Free Unrevealed by Laurel Dewey

pointed to the faded signature on the back of the jersey. It looked like Winston’s mouth went dry. I peered closer at the signature. “It’s hard to make out Wilt’s name. But it sure isn’t difficult to make out the name of the guy he was signing it to. Rick .” I spread out the jersey in front of Mr. Gambrel. “Now, if this was bought on eBay, you’d have it hanging in one of those tempered-glass cases. You know? Like the ones you have all that Beatles memorabilia in at your pub. You’d want to show off this puppy. But instead, I found it stuffed in an unmarked box in your closet…with the tickets to that Phillies game in 1964. Now, you tell me how you were going to a Phillies game and having Wilt sign your shirt during the
same time period when you were allegedly studying at Oxford in merry ol’ England?”
    He started to say something.
    “Remember,” I cautioned him, “anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, Mr. Gambrel. You told me you’d never been to America before you and Abbey flew over the pond and settled in Denver. So I advise you to not tell me that you made two separate trips in ’64 and again sometime between ’65 and ’68 when Wilt was tearing it up for the 76ers.” Gambrel sank back into his chair. “Then there’s this.” I slid a faded color photograph of a young Gambrel with his parents toward him. His eyes welled up. The shot showed the happy trio standing in front of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. The young Gambrel was cleanshaven and had short hair. On the back of the photo, it said: “Last photo of us. May, 1969.” “You were twenty-three in that photo. One month away from graduating from college. Which meant you were one month away from the first time your world crashed around you.”
    Gambrel turned away, tears welling in his eyes. He seemed to be trying to shield himself from one of the cameras. “Please don’t do this. I beg you.”
    “Bear with me, Rick,” I said gently, “I have to do this.” I brought out a single sheet of paper with an article I’d copied. “I did a simple search using the name Rick Gambrel in the archives of The Philadelphia Inquirer between May and December of 1969. It didn’t take me long to locate this article about the car wreck you and your parents were in while en route to a family college graduation party.” Gambrel stared at the article I slid in front of him. “They died instantly, and you, their only child, miraculously had only minor injuries. But it took the paramedics over an hour to free you from the
wreckage.” Tears fell freely from Gambrel’s eyes. I looked at him with compassion, fully feeling the brunt of grief that choked his throat. “That was the longest hour of your life, I imagine. And shock took its predictable course.”
    Gambrel slid the faded color photo of his parents and him toward him. “One second we were talking about how I was going to spend the summer,” he said, his British accent gone, “and the next, I was hanging upside down with my father’s face shoved against mine. I felt his blood falling on my cheek and his skin slowly grow colder. I wanted to reach out to him but I was pinned. I kept telling myself it was a dream and that I was going to wake up.” He looked at me. “And that’s the way my life kept going for me. Like I was living in a dream. There were days when I hovered above myself. Reality was debatable. Large gaps of time were unaccounted for. I dissociated every day.” As he relived that time of his life, it was clear to me that Gambrel obviously suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder — unfortunately, something I’m intimately familiar with. One’s mere existence becomes questionable, at best. He continued. “The only thing that kept me somewhat grounded was music. The Beatles, most of all. I let my appearance go that whole summer of ‘69. People started saying, jokingly, that I looked like John Lennon with my beard and long hair. And