Old Records Never Die (24 page)

Three weeks ago

I can't recall if I went looking for it or if I just found it, but I saw an eBay listing for an unopened box of Boo Berry, dated 1978. I was astounded that such a thing existed—that somebody had managed to resist not just the urge to open it up at some point over the last thirty-six years and satiate his brain's self-destructive hunger for delicious chemicals, but the constant nagging sensation that comes with the futility of saving something that has no real value and is almost certainly garbage, and might actually be growing in strength, becoming more powerful and deadly with each passing year, becoming like the man-made aberration of some Japanese monster movie from the fifties, ready to burst from its box and terrorize humanity.

I made the one and only bid, purchasing it for the low price of $6.99. After shipping costs—the seller was based in Oregon—it came to $17.24. Expensive, sure, but if you factor in inflation, I'd probably come out ahead. I did some snooping online and learned that a twelve-ounce box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes cost just fifty-nine cents in 1978. Cereal actually cost less than a dollar during my childhood?
That seems preposterous. But I wouldn't feel comfortable sharing that information with anybody in their twenties, lest I come across sounding like one of those “When I was a kid, movies cost a nickel” grandpas.

I really didn't know why I was buying it. It just seemed like something I should own. An unblemished artifact from my youth. Like a
Star Wars
action figure still in the box. But edible.

Of course I was going to tear open the tabs and release the ghosts inside, let them drift out and float angrily around the room like the dead spirits at the end of
Raiders of the Lost Ark
.

If you have an Ark of the Covenant that contains dextrose, modified corn starch, trisodium phosphate, and red 40, you're insane if you don't open it. It's not a collectible. It was created to be consumed in a sugar-fueled frenzy and then expelled from your angry bowels with extreme prejudice.

Two weeks ago

I received a call from Janet, the church secretary. The council had approved my request. But I had only a forty-eight-hour window to visit the house, between the old pastor moving out and the new pastor moving in, and at some point in that time frame they'd be bringing in carpet cleaners to shampoo the premises, so would I rather visit the house pre- or post-shampooing? Or they could just work around me, if that was easier. What a wonderful trip down memory lane! Also, the entire council wanted me to know that they'd seen photos of my son on Facebook, and he's adorable.

I did not mention the record player.

Twelve days ago

I contacted Mike C., the guy who used to live down the street from us, who during the seventies and early eighties was my, and
alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) my brother's, best friend. I had not spoken to him in at least thirty years.

I had absolutely no idea what he was like as an adult.

I called him out of the blue and asked if he wanted to come sit in my old house, without furniture, which may or may not have mushy, recently shampooed carpets, and listen to records from our youth on the floor. Oh, and I have a copy of KISS
Alive II
that may have been the exact same copy that he and several other music enthusiasts in our tiny town had once traded for favors, like cigarettes in a prison yard. Oh, also, I'd be bringing an unopened box of Boo Berry from 1978, which could possibly give us all botulism. See you then!

He said yes. Absolutely yes. Also, his mom had a few records in her crawl space that he could bring. Maybe there were a few things in there that we'd listened to as kids.

Ten days ago

I purchased several more items from eBay, including posters of Farrah Fawcett, KISS, and Kansas City Royals third baseman George Brett. I informed Mike C. of this, and he insisted that I got it wrong, that I should have acquired a poster of Catherine Bach in her Daisy Dukes. I tried to explain to him just how wrong he was, that he was likely thinking of his own bedroom and not my own. I was 100 percent certain that Farrah Fawcett in her red—or burnt orange, my memory is fuzzy on that part—bathing suit, which could barely contain the ballistic missiles that were her erect nipples, had been affixed to my walls, at an optimal vantage to the bed, for the entirety of my preteen years.

I could not tell you a single relevant piece of information that I retained between the fifth and eighth grades of school. Something to do with math, maybe? But I could tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, that the poster of Farrah Fawcett in a red/burnt-orange bathing suit was located at an upper left corner vantage from my
bed, at approximately ten o'clock, and maybe five feet off the ground. If the shades were open, the morning sun would create a distracting glare that made it difficult to appreciate the details of her torso. The perfect viewing hours were between four fifteen and six thirty.

Nine days ago

Mike suggested that I contact Darren I., who was several years older than us and was likely the original owner of the KISS
Alive II
record. He was, Mike reminded me, the person responsible for purchasing much of the music that somehow ended up in our possession, despite the fact that it frightened us. Or more specifically, that guys like Darren frightened us. I remembered that Darren had blue hair at one point. Blue hair! That was all the evidence I needed that he was capable of extreme violence and would pull my entrails out of my body like a magician pulling silk handkerchiefs from his wrist.

“You should go visit him,” Mike suggested. “He's a mechanic now. Works at a place about a mile from our old school.”

Seven days ago

My mom called with a suggestion.

“Remember that table we had in the kitchen?”

“Um,” I responded. “I think so. You mean the kitchen table?”

“That's the one! I still have it. So I was thinking, if you're going to do this, you might as well do it right.”

I was skeptical, but after twenty minutes of talking about it with her, I got very excited. I saw what she meant. Sitting on the floor of an empty house is kind of silly. How do you get anything meaningful from that experience? Your legs fall asleep, you get charley horses, you're annoyed and uncomfortable.

“We'll bring the chairs too,” she said. “There's no reason you have to be nostalgic with leg cramps.”

I couldn't argue with that logic.

Six days ago

After some soul-searching, Mike realized that the KISS
Alive II
in question hadn't come from Darren. It really belonged to John J., another former school peer who was now living in Traverse City and, according to my memory, was equally as dangerous.

