Vigilantes of Love (3 page)

She kissed me on the cheek and it was so.

The next morning, the hill to Eva’s house seemed flat as Ohio. I was as jaunty as a boy after his first date, and I longed to share my story with Eva, the woman who’d made it all possible.

I was early with her coffee, but I couldn’t wait. Her shutters were already open as I vaulted up the steps and called inside.

“Eva? Coffee Boy.”

I’d called myself Coffee Boy since the first week of bringing her this morning treat, though I looked farther from a boy every day.

There was no answer.

I tried the latch. The door was open, so I stepped inside. I set the coffee down on the table, saw a paper with my name on it. I unfolded it and read the cramped, tiny script addressed to me.

It was the first note I had received in years. And the worst ever.

    
Drink the coffee, Antonio. It’s yours. Tonight I will sleep with the shutters undone. She has called me for too long. I must answer.

     My daughter is gone before me, my son is a world away. And you… you are my finest child. But you do not need me any longer. Already I can feel her pulling me to the windows, and it is only eight o’clock. She barely wakes.

     Drink the coffee, Antonio. And bring your bride to live in my home. You’ll find, in my will, that it is yours now.   Aren’t you glad you painted it pink? Now you may repaint it blue if you like! Or purple! I have only one request: close the shutters on the night of the moon and hold your Soo Lee tight then. The moon has called you once, and she will never forget you. Nor will I.

-Eva

“Eva?” I called again, but it came out as a whispered croak.

The morning light was climbing with heavy orange fingers through the front room, and sliding down the walls in her bedroom. I didn’t have to move much to look across the hallway and see that her bed was still made, and the white stockinged foot atop it lay still and silent.

I couldn’t go into her room then. Instead, I sat down at her table, and slowly, with tremulous slurps, drank her coffee.

“I’ve seen a lot of broken hearts in time
and I’ve had my share as well
Every story’s different
but the pain’s the same, they tell.”
–Industrial Disease, “Why Fall In Love?”

She worked at the Record Stop and her name was Lissa.   
I write this down because they’re both gone now. Something should remain, even if it’s only the fragment of my memory. Call this my love story to Lissa. And the Stop. I do miss them both. Maybe you do, too.

Of course, the first time I tried to get her attention, I was looking at her name badge sideways and I got it wrong. I called out “Hey Lisa,” and her manager cranked his head sideways and gave me a “you moron” look. But he didn’t say anything. They called him “The Master,” which was also the name of the alternative radio show he did late night on the local public radio station.

“It’s Lissa,” she corrected softly, drawing out the “S” as a smile lit up that wan, thin face. She had dark wide eyes shadowing a face barely wide enough to encircle them. Her chin was narrow and her hair an intricate black maze of braids and colored beads. I think I loved her the first time I saw her. I like to think she was sweet on me, too, even if I got her name wrong.

“Can I help you?” she asked, and I suddenly realized that I had absolutely nothing in mind to ask her. One of the store’s cats darted between my legs and I followed its path with my eyes, looking for something to pin a question on.

“Um, yeah,” I said. My eyes settled on a poster for Mabel’s, the black-painted rock bar across the street. “Do you have the new Savage Republic in yet?”

She followed my gaze to the concert poster. Savage Republic was scheduled to play on Friday.

“Yeah, I think so,” she said. “Over here.”

She slipped out from behind the cluttered counter and led me through the stacks of just-bought and unfiled used records to the “What’s New” display in the center of the store. I followed, watching the paramecia of her purple and black paisley skirt swish and swim as she moved. When she pointed to the album, displayed amid a jumble of other unfamiliar titles, I barely even looked at it, just grabbed it with one hand. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

She didn’t seem to notice, though. She pursed her lips in a quick smile and continued down the aisle.

“Thanks,” I called after her, holding the album in my hands. I didn’t really want it; I had never heard of Savage Republic before, and I never bought new records; didn’t have the cash for such extravagance. But I spent nearly everything in my wallet to buy it that day. Turns out it was pretty cool.

The next time I was in, I remember Lissa was at the counter as I vaulted up the claustrophobic stairs from the busy street below. Record Stop was on the second floor of the campus main street, and its narrow flight of painted steps was worth exploring all by itself. Years of graffiti covered the grey walls on the climb up, promoting bands and bars and, naturally, promiscuous sorority girls. She smiled when she saw I was waiting at the edge of the counter for her attention, and pointed me in the direction of the latest new underground release from the Bomp label.

Lissa turned me on to a
lot
of cool bands over the next few weeks. Record Stop was the ultimate college music store in the ‘80s; its walls were covered with posters of alternative artists (back when the word “alternative” actually defined something) and were filled in equal measures with cool Europop LPs from Ultravox and Yello and Alison Moyet to the more obscure but national underground bands like Husker Du and The Mekons to local artists like The Elvis Brothers and Paul Chastain (who a decade later would find his niche backing up Matthew Sweet). R.E.M. had set the guitar world on its ear with
Murmur
a couple years before and instead of the blistering power anthem solos of the ‘70s, the store was usually filled with the echoey strumming of Galaxie 500 or the ethereal dark gothicism of Dead Can Dance and The Cocteau Twins. Or Romeo Void. Or Colourbox. You usually didn’t know what the hell the noise was coming from the speakers, but it was always edgy. Blurred vocals for blurred moods. You felt connected to something secret and powerful when you stood still and lingered in Record Stop.

“Who’s that you’re playing?” I’d ask Lissa, after roaming the store a few minutes and listening to the often cacophonous sound raging through the store. I didn’t want it to look like I’d come in just to see her. But I had.

“The Flaming Lips,” she said once when I asked about one particularly noisy bit of treble-heavy, punky distortion. “They suck,” I proclaimed.

