Vintage: A
Rock’n’Roll Fairy Tale
by
Erica Naone
Josh parked
outside No Limit Records and Discs, sat in his car a moment
trying one last time to rub the sleep out of his eyes, and
then got out and stumbled up the stairs to the door. The
morning shift was ingrained more in his blood than in his
brain, and he’d already fished the keys out of his pocket
and started fiddling with the building’s sticky lock before
he noticed the big cardboard box in front of the door. He
shoved it aside with his foot and made his way to the
coffee machine in the back.
As he mixed sugar into his coffee, Josh scanned the shelf
of rare records kept locked in the employee room. Fingers
not quite touching the array of anti-static sleeves, his
hand hovered beside the 1986 original sealed vinyl edition
of Dead Milkmen’s Eat Your
Paisley. He’d promised
himself he’d buy it the first time his band scored a gig at
the Blue Room. But since his lead guitarist had quit last
night after practice, and Josh’s hours of arguing had done
nothing to change his mind, Eat Your
Paisley was not coming
to him anytime soon. Just out of high school, working full
time at the record store for minimum wage, Josh lived off
what increasingly seemed like the naive hope that his band
would make it big. He snorted to himself as he checked and
emptied the dehumidifier.
“All right, let’s see about this box,” he said out
loud.
Outside, he
dragged the box to a comfortable position and knelt beside
it on the threadbare blue welcome mat that Hank the owner
hadn’t changed since he first opened the store 30 years
ago. People were always leaving their trash at the store --
records so scratched they wouldn’t even play, old 8-tracks,
and tapes with bits erased from sitting in cars full of
Florida sun. It made Josh sad to see how people didn’t care
for the things they owned. He thought about writing “Free”
on the side of this box and just leaving it where it was,
or taking it straight to the dumpster. But Hank would want
him to look inside first, in case there was something the
store could use.
Josh tugged open the cardboard flap with a sigh. Instead of
the puff of dust and mildewed smell he expected, the inside
of the box was pristine and organized, every record packed
in double layers of protective sleeves. As he read a few of
the titles, every bit of sleepiness drained out of him and
the blood in his body began to vibrate in his capillaries.
* * *
“Kid, I hire you to work the morning shift so I don’t have
to wake up this early,” Hank growled as he banged open No
Limit’s door. He heaved himself to the employee area behind
the counter and stared Josh down.
“I told you what’s in the box,” Josh said.
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Josh smiled as evenly as he could and pulled himself up to
his full height. He made an effort to calm his breathing
and keep his voice steady. “The Clash, 12-inch yellow vinyl
Colombian edition of London
Calling, worth $200.
Beck, 7-inch blue vinyl special edition of
MTV Makes
Me Want to Smoke Crack, worth $150.
Oh, and Blondie, 7-inch Private Stock UK demo edition
of X-Offender,
worth $1500.” With each
record he listed, he pulled a near-mint copy out of a stack
beside him and displayed it to Hank before lovingly
returning it to the counter. His hands were trembling.
“They’re alphabetized in the box, and they only go up to G.
This box alone is worth easily $10,000, and there could be
more where this came from,” he said, stepping back so Hank
could see for himself.
It only took a second for Hank to realize that Josh was
right. “How long did it take you to price these?”
Josh laughed. “Not long. I’ve got posters of some of these
up on my wall. Never in my life did I think I’d even be in
the same room with them, forget about touching them.”
Hank grunted and continued flipping through the contents of
the box. “London
Calling,” he said.
“The store was open about a year when that came out. I gave
away copies of the single to my favorite customers. I still
remember where I was standing when I heard it for the first
time. One of the employees put it on, and I was right over
there by the M’s. Nobody in the store spoke until the first
song, the title track, was over.”
Hank stared into the past. Josh cleared his throat and
interrupted the moment. “What I don’t get,” he said, “is
why the hell this person didn’t bring us these records and
try to sell them to us.”
“We could never have paid for all of them.”
“They had to know what this was worth. Who collects this
stuff, takes perfect care of it, and then abandons it
outside a record store? I kicked it on the way in!”
Hank turned around suddenly. “Josh, go into the side drawer
of my desk. On the top in there, you’ll find a mint copy
of Vitalogy
on
vinyl. Bring it up to the counter.”
The old metal drawer popped and squealed when Josh pulled
it open. Under a thin layer of packing slips, he found the
record, covered with sticky notes recording weeks of calls
to the person who’d ordered it. “Who’s Anna Birkins?” Josh
said, reading the name off the aging notes. “I thought you
didn’t hold records for more than two weeks? It looks like
you’ve been holding this one since 1994.”
