78 RPM
James Gapinski
I’m a writer. I’ve had one short story and a handful of poems published. Hardly enough prestige to quit my day job; which involves selling vintage records to middle-aged people and the occasional teenager who can scrounge up enough money to afford his or her favorite LP on vinyl. Of course the adolescent customers are few and far between, partly because they are always broke, but mostly because my store doesn’t carry the type of music that the youth enjoy. My store specializes in bands from the 60s and 70s. I’ll occasionally stock some stuff from a decade above or below that range, but such occurrences are pretty rare. It seems like most kids these days only like what MTV tells them to. They wouldn’t know the Beatles from the Beach Boys or Billy Joel from Elton John.
There is this one real sharp kid though, Peter is his name, he’s one of the teens that I see on a regular basis. Even when he doesn’t have the cash to by an album he will come in on occasion just to shoot the shit. I’ve been lonely lately, and I guess having the company is nice. The kid knows his stuff too, and when that youngster sets his mind on getting an album he won’t take no for an answer; which of course can be a pain in the ass for me, ‘cause the kid knows his stuff. He always wants the obscure albums that are ridiculously hard to find. And to tell the truth, half of the time when I do get my mitts on one of the records Peter is looking for, I’ll hide it away in my private stash and tell him I was unable to locate a copy.
He’s got this friend too, kind of nerdy lookin’ kid, reminds me of me at that age. You know the type that I mean; the sort of kid that has a plethora of Star Wars t-shirts, wears those thick-rimmed glasses, and revels in any opportunity to show off his knowledge of the Klingon language. I guess I don’t mind when he brings the nerdy kid around, ‘cause as I mentioned before, I can really use the company.
* * *
So I’m a writer, right? Well I’m working on this play right now. I figure I can give drama a shot. I haven’t had much luck “breaking out” into the fiction or poetry market, so why the hell not try drama, right? I decided a few months ago that I wanted to write a piece about the war, a real jazzed up contemporary piece. Breaking down the fourth wall, mixing up the chronology of the play, the works—like Margaret Edson’s Wit.
I know what I want to do with the piece, but I don’t know how to do it. I wanna write an anti-war play, something that’ll maybe change a few minds in favor of peace and reason. The only problem is that I don’t know how to depict war in a way that will help display its malevolence.
I digress, I saw this lecturer a few weeks ago at some college in the area, I don’t remember the name of the campus, but I damn well remember the speaker. Chris Hedge’s was the name, author of some book or another, War is a Force That Gives us Meaning or some jazz like that. So he explains how war is like a drug, how even amid its gruesome details, those who are enticed by the myth of war will become intoxicated by its essence. War gives people an adrenaline rush, and they suddenly feel as if they have something to live for. To rally around the apparent truth and justice of a noble campaign gives John and Jane Doe meaning beyond their crappy 9 to 5 jobs and bratty kids—war gives us all meaning and lets American society feel like it is part of “something more.”
It made perfect sense; this Hedge’s guy was really onto something. He told of all the times he’d seen war firsthand as a reporter for the Times. Yet despite the unease that it churned in his gut, he craved war and he was drawn to it. Just like we all stop and look at the car crash on the side of the freeway, even though we feel like we shouldn’t stare, he too was drawn to the wreckage of war. War entices and enchants, it is impossible to ignore its vociferous presence. Even the works of those who speak out against the evils of war can become a part of its sinister seduction. Hedges explained about this group of marines that would watch anti-war films before battle to psyche themselves out and get ready for killing. Where some might see horror and mayhem, those who are addicted to the drug of war see honor and glory. The addiction does not stop at the battle field or the military base, it is in our very homes as we all reverently buy into the myth of the “just” war.
