The Great Unknowable End

by Kathryn Ormsbee

  I tic, opening my mouth wide, then slamming it shut. Beside me, Archer snickers.

  “What are you doing here?” Stella asks.

  She comes close enough for me to smell the chocolate on her breath.

  “He missed you real bad,” says Archer. “He was moaning your name in his sleep.”

  My skin erupts with heat. I tic again, right when I’m trying to give Archer a menacing glare. He grins and shrugs.

  “Uh-huh,” says Stella, who seems unaffected by Archer’s attempt at humiliation. She turns to the car, where her father is waiting, and motions for him to drive on.

  “It’s fine,” she says. “I know them.”

  But he doesn’t move the car. He’s staring hard at me and Archer. From that distance there’s no way he could’ve heard what Archer said. Even so, I feel under fire. This guy doesn’t like me, doesn’t trust me. One errant move, and he’ll run me over, I have no doubt. I stay completely motionless, like a hunted animal. At least until my unstoppable tic betrays me.

  “Dad,” says Stella. “It’s fine. They’re friends of Kim’s.”

  A head pops into view next to Stella’s father—a younger girl wearing long pigtails. This has to be the little sister Stella mentioned at Ferrell’s.

  “Who are they?” the girl shouts.

  “They’re friends, Jill,” Stella repeats. “Dad, it’s fine.”

  It sure doesn’t look fine to Stella’s dad. He’s glowering at me and Archer.

  Finally he says, “Be back before I leave for my shift.”

  Stella nods impatiently and motions again for him to drive off. This time he does.

  “Okay,” she says to us. “Why are you actually here?”

  How to phrase this. Oh yeah! Hey! I’m here to tell you I’m a liar. A fraud! And your brother is the worst person I know!

  Archer is bouncing his eyebrows at me. Why the hell did I let him come along?

  “Did you talk to Craig?” Stella asks. “You said he wouldn’t be out of his silence workshop until—”

  “Yeah, no, I haven’t talked to him.” I don’t look at Archer. I don’t dare. “It’s not that. It’s—”

  Nothing. I’ve got nothing.

  “Did you want a haircut? Connie closed for the weekend. Anyway, we’re not open on Sundays.”

  “Yeah, I see that now. But, uh . . . is the Exchange?”

  Stella looks really confused.

  “Kim wanted me to visit,” I say. “And I’d like to listen to recent stuff. I’d like that a lot.”

  Stella still looks confused, but she’s nodding a little. “Oh. Well, yeah, I think they open at noon on Sundays. It’s just down the road.”

  “Right. Right, that’s where we were headed. You know. Before.”

  “Even though you already passed it, coming from the commune?”

  “Did we?” I look around, bewildered. “Oh wow. Oh shit.”

  “Whoa,” says Archer, deciding to play along. “How did we miss it?”

  “We’re so used to commune life,” I say. “We have a bad sense of space. Direction. Time. You know.”

  It’s a weird moment, because we all know I’m lying, and only Stella doesn’t know why. She looks annoyed. Also kind of entertained.

  “Okay,” she says. “Let’s head in the right direction. Down this sidewalk. Do you boys remember how to walk, at least?”

  “Shhh,” says Archer. “Shhh, I can’t walk and talk. We were never taught that on the inside.”

  “You remember Archer, right?” I ask Stella, walking alongside her and pointing ahead at Archer, who’s making a show of wobbling along the concrete path.

  “I remember his condescension and bad British accent, yes.”

  I tic, my mouth forming a perfect oval.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Sorry, he can be kind of a pain. He’s a good guy, though.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Shut up!” Archer turns on us in a rage. “I’ve got to concentrate on my feet.”

  Stella stifles a laugh.

  The Exchange is only a few storefronts down from the salon. It’s made of big glass windows, and a black-and-white sign is painted on the door in boxy lettering. When we walk inside, I’m hit by a stale, close-to-fetid smell. It’s not a clean place, exactly. The signs are handwritten on bent and torn pieces of paper. Records sit in long wooden bins, and they’re also piled in stacks on tables and in corners, and there’s no apparent order to anything. Behind a fingerprint-clouded glass counter stands none other than Kim. She’s dressed in black jeans and a torn red T-shirt, and she’s got a pair of giant headphones on. Her eyes are closed, and she’s nodding to an unheard beat. When I tap her on the shoulder, she shakes me off and puts one finger in the air. The message is clear: I’ll get to you when I get to you.

