As I turned away from the register, Dirk called after me. “Well, Willie, you tell Old Shell we miss him. I got some Crystals and a 1910 Fruitgum Company I’ve been holding for him.”
They all think he’s wonderful, I thought. Shelly was smiling somewhere, I could almost see him, and I wondered as the door jingled closed on my heels if he could see me.
23.Whirlaway
AT SIX EVERY MORNING I WAS OUT THE DOOR. SHELLY’D ASKED ME for only two hours a day, but I found record hunting an exciting, profitable, and purposeful pastime. With all its puzzles, mazes, codes, and footnotes, its scholarly requisites, and its suitability to the solitary life, the game of record hunting resembled in many ways the sport of kings. It helped to know where and what to look for, but anyone with enough luck and persistence might catch a winner, a Five Satins on blue vinyl, a copy of “They Say,” by Herbert Milburn and the LeSabres on Zebra Records, a Robert Johnson, or a “Rocket 88.” I’d recently read about “Whirlaway,” the 45-rpm turntable that played something called the “Whirl-Away Demonstration Record” named after the famous racehorse who won the Triple Crown in 1941. “Only two copies of the record,” my guide stated, “probably the first 45 ever made expressly for promotional purposes, are known to exist today, though others likely survive.”
I’d developed my own circuit by now and each day a better understanding of where to find what I needed. Besides the armloads of profitable chaff I harvested daily, I had hit three minor jackpots, “See” by Jan and Dean on Dore, 1960, worth about a hundred bucks, Larry Donn’s (with the Killer Possum Band), “Girl Next Door,” (even if it was scratched, it played and was worth about seventy-five dollars), and Fats Domino “Goin’ Home” on Imperial, near-mint condition, worth about three hundred.
Like Shelly, I got less satisfaction out of making 800 percent off a Tijuana Brass album than I did finding a legit classic or collectible. You’d never guess how many groups there were, how many “made it” but were never heard from again; or had a small or regional hit soon forgotten; or who had genius or success written all over them but chickened out, turned to drugs, blew the contract, couldn’t get along; or someone in the group died or went mad; or they were mismanaged; or they got discouraged at poor sales and disbanded only to see success and get back together after the magic was gone. You might know the forlornly, fantastically sublime tune “Sunny,” which Bobby Hebb wrote after his brother was killed in a knife fight the day after JFK was assassinated, and he’s actually trying to sing it upbeat.
On the fourth Monday picking up Shelly’s mail there was a postcard from him that read:
Everything all right? You got the phone unplugged? The old man is on his way out. Get this: HE DOESN’T BELIEVE HE WILL DIE. He’s probably right. But the band is ready. Champagne is on ice. He’s a tough old bird. At the funeral he’ll probably climb out of the coffin and box my ears. Either way, see you in a couple of weeks. Plug in the phone, will you?
The following morning a second postcard read:
Father in coma. Don’t send flowers. Probably playing possum. Hit the double at Birmingham yesterday. All you do is go to the paddock and find out which ones can walk. Maybe see you in a week?
In the pile was also a letter from a lady in Wales who was looking for bootlegs of Dylan. I hadn’t run into many bootlegs and didn’t know where to find them or what their values might be if I did. Shelly had no bootleg catalogues. I’d have to wait for his return on this one.
Tuesday number five running Shelly’s business, eleven in the morning, Sweets with his head out the passenger window, I passed the Coco’s. I passed the Coco’s a lot more than I probably needed to. Inside there seemed to be an answer, even if I wasn’t sure what the question was. On impulse, I pulled into the lot. Sweets gave me a woeful look.
You want something? I asked him. Corn fritters?
His front paws began to dance in anticipation. How about a pancake?
I’ll do my best.
He grunted and sneezed. And bacon.
I brought some of the order forms in with me and the pricing catalogue to get a jump on the afternoon. The place was packed and I grabbed the only open table in the corner. I didn’t see Renee at first, then she sprang through the doors with four plates balanced on her right arm. She moved at an impelled angle, harried, blowing air. I liked her hustle, the film of sweat on her brow, her personal dedication to a thankless job.
Again I was reminded in the way she moved of my Czech girlfriend long ago, the real love of my life that never had a chance of working out and probably suckered me into marrying an Asian girl. Asians were supposedly more loyal than other women, but it wasn’t my fault the way I was, I recited to myself as the psychiatrists had instructed. My delusional, romantic worldview and great expectations factored in with my stunted development and propensity for chasing rainbows had left me like so many of my contemporaries with two handfuls of nothing.
Renee was
