Losing in Gainesville (9781940430331)

by Costello, Brian

  Boston Mike stands there on these typical Sundays and calls everything “retarded” in that accent of his that I’m not even going to try to do because I guess it’s just—whatever, right?—I mean, Boston’s where he came from so of course he’s not going to sound like those of us around here who were oh-so-fucking-lucky to be born and raised in the South—and when it gets really fucking unbearable here—he’ll elaborate and call the day “wicked retarded.”

  “Wicked retarded,” he says, tongue ring clicking every time his tongue touches the roof of his mouth, standing there in that faded black stink-ass Assuck t-shirt, that smudged-up Boston Red Sox ballcap he wears to cover up his receding hair he thinks women actually care about, spacerless earlobes drooping and sagging like elephant balls, same old piercings across his bearded face, same old tattoo sleeves covering his arms, normally beady brown eyes squinting into that look of hatred fear desperation and annoyance you only see on the faces of jerkoffs like us deep in the existentialist pit of retail hell . . . “Wicked retarded,” Boston Mike says . . . and with that, it’s the cue to give up on any hope of getting to kill the rest of the afternoon by sneaking a sixer of Old Hamtramck tallboys poured into coffee mugs . . . at least for another hour and a half of this shit . . . and I look over to where Boston Mike’s looking, to the front door, and of course that’s the source of the “wicked” in his sentence . . . I mean, what else could make this snail-drag of a Sunday afternoon worse?

  Boogie Dave.

  Boogie Dave is my boss, the owner of the store, a fecal-breathed troll of a man, a pathetic lumpy-dump troll-turd . . . like if a snaggle-toothed crackwhore had sex with one of the larger Fraggle Rock muppets, this is the thing that would be shat out in trollbirth . . . he never asks us how we’re doing . . . shuffles in in fatguy sweat pants, simian back hair poking out of a sleeveless black Johnny Thunders t-shirt that is given the impossible duty of slimming Boogie Dave’s ample man-tittied torso . . . shoulder-length black hair that probably looked alright back when he opened the store during the dusty-denimed/pub glam era of 1973-1974, but now what’s left of his mane hangs there around the back of his tumor-bumpy skull like frayed tassels from the curtains of a dying pimp . . . he glares at us as he steps past, sniffles, says “It smells horrible in here!” and I want to say “Great to see you too, Boogie Dave,” but all you can do is stand there and look around and make sure your ass is covered and make sure there’s nothing under your control that he has to whine about . . . because Boogie Dave is a total whiner . . . if the jerkoff finds one tiny mistake he’ll harp on it and harp on it and mutter and complain until you wish he would drop dead . . . he climbs the steps to the upraised front counter slash register area, says “Look out” to me and Boston Mike, who step sideways into what little space we have back here, pulls out—yes, of course—about a dozen sticks of New Age Writer’s Retreat incense sticks . . . soon the store will reek of wheatgrass deodorant and tenured patchouli . . . the funny thing is, it never succeeds in covering up the dusty attic smell of all those old records alphabetized in bins in the middle of the store as the CDs and VHS tapes loop around the walls and these fat stupid customers somehow squeeze their fat stupid asses in the narrow spaces between while Boston Mike and I wait for the inevitable Boogie Dave whining about whatever’s wrong today with the store before Boogie Dave leaves, now that his twenty minute task of showing up at the store long enough to make his employees feel completely inadequate has been accomplished . . . such a cranky, cadaverous weirdo . . . clinging to this record store even though he hates it, because it’s all he has . . . if it’s not this . . . it’s retail . . . and I sometimes fantasize of going into the electronics department of some large department store and there he is in the regulation blue dress shirt/khaki slacked uniform of the corporate retail gig . . . actually having to earn a living by dealing with customers for a change . . . and not just customers who normally come in here on non-Sunday days, but the vast unwashed morons who make this record store gig a total can of corn by comparison . . . Sundays times a million . . . he fits the incense sticks into their strategically placed holders on different shelves by the walls . . . pushing through customers who are in the way . . . more likely to say nothing than to say “Excuse me” . . .

  “So what do you think’s on his whine agenda for today,” I say to Boston Mike as we stand there watching Boogie Dave push his way from incense-holder to incense-holder.

