by Luke Geddes
“This one’s my favorite,” Seymour said as he double-clicked. The wordless moan that opened “Her Stitches” tremoloed out of the tinny computer speakers.
At least ten thousand people were expected to attend TrashRiot. Lee couldn’t imagine there existed even a tenth that many Tears fans—and who could they be? Would he be playing to a crowd exclusively made up of geriatrics like him? To Ellie, a conveniently proximate representative of hip young people, he asked, “What do you think?”
She exhaled through her nose—never had Lee known someone who could express derision through such a multifarity of gestures—and said, “Well, since you’re giving me a ride, I think whatever you want me to think. Long-lost classic. A real mind-bender. Right up there on my desert island list with the Velvets and Milk ’N’ Cookies.”
“I’ve been educating her on the canon,” Seymour said.
“Really, though,” Lee said with a twinge of desperation. Fortune had been so arbitrarily bestowed upon him, he needed someone he barely knew to confirm it wasn’t all a mistake.
Ellie shrugged. “I mean, it’s okay, I guess.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Seymour said. “The fact that she acts too cool for it means it is too cool.”
“I like it,” Keith said. He’d been eavesdropping from the other end of the counter. “It’s catchy.”
“The fact that he likes it,” Ellie said, “means it can’t be cool.”
“It’s very punk,” Keith said. Ellie rolled her eyes.
“See?” Seymour said. “Who needs Christgau when you’ve got Keith Stoller, the people’s critic?”
The door swung open. Jimmy Daniels walked in and joined them at the counter. “Hey, fellows, Hall One awaits. Sorry to rush ya,” he said, “but it’d be stellar if we could wrap this up right quick. I got an appointment with the widow of a tin lunch box collector. Lucky thing: this guy offed himself for some reason or another and now she’s giving me the whole kaboodle for gratis. Too many painful memories to keep around, she said. Hell, I’ve made money off worse tragedies.”
“It’s a public service you provide, Jimmy.” To Lee Seymour said, “I’ll go. You should bask in the glow of your online fame.” Seymour followed after Jimmy, leaving Lee to stand around and avoid eye contact with Ellie as “Her Stitches” played to the end.
Lee had never been one to make friends or develop a rapport so easily as Seymour. Watching the slow procession of the waveform on the monitor, he said, “It sounds better on vinyl,” and immediately cringed at the cliché.
“Sounds best to me when I don’t have to pay for it.”
Hot blood flooded Lee’s face. “Oh, no,” he stammered. “I wasn’t trying to sell you anything. Sorry.”
Ellie’s lip curled in a way that could be construed either as a smirk or a snarl. “Jesus, Lee. I didn’t mean it that way.”
Lee was strangely touched; he sort of assumed she didn’t even know his name. “It’s just, it never came out anywhere but the record. How did you ever find this song? The internet?”
Ellie stared at him in disbelief for a long moment, as in: Are you kidding?
No, not kidding, he said with his silence; he was indeed a clueless old luddite who used a flip phone, watched movies on VHS, and had always let Seymour handle the computer side of the business.
She rotated the computer monitor so he could see and showed him a website all in Russian that, she claimed, archived for streaming or download virtually every recording in the history of man.
“Is it legal?” he asked.
“Ha!” She set the keyboard before him on the counter. “Whatever you’re looking for, it’s there.”
Seymour trailed Jimmy in and out of the Heart of America unloading the last of their Hall One booth box by box, while Lee, oblivious, poised over the keyboard testing the breadth of the site’s incredible inventory, pausing only to minimize the pornography banners that popped up with every click of the search button. Though divested of the collection, he could never—thank god—shake the music itself. It turned out that what he needed to reenter the sweet zone was not the best possible copy of an album or the most comprehensive or conscientiously curated collection or a restored vintage sound system but a new way to listen. They had the complete uncut Headquarters Sessions. They had bootleg editions of Abbey Road reconstructed with demos and alternate takes. They had Dave Clark Five’s entire discography including obscure B-sides, sparklingly remastered Tommy James & the Shondells singles compilations, 5.1 surround sound mixes of Pet Sounds and Skylarking.
