Excerpt: Recordbreaking

Just that reminder of the double-wide record warehouse made me know right away that my inheritance would be a pile of 33 1/3 mostly worthless pieces of vinyl. I suppose I might have my own estate sale on eBay, but that would amount to not so much. Not that I was really expecting much, but what would I do with records and no turntable. Well, face it, a turntable wouldn’t do much good without the rest of the system, so I figured I was just SOL with this pile of records. Dad was weird when he was alive, and apparently not afraid to keep that weirdness alive beyond the grave.
About the time I finished my first pity party, I realized Mr. Brown Guy had left more cubes at my door, stacked high enough to be seen through the window half way up the door. I carried those boxes in and cut through the packing tape until I realized I had become the proud owner of a 40-year-old stereo system with more recent speakers, chosen for their tiny size and amazing quality compared to the four foot tall monsters that had been in the doublewide in Arizona. The turntable and receiver weighed as much as the stack of records, but I knew from my annual Christmases in the desert that they still had the newer components beat for quality, plus they could double as a heater, they got so hot. Pretty great in snowy Minnesota. Not so good in balmy Arizona. Dad kept a fan running on the units ever since he moved. Now that it was home, and having found no fan in the boxes, this would apparently no longer be necessary.
I didn’t have a stereo cabinet made from a USA today box like Dad did, but I figured my new oddity could join the relics on the shelf of media history between my portable CD player and my VCR. Once I had everything in place, and checking my heart again to ensure my memory of a recent slamming from my newest ex-girlfriend, there was nothing to do by call Chase.
“Dude.” He answered his cell exactly between the third and fourth ring as always. “You gotta come see this. I’m an audiophile now.”
“You’re a pervert who focuses on ears?” Chase said, his words coming in on autopilot.
“Dude, pause the game. I’ve got party plans.”
Ominous music in the background faded before the familiar bump against a haromonic window sound told me the game was being saved. Chase didn’t much care for interruptions during a weekend Zidrag marathon, but he’d been dropping some of his old rules since my Dad died. “What? You have to have just the right music to whack off. That’s more information than I want E.”
“What are you talking about? Are you actually telling me you don’t know what an audiophile is?”
“A shelver in the sound section at the Library of Congess.”
“Shut up and get over here. I got my dad’s stereo system and some rockin’ oldies from . . .” I grabbed the top record. “Oh, man, you gotta see this. I’m holding in my hands a vinyl recording of the Nine Inch Nails song, Wish and three other songs.”
“Did you say vinyl, as in, vinyl, a record?”
“Chase, you might be talking to the only 18-year-old in the country about to play a 12” EP version of a 90s version of heavy metal. And if you don’t get your ass over hear in ten minutes, you’re going to miss this audiophile’s first self-pleasuring to the sound of meltable technology.”
Chase didn’t even say goodbye. When it comes to self-pleasuring, he’s a legend. Only his closest friends, maybe only I know the meaning of his nickname, Rawhide. Of course, he knows I’ll only be jacking off to this ancient recording metaphorically, but still, self-pleasuring is something to be share, in the logic of Chase “Rawhide” Toucherer.
It took some serious effort to wait for Chase to get his sorry ass to my place. Since he lived in the basement apartment below me and to the left, it took nearly five minutes for him to bust through my door.
“Why must you dawdle in your travels Senior Rawhide? Did you meet someone on the way?
Chase just plopped down in the middle of my inheritance detritus and started fingering the record jackets in a neat pile.
“Don’t mix them up,” I said, sliding the Nine Inch Nails EP back into the third position in the pile. “I’d like to think Dad has something in mind when he picked these records and placed them in this pile. In fact, . . .” I picked up the pile of records and dropped them back into the box to trap them in their current order. I lifted the first full record from the top of the pile, slipped my hand between the white paper slip without touching the record and put one finger in the hole in the middle and my thumb on the edge. I slid out the record and handed the jacket to Chase. I set the record on the turntable trying not to allow it any actual contact with the surface. If I could have made it float just above the rubber ribs atop the turntable, I would have felt better. I settled to let it go with as little movement as possible, then reached for the wooden block with the fabric on one side. I dripped two drops of cleaner on the curved edge of the fabric and rubbed it from one end of the block to another in a straight line. Then I lifted the needle with the tiny handle on the edge of the turntable. I bumped the needle toward the record and it began to spin. I set the moistened fabric on the record as it spun once around. On the second turn I slowly rolled the block so that the dry part of the fabric absorbed any excess liquid. Then I swiped the block off the record as if making a final dusting. Chase stared.
“Okay, you’ve been holding out on me,” he said. He was still holding the record jacket, but he clearly had been staring at me. “You’ve been a record pervert all along, but somehow suppressing it.”
“It’s all part of the love of vinyl, dude. You should have seen my dad do this. I’m thinking if he’d touched my mom like that, they might still be together.”
“I’m thinking I wouldn’t make your dad stop touching me like that, or you for that matter.”
“Shit, Chase, give it a rest. The girls might not be interested in me at this particular time, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to take our relationship to the next level.”
“I’m just saying, you’ve got a sweet touch there, dude.”
“Happy to provide the entertainment. So, what have we got? I didn’t even look.” I tilted the album cover toward me.
“Brain Salad Surgery,” Chase said. I took in the cover, a blending of a human skull and a lower half of a real face but looking like maybe it was the face of an Egyptian princess. All this was wrapped in some sort of mechanical workings. Chase turned the cover around, and I saw the lettering he had just read on a black background.
“Which side is the front?” Chase asked.
“Has to be this one,” I said, tapping the freaky looking skull. The record always comes out to the right.
“Weird. Is this the name of the band or the album?”
“There’s and E and a P on the front. Let’s check it out.” I grabbed my laptop and typed in Brain Salad Surgery. Chase read over my shoulder. “The fourth album of Emerson, Lake & Palmer.”
“I guess there’s an “L” between the E and P.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Look at this, the whole record is just three songs. I thought it looked different. All right. I don’t want to know anymore. Let’s listen.” I slapped my laptop shut, leaned over and flicked the lever that dropped the needle on the record. There as a pop, then a scratch as the needle slid into place, and the music started. I turned up the volume, leaned back, and closed my eyes. I heard a creak and knew that Chase was lying on the floor in a mirror pose.
“And was Jerusalem builded here” the first track played.
“Awful grammar,” Chase said, in a voice I’d never heard before. “Simply terrible, it’s obviously poetry, because I can’t understand a thing.”
I bolted up, reached for the turntable, but it was gone. I turned to Chase, and he was still lying there, but his clothes were not his clothes. I looked down. I was wearing the long, black robe.
“Chase! Open your eyes.” He didn’t. The music played on. The walls of my apartment had turned to brick, and the midafternoon sun now divided into a dozen shafts of light, all different colors as divided and determined by the stained-glass window I specifically remember not being a part of my the western wall of my floor of the house I rented with Chase below and Amy above.
“Chase, would you open your eyes.” He wouldn’t. A smile crinkled across his face as he seemed to be falling into the music. I got up from the floor and spun around, trying to figure out what in the hell was going on. The turn caused an unusual jiggling beneath my robe.
“Chase. I’m not wearing any underwear.” That did it. He opened his eyes, took one look at me, and shook his head like a dog with a nose full of pepper. Without taking his eyes off me, he moved his hands from his sides to his chest, then down again. He looked down as if to confirm he was wearing a robe like mine. One hand touched his crotch.
“Me neither.”