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GOLDEN PASS HOLDERS: PLEASE REMAIN SEATED.
SILVER AND BRONZE TICKET HOLDERS, PLEASE EXIT THE THEATER.
WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE SHOW.

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I haven’t been in this world of red in awhile. It’s been a longtime since I let myself in here. When I was kid I would do this: close my eyes and imagine the blood cells in my eyelids were fireworks, or maybe a big pool of lava. Sometimes I can see shapes or figures behind my eyes. Is it the blood cells moving and dying, or is this what imagination really is? 

I am thirty nine years old. I just woke up. It’s chilly but I’m very comfortable in my seat. My daughter, Delaney, sixteen, is next to me. It is September. The temperature is dropping outside. I slept through our movie. I am breathing. Now I’m not. I am breathing. Now I’m not.

When I opened my eyes, that redness was the message before me. Delaney was still chewing popcorn. I outlined her face in the darkness. 

“Ready?”

Then we shuffled out of the theater with mostly everyone else. 

“I think red on black is the most attention grabbing text.” I said as we walked through the theater lobby. 

“That’s not true.” She says.

“That’s not true at all. Blue text on a white background – that’s the most readable.”

“Are you sure?”

“I read it.”

“I hope so.”

“I read the fact.”

“Where?”

“Where. The internet. My phone. I dunno. But it’s in my brain now.”

I was analyzing the stains on the red carpet. I smelled popcorn. I heard soda being dispensed into plastic cups. I saw small kids playing around the lobby, chasing each other with light-up toy guns they got from the claw machine. Everyone around me seemed to be in a good mood. Society is having a nice day today. 

“Did you like it?” I asked.

“Yeah. It was good to see the director…I can’t remember his name… but it was good to see the guy try something real. Like, a true to life drama. He used to only make sci-fi.”

“Probably made big sci-fi movies to get his foot into Hollywood. This is probably more aligned with what he’s always wanted to make.”

“Yeah.”

“How do you think this one ended?”

“Probably a bad ending. People like those nowadays. They wanna leave the theater feeling disturbed. People love tragic stories now. Happy endings? Riding off into the sunset? That’s not reality. For some reason, people don’t want to escape reality. They want more of it. They want to see it and know it, in all its meaningless glory. Tragedy, once-removed, makes reality more malleable.”

“I think she goes back to the house.”

“Meets all her family?”

“They don’t recognize her at first. But then they do. I bet that’s how it ends. Do you think the boyfriend died?”

“No. I think they probably tease his dying and then he miraculously escapes at the last moment.”

“You know,” I said

“I don’t mind the Gold Passes. Debating how the movie ends is more fun than watching it.”

“We pay to get teased.”

“The tease can be entertaining.”

“If I had balls, they would be blue right now.”

“I liked the part where all the workers went back to work.”

“That was good.”

Outside was crisp, chilly. The parking lot is busy – people and cars, everywhere. Honking. Laughing. Revving and braking. 

“We have to make a stop.” Delaney says.

“Where?”

“I wanna buy a guitar today.”

“Harveys?”

“Today’s the day.”

“Alright!”

“They’re open today, right?”

“Yes. It’s only two in the afternoon. Last time you took forever. I’m gonna bring a bottle of whiskey.”

“I love matinees. Really?”

“Seriously. I’ll drink with Henry while you try ‘em all out.”

“You think I won’t.”

“To your heart’s content.”

“We’ll be there forever.”

“We have all the time in the world.”

“Did you have a good nap?”

“Yes, thanks sweetie. I needed it”

Traffic was moderate – I’m assuming everyone is at work. Delaney and I drove with the windows down. The checkout girl at the liquor store seemed to be in a good mood, too. I picked up a bottle of Sailor Jerry’s and impulse bought a pack of lighters. Delaney waited in the car. When I returned I gave her one of the lighter’s and she started drawing on it with a sharpie. The autumn chill felt good on my skin. 

