Questions on "The Russian Greatcoat"

Theodore Deppe’s “The Russian Greatcoat” left me with great intrigue and curiosity, because the fact that such small details leave open such great questions. Some of them I can make an inference on and others I have no clue.

The first question I had on the work was why did the character demand that the coat be thrown into the “Ohio”?

The first stanza led me to do some research on what a “Russian Greatcoat” is as well as a "Dostoevsky coat". To my understanding a Russian Greatcoat is an overcoat. Dostoevsky is an author who influenced Russian literature. I made an inference that “the Ohio” refers to a river which research tells me is true. Now moving back to my question why did the character that the speaker was with want him to throw his overcoat into the river. My only answer could be that it had to do with the need of disconnect from material things. My research helped come up with that because I saw something about a story about someone taking great care with their coat and loving it. Also the character refers to it as a “five dollar” coat. A coat that appears to be on the more expensive side, well above five dollars. I feel that the character makes it out to be a lower price to say that it is worthless. The speaker states that he did it “simply because you asked”.

My next question is why does the speaker say “At first, I evade the question when my wife asks/as if just thinking of you were an act of betrayal”?

My first thought was perhaps the speaker was with a mistress, but after re-reading I felt the speaker was not with a lover. When the speaker mentions sharing a cigarette with the character I feel that perhaps that maybe this character brought back a life the speaker no longer had and that is why simply thinking of them was an act of betrayal. I feel this because in the first two lines of the poem the speaker describes a scene much different from the rest. In the first lines he is with his children and his wife on a beach but the rest of the poem he is on a bridge with this particular character.

Something I wonder is was the speaker married to his wife while the scene with the coat was happening. I wonder this because the narrator begins describing the scene with “Years ago” but also says that when his wife asks he evades the question. Knowing whether or not he was married to his wife would remove the idea that he was cheating on his wife and help with the question of why it was an act of betrayal.

Questions that remained unanswered for me was why does the speaker end with “Sometimes I can go weeks without remembering”.

The only thing I can infer from that is perhaps something traumatic happened that he tries to forget but cannot, however nothing else in the text really supports that.