Absolution

By peering into the tape collection of somebody, it reveals an awful lot about their person. I’d inherited the majority of my father’s collection and refused to throw out even the most played and wrecked tapes – people claimed I was a messy hoarder, but they were alphabetically organized. I guess my hoarding showed my family values and that problem of sentiment (that clearly I had inherited from my mother as nobody else in my godforsaken family held any). The tape that I cherished most was this mix tape I found jammed in the back of the glove compartment after I was gifted the car.

Clearly it had been a well played and well forgotten present, simply saying on the torn white sticker ‘To Mary, love John’. It was mainly Simon and Garfunkel, there may have been two Crosby, Stills and Nash tracks; but the tape was obviously recorded during a good period of my father’s life. The songs reminded me of my mother’s smile and the warmth she radiated; it reminded me of a better time, one without stress, loneliness and that awful sinking feeling I almost constantly had.

The oldest tapes I had were all late sixties/early seventies tapes that just screamed happy memories, ones that I myself had repurchased but cherished the original copies. The more intact the tape, the newer the purchase. Any tape bought 1983+ would have been replaced multiple times – those ones held no real significance to me, just gave memories of bad times and the end of my childhood.

Before I returned to get drinks with the kid, I sent my brother a postcard with a picture of a surfing dog, signing it, “America – Simon & Garfunkel. I miss you.” I scratched out the last sentence and sent it, breathing in deeply through my nose as I pushed the card through the ail slit. I caught a glimpse of a record store sign in my peripheral vision and raced in, heading straight for the ‘L’ section and picking up a copy of Led Zeppelin’s How the West Was Won. I paid quickly and wandered to the bar with the tape in my pocket.

When I walked in, the light was dim, a Nancy Sinatra song was playing and the smoke blinded me for a brief moment. My eyes cleared up and I looked around, noticing a tall figure in a red polyester jacket calling me over. I acknowledged him and he turned to face the bar as I approached, holding up two fingers and shaking my hand when I reached him. The bartender placed two glasses of whiskey down in front of us and the kid gestured for me to take one, I leant against the bar and sipped on the liquid, savouring the feeling of the burn going down my throat.

He asked me how I spent the rest of my day and I hesitantly explained how I’d sat in my motel room, contemplating whether or not to phone my brother. I didn’t add that it was due to the overwhelming feeling of sadness that had hit me and had me considering putting a gun in my mouth. I also didn’t add that the only comprehensible reason as to why I was giving him an insight into my head was due to his extremely similar nature to my brother, despite the English accent, softer features and naivety to the darkness that surrounded him. He then asked why I couldn’t just go and visit him. He answered his question when he looked up at my face, clearly betraying me, and nodded slowly and without any noise.

The kid rapidly changed the subject and then began to explain the “enchantress” to me. He spoke so quickly, accent getting far more difficult to understand. I picked out him describing her as a Janis Joplin who looked like a 1950s starlet and then he slowed down, saying he knew her and that they’d spoke multiple times. He said that the only reason that he’d said I should have come was due to her personality and not so much the music, which was fantastic, he assured me, but that he thought we’d get along “like a house on fire”. He then stated that he never really understood that simile, so he wasn’t sure why he used it, but I laughed and shook my head, telling him it was okay.

He looked around the large, busy room, squinting towards the corners and then lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke out in ribbons through his nose. The lights grew even dimmer and a sweaty man took to the stage, putting his hand around the microphone; the kid looked to me and pointed at his cigarette with a curious glint in his eye, I nodded and he passed me one, along with his Oasis lighter. I placed the cigarette end between my lips and set the end alight as the sweaty guy left the stage and on came a woman in a knee-length white dress with her hair tied back, but with curly strands framing her heart shaped face.

The kid looked to me with a hopeful smile and I shrugged, biting on the inside of my lip. I leaned in close to his ear and asked him if all he was doing was attempting to set us up, he shrugged, laughed and replied with, “Pretty much, yeah.” I rolled my eyes and found myself surprised when after listening to her introduce herself in a sugar sweet voice, she began to sing with these deep, whiskey-soaked vocals. The kid was right, I found myself entranced by the singer, as did he, obviously, as he was looking up at her with ridiculous amounts of awe and admiration. The girl sang of life like she knew it, like it had gone out of its way just to screw her over – she cried her way through a song, evoking so much emotion from the crowd that by the end of her set, those who weren’t already standing were and the applause she got was thunderous and made the walls shake.

