MORRISSEY AND DVORAK

a schematic story by courage

It was cliche, he knew, to say that he spent his time watching the world pass by, but Robert was hard pressed to think of any other way to describe what exactly it was he did. In print he owned a record shop, but in reality there was little demarcation between his personal collection – with which he would never dream of parting – and the thirty or so records he deemed salable. T. Rex, Journey, he could give a fuck. A girl with a nose ring and pageboy hair sat on the couch in the corner, also waiting. She for her twenty-first birthday and her boyfriend to pick her up, he, already thirty, for anything comparable.

She had stepped into Off The Record a few months before to get out of the rain, Robert-s first customer in weeks. Even his one eyed cat, Godfrey, seemed hungry for conversation, rubbing against the girls wet jeans as Morrissey crooned sadly from tweed speakers (girlfriend in a coma, I know, I know).

Hey, what is this?

Oh, um… Robert had a list of snappy responses for this kind of question; he spent most of 2004 composing them, a regular Al Jaffee, waiting for a straightman to step into his store and ask his opinion. He desperately wanted to say Margaret Thatchers Afterbirth, but, sadly, the girl was too cute, too pathetic, to be snarky with. Besides, she was petting Godfrey, and he realized that she had probably been talking to the cat in the first place. The pitch. That high pitched baby voice. No one talked to Robert that way. Not even his mother. He gave himself the finger beneath the counter. Fuck Robert. Fuck mothers. Motherfuck Robert. He felt better now.

Wet out.

Oh… yea.

They spent the rest of the evening, until it stopped raining, drinking chicory coffee and talking about post-punk. Robert loved New Orleans in August, loved the rain, and most of all, loved the girl, who was named Olivia. O, Livia! He gave her his Apollo 11 commemorative launch mug, which – through the miracle of heat sensitive color changing technology – started off black and ended up picturing a rocket, the one that made it. She held it like it was precious, a Faberge egg — which it was, to Robert — and picked out the chipping porcelain debris without mentioning it. He was in love before the waving astronauts materialized in their entirety.

When she left he finished what was left in her cup and put on The Exploding Hearts, cocksure and turned-on for the first time since September 1999, when he walked in on his (now) ex-girlfriend giving his (now) ex-boss a golden shower. Despite the realties of the situation, it was he who felt pissed on, and — with a generous loan from his senile mother, whos accounts he managed — he opened Off The Record. It was to be a combination purgation and restorative outlet, but for the most part nothing changed.

Except he no longer had a girlfriend, nor any human interaction, really, outside of his mother, whose hatred for him became increasingly apparent as dementia set in. Even Godfrey seemed to barely suffer his affection. Robert wrote liner notes for session bands that existed in his head alone: Lead Belly and Robert Pollard, The Spiders from Mars featuring Bing Crosby and Etta James. Finally, three notebooks later and feeling ashamed, he resigned himself to watching the seasons change (although there were only two, really: wet and hot). He fancied that he preferred hot, and then Olivia showed up, proving that he was really in no position to decide what what he thought he liked. It was rain or nothing!

Olivia started coming in on weekends, spending her Friday and Saturday nights with Robert, who started lifting weights and wearing eyeliner. It wasnt until the second month of visits, seven weeks after Robert had informed his vaguely accusatory mother that he was seeing someone, and its pretty serious, that he found out she had a boyfriend. Worse, a boyfriend in a band. The boyfriend, Jack Action, went out drinking, leaving her to fake her way into the bars or sit outside of them, waiting. It didnt really matter to him either way, as Jack was only pretending to like her in the first place. Jack, Robert thought darkly, was incapable of love.

It was during one of these drinking sessions (or, rather, bouts of forced temperance) that it began to rain, and Olivia found herself drip drying in Off The Record. Robert didnt care. She was his girlfriend two nights a week, and that was all he needed. He started giving her albums he thought shed like, and then, finding them in the new arrivals bins of competing stores, ROBS ROCK (no apostrophe) stamped in smudged green on their dust covers, he switched to offering her High Life instead of coffee and records.

They began to feel comfortable in their routine. She showed up every weekend, Robert thought – smiling at the undeniable truth of the cliche – like clockwork, always beautiful in her angular sort of way. And yet, while the routine was comfortable, it was never comfortable enough for Robert to make a move. He stayed behind the counter, constant proprietor, and she remained a customer. Robert spent his nights fitfully, scheming ways to bridge this fucking capitalistic schism. Finally, he decided that to have a chance with Olivia he would have to sell his record store.

The next day, he casually broached this topic with Olivia, who seemed surprised but – noting that she was his only customer, although she never bought anything – ultimately happy for him. Her enthusiasm spurred Robert into considering immediate action; emboldened, he tells her that he’ll be “a free man” by this time next Saturday. Its here, in the ensuing silence, that this story begins: Olivia waiting for her boyfriend to finish his set and pick her up, Robert thinking about a future that holds, most importantly, Olivia. Hes lost in loving reverie as she leaves, her goodbyes drowned in the thunderstorm outside. He decides to start packing his records immediately; it takes less than an hour. Before he closes down for the night he tapes a note on the door: Off The Record: Out the Biz!

As Robert lies staring at his mothers flaking ceiling, too excited to sleep, he realizes that he knows nothing about Olivia except that she shows up at his shop every Friday and Saturday night. Panicked, he decides to reopen Off The Record first thing in the morning, at least temporarily, until he can get Olivias phone number. Robert wishes he knew her last name at least, and thinks it must be something like Tortulesci. He pictures her lying naked among Athenian ruins, enjoying the silence. Inspired, he jumps out of bed and tears through the white pages: no Tortulescis. He resigns himself to opening the shop again and hoping for the best, despite a guttural dissent from his diaphragm which soon turns into a sobbing moan.

Three weeks later, Robert sits at his clerks counter, drinking chicory coffee (black) from a commemorative Apollo 11 launch mug. The Smiths have been playing on repeat all morning, all week, all month (in seven days), and Olivia has yet to drop by and flounce onto his torn thrift store couch. Godfrey winks hatefully at him, and Robert stares out the window onto the vieux carre, watching the world go by, thinking: McCartney and Figurine, John Darnielle and Freddie Mercury, Morrissey and Dvorak.