A sidebar whose header Lee guessed translated to “You may also like…” offered links to recommended albums and artists. While he trawled the Tommy James stuff, a familiar name caught in the corner of his eye: the Sodashoppe Teens. Thoughtlessly he clicked it and was taken to a page that listed all ten tracks, not in the order they appeared on the album but according to the results of some arcane ranking, complete with line graphs and a series of numbers whose meanings, because they were described in Cyrillic, Lee could not make heads or tails of.
“What does this stuff right here mean?” he asked.
Ellie yawned. The wonders of technology did not impress her. “Total streams and downloads. I think the graphs chart track or artist popularity over time or something.”
As far as Lee could suss out, the Sodashoppe Teens were in the lower percentiles of popularity with only a couple thousand streams and a few hundred downloads, all Mickey Gordy completists no doubt. “And they have this information for everything?”
“Yeah. Just click the icon on top of the artist page.”
He slid the cursor back to the search box. Tears in the Birthday Cake, he typed. To search for his own band felt like checking himself out in the reflection of a store window, but he had to know. According to Sluggo, and based on the stuff Seymour had read, Lee’s old band had been subject to an unprecedented critical and popular reappraisal, but it all remained intangible. Deep down he didn’t actually expect the official TrashRiot offer to come through, for the band to reconvene for practice without disrupting into the same arguments and pettinesses of decades past. Nothing had ever worked out for Tears before; why should it now? Mickey Gordy liked the record, so what? The music was exactly the same now as when it had come out in 1987, and back then it had led to nothing.
Clicking the artist stats link, Lee waited while the page-loading icon rotated endlessly. Across the globe, diligent Russian algorithms scanned an infinite metaphysical repository for every digital trace of his greatest achievement. He had shouted his name supplicatingly into the all-encompassing godless void of technology, and finally the void answered.
Not until months later, when he stood atop the TrashRiot main stage cradling his sax, looking not out into the crowd screaming at Beatlemaniacal decibels, not at Seymour backstage mouthing the words to every song, but at Sluggo wielding his guitar like an epileptic dance partner, waiting for the little nod that reminded him the instrumental break of “Sorry to Die,” Tears’ traditional opener, would hit in three… two… one, would Lee know how it felt to offer the world your art, with little ambition but no modesty, and have a small piece of the world—in the grand scheme, a very tiny piece—thank you for it.
For now there were only the numbers, but that was enough.
26 DELORES
Skipper was gone.
Saturday night, after she and Seymour busted the door down and disarmed the old pervert, after the authorities arrived and carried the criminal efficiently away and she’d answered all their questions with Skipper’s coached responses (she just happened to be outside when she heard a sound like a scream from the basement, she said; it was pure chance: right place, right time; she’d always had a strange feeling about the man), Delores ran off to take refuge from the news crews and reporters and neighborhood lookie-loos under the shadows of a neighbor’s tree. There she stood gazing into Skipper’s unblinking eyes, waiting for her to tell her what to do next.
After an intermin
able silence, Skipper said, “I’m proud of you, Dolly. You’ve finally proven that you’re all grown up. And now that you’re grown up, you know there comes a time when a young woman puts away her childish things, her games and toys and dolls, and turns to the grown-up world. Do you understand?”
A policewoman carrying the blanket-shrouded girl-victim approached. “The family is overwhelmed right now, ma’am, but they wanted me to thank you for your heroism. Lindy, too.”
“You’re welcome,” Skipper said.
The girl-victim, known as Lindy Bobo in the press and on the flyers, poked her head out from under the blanket, her eyes widened and trained upon Skipper. And in that instant, Delores understood. Lindy could hear her, too. She reached out and—
In an action that superseded thought, Delores handed Skipper to Lindy.
“We’re going to be great friends, aren’t we?”
Lindy nodded.