  “The music, probably,” Boston Mike says. “That and he probably found something unalphabetized.”

  He always finds something, and if he finds nothing, he can always dust off the ol’ “You guys need to be more alpha” speech . . . because . . . well, look at him . . . you don’t get more Alpha Dog than Boogie Dave . . . he read some book on dogs at one point and has used it ever since as his go-to on leadership and management techniques . . .

  I nod, because that sounds about right, and Boston Mike has to repeat his “Wicked retarded,” and Boogie Dave approaches the counter, steps up, says, “What did I tell you guys about not playing Beefheart when it’s busy like this?”

  Sure enough . . . it’s the Beefheart masterpiece Lick My Decals Off, Baby, and it’s one of the more . . . avant parts of the record, where marimbas and saxophones and bass clarinets scream over drums that sound like they’re being thrown down a craggy mountain . . . Boogie Dave normally keeps himself scarce on Sundays, but now that he’s here, he gets to witness how Boston Mike and me, we like to flip one abrasive record after the other as a passive/aggressive ploy to make the Sunday amateurs leave us alone because we’re tired, hungover, and besides that, we’re genetically incapable of giving them decent service anyways . . . neither of us says anything to Boogie Dave . . . I mean, I think Beefheart is the ultimate pop music, but hey, that’s just me, and a master race of a few thousand who have ears evolved enough to see the epic enchantment in the music . . .

  “I never understood how anyone could like this,” Boogie Dave says, removing the record right when it was getting even better. “It wasn’t good when it came out, and it hasn’t improved with age.”

  He throws on some contemporary alternative rock, some cookie cutter pop-rock filled with gravelly vocals and negative navel-gazing . . . and I can’t help but cringe . . . physically cringe from my toes to my head to my balls to my soul . . . at how tedious this music is . . .

  “We’re not doing as well as we did this time last year,” Boogie Dave says, turning to us. Nobody makes eye contact. I pretend to be staring at customers, making sure they’re not trying to steal anything (like I care), Boston Mike looks to the front door, smiles and says, “How are you?’ to a group of three chattering college broads in short-shorts and half-t-shirts (and you know they ain’t gonna buy shit . . . girls like these never linger the way the creeps of all stripes linger in here browsing for hours . . . ) who ignore him . . . “And last year we weren’t doing as well as we did the year before that.” This is not news to me or Boston Mike . . . there are five other record stores within this one mile radius, to say nothing of the mall three miles away . . . “And I’m the only one who seems to care about it” . . . we say nothing to this . . . I mean, honestly—we don’t care. Because why should we? This is a minimum wage gig that’s usually a cool-enough minimum wage gig except for Amateur Sundays . . .

  “What would you like us to do, Boogie Dave?” I venture, knowing there’s no point, but feeling obligated to say something, even if I know it won’t lead to anything good (the girls who have worked here have all been reduced to tears by this piece of shit at various points in their work-lives here) . . . but I’ve found it’s better to say something instead of nothing . . .

  “You guys need to look like you care. You could start there. You know not to play Beefheart. I told you that, but you do it anyway. How am I supposed to interpret that?” Boogie Dave looks at the clipboard to the left of the counter where we write down the sales of every new purchase . . . “And look,” he points to today’s sheet. “You didn’t even
write down that we have Built to Spill in backstock. What if I saw that and ordered a bunch more?” He says this, knowing everyone who works here knows we have plenty of Built to Spill records here because it’s a big seller, but Boogie Dave is, to the depths of his soul, a dick, and is like compelled to point out every obviously unintentional mistake . . .

  “Things have got to change,” Boogie Dave says, sets the clipboard back down next to the counter, descends the counter steps. He shuffles off to the front door like the pathetic sad sack that he is, adds, “You need to figure out how you’re going to make that happen, because it ain’t gonna go on like this forever.”

  On top of all this, the customers get to witness Boogie Dave’s browbeating, and if you want my opinion, his unpleasant style does more to alienate customers than the music of Captain Beefheart ever could . . .

  Boston Mike watches Boogie Dave step into his green VW van, back it out, leave the tiny parking lot, roll away down the student ghetto side street on the north side of the plaza. “I’ll buy the beer,” he says, and I laugh, feeling the relief of this stressful meaningless day as it reaches the halfway point before we get to go back to my house and really hit the beer . . .