Hank came around the corner holding a small-label issue
with black-and-white art on the sleeve. “Endless Mike,” he
said, tapping it with a thick finger.
* * *
Anna Birkins had been lead guitarist of the band Endless
Mike, which ended after all in 1994 in what many writers in
the local music press liked to call the biggest band
breakup tragedy ever to strike Central Florida. The box
contained five copies of their debut album, printed by a
no-name punk label that Josh had only found after several
Google deep dives. Hank had let him borrow one of the
records.
The rest of Josh’s shift had been long once Hank took over
dealing with the box, but now most of the night had passed
in the space of one delicious guitar solo by Anna Birkins
that Josh had played over and over again in his apartment.
Josh had never heard Endless Mike before, tending to
dismiss what he’d read about them as journalists making a
band out to be as great as they wished it had been. He’d
been wrong. With a lead guitarist like that, a gig at the
Blue Room would be only the beginning. He wondered if she
still played, and if he could find her.
In the picture in the album’s liner notes, Anna looked like
an updated, more muscular version of Janis Joplin. She had
wild hair, big glasses, a mess of black clothes, and the
same sort of crinkly smile. Her bare left arm stuck out
from a rolled-up sleeve as she held her guitar neck high
mid-solo. Hank thought the incredible record collection had
belonged to her, a guess backed up by all the Endless Mike
records in the box.
Anna had been a customer of No Limit back when she was a
teenager, before her band had even formed. Her taste in new
releases was so good that Hank had followed her lead in
ordering for the store, and when she’d grown up and married
an up-and-coming young Chick-Fil-A executive, just before
Endless Mike had started to make it big, she had begun
asking Hank to find rare records for her at trade shows.
She’d suddenly stopped coming to the store back in 1994,
but Hank had never had the heart to sell the copy of
Vitalogy
she’d ordered.
“I kept thinking how mad she’d be if she showed up and it
was gone,” he’d told Josh. “And then I just thought, as
long as I had it, there was a chance she’d come back for it
someday. I always wanted to see her again and find out why
she disappeared.”
“Didn’t you ever look for her?” Josh had said. “I mean, are
you sure she was OK?”
“People stop buying records all the time. They grow out of
it. Doesn’t mean they disappeared in real life.”
“What about now? Don’t you think we should at least give
her some money for this? What if she died? Wouldn’t you
want to know?”
Hank had laughed at him. “You look for her and tell me what
you find out. If there’s a memorial service, tell me when
it is.”
* * *
The only member of Endless Mike whose address Josh could
find online was founder and front man Mike Green. Josh was
off on Sundays, and so he drove at a crawl into the trailer
park where Mike lived, trying to watch the numbers without
running over a kid playing in the hot, dusty road. Some
trailers overflowed with plants and decorations placed by
housewives compensating for a lack of house. Others, like
Mike’s, stayed in place only because there was nowhere else
for them to go. Josh parked next to a rotting El Camino,
took a deep breath, and went up the rusting stairs to rap
on the trailer’s door.
Mike came to the door a moment later and peered out,
studying Josh with a face like an abandoned sock, wrinkled
and stained. He’d gone to fat since the pictures taken
during the band years, and his eyebrow ring, mostly grown
out of his forehead, flapped against the thread of skin
holding it on. In spite of it all, the vision of a rock
star had never quite passed from him, and he
stood like he
was in front of a crowd of thousands. He adjusted his Dead
Kennedys T-shirt, cleared a smoke-ruined throat, and asked,
“Who are you?”
“I’m Josh Galloway,” Josh said, sticking out a hand.
Mike stared at it without taking it. “What are you doing
here?”
For answer, Josh pulled out his copy of the Endless Mike
record. Mike growled at the sight of it and turned away.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Josh said, shoving his foot in the
way of the door just before Mike could slam it closed.
“You another of those damn journalists? I’m not giving
interviews. Christ, for a man who never really got famous,
the journalists sure know how to find me.”
“I’m not a journalist. Look, this is about Anna Birkins.”
“Of course it is. You want to know if the rumors are true
that the band broke up because she was having an affair
with me. You think I’m stupid enough to answer that
question?” His face twisting viciously, he kicked Josh in
the shin. When Josh flinched back, Mike slammed the door.
