“I feel like I should have died a while ago.”
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“What you’re looking for ain’t here,” the gruff voice of the shopkeep, Arthur Howard, called from behind the counter.
Annoyed, I paused to glance up at him, then continued my search through the store. I was on my knees rifling through the back row of a bottom shelf filled with porcelain geese. The clanking of ceramics must have put the older man on edge because he aggressively shuffled around the register and across the length of the aisle to peer down at me. I paused. He was a sweaty man. I could feel him glowering and dripping from his chin in the humid air of June. You know how they say a room is so quiet you can hear a pin drop? Similar vibe, except I could hear each whistling drop of sweat plummet unto splatter.
“I told ya once already, boy. It ain’t here. We sold out this morning. There’ll be more next month.”
“I leave in less than a week. There has to be one hiding around here somewhere.”
“Fine. Waste your damn time. Just don’t break nothin’.” He shuffled back toward the counter, his penny loafers squeaking against the slick tiles. He muttered something along the lines of ‘Damn kids. Damn music. Damn squeaky shoes.’
One week ago, it was announced that Tony Flair would drop his first album in six years; specifically six years, three months, and twenty-three days. They also announced that it would be his last published work. Now, everyone who isn't living under a rock (or better yet, under seventeen layers of rock strata) knows who Tony Flair is, but I'm not sure who you are. You could be a kid one-hundred years from now. You could be an alien. Or even more unlikely, you could be my neighbor Old Man Franklin. Therefore, here's what you need to know about Tony Flair:
For starters, his entire catalog is a masterpiece. He could play any instrument, sing any tune, touch any heart. I could go on for hours (chapters?), but I'll stop there because that's nowhere near the most interesting thing about him.
A good example to give you an idea about his persona, his motif, is his 60 Minutes interview. I remember it like it was yesterday. It aired on my birthday. It was the only interview he ever accepted and he didn’t finish it or even technically show up. When the newscast director took them live the interviewer was apprehensively sitting across from a black-and-white Border Collie. The dog sat there as Tony's voice poured out from a microphone affixed to the pup's head. The 60 Minutes interview only lasted twenty-two minutes and eighteen seconds. Some people argue it was twenty-one minutes and fifty-nine seconds if you don't count the final nineteen seconds when the dog hopped down, peed on the interviewer's leg, and made a run for it. I personally always count those nineteen seconds. The dog, apparently rescued from the pound by Tony, now lives a life of luxury in the Hamptons with some rich guy's daughter, who's a big Tony-fan. Who is the big Tony-fan in that sentence? The daughter? The rich guy? The dog? The answer is "yes" because to be honest, who isn't a big Tony-fan?
When I tell you people would die for this man I'm not joking. He was like the King of Macedonia or the Emperor of France or Keanu Reeves.
Tony Flair won every major award an artist could hope for in life, yet didn’t show up to accept a single one. That first awards host had an awkward time covering the absence, but the remaining ceremonies made a gag of it. Tony proceeded to win album of the year the next two years as well, keeping form, but after the third release, he dropped off the face of the earth. Everyone thought he was just looking for some peace and quiet in order to create his next masterpiece, but after a while, we found out not even his family had heard from him. (Allegedly, of course).
Journalists scrambled. Whoever discovered the infamous artist’s hideout would be set for life, but it was a fruitless labor. No one ever found him. A year of waiting turned into two years and by the third year, even the most loyal fans started to question if we’d ever hear from him again. Documentaries released trying to piece together what little information was out there. At first, every “sighting” was national news, but eventually, he was forgotten and set to the side. There was a spike in conspiracy theories and then it flatlined. Everyone moved on. For six years three months and twenty-three days he was just replays on the radio, streams on the internet, and a soft crackle of vinyl in every home from Wichita to Cairo.