  The three of us wander the store, browsing. Archer lifts up an album, laughing, and shows it to me. A family—mother, father, and three full-grown children—are dressed in matching floral dresses and suits. In yellow lettering are the words “The Wilson Family Sings Gospel” and, beneath it, the album title, I Am God’s Child.

  “They’ve got everything here,” he whispers.

  Stella hangs back from us, tipping half-heartedly through the records, watching Kim. For the fiftieth time since leaving Red Sun, I ask myself, What are you doing?

  I guess it was a nice save, coming up with the Exchange in the heat of the moment; it’s a completely plausible reason to be out. But it’s a save from what, exactly? Doing the right thing? Using my newfound bravery to tell the truth? And now Stella looks uncomfortable, out of place. Like she shouldn’t be here. When I came into town specifically for her.

  I’m such a little shit.

  “Okay, what?” Kim removes the headphones. She doesn’t look surprised to see us, or all that enthused, even though we’re the only customers here. And even though she made a point to invite me more than once.

  I approach the counter, my jaw twitching to one side. “Came for the tour.”

  Kim looks to Stella. “Sure you want to be hanging out with these two for the last days of your life?”

  “Galliard wants your recommendations,” Stella replies. “Just no punk.”

  “You can’t say no punk. You can’t say that to me, Stell.”

  Kim shuffles to a turntable behind the counter. She flips switches attached to boxes attached to speakers—a collection of contraptions I assume will give us sound. Then she drops out of sight, riffling through boxes beneath the counter. I’m guessing it’s a collection of her favorites, there for easy access.

  “Punk is the future,” she says in a real serious voice. “It’s the fucking redemption of rock and roll.”

  She slips a record from its sleeve and fits it on the turntable. After more fiddling, sound crackles through the store speakers, followed by the blast of an electric guitar. The drumbeat is persistent, and the chorus comes in quick, a chant of “I’m so bo-o-ored with the U.S.A.” The singer sounds drunk.

  I don’t hate it, though. It’s a song that makes me want to throw my head around.

  “You know how much I shelled out for this?” Kim shouts to me. “An international import from fucking England.”

  “They’re English?” I shout back, as my jaw jerks.

  “They’re the Clash!”

  Archer is into it. He’s slamming away at air drums and screaming along with the chorus. Stella looks unimpressed. She winces at the louder swells of the song. For her sake I tell Kim, “Okay, okay. What else?”

  “Ramones, clearly.”

  She pops up the turntable needle and switches out records with a speed that honestly scares me.

  “Hang on, hang on,” she says, aligning the needle to the right track. “This should be your introduction. These boys are good ol’ American stock.”

  A driving, frenetic beat bursts through the speakers. Archer hasn’t stopped his dancing. He throws his fist into the air and, once he’s picked up on yet another repetitive chorus, joins in with
“Sheena is . . . a punk rocker! Sheeeena is . . . a punk rocker!”

  “It’s kind of like the Beach Boys,” I shout.

  Kim snorts. “Yeah, the Beach Boys with balls.” She tips her thumb at Archer and says, “Sorry, who is that?”

  “Archer!” screams Archer, saluting Kim.

  Stella isn’t having fun. She’s taken a seat in a folding metal chair, behind the counter.

  “God, Stell,” Kim shouts. “You wouldn’t know good music if it punched you in the eye.”

  “It’s basic!” Stell shouts back. “It’s the same chords over and over. They’re not talented.”

  Kim rips up the needle. “Don’t blaspheme.”

  “Play him something we both like,” says Stella. “Play him Queen.”

  “Sure, sure. Can do.”

  Kim slips another LP from her bin and onto the turntable. Before she lowers the needle, she looks to me. “Ready for this, Sir Stuck-in-the-Sixties?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Okay, but your cult leaders can’t sue me if you drop dead.”