“Mike, hang on! Jeez, man.” Josh slapped at his shin to
numb it and pulled a list out of his pocket. Pitching his
voice to be heard through thin walls, he said, “I work at a
record store. This is what I found yesterday outside the
door.” He read a few of the most impressive titles. “I
think they belonged to her. I want to know what happened to
her and if she’s OK.”
The door flew open again, and Mike thrust his quivering
chin out at Josh. He hadn’t shaved in a few days. “What the
hell do you care? Do you know her?”
“No, I just...” Josh held his hands out helplessly. “You
should see this record collection. I can’t believe anyone
would abandon it.”
“You wouldn’t believe anyone could abandon positive reviews
from Rolling
Stone either, but
you’d be underestimating Anna.”
“Will you let me in?” Josh said. “Ten minutes. I just want
to know what you know.”
Mike snorted and rolled his eyes, but he stepped back from
the door and went to a dorm-sized refrigerator. “Want a
beer?”
“I’m still underage.”
“Want a beer?”
“No thanks, man.”
“That’s all you had to say.” Mike gestured
Josh into a small stuffed chair by the window and took a
seat at the table.
“Listen,” Josh said when Mike raised both eyebrows
expectantly, “you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t
want to tell me. Just whatever you can.”
“Why are you doing this, kid?”
“She should get paid or something.”
“Yeah, I should see the records. I heard you the first
time. But if you’ve got some kind of rescue fantasy, you
need to give it up. Anna’s shoved herself so far up the ass
of that Christian fundamentalist husband of hers, you
wouldn’t be able to find her if you gave him a
colonoscopy.” Mike reached down to the dorm fridge, and got
himself a beer. He cracked it open, took a long swallow,
and smirked at Josh. “He’s the biggest tone-deaf moron I’ve
ever met. He’d confuse The Doors with ABBA.
He
never understood a damn thing about her and her music, and
she was an idiot to marry him.”
“So why did she?”
Mike spat into an ashtray on the table. “Anna didn’t like
being talented and beautiful. She wanted to be ordinary. I
tried to show her what was out there, but she had herself a
man who was just as scared of Anna being Anna as she was.”
“And Anna played the guitar.”
Mike laughed from deep in his gut. “Josh Galloway, Anna
played the guitar like Jimi Hendrix on a deal with the
devil. If you could find her and get her to pick up that
guitar again, that would be something to see.”
* * *
At four the next
morning, Josh stopped at the IHOP next door to No Limit,
planning to nurse a cup of coffee until he caught a glimpse
of Anna. He’d been right that there was more to the
collection. Hank had called him yesterday to say he’d
received G through N. “I’m going to be able to retire on
this,” Hank had laughed.
“Don’t you think you should try to find her?”
“You’ve got that covered, kid. I’m just going to sit back
and enjoy the money.”
Josh brushed off the flirtatious waitress and kept an eye
out the window. Anna had to be bringing the records to the
store herself. No one else would just donate them to Hank’s
retirement fund. Josh was on the third cup of coffee when a
sleek little Mazda Miata pulled up in front of No Limit. He
threw down a five for the waitress and rushed out the door.
Anna Birkins hadn’t lost muscle in the years since she’d
been with Endless Mike. She leaned over the Miata’s open
trunk and came up with the third box, which she carried
easily to the door. She looked like a black and white art
photo, even 14 years later, even in the Florida heat. She
wore large Janis Joplin sunglasses, and her black hair up
in a ponytail. If Mike still had a touch of rock star about
him, Anna could have been a chart-topper hiding from the
paparazzi. Unable to find words, Josh watched her silently
from the edge of the parking lot, but she turned and looked
right at him.
Josh screwed up his courage and ran to her. “I’ve got
something that belongs to you,” he said. “I just need to go
inside to get it. Wait here a minute.” He fumbled
frantically with the sticky lock. She gave a half smile and
waited, setting the box down out of his way. “Actually,”
Josh said, worrying that she would slip away, “you should
come inside with me.”
“You take your summer job very seriously,” she said, a bit
unkindly. But she followed him in.
Josh ran to Hank’s desk, glancing over his shoulder
constantly. He returned with the copy of
Vitalogy and pressed it
into her hands. She touched her name still written on the
note on the front, and ran her finger over the list of
Hank’s attempts to reach her. “I took my husband’s name
after I left the band.” She glanced out at the Miata, then
back at Josh. After a moment, she sighed and took off the
sunglasses, revealing red-rimmed eyes and a face that broke
a good deal of the rock-star spell. She was puffy with
years, though she could only have been in her 30s. “Do you
really think I can take this with me, when I’m getting rid
of all these others?”