I barely knew John, but I knew that at some point in the eighties, he'd broken a few laws and spent a little time in jail. Or at least those were the rumors. I had no clue about the details, but it seemed in keeping with his reputation. Although John was two years younger than me, he was ahead of the curve in just about everything. He was the first one at our school to start smoking cigarettes, when the rest of us were still playing with Evel Knievel dolls. He was listening to the Butthole Surfers and Bad Brains albums when I still thought Men at Work were badass. I was in awe of the guy, but he also scared the shit out of me.

“I already talked to him,” Mike told me. “He's gonna join us. He's got a lot of records you might be interested in. Also, he's bringing booze.”

My stomach got queasy, and my pulse quickened. On the one hand, John was the first guy I'd ever known with an appreciation for punk rock. It's entirely feasible that he's the reason I first encountered the music that still matters to me the most.

But he also has a criminal record. And he'd been invited to a home I didn't own, and he'd be bringing alcohol. And god knows what else.

Five days ago

My mom called again. She found the blankets. The blankets my grandmother had made for my brother and me shortly after our births.

“I'll bring them,” she said. “They're a little mildewy, but you'll hardly notice.”

“It's really not necessary,” I insisted.

“Don't worry about it,” she said. “This is fun. I'm enjoying this.”

Three days ago

John e-mailed me:

“Hey, Eric . . . wow . . . you are going way back . . . Here is what I remember . . . I did own that KISS album and I do remember rocking out in the church house with Mark and Mike C. . . . I don't recall loaning it out though . . . it's very possible though since I loaned Mike my Richard Pryor
Bicentennial Nigger
album and his mom was so upset that she nearly called the cops on me.”

He gave me a complete list of the records in his basement, which included the Dead Kennedys, Elvis Costello, the Gun Club, the Clash, Iggy Pop, Devo, Blondie, and the Ramones. He also asked if we were drinking just beer or also wine. “I'll bring wine too,” he offered. “Let's do this right.”

Then he closed his e-mail with: “I'll bring over some records. Some greasssssy disks . . . you bring the Lipitor . . . mmmmm Boo Berry . . . laterzzzz.”

What have I done?

Two days ago

My brother finally called, responding to my numerous e-mails, which explained exactly what was happening and why he needed to be involved. He wasn't convinced.

“I just want to go on the record saying I think this has gotten way out of hand,” Mark said before I even managed to get in a hello. “You've taken things entirely too far, and it's making everybody really uncomfortable. It's just weird, okay? It's weird.”

I would have been offended if this wasn't, in some respects, entirely accurate.

“Help me understand what this is,” Mark said. “I want to see the house again, but I don't get what else is happening. There's furniture now?”

“Just a kitchen table and some chairs.” I coughed nervously. It probably wasn't a good idea to tell him about the KISS poster taped to the wall of his old bedroom.

“And you seriously invited John J.?” he asked.

“What's wrong with John? You haven't seen him in years; you're still judging the guy?”

“Wasn't he arrested?”

“Just once. It wasn't a big deal at all. And it was a long time ago.”

I assumed, like I always did in recent years when my brother refused to be cooperative, that our disagreement had something to do with him being superrich.

My brother had some money. Many monies, in fact. By some accounts, his company had assets in the ballpark of $8 billion. How much of that is profit for him? I couldn't begin to tell you. We've never talked about it. There's just never an appropriate time to ask a family member, “No, seriously, how filthy rich are you?”

To be fair, even before he crossed over, Mark and I weren't exactly two halves of the same coin. He was a Republican by age fifteen, with a
NIXON FOR PRESIDENT
poster on his bedroom wall. I was a Democrat who marched in his first war protest before he was old enough to drink, and threatened to join the Peace Corps just to piss off our parents. Mark's interests included tai chi, the Chicago Board of Trade, and Gustav Mahler. I was into punk bands from the eighties, smoking weed, and not having health insurance.

When he suddenly had more money than Bruce Wayne, we had even less to talk about. He's still my brother, and I adore him, but our
lives are fundamentally different. For me, it's still a big deal to buy first-class plane tickets. Meanwhile, he's wondering whether to keep chartering private flights or just buy the damn plane already. During the last election, I felt like I was making a political statement with my Obama bumper sticker. Mark hosted a $2,500-a-plate campaign fund-raiser for Ron Paul at his house.

“You've lost me, bro,” Mark said. “It doesn't mean I can't take a joke; you've just lost me. What are you trying to accomplish? What's the end goal here?”

“Why does it have to be something?” I told him. “Why can't it just be listening to records?”

“Well, what do you want to happen?”

“I want to listen to records.”

“But what else?”

“Just that! Just that! It's just a couple of guys who grew up together listening to records in a mostly empty house. Why is that strange? Don't make that strange.”

One day ago

A voice mail from the church:

“We're so excited that you're doing this. You can pick up the key with me, or we'll just leave the door open. There'll be a few surprises in there for you.”

I had still failed to mention the fact that I was bringing a record player. And several very loud albums, including KISS
Alive II
, and whatever John J. had in his basement, and whatever Mike C.'s mom had in her crawl space. Oh, and Mike C. and John J. would be joining me. And maybe not my brother, because he thought this whole thing was kind of insane. And maybe it was. And maybe the church council would think so too, if I'd bothered to tell them everything. Which I hadn't.

I have never been so certain that I was making a mistake, and so reluctant to actually stop that mistake from happening.