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Then suddenly an album was announced by his old studio. There was no advertising campaign. No rumors leading up to it. Just a sudden "sign from heaven." Everyone was confused at first, but the story blew up and every major news outlet wanted a piece. Majyk Records’ CEO Clifford Mason graced them all with interviews and consistently claimed the same story: A vinyl arrived anonymously in their mailbox. No return address. It contained proof it was from Tony and minimal instructions for its publishing. The only recording was vinyl. Any commercial copies created would break contract. And it could only be sold by locally owned stores with a request it was limited to one copy per person. Majyk immediately reproduced the vinyl by the millions. There were reports of Majyk Records employees attempting to leak low-quality, pirated recordings online ahead of the scheduled release, but something odd happened: The digital files corrupted. Even that fateful morning, when the long storefront lines of times past reappeared for the historic moment and the first copies were sold and taken home, fans attempted to post snippets and sound bites online only to suffer the same fate. No one could explain it. No one knew what to make of it. But everyone wanted to hear it.
And there I was, seven hours later, trying to find the copy my buddy Robbie hid “behind the porcelain.”
I held a mallard like Hamlet. Downcast, I placed it back with its kin. I could listen to the album secondhand with Robbie this weekend, but I was really hoping to take a copy with me when I leave for Middle-of-Nowhere, Arizona next week. I’d graduated a couple weeks earlier and Mom, God bless her saintly soul, decided it was time I got to know my father. She raised me on her own and apparently never knew who the father was—sort of a Mamma Mia! situation—but the two of them had reconnected recently as friends so we did the test and voilà! I had a dad. We’d only chatted over video a couple awkward times and I had zero interest in the man, but it was her heart’s desire I get to know the guy, so…Arizona.
With a heavy sigh, I went from sit to squat to crouch. Someone else must have come across it. I’d seen several people scouring the store when I first entered. Either way, I had to get home in time to head to The Dinner with Mom. Robbie hadn’t answered any of my calls. Perhaps it was time to give up.
Or perhaps not.
The mid-crouch vantage point revealed a gap on the back of the bottom shelf I couldn’t see while I was criss-cross-applesauce. I showed my phone flashlight on it and immediately saw a couple inches of cardboard-brown packaging poking out. My heart like a kickdrum accelerando’d as my fingers graced the most holy outer covering. Utilizing painstaking perseverance, I pinched the corner with precision and power, prying the package over the precipice. This was the moment.
Shock. Horror. Devastation. Mild disgust. The packaging revealed itself to be 80-year-old Betty Barley’s 50th-anniversary release of her famous triple-platinum LP “Country Bumpkins.” Nothing against Betty, but if I have to listen to “Meet Me in the Pumpkin Patch After 3” one more time I will burn this city to the ground. It was a favorite of Mom’s and her tinnitus meant the radio was on 24/7. Decibels weren’t enough to measure the level of noise she’d turn the dial when Betty came on. The Richter scale could probably provide a more accurate reading.
Defeated, I took a quick picture and sent it to Robbie along with “Found the album” and an upside-down smiley face. I was on my way to return it to the LP shelves but pivoted to the counter. As much as I hated putting a tool of evil into my saintly Mom’s hands, I knew she’d love it. I won’t have to endure the music for more than a few days and then I’ll be halfway across the country. It’s a bearable sacrifice. I could make light of it and deflect, but truthfully the dread of leaving Mom had been at the forefront of my mind up until this album was announced.
I purchased the album, trying my best not to throw up when Mr. Howard said, “Ah! That’s one of my favorites!” and proceeded to hum “Meet Me in the Pumpkin Patch After 3” offkey.
Push the door, clang the bell, on my way.
My phone buzzed. A text from Robbie. It read:
“You better be grateful. The ghost of the person who got a Betty record in their Tony sleeve will probably haunt me the rest of their life.”
Confusion. Realization. Wary hope.
I opened the Betty Barley sleeve and pulled out the vinyl.
In my hands was Tony Flair’s newest LP.
In bold yellow letters across the center label it read:
Trashy.