“You should have it,” Josh said.
She held it, stroking it with her long, unpainted
fingernails. “I had all Pearl Jam’s Christmas records up to
1994,” she said after a minute. “I wanted this album for
‘Spin the Black Circle.’ I know Eddie Vedder understands
about records. You sell CDs here now, too.”
“Hank says he
added them about 10 years ago, and the DVDs a few years
after that. Only way he could make enough to stay in
business.”
“Now mp3s are probably ruining his life even more. Poor
Hank. He’s too grouchy for this business.”
“Why aren’t you selling your records?” Josh said. “They’re
worth thousands of dollars. You know that.”
“I’m supposed to be throwing them away,” Anna said, her
voice dropping to a hiss. “I thought Hank should have them
since I bought about half of them here.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I have to go.”
“Wait,” Josh said. “Do you still play guitar?” She stopped,
looked him up and down, and smiled. He noticed that she
hadn’t relinquished the record, and he felt a wild hope
that the answer to answer to his question was “Yes.”
“This is the last box,” she said. “You won’t see me again.”
* * *
Josh swallowed as he shut off the car’s engine and turned
the key to run the stereo off the battery. She was probably
alone. There was only the Miata in the driveway of the
split-level house. He knew from Mike that Anna didn’t have
children and her husband was away on business all the time.
He looked around at the perfectly manicured suburban lawns
and hoped the nearby housewives knew and loved the music of
Endless Mike. With that, he started up a CD he’d made of
Anna Birkins’ most impressive guitar solos. She was outside
almost before he started.
“What are you doing here? Did you watch Say
Anything too many times
as a kid?”
“Where’s your guitar?” Josh said. “Get it out. I want to
show you some stuff I’ve been thinking about.”
“I don’t play anymore.”
“For Christ’s sake. If that’s true, I’m never speaking to
you again.”
“Who said I wanted you to speak to me?”
“Come on. You’ve got to have it hidden somewhere.”
“You can’t be here. You have no idea how much trouble it
will cause.”
“Fine,” Josh said, smiling out of one side of his mouth. He
flipped her a demo CD of his band, spinning it end over
end. She caught it neatly, without changing her irritated
expression. “We’ve got a gig,” he said. “Three weeks from
Wednesday at the Blue Room. The Raptures’ opening band had
to bail because their lead guitarist broke his hand.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Mike says you know The Raptures. Matt and Isaac? They say
my band can open if I guarantee you’ll show up. You can
practice without me if you insist.”
“What’s your issue? Since when was I in your band?”
“I’ve been wanting to play the Blue Room since I was 11,”
Josh said. “I’ll never get another chance if you don’t
show.” He put on his best insolent grin, trying to channel
Mike Green as he must have been years ago.
Anna just stared at him, and he couldn’t read her face at
all. He shut off the stereo. “Just say yes,” he said. “And
call the number in the case if you can’t make it.” His
heart started beating again when she gave a little nod.
* * *
Though he rarely smoked, Josh bummed a cigarette from
someone waiting to get into the show and sucked it dry in a
hopeless effort to calm his nerves. Not only was the Blue
Room the biggest venue he’d ever played, it looked like the
show was about to sell out. The Raptures were just breaking
into the national scene, and they’d hinted at an
opening-act surprise in a few of the interviews they’d
given on college radio. The only trouble was that Anna was
nowhere to be seen. Aside from the nerves he’d have had
anyway, it was getting uncomfortable to dodge Matt and
Isaac’s pointed questions about her. She was late for sound
check. Josh scanned the crowd, flinching when, instead of
Anna, he saw Mike Green standing in line.
Josh went to him and tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey,
man.”
“So you did find her.”
Josh shrugged.
“I can’t believe you talked her into this.”
“Don’t wait in line. I should have made sure you were on
the list. I apologize.”
“No worries, man. No worries,” Mike grinned, but Josh
noticed him looking around for Anna, too. “What did you
tell her? I figured, if she was getting rid of the record
collection, the husband must have been punishing her for
cheating again. Didn’t think he’d let her out so soon after
that.”
Josh raised an eyebrow. “Again?”
“I used to look a lot better,” Mike said.
“You sound like you’re getting ready to give some
interviews.”
Mike grinned briefly, then leaned in toward Josh. “So where
is she?”
Josh swallowed. “I bet she’s going to come in the back.”