I feel strong when I drive cars. I feel in control. I thought maybe this feeling does not come from the operation of the vehicle itself but from the management of time that comes with it. I am moving forward, making progress at a staggering rate with the help of these four wheels. I am blasting through reality. Time has nothing on me; look how fast I can go. 

Harvey’s is located on the intersection of 4th and Main, bookended by a small coffee shop and boutique. It is owned and operated by Henry Harvey, sixty-five and no small curiosity himself. He’s been in town since I have, running his store. 

You have to walk through an alleyway to get to the entrance. The door is right next to a dumpster and a pile of old pallets. I said to Delaney: “Originally, he had the whole building. Then times got tough and he leased his old section out and got this cheaper back section. Then times got even tougher, and now he shares the cheaper back section with another business.”

“I can’t believe he can fit all this stuff in here.”

“You don’t know Henry Harvey then.”

“How do they share it?”

“How?”

“Yeah, how?”

“They built a wall that separates the room. Well. Henry built the wall.”

We walk in and Henry is at the front with what appears to be a new employee – young man, blonde hair, short and skinny. 

“Henry.”

“Nick. Delaney. What a surprise.”

“Today is the day. She wants a guitar.”

“Splendid.” 

“And I brought you some Sailor Jerry’s.”

“Hoo-ray.”

“Drink with me.”

“I am working.”

“Tell me a story?”

“No.”

“I see. You’re grumpy.”

“Okay. Hi, guys. Jackson, this is Nick and his daughter, Delaney.”

He pats the new employee on the back, meanly.

“Hi.” He says.

“Nick and I go way back.”

“Yeah?” Says Jackson. 

“Yeah. So what happened with Lynx?”

“The school? It was the wrong PO.”

“The wrong PO.”

“The entire time I was talking to the other school. Not Lynx. I read the wrong, uh, PO number.”

“There are two PO numbers. We vendor to two schools. Two. And you still fucked it up.”

“I mentioned Lynx like, like, five times, and they didn’t say anything. But the guy on the phone, the admin person, was very old. So. That was the first red flag.”

“What the fuck!?”

“Hey, Harv, not in front of my kid, man.”

“It was a learning experience.”

“I’m sorry, Nick.”

“I’m sixteen, Dad.”

“How long have you worked here, Jack?”

“Four months.”

“How long.”

“Four months.”

“Dad, I’m honestly sixteen. We all swear.”

“Four fucking months.”

“Harv.”

“I’m sorry but look at him, Nick! Look! Look at how he stands at the register! Can you blame me?”

“I’ll read the PO next time.”

“It’s the one number you need to remember, Jack. The one number.”

“You should hear us at school, Dad.”

“I’ve been working on my memory.”

“They make Harvey sound like Mr. Rogers.”

“They’re not any less of a guitar. I’ll drive to the school right now.”

“Think, Jack. Critical thinking skills. Christ. Hey – is ‘Christ’ okay?”

“That’s fine. We’re not Jesus-people. You know that.”

“Christ on a fucking cracker, Jackson. I can’t even look at you right now. Look.”

Henry points to the piece of paper in Jackson’s hand.

“This number. This one. Right here. That number is your life. That number is all you need to know. Remember it.”

“I will.”

“Fuckhead. Help Delaney. Watch the front.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna go get drunk. And Jackson –.” 

He points at Delaney.

“No flirting. You’re the same age, I know. But Nick is my friend and you’re at work. No flirting.”

Jackson just smiles and nods, embarrassed. Delaney catches my gaze and smiles, too. We giggle at each other. 

“Take as much time as you need, sweetie.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Then I follow Henry to the back. When I walk into the back office a smell of wires and grease hits me. I take a seat. 

“You know what I’m gonna ask.”

“She wants extra money, get her a paper route.”

“Fair.”

“I’m sorry Nicky, I just can’t, with the young folk. I know I’m profiling her. I’m sure she’s smart. Capable. But I just can’t.”

“All good.”

“I’ve been burned before.”

“Yes.”