  I immediately put the Beefheart back on . . . ring up the customers and their shitty selections, answer whatever braindead questions they might have . . . dreaming of the Old Hamtramck tallboys in the wet brown paper bag Boston Mike is most certainly carrying out of the Pop-a-Top right about now . . . I want to be buzzed, I want to be numb, I want to forget about that fucking asshole Boogie Dave and how the only nice thing I can say about him is that he doesn’t have any kids to pass along all his horrid-horrid traits . . .

  When Boston Mike walks in with that brown paper bag, I can’t help but smile. It’ll get a little bit easier here with each passing half-hour . . . as the dickhead customer rush starts to dissipate and the beer starts to kick in.

  Boston Mike pours two can’s worth into our respective coffee mugs—his a white South-by-Southwest memento that reads “KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD” and mine a yellow Cracker Barrel find that reads in red-letters: “WHEN I GET OLD I’LL MOVE NORTH AND DRIVE SLOW.” He toasts with a “To this day being almost over, and to watching the customers start to screw” . . . That’s one of his words, Bostonian for “amscray!” . . . and our mugs cheer, and I chug, eagerly awaiting that first rush to the brain. “Oooooooooo-wooooo!” I howl, spinning my head from side-to-side, like how cartoon characters do when they come to their senses. I know I’ve been kinda, you know, down on working here, down on the customers, down on the scene so far . . . I know this . . . but you know, usually, it really isn’t that bad . . . I mean . . . It’s working at a record store! The great American dream of every young rock and roll-inspired twitty-twat! Oh, to be paid to do what you love! Sit around and play music! That reality isn’t 100 percent accurate . . . but it is often enough . . . now that the rush is dying down, and the boss is gone . . . I can bask in this bright sunshiney afternoon . . . I mean, look at it! Look out there! It’s fucking nice here!

  “Hey, this is my friend Drunk John,” Boston Mike says to this girl Daisy I’ve been crushing on since I first started going to shows here, this tall thin curly-blonde covered in tattoos who I usually just call “The Canary Babe” who walks in in eight-mile long jeans and that model walk she has, this sashay that gets me every time . . . it kinda scares me, to be honest, how beautiful she is . . .

  Daisy the Canary Babe turns to us, smiles and doesn’t break that stride to say, “Yes, I know Drunk John,” and she has this stunning smile that’s part genuine, part manipulative, and that gets me every time . . . fuck, she’s hot-tot-tot . . . “How are you guys doing today?”

  “It’s getting better,” I manage, smiling like a total choad. “I’m glad you’re here.” and she laughs that soft laugh of hers and says “Thanks, guys . . . ” and like any remotely attractive person who comes in here, you know she knows exactly what she wants and will leave as soon as she finds it . . . why can’t it be opposite? Where, like, the assholes and amateurs walk in and walk out and the girls like Daisy the Canary Babe stick around?

  “How come you never ask her out?” Boston Mike asks. “She seems to like you alright.”

  “Ah, you know . . . she’s hooked up with pretty much all my friends.” (Which is true . . . she’s been with William, Paul, Neil, Mouse, the Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit guys . . . )

  “So?” Boston Mike scoffs.

  “So that’s gross.”

  “But you’re into her.”

  “Yeah! I mean, look at her! She’s Daisy the Canary Babe.”

  Boston Mike looks down, shakes his head. “You’re pathetic.”

  . . . And maybe I am. “Shh, she’s coming up here,” I say . . . and add a “Fine, I’ll ask her out,” and descend the steps to stand outside in the heat of the parking lot and wait for her to walk out so I can get her number and you know maybe somehow get to bang her.

  I try and force what I hope she will interpret as a smile on my face as I step down to the store’s blackened white linoleum . . . she’s easily six inches taller than I am, and I wonder what I would do with someone this tall, but I have total faith in my creativity to come up with some amazing answers . . .