“Isn’t that sweet?” the policewoman said as she carried Lindy back to her family waiting before a police vehicle.
The last thing Delores heard was, “Bye-bye, Dolly.” Then there was silence—not total silence but a kind somehow more pervasive for all the inchoate noise that filled its space. All her life she’d searched for Skipper, and now there would be no getting her back. Yet she felt no regret. She was so tired she could think of nothing else but going home, where she found herself, for the first time, alone. The Barbies did not greet her upon her arrival, not even to chastise her for the run in her stocking. No one said a thing.
She’d come to the Heart of America now not to meet Mark and Grant—without Skipper, she had nothing to show them—but to make sure it was true. And it was: the empty silence filled her booth in Hall Two as well. She spun around and studied the contents of her shelves, as lifeless and quiet as inanimate objects. Not a peep from the bubble cuts or flip ’dos, Sunset Malibus, the Fashion Queens, the Miss Americas, the Color Magics, or the Dramatic New Living Barbies. Not a word from Midge or Stacey or PJ or Steffie or Jamie or Francie, nor Ken, Allan, Brad, or Curtis. Not from Teen Talk Barbie, not even when Delores pressed the button on her back. Barbie and friends were here as they’d always been, but not really. The voices were gone.
And yet, Delores hadn’t noticed till just now that so, too, were the pinch in her spine and the tension in her stomach she’d carried for decades like matching accessories. Could it be that without Barbie, she could finally, for the first time since they’d met, relax? Maybe it was simply her ensemble. There had been no one to tell her what to wear that morning, so she’d rolled out of bed and without even showering thrown on an old sweatshirt and a pair of blue jeans she hadn’t even known she owned until she found them in the back of her closet in a box she’d been meaning to donate to Goodwill. Anchored in flats—not, for once, tottering high heels—she luxuriated in the generous embrace of gravity.
Now she caught her reflection in the plaque that read IF YOU DON’T SEE WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR—ASK. I’VE PROBABLY GOT TWO OF IT IN STORAGE, but didn’t cringe, didn’t scour for flaws in her face or body or hair. She merely observed—in fact, admired—what she saw. Barbie had always been there, and so Delores never bothered to wonder what she herself thought or wanted or felt. Now that she had the freedom not just to think or want or feel, but to listen to herself think and want and feel, she took a long hard look and what she found was that she was beautiful. Not immaculate, certainly not perfect, and best of all, not plastic.
27 ELLIE
Lee had finished waxing nostalgic about his band days and had gone to help Seymour and Jimmy with the last of the boxes, leaving Ellie alone once again with her father. She’d put in this one last session at work not because she thought she owed it to her parents, not even out of a sense of routine or nostalgia for what she hoped would one day be remembered as merely an amusing anecdote about a truly miserable time in her life, but because she felt like it, because maybe at the very least she could carry with her this reminder of the hell she was about to escape so that no matter how dire things in her life got, she knew she was strong, she was brave, she would only tolerate shit for so long. And maybe, just a little, because this would be the last time she had with her father before she took off.
She made the mistake of glancing in his direction. Instantly his eyes met hers and he said, “Sssorry we’re closssing,” forcing a chuckle. He didn’t know when to drop it.
Ellie wanted to be merciful. She understood that a parent who tried too hard was better than one who tried not at all. She appreciated the money, was in fact deeply grateful for it. She forgave him his failures, in a strange way was impressed by the notion that there were parts of her father that existed unseen and independent of her narrow perception of him, albeit parts that were mortifying to see expressed publicly or privately. Ellie tried to be merciful, really she did, but he was being such a dork. She shook her head and said curtly, “No, Dad. It’s done.”
He tried to turn a grimace into a smile. She felt bad enough to apologize, but luckily Seymour strolled up to the counter just in time.
“Well, since Mark and Grant stood us up, looks like we’ll be heading out in a few.”
“Those guys are pathetic. You actually wanted to be on that show?”
“No, not really, but your dad said he wouldn’t penalize us for breaking our lease if I played along.”