Josh tried to dart behind the building unnoticed, but Matt
and Isaac saw him backstage. They were in the process of
pulling him aside for some serious interrogation when Anna
walked in holding an electric guitar case, making the room
fall silent. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, avoiding Josh’s
eyes. She was wearing the big sunglasses, and Josh was
disturbed by his sudden certainty that there were again
red-rimmed eyes under the dark lenses.
* * *
Anna’s guitar, which she said was the first she’d bought as
a teenager, was a ridiculous thing, like something from a
1980s hair metal band. Migraine yellow and painted with
spiderwebs, it stood out like a sickness against her black
outfit, black hair, and black glasses. Before they started
up the sound check, Josh stepped toward her.
“You doing all right?”
“Doing fine. Just a quick race to the junkyard before the
show.” At Josh’s concerned glance, she smiled. “My husband
found out I hadn’t gotten rid of the guitar and decided to
do that for me. I said I’d give it away to charity and he
gave it back to me. I’m supposed to be out finding a place
for it now.”
“On a Friday night at 9 p.m.?”
She shrugged. “He believes what he wants to
believe.”
Josh cleared
his throat. “So I thought we’d start with a couple of
Endless Mike covers, because that’s what everyone wants to
hear anyway.”
“You think you can step into Mike’s shoes that way?”
“I can try.”
“I listened to your demo. Good stuff.”
“Thanks.”
“When we get to your stuff, just add space for the solo.
Hold a steady three-chord groove when you’re ready for it,
and I’ve got a few things worked up.”
Josh grinned. “I knew you would.”
* * *
The closest Josh could ever come to describing that night
later was by playing E major, which had always sounded to
him like the start of a showdown. He stepped out onto the
stage, facing off against Anna, Mike Green, the crowd, her
husband, Hank, and all his own doubts. He paced to the
microphone and set off the music with a 1-2-3 count. And
the music exploded out of them, notes shooting like bullets
from Anna’s guitar, the drummer and bassist playing fast
and hard like the beating of Josh’s heart. And he stood up
against it all. He fixed his eyes on the crowd beneath him
and told them he was death and love and heroism, and they
soaked up every word he sang. As for Anna, she played like
her life depended on it, better than he could have dreamed.
His music flowed together with hers as if they’d been
practicing for the moment their whole lives, and he knew
this night, no matter what happened after, would stay in
his blood for as long as he lived.
Though Josh couldn’t see much through the lights, sweat,
and intoxication, he could still see Mike Green, standing
toward the front, not moving with the music at all, just
staring up at Anna Birkins with the jealousy of a ghost
staring at a newborn baby.
When it was
over, and they had come out for a final song with The
Raptures, and Josh had discouraged the would-be groupies
and was telling himself fiercely to keep it together until
he could go home and take a long look in the mirror, Anna
came and touched him lightly on the shoulder. He hugged her
wholeheartedly. “Thank you,” he said.
“No. Thank you.” She pulled away from the hug and studied
him, biting her lower lip. Josh felt bad for how nervous
she looked.
“Look, you don’t have to explain anything to me,” he said.
“My husband doesn’t trust what music does to me. He says it
brings out some wild person he doesn’t even know. But I
wonder, what if I can’t live without it?”
“Hank will give you back your record collection if you go
and ask for it. I don’t care how grouchy he is about it.
I’ll make sure he does it.”
“I did a bunch of things I shouldn’t have done when I was
touring with Endless Mike. I felt so alive I couldn’t
contain myself. But these last years, I’ve done all the
same things, just out of bitterness.”
“What are you doing with the guitar?”
“I’m keeping it,” she said, stroking the case with the same
gesture he’d seen her use on the Pearl Jam album. “I used
to think a lot about driving away. Just driving down to
Mexico and finding a new life.”
“What are you doing now? Where are you going?”
“I’m going to try to go home,” she said. Josh nodded,
because he couldn’t think of anything to say, and he didn’t
have a better suggestion. “I’ll tell him I didn’t give the
guitar away, and he’ll either take me back with it, or he
won’t take me back at all.”
“What about the records? I could bring them to you.”
She sighed and looked around the room, taking a deep breath
as if the boozy air were the sweetest thing she’d ever
smelled. She touched his arm for a second, before turning
away. “Don’t worry about it. Sometimes you have to let
things go.”
Josh wanted to call after her and argue with her. He wanted
to tell her not to be ordinary. He wished for a moment that
he was 10 years older, but then he changed his mind and
felt glad he wasn’t. He didn’t have to be ordinary, either.
He thought about the size of the crowd that night and
leaned against the wall for a minute, letting the memory of
the applause wash over him.
Copyright
2008 by Erica Naone