“My heart can’t take it.”

“Take what?”

“Any more disappointment. Betrayal.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

 “So. How’s today?”

“Good. Yourself?”

“I’m drowning, Nick. Look around.” 

He was focused on his computer. The shop doorbell rang. I watched Delaney sit on the ground and strum a guitar on one of the security monitors, while the man who walked in handed Jackson a plastic bag. 

“Hey. Pour me some of that or fuck off. I did not order you for lunch.”

I smiled. I could see his monitor in the reflection of his glasses.

“That’s Henry for ‘I need alcohol right now, Nick’”

Jackson enters holding the plastic bag.

“Lunch!”

“Speak of the devil. Set it right there. What’d you get?”

“I got the meatball sub.” Says Jackson. 

“Those fucks never label it.”

“No they do not.”

“Untie the bag.”

“I’m trying. They tie this like…”

“Just untie it.”

“I can’t. I’m… trying.”

“Pull on that part. Pull.”

“It won’t. It’s taut.”

“Jackson, pull on the loose thread.”

“It just won’t. It’s taut. Fuckin’ employee must’ve been an Eagle scout.”

“Just fucking find the loose part and pull it.”

“It’s taut.”

“Stop saying the word ‘taut’ and open the fucking bag.”

“None of it’s loose. Here. You open it.”

“No. You’re doing this.”

“Come on…”

“If you can’t open that grocery bag, you’re fired.”

“Where are the scissors?”

“No scissors. Open it yourself.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes you can.”

“I can’t.”

“I’m hungry. Get me my messages.”

“Nick, you heard him, hand me the scissors.”

“I don’t know where jack shit is in here, man.”

“No scissors.” Says Henry.

“Open the plastic bag yourself or you’re fired.”

Finally, Jackson uses his fingernail to cut the plastic and then pulls the bag open, ripping it apart.

“Good job.”

“That’s the nail he uses to shovel cocaine up his nose.”

“Good thing he has it. Jackson, stop showing up here on crack.”

“Thanks, guys.”

“You’re a fucking idiot and I hate you.”

“I know that.”

“But you know what? We’re gonna train you. I’m going to train you. One of these days you’ll be running this store yourself, and you’ll have you’re own Jackson that you can torture.”

“I got the bag open. It took me a minute but I did it. I deserve some kudos.”

“You’re right.” Says Henry.

“You’re at the correct store. You’re in the right city. You remembered to clock in. You’re in the correct postal code. You’re on planet Earth. You did so many things right today. Good job.”

Jackson shakes his head and leaves the room without another word. Henry tosses his sandwich in a mini fridge by his feet. 

I say: “Have you ever considered, like, an app?”

“A what.”

“A phone app for your store.”

“What would it do?”

“It’s like. The store. But on your phone. You look at the products. You buy things. All on the app.”

“Then they come to pick it up?”

“Then they come to pick it up.”

“I don’t have the budget.”

“All I know is that only old people come in here. You need more young people.”

“Did you have your ears closed with fuckin’ Jackson? Young people are too stupid for me to put up with. Customer, employee, doesn’t matter – I’m already regretting hiring him.”

“Come on. You gotta follow the money.” 

“I also don’t think, for me, marketing to fatuous youngsters is a good long-term business strategy.”

“Have you ever heard the expression; ‘there’s a sucker born every minute?’”

“Cultures change. People.”

“What?”

“What. People always create their own maladaptations. That’s what.”

Second shot; down the hatch. There was, indeed, a lack of features to his expressions. As in, I never knew if he was angry or joking because his face never changed. It’s not like he can’t move it, and it’s not as if he feels emotions are, by some miracle of geriatric perseverance, beneath him. He just believes that this little shop of his is a place that does not necessitate feelings. It’s a place where the parts are organized in little drawers and the shell cases are properly consolidated into the corner and every little unit of space (which are, themselves, tranches of the financial asset) has a place to live and collect dust. There’s no room for emotions and sentimentality. There’s only space for logic. 

