I lay in bed with my eyes closed, daydreaming of another life. I stand outside my record shop, with a cigarette in my left hand and a tattooed spider climbing up my arm, watching the people roll in and out of the front door. I’ve taken up smoking because I quit drinking and I need a vice – it’s okay though – I don’t smoke much. In truth I only took it up to convince myself that I’m cool and I will do anything to make myself feel cool. Even if I am the only person who thinks it.
Inside the shop is my girl – well, she’s not ‘my’ girl, but we are together – we make each other very happy and have been together and happy since the day we met. She is a goddess. She sits inside picking at her guitar and singing. She has perfect command of her guitar and the only thing more beautiful than her face and than her soul is her voice. I try to kid myself that people come to my shop for the way I have it decorated – with leather sofas, 50′s pin-ups on the wall, beads in the doorways and shisha – or for the records that I have on sale, but I know deep down that they come to look at her, to watch her, to listen to her and it makes me proud. It makes me feel warm inside.
When she isn’t serenading my customers she’s a writer. A journalist, to be precise. It helps pay the bills. I don’t shift enough copies of old delta blues and 60′s psych-rock records to pay for the roof and the food and our kicks. I write too, but I’m not successful. I don’t try to be. I write solely for her. Little poems and short stories here and there for her eyes only. I never feel that they are any good but she cherishes them and I love her for that.
Then there’s the kid. Our kid. Little Johnny. I named him after one of my punk heroes, but he hates me calling him Little Johnny. He prefers Jonathon. Nor does he like the music of the New York Dolls or the Heartbreakers. It’s funny how these things work out. Despite this set back his taste in music amazes me. For a kid it is incredible. In fact, everything about him amazes me. He comes home from school, picks out his favourite records and plays them on repeat while he paints or draws. He is going to be a great artist. I’d love to write a comic with him but I know my writing won’t match up to his talent. I’ve never told him that though. I probably never will. I’ll just keep encouraging him and watching him grow up into a fine young bohemian.
I smile because I know I have it all. Things could not be better. It’s always at this point that I start to open my eyes. My room is dark except for the small blue light in the corner where my CD player is alive. I’m alone in bed and no ink stains my skin. The dull ache in my liver is particularly bad this evening and is keeping me from sleeping. I can only lay on my back and listen to the music play. It’s the last song from Richmond Fontaine’s “Thirteen Cities” album and Willy Vlautin’s words haunt my room. “I barely know who I am”. He sings on, and it’s like he is singing to me. Taunting me.
“I’m just lost in this world.
Lost in this world.
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