Therein lies my dilemma, how do I create an anti-war play that does not show war? How do I avoid feeding the addiction with images of war, yet still accurately portray the horror of war? Hedges mentioned this French film from the 50s called Forbidden Games that was a good example of an effective anti-war film. I had seen the film before, but felt compelled to watch it again after Hedges mentioned it in his lecture. It is this flick where two kids find dead animals and bury them, real grizzly stuff. But battle is not really shown, only alluded to. It portrays the aftereffects of war without glorifying the callous killing that precedes such events.
I am not really sure how to go about making an effective anti-war play, but I am sure I can figure it out. I am a good writer after all, I can do it if I put my mind to it.
* * *
So I walk into my store on Friday, right? And there is this dopey kid sitting there. After I stare at him for a few minutes with no recollection the kid tells me that he is Peter’s friend, the nerdy kid, Robert was his name. I didn’t recognize the kid without his glasses.
“Yeah, what do you want?” I asked the kid.
“Is Peter’s CD in yet?” Robert asked. “He wanted me to come by before school and pick it up for him.”
“I’ve told you before, this store doesn’t sell CDs, we sell vinyl,” I stated.
“Well do you have it or not?”
“No, I haven’t got it yet. Tell Peter he can come by anytime after school today and I should have it by then,” I told the nerd. Truth of it was that I really did have the album, but I wanted to listen to it before I sold it to Peter. The kid had wanted me to get a hold of a 45 for him, the first one ever released by The Sonics in 1964, it had “The Witch” and “Keep A Knockin’” on it.
Peter came by later that day after school to pick up the 45. I mentioned that I didn’t recognize Robert without his glasses, to that Peter replied, “Yeah, he looks kind of funny without ‘em.”
“So did he get contacts then?” I asked.
“No, he’s trying to see what it is like walkin’ around without ‘em,” Peter told me.
“Why the hell would he do that?”
“‘Cause he is going into the army,” Peter explained, “and at boot camp they are probably gonna make him not wear his glasses, or at least that’s what he’s heard. I dunno if that is true or not. But anyway, he wants to get used to it now instead of once he’s there doin’ pushups in the mud.”
“The army! Why the hell is he going into the army? He is just a kid damnit,” I said, nearly shouting.
“He’s 19, he isn’t a kid.”
“That scrawny little punk is 19?” I exclaimed, unable to believe it.
“Yup,” Peter confirmed.
“Well why the hell is he joining the army?” I asked.
“‘Cause he wants to go to college, and he doesn’t have any other way of getting the money.”
“Does he agree with the war?”
“I dunno,” Peter stated with a shrug.
“You don’t know?” I nearly exploded. “How can you not know? You damn kids, you’re too apathetic. What you need is a draft to get you riled up a bit. Then maybe you’d start caring about the damn war.”
“Calm down, I was just...” Peter started to say before I cut him off.
“You damn kids, you’ve gotta stand up and start making some noise. You’re the ones that are fighting this war, not the bluehairs in Washington. People like your nerd friend, who never did nothin’ to nobody and were good, sweet, decent kids. You’re the ones that are going to go bleed...”
I ranted like that for a while. I kept mumbling things under my breath all day, long after Peter had left with his 45. Later that night, outraged at the prospect of this innocent nerd enlisting, I started to write Act One of my play. I only ended up with a few sentences worth keeping and a whole lot of crinkled papers in the wastebasket. It was difficult trying to write a play portraying the misery of war, but I was sure I could do it—I am a writer after all.
* * *
So a few weeks later Peter came in again, he brought Robert with him. I could tell Peter wasn’t gonna buy anything, ‘cause he started perusing the shelves. He only browsed the store stock when he didn’t have money to spend. That kid was too smart to buy anything off the shelves. Peter knew that all the good stuff was only available by request.
He picked through some old Dave Clark Five LPs while a couple of bluehairs purchased a Don McLean album. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a little McLean now and then, but the man’s records aren’t exactly worth buying, especially at my prices; those two geezers could have bought the record at a pawn shop for half as much.
Once the elderly couple exited the shop Peter and that nerdy kid came up to the counter.
“What do you want?” I asked curtly. I was glad for some company, but I was never the type of person to let on that I was lonely.