“Where were you when the queen died?”

“Don’t remember. I didn’t really give a fuck. I’m Scottish.”

“Oh, right.”

“Nice old lady though.” 

“Yeah.”

“I think I was twenty.”

“Delany and I saw a movie today.”

“Did you see the end?”

“No. Bronze passes.”

“I hate that.”

“We were just talking. I don’t mind it.”

“It’s horseshit fucking capitalist greed.”

“And you’re surprised?”

“What are you, fucking mental? Yes. I am surprised. I am suprised that greed is the ultimate fucking…”

He stops his thought to look someplace else. Pensive. Unreadable. 

“Nothing. Nevermind. Good movie?”

“It was okay. I slept through half. Too many sex scenes, she said. Delaney was uncomfortable.”

“So violence is okay but sex is too much for her?”

“I think it’s all too much for her. I think she’d rather read Harry Potter.”

“I remember those.”

“You remember when they were new.”

“I do. Shit was all the rage. My best friend when I was a kid loved those books so much. Her name was Sophie and she died.” 

“She died?”

“She hanged herself when I was nineteen. It’s funny. You remember people who died when you were young, younger, and you remember how they were, exactly, their clothes and face and shape, the way they talked, you can imagine how they would respond to things, you can paint them into your scenarios and you can see their life, the way they lived, their home, their rooms, – and then you realize they’ve been dead a long time. They’ve missed out on so much of the world. Their version of the world is so different to ours. My friend has been lost to a sea of dead souls. She’s vanished into the past. And it’s tragic. I suppose that’s my point. It’s a terrible thing to feel.”

He looked at me. Not a spark or a wince or a longing, nothing.

“Do you think they envy us?”

“They’re fucking dead, Nick.”

More shots. We cheered for this one. I can see the onset of drunkenness in Henry’s eyes. 

He says: “Sometimes I think that when I die, I’ll be entering heaven, and I’ll see her, how she was when she was nineteen, that girl I loved so much, and she’ll be there waiting for me, and I’m nineteen again, too, and we spend eternity together, just like that, just like how it was.”

“You think that? Like actively, intermittently thinking that exact thing?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re telling me you walk around and go for bagels and fix guitars all day with that thought, that notion, in your head, actively.”

“Well… yeah.”

“Dude.” 

“What?”

“That’s the hard knock life, right?”

“Just leave me the fuck alone.”

“You gotta stop that.”

“You think I do this to myself on purpose? I can’t help it. It’s a compulsion.”

“Then un-compulse it.”

He said ‘God help me.’ under his breath.

“Hey. I say.

“How old were you when 9/11 happened?”

“I was two. I was sitting on the living room floor playing with my toys while it all went down on the TV. I didn’t really give a fuck about it. I was more interested in my toys. Quoting Mom.”

“But you came up in the aftermath of it.”

“Yes, it was – JACKSON.”

“…Yeah?”

“I can’t stand to hear you. I can hear you jostling the guitars on the racks. DON’T BUMP INTO THE GUITARS. You’ll chip them.”

“Okay… Sorry…”

We were speaking about many things. Every subject bled into the next. When Henry gets some liquor in him, he can talk. I keep an eye on Delaney through the monitors. Jackson took a mop to the bathroom and spent a very long time in there. 

Eventually the topic moved to our Fathers and Henry said something I found interesting. 

He said: “My Father had three pictures at his desk. His two sons, and the pope. He always had that picture of the pope. And then when they elected another one, he replaced that picture with the new pope. It was Francis for a long time. I vaguely remember Benedict on his desk. Wispy, childhood remembrance. So then, last night, I had a dream that me and my Dad were in the Vatican, but we’re on the floor in the corner, away from all the pews, and he’s kneeling and saying ‘Christ will have an answer. He always does.’ That’s what my Dad said. ‘Christ will have an answer.’ It was more the way he said it. A very soft intonation. A sad reassurance. The way he said it… it was him, but it wasn’t him.