  The needle falls.

  It’s hard to explain what happens next. It’s a thing that happens to me. I’m not listening so much as I’m being sung into. The music and the words and the harmonies—they push through my pores and into my bloodstream. They’re in me. The singer’s voice isn’t close to anything I’ve heard before in the Back Room. It’s dense and elastic, just the right amount of ragged on its edges. A chorus of harmonic voices backs him up as he hits notes I know are tough to nail. He makes it sound easy. Natural.

  Kim can see the transformation under my skin. She looks less bored and more smug.

  “Queen does gospel!” she shouts.

  Behind the counter, Stella sits very still. Her eyes are shut and her head tilted up like they were Wednesday night, under the stars at Ferrell’s.

  “Let me tell you about my ideal man, Galliard,” Kim shouts over the music. “Bowie’s body. Strummer’s attitude. Mercury’s pipes. I like ’em androgynous and feisty and with massive powers of harmony. Oh wait, wait, here’s the guitar solo.”

  The guitar wails out a line of ascending notes with precision, but what I’ve been listening to, beneath it all, is the piano.

  I could play this. I could learn it.

  The beat pulses in my chest. Layered, harmonized voices build in a crescendo, singing the same line, again and again: “Find me somebody to love.”

  Kim doesn’t interrupt my rapture again. When the song ends, she reverently ticks the needle up, throwing the store back into silence.

  “Who plays the piano?” I ask.

  Kim looks mildly surprised. “That’s Freddie Mercury. He’s the front man.”

  “He’s the lead singer and the pianist?”

  “Yeah.” Kim taps the counter. “What, you play?”

  “Shit, yeah.” Archer slaps me on the back. “This man is Mozart. The commune’s prodigy.”

  “I’m not a prodigy. I’ve just played for a long time.”

  Kim motions behind me. “Well, you can rattle away over there, if you want. My manager brought that thing in years ago. Used to be his brother’s or something. Couldn’t let it go, but his wife wouldn’t let him keep it in their house.”

  I walk over to a small piano, set up in the back corner of the shop. It’s painted in a swirling rainbow of psychedelic colors—pink and green and yellow and blue. Records sit piled atop its backboard, along with a thick coat of dust. The white keys are painted black, the black keys white. The keyboard spans only four octaves, and beside it are two buttons and five sliding levers. Like a machine.

  “Never seen a combo organ before?” Kim comes up behind me, messes with the buttons and sliders, then points me to the keys. “Show us what you got, Wolfgang.”

  Feeling like an idiot, I tentatively hit my thumb on the highest C.

  A bright, loud whistle sounds out.

  “Wow,” says Kim. “Yeah, man, you’re a prodigy, for sure. Oh hey, Stella! I have your bike. Stella!”

  Behind the counter, Stella’s eyes flutter open. “What?”

  “You left it on my car the other night, remember? We can go out and get it if you want.”

  “Oh.” Stella looks as though she’s been woken from a seven-year sleep. “Yeah, actually, that’d be great. I have an errand to run after this.”

  “Cool.” Kim jerks her elbow into my shoulder, hard. “Don’t let this store burn down.”

  The girls head out, and once they’re gone, I fit my hands over the keys in earnest. I play a C-major arpeggio, then D and E, working my way upward. The sound from the organ is arresting, and I can’t control its dynamics with the pressure of my fingers like I can the Red Sun Yamaha. I’m on the A scale when Archer throws his fist against the lower keys, disrupting everything in an electronic howl.

  I look up. “What was that for?”

  “Excuse me, sir,” he says, in that fake accent of his. “I believe you may have lost this. I found it on the floor back there.” He holds his empty hands before me. “It’s your spine.”

  I push a ragged sound from my throat. Then I shove his hands away. “It’s not the right time.”

  Archer scoffs.

  He doesn’t understand that I need this. I have to enjoy this precious remaining time on the Outside, because there are only two weeks left to cross, and after I set things right, it won’t be the same. This won’t be an Outside where Stella Kay Mercer likes me. It will be an Outside where I have a mortal enemy.

  “I’m going to tell her,” I say, around a throat clear. “Maybe I don’t want to with you breathing down my neck.”