“They’re playing Chin’s tomorrow,” she said, pointing out the LIVE FROM NEBRASKA poster by the door.

“Think they’ll hire a lead singer by then?”

She grinned. I thought maybe I had a chance with her.

“Who do
you
like?” I asked.

She tilted her head, staring at the ceiling for a moment and then slowly began to twirl around.

“Everything,” she proclaimed with drama, hands reaching out towards the wall displays that featured the latest from Joy Division, Bauhaus, Psychedelic Furs, The dB’s, and more. The New Releases wall was always my favorite because it had such diversity, and spotlighted all these bizarre albums that never hit the front window displays of other stores. Of course, the discs the chain record stores featured in their window displays weren’t even available at the Stop. Each one of Record Stop’s wall picks had a little circular sticker on it with a one or two-sentence description penned by the store manager. My favorite for weeks was an album by some band called Dali’s Car that had a cover seemingly captured in heaven. The album was like a classic painting: two figures flanked by Roman pillars, all the colors washed in skyblue and gold. I never bought it, but it looked excellent – a magical moment captured and shared without permission of the divine.

“Even this?” I asked about the Flaming Lips song currently blaring.

“Sure,” she said. “They have energy.”

And then came my delivery. “You wanna go see them tomorrow with me?”

“You don’t want to see them,” she said. “But thanks.”

She winked at me and slipped away down the aisle, one of the store’s cats leaping across the record bins to follow her. The grey one I think.

I sneezed and the opportunity was lost. She’d started talking to another guy who was leafing through the racks of $1.99 specials.

I always sneezed in that store. I loved coming inside and browsing the racks and racks of albums, from the late ‘60s Simon & Garfunkel and Seals and Crofts albums reeking of the mold from someone’s flooded basement, to the Ambrosia and Toto leftovers of the ‘70s to the black and white, obscene cartoonish covers of the underground singles from the latest local bands of the ‘80s. Between the mold from old water damaged records and the cats, I always left with a runny nose.

In the back of the store was a small video rental section. Classic kitsch and cult fare –
A Clockwork Orange,
Peter Seller’s
Pink Panther
movies, a good selection of Russ Meyer’s films (including
Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill,
as I recall), Hammer horror films and even, I think,
I Spit On Your Grave.
Behind that was a stairway leading up. I asked Lissa where it went to one day, and she shrugged.

“I think they keep extra stock and stuff there.”

“You’ve never been there?”

She looked puzzled for a second, then said, “Nope,” and smiled. “Not allowed.”

“Not allowed?”

She shrugged again and breezed away, leaving me craning to see up the blue-grey painted steps to the dark brown wooden door at the top. The black cat slid between my legs and leapt to the third step, then turned to stare at me, green eyes flaring.

I let it go. I wish that had been the last I’d thought of it. But my mind does grab onto things and chew and chew.

Another day, as I dashed past the stairway scrawl proclaiming The Slits as the best babes ever, Lissa was alone at the counter, and I went right to her.

“Hey,” I said. “Heard anything good lately?”

She was wearing a deep blue summer dress, tie-dyed with waves of purple and blue. It made her look pale, but beautiful. Her hair hung in lazy black twists over her shoulders, and her eyes seemed especially dark. I wondered if she’d been out drinking at Mabel’s the night before.

“No,” she said, covering a yawn with her hand.

“Catch a show last night?”

She shook her head, again.

We talked about something, just B.S., and behind me a couple of punkers came in, hair bright pink and alert like the crest of a cockatoo. The Master started towards the front of the store and Lissa whispered.

“C’mon, he’s in a bad mood today.”

We walked to the back of the store and he scowled at me as I went past. This was a guy you didn’t want to piss off. His soft spoken descriptions of the barrage of guitar distortion that he played on his radio show were a stark contrast to the waist length black hair and steel blue eyes that seemed to pop out of his skull when he looked right at you. He was probably a nice guy, but he looked like he could rip your arm off and then laugh about it. I avoided him when I could.

Back by the cult videos, I nodded toward the stairs.

“The Master’s busy, wanna see what’s up there?”

I swear she trembled at the suggestion.

“No, I couldn’t,” she said. She clutched the doorjamb as she peered up the stairs, but then pulled herself back as if from vertigo.

“Aren’t you curious what’s up there?” I asked. Call me the devil.

“Yeah,” she admitted slowly. “But if he catches me up there…today would be a bad day to try.”

I let it go. “You busy tonight?”

“Yeah.”

Strike two.

I think it was Lissa who convinced me to buy the first This Mortal Coil record,
It’ll End In Tears,
because I can’t play it even now without thinking of her. Not long after, I bought their second, the double album
Filigree & Shadow,
too. Back in college, I used to turn all the lights off and lie on the floor listening to the reverb-drenched tape loops and haunting voices, as if it was the music of angels. It sure sounded like it.

“You can just feel the other side,” she told me. She was right.

“You can always trust an artist if they have soul,” she said once.

“You mean, like, Aretha Franklin?” I asked, leery. I never liked Aretha.

“No, I mean…” she pointed at a grotesque album cover with a picture of a shrivelled, aborted baby’s hand enclosed in an adult’s palm. The Dead Kennedys. “Like there,” she said. “They aren’t afraid to put it out there. The music might be loud and abrasive, but you know they’re going to go all the way. Someone who has an album cover like that is going to push to the corners of their soul for their music. Or take Cocteau Twins. You look at their albums and you know that they believe in beauty and mystery and art, and they’re going to do their best to deliver it to you. They’ve got soul.”

“So anybody who puts out an interesting album cover has soul?” I said, deliberately misinterpreting her.