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Everybody likes a surprise, he thought.
So, just a little after nine in the morning, when a pasty guy in big glasses flipped the “Open” sign on the front door at Fresh Music, the man in yellow waltzed right in, in broad daylight, to take the souls.
It was a nice store, stained glass in the front windows true to the Edwardian architecture of the building, poster-sized black-and-white photos of jazz, soul, and rock greats. Iconic album covers in frames over the racks of used vinyl: Bitches Brew, Lush Life, Sticky Fingers, Abbey Road, Born to Run. The yellow fellow strolled by the racks, flipping an album here, there, looking for that beautiful red glow that the ladies loved so.
The store was laid out in a barbell shape; he paced the whole front, then paused at the counter before going to the back. The guy behind the counter was about thirty, wearing a too-small plaid cotton short-sleeve, the bottom buttons unbuttoned, the shirt flaring over too-tight, too-short, gold polyester dress slacks, his hair a tangled mushroom shape, his beard more the function of not shaving than grooming—that shit was growing down his neck. The yellow fellow looked over the counter at the guy’s shoes: like something out of a Dorthea Lange Depression work-camp photo, toes all bent up and nasty.
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“Can I help you,” said Neck Beard, a little indignant, the yellow fellow in his personal space.
“What’s your name?”
“Evan,” said Evan.
“Evan, this everything?” Yellow stirred the air with a long finger to include the whole store. “This your whole inventory?”
“There are a few things in the back room, mostly duplicates, some estate stuff I’m supposed to unpack and file. Nothing good.”
“Uh-huh,” said Yellow, noticing the locked glass case on the wall behind the counter was conspicuously half empty. “What you got in there?”
Evan looked over his shoulder dismissively, shrugged. “Some rare pressings, first editions. Usually these three shelves on the right are what the owner calls his ‘special collection’: just crap, mixed-up genres, vinyl, 78s, 45s, like a Fleetwood Mac CD, a beat-up wax Edison cylinder, worthless—not anything anybody’d want, no need to lock them up.”
“But he do? He lock them up, keep watch on them like they solid gold, right?”
“Yeah,” said Evan, just weary of it all. “I don’t understand it, unless he’s keeping them ironically, because they are worthless, so he’s kind of making a statement by pretending they have value.”
“So where, ironically, do you think he put them?”
Shrug. “Who cares?”
Yellow’s hand shot out and struck Evan’s throat like a viper, catching his windpipe between his thumb and fingers, pinching it. Evan made a cat-yakking-up-a-hairball noise, but could not move.
“Son, I’ma tell you something ain’t nobody else in the world can tell you: you got no soul. And I’ma tell your future, too: you ain’t never gonna get a soul, you keep makin’ people’s shit small.”
Evan’s eyes started to roll back in his head and the big man shook him like dust mop until he came back to the room. “You ain’t shit, Evan, and you ain’t never gonna be shit until you show some passion for something. Y’all got to love something. Y’all got to hate something. Y’all got to want something. Pissing on other people’s passion ’cause you trying to be cool just make you a coward—a little bitch.” Shake. Rattle. Roll.
“You don’t love nothin’, Evan. You’re no use to me. You’re no use to anyone. In fact, I’ma choke you out. Say good-bye to the world, Evan.”
“Wait!” Evan gasped.
“Wait, what? Ain’t no thing. I’ma choke you out ironically, Evan, so you be too cool for school. Cool as a motherfuckin’ corpse, Evan.” He let a little air through.
“I love something! I do love something.”
“You do?”
“My cat, Cisco.”
“Cisco? After the outlaw?”
“After the networking company.”
“Yeah, I’m sho-nuff gonna choke this motherfucker out!” Yellow said to the ceiling, just an amen short of preaching.
“There won’t be anyone to take care of him. The people in my building will take him to the shelter and they’ll put him down.”
Yellow loosened his grip. “Evan, did you just say something that wasn’t about you?”