“Just stopped by to say hi,” Peter said.
“You listen to that Sonics 45 yet?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s pretty good.”
Not even bothering with anymore small talk, I immediately jumped into the meat of things. “So why are you joining up Robert?”
“I want a college education,” he told me.
“And you can’t get it any other way?”
“Nope, student loans won’t cover enough of it,” he explained grimly, “and if you haven’t noticed, the government doesn’t really help people out unless they are willing to pick up a gun.”
“Rifle,” Peter said.
“What?” I asked, almost in unison with Robert’s “huh?”
“I heard somewhere that the army doesn’t like to call ‘em guns. You gotta call it a rifle,” Peter explained.
“No way, that can’t be true,” Robert said.
“I am just telling ya what I heard,” Peter said in his own defense.
“So do you agree with the war?” I asked Robert.
“Hell no!” He exclaimed. “I wish I had other options, but I don’t.”
“Yeah, you always seemed like a sharp kid, I figured you wouldn’t buy into all that war mongering crap.”
“I really don’t wanna go, I’ve been really depressed about it,” Robert said—it was actually more than I cared to know, but I let him talk. “I just don’t know what else to do.”
“It won’t be too bad,” Peter said in hopes of comforting the whiney little nerd.
“Yes it will be,” Robert said. “Even if I never see battle, pledging to kill human beings in the name of the country—well who am I kidding—in the name of money, is something that goes against everything that I believe in.”
“You’ll be fine,” Peter told him, “I doubt that we’d be over there fighting a war if it wasn’t for a just cause.”
“There is no such thing as a just war,” I butted in, “only a necessary war.”
“There have too been just wars,” Peter stated matter-of-factly.
“No there haven’t,” I told him. “When violence appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”
“I’ve heard that somewhere,” Robert commented.
“Gandhi.”
“Oh,” Robert said with a nod.
* * *
Robert started coming in more often during the couple of weeks before he was shipped off to Basic. Sometimes he’d even come in all by himself, and without an errand to run. I think the kid was starting to take a shine to me; maybe ‘cause we saw eye to eye on this war thing, and from what I could tell, Peter didn’t really seem to give a shit either way.
So he comes in this one day, right? And the nerd is all teary eyed. He tells me that he is going away next weekend. I, of course, don’t really know what to say. I am not good with emotional stuff. “I’m scared,” he told me.
“You’ll be fine. Can’t you be a conscientious objector or something?” I asked.
“I’m not scared about having to kill anybody,” he told me. That made my stomach turn a bit, I couldn’t understand how a kid like him wouldn’t be worried about killing a person. “I’m scared about liking it,” he said.
“What?” I asked, partly outraged and partly curious.
“I have grown up in a culture that has taught me that violence equals power,” Robert explained.
“Any moron with a sharpened stick can end a life,” I told him, “violence is not power. True power is the ability to save a life.”
“I know that in my heart, but what if one day soon I don’t know it in my head?” He asked me, more tears streamed down his face. “The human body is frail, I could easily squeeze a trigger and snuff out a life. What if I get a rush? I would have the ability to end a life. I would have power over that person’s very existence. What if I lost my head and ended that life?”
“I know you won’t,” I told him. “You’re a sharp kid. I know the army won’t harden you.”
“But maybe it will. I don’t know what it’ll be like. What if it changes me? I don’t want to kill anybody,” Robert whimpered.
“Kid, quit crying,” I told him. “This is a place of business. What if some customers come in and they see a kid ballin’ in here?”
“Fine, gimme that Stiff Little Fingers album that you got behind the counter. Then I’ll be a paying customer and I’ll have every right to be sittin’ here crying about this shit.”
“I’m sorry Robert, I didn’t mean it like that,” I said, partly trying to calm the kid down, and partly ‘cause I really was sorry.
“You really want the CD, you can have it. Here, take it. It’s yours, on the house,” I told him, pulling out the record and offering it to him.