Lee plodded out of Hall One carrying an armload of boxes up to his eyeballs. Jimmy Daniels followed holding only a single box out of which stuck the bulbous green head of a Herman Munster hand puppet.
His arms quavering under the weight of his load, Lee said, “This is the last of it, right?”
“Sure is,” said Seymour. “So how about that check, Jimmy?”
Jimmy set his box on the counter, looked Seymour up and down as if appraising his trustworthiness, then reached into his shirt pocket and handed him a cashier’s check with a number on it big enough to almost cover one year at the expensive private college Ellie had lied to her parents she was going to attend. “You’re the shrewdest negotiator I ever dealt with, I’ll tell ya that. A man with nothing to lose.”
“Nothing to lose now that it all belongs to you.” Seymour sounded strangely sad.
“You’re lucky we don’t charge you for the labor,” Lee said from behind his boxes. “It occurs to me, now that my arms are rubber and my hernia is on fire, that we could have just moved this stuff into your booth.”
“Keith, you didn’t tell them?” Jimmy said. “What’s the matter, you insulted by a little friendly competition? I’m afraid that no longer does Jimmy Daniels reign over the Heart. Someone else can be Dealer of the Month, for once.” He took a stack of cards from his pocket, gave one to Seymour, one to Ellie, and tossed one to Keith, who tried to catch it and missed. JIMMY DANIELS, it read, CO-OWNER, PRETTY PATTY’S ANTIQUES SHOP, LLC. “Margie Byrd and me are going into business together.”
Seymour gasped. “You mean all this junk is going to share shelf space with Margaret’s precious glass?”
“Priced to sell. She’s got her customers and I got mine.”
“Jimmy, I say with maximum sincerity that I will be devastated to miss your grand opening.”
“Touched, man. I’m truly touched. Here. Something to remember me by.” Jimmy drew from his box a headless MC Hammer doll and handed it to Seymour. “Even I can’t sell this.”
Lee shifted his weight to steady the boxes. “Can we get a move on? I’m about to collapse and I’d prefer not to be killed by the weight of a passel of Jayne Mansfield water bottles.”
“Jeez, Seymour. Your guy’s a vicious taskmaster.”
“I know it.”
Lee followed Jimmy out the door.
“Shall we proceed?” Seymour pointed the onetime pop-rap superstar at the exit.
Ellie stood, duffel bag strapped to her shoulder. This was it. She was leaving. Finally. This was what she wanted and she was excited, she told herself. Right now, she was excited, really, even if she knew that on the way
there she’d second-guess her decision. As if it were so simple. As if where she was changed who she was. Wherever exactly there would be. Most of what she’d told her parents was a lie. She had no plans beyond getting out. Once they were on the road she would figure it out. Either that or realize how bad an idea it had been to leave with no plan whatsoever other than to crash with two virtual strangers in Boston until she decided what to do or they kicked her out.
Keith stood, took one step toward her and one step back, raised his arms uncertainly. “Ellie, you’re leaving.”
She hugged him, quickly but tightly. He felt smaller than she thought he would. “ ’Bye, Dad. I’ll send you a postcard, I guess.”
“Don’t. I’ve seen enough postcards for one lifetime. Sprained my back hauling Ronald’s out to the dumpster.”
“An email, then.”
He hugged her again and wouldn’t let go. He started to cry. For once, it wasn’t annoying. It made her love him more. Or she loved him as much as she always did but for the moment she was less embarrassed on his behalf than usual. This was the man who raised her, the one person who found her mom as annoying as she did. This was Santa Claus in a fake beard on Christmas, the hand that doled out allowance, the arms that pushed swings higher and higher, the fingers that gently rubbed the back of her neck as he and Stacey broke the news about her college fund. This was her father.
Stacey appeared in the doorway to the back room, a vacant look in her eyes. She watched Ellie and Keith. “You and your father have always made such a powerful little team,” she said, standing stock-still with her arms at her sides. Like an inanimate object.