“Who cleans the urinals at Church?”

“I do grunt work. On Sundays, I go to Church, observe the service, eat a meal, and then I do grunt work until Evening. I build decks and I serve food to the impoverished, things like that. I do it because it’s work that the Church needs to be done and it’s the work no one wants to do, and seeing as I’ve never been capable of succeeding at a single thing in my life, I’ve been relegated to humble charity. I don’t clean the urinals.”

“If you don’t do it then who does?”

“The fucking Pope, man. Fuck off.”

“You know how people say ‘You’re doing the Lord’s work!’ Well, that’s what you’re doing. You’re actually doing it. You’ve got your money where your mouth is, man.”

“I was in love with Sophie.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I was in love. As in love as a man can be. And I remember the night we first kissed. It was in my room back in Maryland. I remember the night. We were laying there on the bed, coiled in eachothers arms, and we were both begging God to just let this one thing last forever.”

“That’s actually really beautiful. Thank you for telling me that. I feel like maybe it was hard for you to tell me that. So thank you and good job and congratulations.”

“Everything ends, Nick.”

“Yes, Henry. That is so fucking true.”

“Too many questions were left unanswered. Pain and mystery… The lack of closure is almost worse than living without that love.”

“Damn, dude.”

“When I was a young man I would, in jest, imagine myself as an old man, still not over her, still deeply longing for that pure, youthful, innocent love we shared. And, wouldn’t you know it, that totally, actually, really did happen. Except it’s worse in a way I did not imagine. She is now, unlike before, truly gone. Her physical body is completely gone and she as a person, had she even survived the depression, would also be so different from who she was as a teen, that I would not recognize her today. She is gone, permanently. That girl I knew every inch of, every little detail of her person, could draw her face down to the mole, now all of that only exists in my memories. Mine, alone.”

“Damn.”

“Isn’t that something? I’m shedding tears. Isn’t that something for you.”

“Honestly man? That’s fucked up.”

“These tears are not for this. These tears are for something far beyond you.”

“I’m sorry.”

A pause. 

“Still thine trembling heart, Henry.” 

“JACKSON!!!”

Jackson jogs to where we are from the front of the store.

“Are you fucking crying?”

“Nick was making me laugh. Go run to Ace and get me some washers. I need one bag of flats, one bag of the Bonded Sealing ones. Two bags, total. These G & Ls are getting away from me.”

“How many is a bag?”

“Twenty five, per.”

“Okay.”

“Take the Ram.”

“Okay.”

“And Jackson –”

“Hm?”

“Remember: if you ding my truck – you cut up the river, not across it.”

He gestures, slicing his own wrists.

“Thanks, Henry.”

“What if I was crying?”

“What?”

“I said. What if I was crying? What then? What would you do about it?” 

“I would… I would ask what’s wrong?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Bye.” 

“Bye.”

Jackson grabs the truck keys from the table and walks out. Henry turns to me.

“How’s your kiddo?”

“She’s mercurial. But she’s good. She’s really into the music thing, now. She’s making some good friends at school, finally.”

“She was always shy.”

“Always shy.”

“And she’s looking for a job?”

“Something for after school. She’s ready to do it. She wants to spend a little money.”

A beat. Then,

“I don’t want my kid making the same mistakes as me.”

“Tale as old as time, Nick.” 

“I think she feels very alone in the world. Introspective, you know. Pensive, whatever. But nowadays she’s actually going outside, being with friends. Before, she was wasting away on the internet.”

“That’s never good.”

“Right.”

Henry is pouring his own shots now.

“The internet was a complete mistake. The internet destroyed this country.”

I said ‘How so?’ bracing for a diatribe. 

