excerpt
at the record store
Low yoyo
was
kinda
tuct away
back there in the alley nexto the dumpster. i didnt see a sign, but
it was obviusly a record store, cause all you could see thru the
storefront window was records.
the door was propt open, and out of it
spilld the voices of two men, who, now that i could hear what
they were saying it wasnt exactly an argument, it was more
like ‘spirited repartee.’
—you have five copies of it, todd. five. and you
cant even locate one?
—d,d’youknow what its like to own ahunred, ahunred,
ahunredthousand of something?
—if we cleard half the shit outa here, we might actialy sell
some records. we could stash the rest of it in the warehouse,
itll sell faster on ebay than in the store i bet.
—howmuch you wana bet?
—i dont want a bet.
—you said you wanted a bet. hhhhow much?
i walkd in at this point, tho they didnt stop talking for a second. but let me describe the store realquick—
you know those used bookstores in the french quarter that ve been there since the begining of time and acumulated so many books its hard to walk around? like that. exept records, not books. they werent just cramd in, tho, they were organized after a fashion, but i’ll get to that in a second. oh and jesse wasnt in here. altho at this point i’d almost forgoten i was lookin for im.
so the one dude—todd, the proprieter—lookd like mr. magoo
in his younger years, back when he was still playin a lot of tennis. todd
liked to punctuate his points by puttin his hands on his hips and lookin
around as if he had an aproving audience. i gues he did— me.
now the other dude—
dont worry about the otherdude. he was just a dude.
—you dont even care do you? cause you dont actualy wana sell records.
you just want to amass them.
—then what the hell do i own a recordstore for? and dont forget who
p,pays you—
—when was the lastime you paid me?
—huh?
—i’m serius todd.
—remember that jjjoy division thing i got you?
—thats not money. pay means money.
—i p,pay peoplemoney.
—people on ebay youv never met. but you dont pay me. and you
dont pay tony either. you keep sayin your goin to, and you keep
givin us more records. well guess what?
—dont even think it.
—oh i’m thinkin it. i dont want any more of your records. not even if
their ultra-rare. your gona hafta start givin me atleast a little bita
money or i cant keep workin here.
tho it was obvius that guy had no intention of quitting. you couldnt fire him. youd need a swat team to get im outa there i bet.
i pretended to look at records so i could eavs drop. then after a while i
was lookin at records. it was the way they were organized that drew me in.
instead of band names, you saw strange microgenres like 
and 
anti-neutch .
captain beefheart took up an entire wall. it was organized into
three categories—
,
, and
todd spoke up—
—d’you realy notwant anymore a my records, or
were you jusbein hh hyperbolic?
—i was tryinta make a point.
—what is your p,pointagain?
—money. thats how you pay people. didnt you
take economics?
—i never ww—
—went to college, i know, you keep
remindin me a that like its a badge
of honor.
—around here it is.
—well i dropt outa college.
—e,evrybody drops outa college.
—not everybody todd. just evrybody you know.
a lota the fuckers that come in here have phd’s,
and they work at the taco stand.
—a dude with a phd works at tacostand, whho is it?
—not a dude todd, a chick. and its just partime, to
suplement her posdoc.
—does she work inthefront or intheback?
—you dont know her.
—does she come in here?
—once or twice.
—you have a crush.
—i do not, she’s like eight years older than me.
—ssso, my wifes older than me.
—by like two years. plus you got your records. i, on the otherhand,
need—
—self esteem? is that why youll date a t,twenny year old but
you wont—
—she’s nineteen, actialy.
—that Abbey chick is nine teen? and she’s already
comin in here? she’s gona turnout arright. specially since she had the
good sense to dump you. sso whos this olderchick you got a crush on?
—can we please just talkabout records?
you can probly guess my test of a good record store—
how much neutral milk do they have?
but this was athens, ofcourse they had it. there were genres aranged
around it, aparently.
still, you gota check.
It had its own section.
and a note sayin—
they had 16 copies of aeroplane
i picked one of them up. felt the heft
its 180-gram vinyl.
but you probly knew that.