“It’s not a CD, it’s fucking vinyl!” Robert screamed. He flipped up the gray hood attached to his coat and he walked out into the cold December air, I never saw the kid again—well not alive anyway.
* * *
About a year later I got invited to his funeral. I opened the invitation and I could feel my knees buckling from under me, as if a great burden had been placed upon me. I locked up the store and sat in the rickety chair behind the counter through most of the night. I listened to that Stiff Little Fingers album. The record player started spazzing out about half way through the song “Wasted Life,” and it kept playing the same few lines over and over again. “Killing isn’t my idea of fun / They wanna waste my life / They wanna waste my time / They wanna waste my life / And they’ve stolen it away,” the lyrics repeated. I kicked the player, it started working fine again after that.
I worked a bit more on my play after I finally ended up going home. I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I might as well do something productive, right? It had been forever since I wrote any new lines for it; I had just kept toying with the same few lines from Act One over and over again. I’m sure I can finish it sometime within the next year though, I’m a good writer damn it.
* * *
So I go to the funeral, right? And they do that whole jazz with the flag over the coffin. This young lookin’ guy, couldn’t be more than 25, he folded up the flag into a neat little triangle and handed it to Robert’s mother. I had never met her before, she was probably about my age. I never had kids, and God knows that I never wanted them—dirty little bastards drove me nuts most of the time. But for that brief moment, as she clutched that flag, I felt like I knew her, like Robert had been our child. I don’t think there was a father in the picture. Robert’s dad must’ve either been a deadbeat or six feet under, ‘cause he wasn’t at the funeral. So maybe I was the next best thing, right? Yeah, I’d be a good dad.
It wasn’t like you see in the movies, I can say that for sure. It wasn’t raining, there wasn’t a bugler playing taps, and there sure as hell was not that touching scene where the mother pines over the flag with respect and honor as she clutches it to her bosom. Robert’s mother didn’t look comforted, or honored, or even sad—she looked angry. She dug her fingers into the flag as tears continued to fall from her eyes. She ground her teeth and breathed heavily, as if she might explode in the same way that the grenade that killed Robert had.
They said he died quickly, but I dunno; it was an open-casket funeral, so I figured that most of the shrapnel damage must’ve been below his waist line where the casket remained closed. Something tells me that getting your legs blown off wouldn’t be a very quick death—but what do I know? I’m no coroner, I just sell records.
It was a small funeral, Peter didn’t come, I don’t know what became of him after he left the area earlier that year. He went off to some university, not one of the area colleges, he went out of state. His family was pretty well-to-do, so I expect that it was a good school. He’ll get a fancy degree and land a good job someday.
Maybe I’ll see Peter coming back into my shop a few years from now with barrels of cash to buy all of the records that he couldn’t afford when he was younger. I doubt it though; he’ll probably move out to the suburbs and order all his records through the mail. He always did seem like the sensible type that might do that.
I still couldn’t figure out why I had been invited to the funeral. I guess Robert didn’t have a lot of friends.
* * *
I talked to Robert’s mother after the burial and all that ceremonial jazz was over. She said that Robert was pretty fond of me. I guess my earlier premonitions were right, ‘cause she said that Robert told her that I was like a father figure to him. Go figure, me, a father.
Apparently he mentioned me a lot in the letters that he had wrote his mom. He said that he didn’t wanna write to me until after he was out of the army; he thought I’d be disappointed in him—disappointed in what he’d become. I don’t think I would have been, but who knows. I’d probably still hold him in the same regard, he’d always be that little nerd kid to me—nothing more, nothing less.
Later that night I worked on my play some more, I ended up scrapping most of it again. Even the parts of Act One that I had been toying around with for over a year ended up in the trash. A few months later I decided to give up on writing the play. Who was I kidding; I couldn’t write an anti-war story. Especially not now, how could I write objectively when my son had been killed in battle? Besides, I’m not a writer, I’m just some guy who owns a record store.
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