He says: “The internet is pure chaos. I was there when it first ‘hit’, so to speak – when the internet first became the standard way of life. Think about this: in the old, old times, like, talking neanderthals, the word ‘chaos’ was synonymous with the word ‘ocean.’ Why? Well, imagine you’re a very early human, and you live near the ocean. You see it everyday. You know it’s a shitload of water. That’s all you know. It spans forever. That’s all you know. You don’t even have boats yet. You don’t even have the wheel. So, to you, the caveman, that ocean is pure chaos. It’s the ultimate no man’s land. It’s confusion and suffering in physical form. It’s the devil’s territory, where nothing makes sense, nothing has a beginning or an end, there is no cause and effect, and everything dies.”

Another shot. He winces as it goes down. Sucks his teeth. Then continues:

“What the ocean was to the caveman is what the internet is to us, now. Pure chaos, but in a physical form. Mostly unregulated human communication between anyone, at any time, anywhere. I cannot think of a better descriptor of ‘chaos.’ The human mind, the entire history of us, all laid out bare in the form of ones and zeros. But what happened? Back then, we built it. We founded it. I’m talking before Corporate America, in all of its glory, got its hands on the internet. Back when it was just a thing for weirdos like me and you.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Those internet guys, these people who do things for the sake of the beauty of the internet… the internet is tainted now, and if we can assume that the internet is a reflection of real life, of society, then where is this internet guy now? The internet was an intense thing people committed themselves to, like a secret project. Chatting online is a transcendental thing. Communicating with someone in real time, from across the globe, locked on a server somewhere forever. It’s powerful. The deviousness is strong and influential. We were all under the digital blanket, laughing and giggling like kids at a sleepover while we, for free, built the next generation’s entire economical platform. And what has the internet turned into, now? People arguing over trivial things. Endless, endless arguing. That’s what corporate America did. And, it’s all over nothing. Nothing but shit. It wasn’t always like that. There was a time where humans got along there and worked together on the internet. It’s the greatest thing to witness. Human beings, deciding unanimously, to build something together. What were they building? A digital place where you have freedom of expression, freedom to share, a universal understanding that with all beauty therefore also comes filth. Acceptance. Think about the word internet. What did it do? It inter-connected everybody. Everyone is connected. I can reach you. In Africa, I can reach you. What does this mean? It means that once something is finished it has no other purpose besides becoming tainted. The construction of the project is the project itself. The peak is the end. It will never be the same again. The job is to be in the moment. Now is the greatest thing. Now.”

He gets a phone call.

“Yes? Jackson… What?… No, no… No, Jackson… If you put diesel in my fucking truck, I will kill you. I will actually kill you… No, Jackson… No, the big trucks. Big ones. The big semi trucks that go across the country. Those need diesel. My ram does not… Yes… Yes, regular. Put the regular gas in it. Yes… Okay. Do you remember the code? 1157849. Yes… yes… Okay. Flats and Bonded Sealing. They’ll know. Yes they will, they’ll know what those are. The Ace people… yes… Yes, they’ll know…One pack each… Okay… You’re a sick dog. You’re like a sick dog, Jackson. That’s what you are. Christ. Okay, drive safe. See you.”

He hangs up.

“He honestly cannot think on his own. What were we talking about?”

“You think the country is at the peak.”

“No. I think the peak is far behind us. I think the golden days are dead and gone and, even worse, no longer beautiful in retrospect. Americans cannot deify their own culture. It’s too ugly, too complex. I think it’s all downhill from here. We’ve been a dying empire for decades. Look at Singapore. Taipei. Tokyo. London. Even Dubai, for Christ’s sake. It makes New York seem like… London, Kentucky.”

“Damn.”

“Honestly.”

“That’s crazy.”

“But I’m an old man, you know. Don’t trust old men, Nick. They lie because they’ve had a lifetime of experience and can do it like getting their dicks out to piss. They’re gullible, they’re bitter. They’re filled with regret. They wanna fuck you over because they’re jealous of your youth. They won’t help you. Trust yourself. Trust your fellow young men. They will look after you. They are honor-bound to you, as you are to them. Trust your own generation, Nick.”

One for the road.

“Now fuck off. You got me drunk at three in the afternoon.”

I stood up, patted his shoulder and knocked my knuckle on the table.

