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Dear Sir:

I have an urgent humanitarian reason for contacting the above individual. If he is in your file and you have a current address for him, would you please forward to him the enclosed, stamped, unaddressed postcard*. If you have no record of him, would you please return the postcard to me for my records.

Sincerely,

etc.

(*postcard will be a modified version of one previously used)

* * *

Edwards Investigation Services

212 Spadina Avenue, suite 100

Toronto, Ontario

September 18, 1946

Martin Radey 238

Gilmour Avenue

Toronto, Ontario

Dear Mr. Radey:

In response to your written query of September 15/46, in order to request a death or marriage certificate it is required to know the state or county of the individual's residence at the time of death or marriage. Since we do not know your son's residence, this would prove a very inefficient and costly way to proceed with the search, with no guarantee of success.

American Federal Records are the ones that we can pursue with the greatest possibility of discovery of some sort. Consequently, we recommend the following sequence:

1) US District Court, which handles civil and criminal matters, and which has retrievable records;

2) Bankruptcy Court, which contains public information which is accessible by mail;

3) US Marshal, in conjunction with the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) in Washington;

4) Prison Records.

Your suggestion that we contact the US Internal Revenue Service is a sound one, but in order for them to retrieve information they require a Social Security Number, which we have been unable to obtain.

I await your written instructions before proceeding with the searches named above.

Sincerely,

Simon Paul Edwards

(President)

* * *

Edwards Investigation Services

212 Spadina Avenue, suite 100

Toronto, Ontario

December 12, 1946

Martin Radey

238 Gilmour Avenue

Toronto, Ontario

Dear Mr. Radey:

It is with deep regret that we close the file on our professional association, bringing to a halt our unsuccessful search for your son, but we do so at your instruction. You are indeed right when you say that it is a process that could go on for years, and that one must be realistic about the costs involved.

Since you may wish to pursue the issue further by yourself while naturally minimizing costs, might we suggest contacting the Salvation Army. As well as its better-known services, it also has a Missing Persons Service. We recommend using the same letter-of-inquiry and postcard tandem that we have used on your behalf

There are four headquarters to which you might write:

1) Eastern US: 120 W. 14th St., New York, NY

2) Central US: 860 N. Dearborn St., Chicago, Illinois

3) Southern US: 1424 NE Expressway, Atlanta, Georgia

4) Western US: 30840 Hawthorne Blvd., Rancho Palos Verdes, California

Our very best wishes for success in your search. I wish we could have had a successful conclusion to our endeavor. If we can be of further assistance, do not hesitate to contact us.

A final invoice is being prepared and will be issued shortly.

Sincerely,

Simon Paul Edwards

(President)

3

STAFF NEWS, January 23, 1948

Martin Radey of the seventh floor receiving department was the center of attraction recently when the members of the staff gathered to present him with a handsome smoking stand, cigars, and a hassock on the occasion of his retirement from the Company. Mr. Radey had been with the Company over 30 years and retired under Simpson's Retirement Security Plan.

Ann Disapproves of my cigar, but I light it anyway, strong aromatic smoke filling the air.
The Saturday Evening Post
rests on my lap, the cover a Norman Rockwell painting of a neighborhood scene—kids playing tag, laundry hanging on lines, a man hammering shingles onto a roof.

Ann Jackson, who once worked on the switchboard at the Bell with Evelyn, now lives with us as live-in help. Evelyn's needs are more than I can handle, and Joan, herself working full-time at nineteen, cannot be tied to her either.

Joan has ended up, much like her mother, exactly like Evelyn and Ann, working switchboard at the Bell too. Even so, Joan and Ann do not get along. Ann does not understand Frank Sinatra, jukeboxes, roller rinks. Joan is strong, smart, with a mind of her own. Like Gert.

I let a stream of blue smoke float toward the green- patterned wallpaper that surrounds me. I do not know how much more time I have. Jack, I think. Jack.

I see him cross the room of the apartment atop the stores on Roncesvalles, see his hand on the doorknob, see his eyes, blue, accusing me, hear his footsteps on the stairs.

The atlas lies open on my lap, the United States stretching across two pages, topography of greens, oranges, yellows at my fingertips. I push my eyeglasses down on my nose, peer through the bottom of the lenses.

So many places. He could be anywhere.

I do not know how to start. It is overwhelming.

Detroit. Toledo. Bucyrus. Ashland.

Heading south. Disappearing like winter runoff into soft loam, sinking into the earth.

I do not understand Jack. I do not understand anyone who can travel so far, so freely. Yet I try to make the leap, try to imagine the places named before me, however ordinary they may be.

I am sixty-eight years old, past the age of discovery and experiment, born in another era, another world. Nevertheless, I am intrigued by the litany of names that Jack has evoked: Detroit, Toledo, Bucyrus, Ashland.

Ashland. Kentucky. The source of his final words.

Simon Paul Edwards and his Investigation Services have checked these places out, found nothing.

And yet.

And yet; when I close my eyes I can see Jack in some mythical Kentucky, by the side of a road, in a diner with a cigarette and coffee, leaning on the hood of a Chevy, that smile, so white, so wry.

There is a story surrounding everyone, some traces of information that are part fancy, part fact, a tale that gets passed around as casually as discussion of the weather.
Her father was a drunk. His sister committed suicide. Their mother went mad. He's worth a quarter of a million dollars.

After mass on Sunday, the new young priest, Father Morrison, stops me outside to introduce himself. He has been at St. Cecilia's for more than a year now, since Father Colliton died, but this is the first time we have spoken. And as we talk I come to realize that there is a story surrounding me, of which I have been unaware. He tells me that someone has mentioned that I have a son living down in the States, and he asks how he is.

I see Jack smiling, cigarette in hand, the Ohio River behind him wide and deep.

He's in Kentucky, I say, surprising myself.

Kentucky? Really? What's he doing?

Operates his own business.

Father Morrison's eyes crinkle in the morning sunshine.

Hotel business, I say. Ashland.

He nods, looks around, thinking.

Ever been to Kentucky? I ask him.

As a matter of fact, I have. There's a Trappist monastery near Bardstown. Gethsemani. I was on a retreat there during my novitiate. Beautiful place. Lovely. Acres of countryside.

He looks at me.

You should go, he says. They have a guest house. A wonderful way to renew inner resources, make peace with oneself.

As I pull my hat low over my eyes, look into his face, try to determine what is there, see only concern, honesty, I hear myself talking to Gert in the restaurant on Dundas Street, that Sunday morning, more than twenty years ago.
I'm thinking of being a monk . . . It's not such a bad deal.

You never know, I say. A pause. Nice talking with you, Father.

Same, he says, and we clasp hands.

At night, I spread the letters out on the kitchen table, touch them, reread them. Then I study the map of Kentucky that is open in the atlas beside them. Ashland is in the northeastern part of the state. Bardstown is about a hundred miles to the west, maybe thirty miles south of Louisville.

But Gethsemani, the Trappist monastery, is as invisible on my map as it must be silent. I touch the map, feel for it. I listen.

I have never had so much time alone. Retired less than six months, I wonder what I have done with all those years. They are gone, a blur.

Gethsemani, I think. I know the name from the Bible: the garden where Christ went to pray before He was crucified.

Somewhere in Kentucky.

July 1948 is humid, even sultry. The house traps the heat, especially in the upstairs bedrooms. As I lie in my bed, hands behind my head, staring up into the darkness, I think about my resolution for the first week of August. I am planning what I have never done before. At my age, I am undertaking a trip by myself, out of the city. Five days.