  “If I wasn’t breathing down your neck, you’d never tell her.”

  “I would.”

  “Sure. Right. Uh-huh.”

  I put an end to the conversation with a two-handed G chord. Archer cusses and drifts away toward the record bins as I begin to play a song.

  It’s one of my favorites from the Back Room, taken from an album by a band called the Bee Gees. It’s called “I Started a Joke,” and it’s the only song on the LP that I like, but I like it a whole lot. I can’t improvise on the organ the way I can on the piano. Any stray notes are too loud and overpowering, so I stick with solid chords. After a few cycles through the verse, I start to sing.

  I don’t stop. I sing the song through. Three verses, two choruses. The energy crawling under my skin pushes back out, into the musty air around me. The organ keys are firm under my fingers, and their sound is hard and insistent. But my words are soft, because these lyrics are sad. If you listen closely, you’ll understand: They’re really fucking sad.

  I finish, straightening from my bend over the keys.

  I hear Archer say, “You crying?”

  I turn. Stella is close by—closer than I thought. She’s leaning against a record bin, and her eyes are brimming with tears. Rather than answer Archer, she wipes her knuckles under each eye and says, “I’m heading out.”

  “What about your very own Elton John?” shouts Kim, who’s back behind the counter.

  Stella smiles tightly at me. “It’s this errand I’ve been waiting to run, and there’s no telling if the rain will start up again. I’d better go now.”

  She heads for the door, and pain shoots through my arm. Archer has clenched his fingers into my elbow.

  “Go on, man,” he growls.

  What he’s saying is, Here’s your chance—no breathing down your neck.

  I know he’s right: This is the moment. Maybe that’s why it takes me a damn long time to get the words out. By the time I do, Stella’s halfway out the door.

  “Hey, Stella?”

  She stops. Warm wind blows into the store, unsettling the must. She looks upset. Maybe even a little angry. I tic, blinking in her direction.

  “Can I come with you?”

  “Oh. It’s . . . not that interesting.”

  “That’s fine.”

 
She seems to be struggling. Over at the counter Kim snorts. “Subtle, Galahad.”

  Stella blushes. I can see it from the other side of the store. I feel kind of hot myself. I blink harder.

  “Um,” she says. “If you want to come that bad.”

  I nod, blinking. But then I say, “Hang on.”

  I dig into my back pocket, retrieving the wad of paper money there.

  “How much is that LP?” I ask Kim. “The one by Queen.”

  Kim snorts again. “You want to buy it?”

  Archer gives me a look. “Hey, man,” he says. “Forgetting something?”

  I shake my head. “How much is it?”

  “Just hold on.” Kim is flipping through a bin labeled NEW RELEASES. She pulls up a plastic-wrapped album. It’s black, with a brightly colored illustration at its center. She inspects it, then says, “Six bucks. You got that much?”

  I sort through my money, and the smallest number I can find is a ten. I set that bill on the counter.

  “Well, what do you know,” says Kim. “Still making sales at the end of the world.”

  She takes the money and hands over the record. I stare so long at the cover I don’t realize she’s trying to give me something else.

  “Your change.” She stuffs the green paper into my hand. “Want a bag for it?”

  “No. Uh. No, actually. I wondered, could you hold this for me?”

  Kim gives me a weird look. “Folks do that before they buy. What do you want to buy and then hold it for?”

  “It’s because he can’t bring it back.” I’m startled by Stella’s words. She’s been watching this whole time from the half-opened door. Her tears are all gone, and she speaks with confidence. “Remember? Nothing made before ’70.”

  “Oh. Right,” says Kim. “Then sure. I tell you what, I’ll keep this one on hold till the last of days.”

  I nod weakly, thinking of Red Sun’s gatekeeper, Charlie. There’s no way I could sneak this LP past him. There was no reason to even buy it. I’m not sure why I did that. I just felt the overwhelming need to have the music for myself.

  I only have days left on the Outside. I want a souvenir.

  Maybe between now and the end of Crossing, I’ll figure out some way to sneak it in. After all, I became a pro with letters; why not records, too?