“Always good to talk to you, Henry.”

“Catch you later, Nicky.”

I walk back to the front of the store. Jackson was at the register, talking to a young man I did not recognize. Delaney was waiting in line, guitar in hand.

“I’m sorry, man.” Says Jackson to the customer.

“I was instructed that we cannot take any more consignments.”

“But –”

“We need to have stuff going out. No more stuff coming in. That’s what my boss said.”

“But it’ll sell. I promise you that. It’ll sell in a week. Look at it.”

“It’s nice, it’s nice. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but…”

“Look man.” Says the customer.

“I’m gonna be completely honest. I need the money. Like, right now. I’m not trying to be difficult. You’re doing your job. But I’ve had the worst day today and I’m desperate, okay? Desperate. Is there anything you can do? Please? I’m fuckin’ begging, here.”

Jackson deliberated for a moment.

“Let me grab my boss.”

But Henry is already approaching. While he handles his booze well, you can tell from the way he’s walking, from the way his eyes rest on his face, that he’d been drinking. 

“What’s going on here?”

“This gentleman here would like to consign this amp, but I already told him–”

“Nice.” Says Henry.

“Isn’t it?” Says the customer.

“But a collectors item at this point.”

“No, no it isn’t. It plays. It plays fuckin’ beautifully.”

“Well. I’m sure it does.”

“Would you like me to demonstrate?”

“No, I believe you.”

“Look. As I was telling your salient assistant here, I’ve had a horrible day. I need the money. This is all I have left to sell.”

And when he said “left to sell” he choked a little bit, his voice cracked. We all picked up on this.

“I was gonna say. I would keep this if I were you.”

“Trust me… I would like to.”

“How’d you get it?”

“My Dad bought it for me when I was sixteen and said I wanted to learn guitar.”

“And how old are you now?”

“I’m…”

The customer sits down on his amp. He put his face in his hands and began to sob, gently, quietly. 

Through sobs: “I’m twenty-two… and Dad died two years ago and this is the last thing of his I fucking  have to remember. Like. I wanna hold onto this. But they’re gonna tow my car if I don’t come up with three-hundred bucks in one week. I don’t have it, I fucking don’t have it. And I need that car, I need it.”

Tears are falling. Henry graces his shoulder with his hand.

“Where’s Mom?”

“She lives in Denver. She’s worse off than me, frankly. Not very close.”

“What’s your name?”

“Oliver.”

“I’m Henry, Oliver. This is Jackson, Nick, and Nick’s daughter, Delaney.”

“Hello.”

We all say hello. Oliver keeps crying. Henry rubs his shoulder and leans in, gently. He talks to Oliver softly, in a sonorous tone I have never heard him use before. It was Henry, but it wasn’t Henry.

“I don’t want your amplifier.”

“Okay.”

“But you can come work for me, here.”

Oliver looks up.

“Come in tomorrow. Jackson here will train you. I can start at eleven dollars an hour. I know that’s not very much but I can’t do more than that.”

“How did you know I was unemployed?”

“Stevie fucking Wonder could look at you and tell you’re unemployed.”

“I… okay. Sir… Thank you. I am a hard worker.”

“Yes.”

“I am always on time.”

“I’m sure.”

“I am very organized.”

“I just offered you the thing. You don’t have to sell me.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Nuh uh. No ‘sir.’ Call me Henry.”

“Can I give you a hug, Henry?”

And when they embrace, Oliver cries even harder into Henry’s shoulder, this man he has never met until a few minutes ago. 

“I know how hard it is, son. It’s hard, isn’t it?”

“It’s very hard. It’s so hard.”

“I know.”

“I’m in a million pieces. I can’t get anything to add up.”

“I know.”

“The stress.”

“I know.”

“It’s constant. No sleep. It never ends. The thinking.”

“It’s killing you. On a molecular level, this is killing you.”

“It’s killing me.”