A skinny man with track-marked arms kissed her cheek and handed her a single, waxy white rose and she smiled towards him, climbing down the marble stairs of the stage and heading towards the bar. The lights brightened again and the kid turned to me, wiping his eyes and lighting another cigarette. He asked me if it was worth taking time out of my moping to see this and I nodded, downing my disgustingly watered down whiskey and ordering two more, without ice. He thanked me, picking up one of the two glasses and took a sip before lightly touching my upper arm and weaving his way through the people suddenly crowding at the bar, I blinked and my eyebrows knitted together – he returned a minute later dragging the singer with him. He introduced us, told her I didn’t know anybody other than him and was the kind of guy to get into a bar fight within minutes, so she had to keep me company whilst he played his set.

He slipped me a piece of paper, tipped an invisible hat and disappeared, leaving me staring at this girl’s pale, freckled shoulder and the pink floral and black lace bra strap sticking out from under the thick white straps of her dress. She stubbed out her cigarette in a glass ashtray and curled her long fingers around the belt loop on my dark blue jeans, pulling me through the crowd to an empty booth. She sat facing me with her rose, another cigarette and glass of golden champagne, studying my face intently. Her hand was resting on her top lip, right index finger pointing upwards, nail grazing her high cheekbone. Her lips parted and she cocked her head to the right, stray curls falling in her face.

I commended her for her performance and asked her what the hell was she doing performing in dives such as this; she replied with a shrug and a sad smile, saying that she was happy to just be performing, because her idea of a nightmare was to be in a situation so sticky that she wouldn’t be able to do what she loved anymore. I agreed and answered her question of what I was doing in LA, I told her the same thing I told the kid, but added that LA was the closest I’d been to my brother since he’d left and I was considering going to visit him, or just check up on him.

I asked her what had brought her here as clearly, going by her accent, she was from elsewhere and a quite well-off place at that. She spoke of her adoration for exploration and the open road, saying that On the Road was a dream to her and she’d hitchhiked her way here about a year ago in the spirits of Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise, finding herself just sticking around. She said she couldn’t leave when things were just starting to go right for her, despite wanting to oh so very desperately go somewhere else. I told her I knew the feeling and then told her I found the city intriguing, enough so that I couldn’t leave quite yet – there was a sort of magnetism to the city lights, we were all like moths in a way, buzzing around the lights until we found our dusty deaths.

She told me how very poetic that statement was and I laughed, saying that the only time I started to become vaguely lyrical was when I was on the way to getting so ridiculously depressed that only my father could punch some life into me. She reached out and rubbed a circle with the pad of her thumb onto the knuckle of my right hand. She picked up her champagne glass as I picked up my glass and I held it towards hers, clinking them together. I drank the majority and left myself a mouthful, she finished off her champagne and once she was done, she pinched her nose and giggled, complaining about the bubbles making her dizzy. I chuckled and put down my glass, watching her take it and swallow the final mouthful; I gasped in mock horror and threw a scrunched up receipt at her. She stuck out her tongue and scooted around so she was sitting to the left of me. Her face was level with mine and I could feel her warm, alcohol spiked breath on my cheekbone.

The lights dimmed once again and on walked the kid with his usual swagger and buttoned up polo shirt underneath his sports jacket, carrying his ancient looking guitar. He smiled as he reached the microphone and immediately began to play. I leant back in the cushioned seat, catching the gaze of the girl, who smiled mischievously and angled her hips so she could easily throw her leg over my lap and straddle me. I smirked and she placed her cold hands underneath my jacket on the planes of my chest, leaning her head down and letting her lips ghost over mine.

The pace of the music grew, as did the volume; I pushed myself more upright and leant forward, pressing my lips against hers with more energy and her mouth parted slightly, allowing for my tongue to skirt along the silky texture of her bottom lip. Her hands bunched in my shirt and she pulled back, asking in my left ear if it was a good idea for us to leave. I nodded, but said we should stay, just to see the end of the kid’s set. She shook her head and laughed, saying that he’d told her that he’d predicted this and he’d told her it was fine for us to leave early. I nodded and bit my lip, tasting remnants of her cinnamon lip balm; she climbed off of me and reached out for my hand, grasping it and pulling me out of the bar, I asked her where we should go and she told me wherever I was staying.

I judged my sobriety as not too great, realised that I’d walked here anyway, and hailed a taxi cab, giving them the name of the motel I was staying at; she played with my hands during the ten minute journey and paid half of the fare, getting out of the cab with a grin and jumping on my back as I walked towards my car. I spun around and laughed as she giggled wildly, legs struggling to stay hooked around my hips. I put her down and opened up the door, taking the cassette out of my pocket and placing it in my box of tapes.

When I rose from the glove compartment, I noticed her sprawled out on the hood of the car, feet in the air. My eyes widened considerably and she laughed loudly, rolling off the end and getting up with a bow. I shook my head and locked the door, crouching down so she could get on my back again.

She did and I smiled wider than I had done in a long, long time.