  Outside, wishing just this once that I was a smoker, so I could you know look like I had a reason to be standing out here like this, feet balanced between the edge of the sidewalk and the concrete curb. Shifting my weight from one foot to the next . . . watching the plaza’s customers go in and out of the Laundromat, the greeting card store, and the copy place . . . two beers down . . . basking in the Sunday . . . thinking what I’ll say to Daisy the Canary Babe . . . thinking of how everything could stop now, and I’d be happy with it . . . not in an “I’ve made it!” kind of way . . . but I’m comfortable and happy from my perch behind the counter of Electric Slim’s, to be here in Gainesville dicking around my early post-graduation years from that fine-fine institution of higher learning right across the street there . . . time can stop moving . . . just let me woo the shit outta Daisy the Canary Babe when she leaves the store, and the fucking world can stop, ok?

  She leaves the store walking that model walk, stops when she sees me, “What are you doing, John?” she asks, smiling, and me, so glad she left the “Drunk” out of my name . . . this encourages me to bounce off the sidewalk and the curb, take the five steps her way . . . “Just taking a break,” I say in what I hope isn’t a too-tipsy looking smile . . . “Where you headed?” I add when my stride somewhat matches hers, putting that emphasis on the “you” to sound you know classy, like I’m interested in the woman for the woman . . . “I have studying to do. Started seeing this guy,” she says.

  “Oh yeah?” I say, trying to sound like I barely give a fuck, when inside, that’s all I do . . . “Anyone I know?”

  “Nobody you know,” she says, and I stop a few steps past the laundromat’s double front doors, as if I’m unallowed to venture any further due to the high responsibilities of my career in recorded music retail. “I mean—he’s not in ‘the scene,” and she laughs at her finger quotes, and the only iron-clad rule I know is that if you openly discuss “the scene” with someone, you have to put it into finger-quotes, because otherwise it sounds tacky coming out of anyone’s mouth over the age of sixteen . . .

  “Well. He’s a totally lucky guy,” I say, cringing deep inside at my use of the word “totally.” Sometimes, to be honest, I hate everything about myself.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know if he sees it that way. Didn’t you graduate?”

  Graduation. Something I don’t want to talk about. “Two years ago,” I answer.

  “Oh,” she says, practically saying “Then what are you still doing here?” in the way she says “Oh.” and I realize, it’s never gonna happen.

  “Yeah, you know,” I add, trying to salvage it. “I like it here just fine—not like I want to be at the record store forever, but I li
ke it here.”

  “I do too,” she says, and it seems in the way her voice takes a softer tone, the way she looks at me, then at this plaza parking lot, then turns her head to University, like she actually might mean it. “But I do need to leave. Great seeing you again.”

  I wave and smile, watch her tall model walking body move down the sidewalk, plastic bag with an LP bouncing against her gorgeously narrow left hip . . . I walk back towards the store, in that adrenal bounce you get after you do something you think is brave, laughing to myself, thinking, As if I ever had a chance . . .

  “She has a boyfriend now. Let’s get drunk,” I say immediately upon entering the store . . . and when I’m back at my perch, Boston Mike pats me on the back. “You tried, bro,” he says. “I’m proud of you.”

  “Yeah yeah,” I say, open the third Old Hamtramck tallboy, pour it into my mug, confident this will be the can that transports me to the end of this Amateur Sunday shift . . .

  The last hour does fly by, and it always feels great to kick out the final customers in a tone that suggests they are the biggest douchiest fucks on the face of the earth for still browsing after we told them they had ten minutes before the store closes . . . that turn of the lock and the flip of the “OPEN” sign to “CLOSED” are the best things about Amateur Sundays . . . now it’s a matter of tallying the receipts and leaving the till in dear sweet Boogie Dave’s slovenly back office. Punch out the timeclock, sip the last few swillish drops from the drained Old Hamtramck, take the cans with us so we can toss them in a nearby dumpster, engage the security system, and we’re free . . .

  It’s a five minute walk to my house, with a stop halfway for more Old Hamtramck . . . I carry the six-pack and we walk down the dirt-covered graveled little student ghetto roads to my place . . . the sidewalks don’t exist so we walk down the middle of these streets—our streets, it seems, since I’ve lived in my place for four years now, and that’s an eternity around here . . . me, I’m on this like, “Fuck that guy,” rant, and Boston Mike’s like, “Who?” and I say, “You know who. Boogie Dave. I think I wanna fight him,” and Boston Mike laughs and says, “I’d love to see that,” and I’m like “He’s such a prick,” and Boston Mike says, “You should open your own store then. Put him out of business.”