And when they separate, Henry says:

“We can put a tack in the car payment. I can pay you in advance. Two weeks of work is about three-hundred. But I’m telling you right now, if you miss work, or are late, even by thirty seconds, for the next two weeks, our deal is off, and I’m not helping you. Got it?”

“Got it. Crystal clear. I would expect nothing less.”

“Good kid. Where are you sleeping?”

“I made rent. It was either rent or the car so I did rent.”

“Okay. Come in tomorrow.”

“What time?”

“Eight.”

“Got it. Eight sharp.”

“Yes. Sharp. I like you already. Be careful Jackson. Your job is being threatened.”

Obtuse Henry really can’t help but sound reluctant to speak to another person, even in a conversation like that. With nothing more to say, he nods and walks back to his office.

Oliver shakes my and Delaney’s hands. He mumbled multiple ‘Thank Yous’ to Jackson, and then left as well.

“Alright.” Says Jackson.

“I’ll get you guys square.”

He looks at Delaney.

“You’re sounding great, by the way.”

“I know three chords.”

And then, when I was fetching my wallet from my pocket, as Jackson turned his attention to the computer, Delaney nudged my arm.

“Dad.”

“Yeah?”

“We don’t have to get it.”

“What?”

“We don’t have to buy it.”

“You don’t want it? That’s terrific timing, sweetie.”

“No, I do want it. But I’m just saying… that if it’s not a… sound… financial move… then we don’t have to. I won’t get upset. I understand.”

I look at her. She looks at me. Unlike Henry, there was a lot in her eyes. I saw a strange, subverted clemency. I saw an insecure temerity. I saw that it was difficult for her to bring this up to me.

“We can afford it, sweetie.”

Into the case it goes. I give a fistbump to Jackson as Delaney and I take our leave. We go and stand on the street corner, basking in the golden sun. I analyze her face, that face I’ve known and watched grow since she was a baby, the face I could draw down to the freckle. I think about how, without this kid in my life, I would have nothing. I would have no identity. She’s everything to me. 

“So you decided on the Taylor after all.”

“Yes. Mom called while you were talking to Henry and she said I should get it because she loved Taylor Swift when she was my age.”

“I think I remember her. Taylor Swift, I mean. I definitely remember your Mom.”

I face Delaney. 

“I had a few drinks.”

“Oh, really? I couldn’t tell. I thought you switched to a whiskey-flavored toothpaste.”

“You should probably drive, sweetie.”

A blue Tesla pulls up in the parking space dead ahead and a man, maybe forties, gets out. He’s in a tight dress shirt. Sunglasses. Crew cut. A well put together individual. He walks up the sidewalk and down the street.

“I hate rich people.” Delaney says to me, loud enough for the man to hear as well.

“I hate their cars, I hate their clothes, I hate their houses and the way they walk around in them. Like, ‘Yes, I Deserve To Walk These Floors.’ I hate their money and I hate their children. I hate the fact that they have money and I don’t, and I hate them even more for making me think a vulnerable, pathetic thought like that. I hate them all.”

I didn’t know how to respond to this, so I didn’t.

Every step I take, every wasted day, every grain of sand and every blade of grass, it is all just footsteps in the race against time. Human beings need something to fight. That is how time is managed. History is measured in increments of failure and success. Survival and death. Am I really surviving? What is it I’m fighting back against? It can’t just be time. Time is too fundamental to be anyone’s enemy. I am fighting the world, I am fighting the country, and I am fighting myself. There is a tree with no leaves, dancing in the wind like a twitchy antenna. There is the sun far above me and I can feel its warmth. There are cars passing by me. There are squirrels in the trees and I can hear them pattering about. There are strangers walking past me. There are satellites in the atmosphere and invisible network connections radiating in the air. There’s information living in the oxygen I breathe. There’s a mass of data existing only in cyberspace, available to all yet still utterly useless. I am wearing black shoes and a black polo T-shirt. I am wearing sunglasses. Now I’m breathing. Now I’m not. Now I’m breathing. Now I’m not.

Pain and mystery. 

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