to get through. The man sat in the front room of the record shop studying an auction circular of rare 78s. He made little checks next to certain entries with a red pencil, drinking occasionally from a greasy water glass. A pint bottle of Four Roses bourbon sat near to hand.
The red lightbulb in the ceiling went on. The man put the paper down and walked through the curtain to the back door. He checked the peephole, then opened the door partway. “Boss,” said a confidential voice in the dark. An ancient panel truck was parked in the alley behind the shop, “Cousin Beto’s Scrap Metal” painted on its side. A short, slightly built man with a large cardboard box stood waiting.
The box contained 78 records which the man with the pipe began to take out and examine. He handled the records expertly, like a bank teller counting money. The short man was Mexican, or Mexican and something else like Greek, with oily black hair ducktailed in the pachuco style and a wide leering mouth full of gold teeth. He watched the man closely.
“Nice, boss. Look at the condition,” he whispered. The man with the pipe regarded the Mexican and spoke for the first time with the pipestem clenched in his teeth. “Whiteman, Whiteman, Whiteman, Nick Lucas, Vernon Dalhart. Bunch of crap. Where are the sleeves?”
“I had to get out of there fast, boss, I had to leave the sleeves. But I got something special, something you really gonna like. Columbia Black Label, brand new.” He held it properly, as the man had taught him always to do, by the edges. His gold rings flashed in the light, especially the ones on his right hand, since there were six fingers instead of the routine five.
The man took the record and turned it this way and that, examining the grooves and the silver inscription that read “Ma Rainey, colored singer with piano acc. by Clarence Williams, recorded in New York, 1923.”
“Where’d you get this?” he said in a flat, accusing tone.
“Boss, listen. It’s a lady, down on Thirty-third. Her old man was a collector, like you. They’re in the garage! Bluebird, Paramount, Columbia, Okeh! This is el mero mero, boss.
“What’s the setup?”
“She’s a gabacha. In the house twenty years. Two poodle dogs inside. Garage is in the back. Original boxes. You gonna love it, boss!”
“Who else knows?”
“A kid brings her groceries from the tienda on the corner. He’s always looking for old cars down there. He got the key and went into the garage. He found this. He says it’s got muchos hermanos más!”
“The key?”
“She likes him, she lets him see.”
“Get it.”
“She keeps the keys on a string around la cintura.”
“Get the key.”
The deliveryman pointed to the box of records on the table. “Y éstos?”
“Junk,” said the man, turning back into the doorway. The deliveryman took the box and put it back in the truck. It had seen better days and was full of rust, but the motor made almost no sound as he drove away.
Sunday morning, the shop doorbell rang and it was Herman. “Brother Ray, what you got planned for today?”
“Just trying to decide between a bench in Union Station and a bench in Pershing Square.”
“We going to pay a social call on a high-tone Christian white lady named Ida.”
“The one with all the records?”
“That’s just what I’m talkin’ about! See, we tryin’ to be a little more visible over at the church. We got some old people need help and some young people that’s gonna need help. Those that haven’t had all the advantages like you and me.”
“All the advantages?”
“Yes. You learned a useful trade, didn’t you? You just getting relocated now, but you’ll do all right. Some of these young ones, here, they might wake up one day and find they ain’t got nothin’ now, and ain’t never gonna get a doggone thing. What then? So we tryin’ to raise a little money to start a night school. I told Ida, she can take it off her income tax!”
It took most of Sunday to move the record boxes over to the church social hall. “Gonna have a big sale with all these babies! We gonna call it ‘Jumpin’ at the Record Shop!’ ” Herman was thrilled, Ida was pleased. She gave us iced tea.
That’s a drink I never cared for, but it helped wash away the dust. It was an old-style bungalow with giant pink and blue hydrangeas all around the outside and white lace doilies everywhere on the inside. Plenty of photographs of Ida with a weak-eyed, weak-chinned man I took to be the late Mr. Ida. I was afraid to get dust all over the doilies, so I had my tea standing up. “Well, if it’s of some use to your people, then I feel satisfied. My late husband wanted to be interred with his records, but I was disinclined. Korla Pandit played the organ for us at the funeral service, in person. Such a kind man. Very comforting. He had a vision in which he saw me moving towards a new life in Spokane, Washington. Korla says Spokane is an important spiritual center. You know, another man expressed interest in the records, but I didn’t particularly care for his aura. And, there were six fingers on his right hand? Six and five is eleven, a sinister signpost, as Korla would say. Sit down, young man, don’t be bashful. More tea?” I sat. One of her French poodles tried to bite my leg. “My late husband read his evening paper there. He always listened to his records out in the garage when we had our circle. Frank was very thoughtful and considerate.”
My back hurt from lifting all day. I changed clothes and drove downtown. The girl was there with her tamale setup. “Dos de pollo,” I said. She was surprised.
“Bueno, habla español?” she asked.
“How ’bout vamos por some nice quiet place?”
“Tiene un carro?” The same in any language.
“I got a car, un Chevy.”
“Una ranfla!”
“Cuándo you get finito?”
“A las siete.” She had me there, I didn’t know the numbers. She took hold of my wrist and pointed to seven on my watch.
“Solid!” I said.
“Qué?”
“I mean, that’s good. Hasta seven o’clock?”
“Hasta las siete en punto.” It seemed easy, maybe a little too easy.
I came back at 6:30 and parked down the street where I could watch the girl. I couldn’t figure out what the hell I was going to do. Invite her out for Mexican food? Invite her out to learn English? Maybe some people don’t care about English, like they’re fine how they are. It started to rain. At 6:45, an old Ford delivery truck pulled up. Two guys got out and put the tamale cart in the back. I could see the thing was heavy, and they were little guys. Kiko had the coat this time, and Smiley had the undershirt. So, how do they decide? That’s the thing that puzzled me the most. The girl got
