X and Y

A woman of thirty-some years is walking into a music store for the first time in a decade. She is wearing high heels. She is on an hour lunch break. Why did she not come in here before? Reluctantly, she admits to herself the reason why. It was because of the punk music that crashes out of the doors and breaks onto the street like the driven spray of a storm tide. And also because of the lunch-hour worker himself – with his moth-eaten hair, the safety pins in his ear and the sullen glare. In the past few days, she has hovered in the doorway several times, considering entering, and while her heart beats erratically she disguises her intentions by pretending to study the gig posters that wallpaper the entrance. But every time she catches the look of the employee, her heart takes a gravity-defying lurch upwards and she backs away.

How ridiculous to be so anxious. How absurd. She – a woman of thirty-some years of life experience, a professional job, eight years of schooling in the United States to become an optometrist, an ex-husband, a new condo downtown, a trip to Egypt – Egypt! She has castigated herself so many times for being afraid. The employee is no more than a bum. But no, don’t call him a bum. That’s unfair. That’s demeaning. Oh, what an absurd situation to be worrying about what to call him and how to relate to him. Why is the effect of him and his music so daunting to her? Let’s not forget that she has been to Egypt, and specifically, to Luxor, where scores of tourists were massacred by terrorists not so long ago, and she went there alone, (it was right after the divorce, in her liberation phase) and not even that situation troubled her as much as this…

But today, on the pavement outside the store, she realized that for once, the sonic squall was not assaulting her ears. Instead, it was the soothing tone of a song called “The Speed of Sound.” She has often heard this song on the radio during her drive across the river to and from work. She adores this song. She dared to almost mouth the words of the chorus, and when she glanced inside she saw that behind the counter was a girl, not the punk.

She has stolen inside with a guilty thrill. She is going to find whatever album it is that her beloved song is on and she is going to buy it. And the punk will be none the wiser. This will be her first album in a decade. She remembers the last album she bought, it was Ten by Pearl Jam. Her tastes were rawer in those days. She used to drive a beat-up Ford Fiesta, practically the same size and value as a large can of beans, but then her boyfriend at the time insisted that she needed a stereo system – it was driving him crazy driving with her with only a shitty radio to listen to – and so, because he was a handy sort, he installed a CD player and speakers, and from then on, Pearl Jam or whatever late-metal band her boyfriend was into at the time was booming away in that car’s tiny frame – and its value immediately tripled...

She is a little distracted by a row of CDs on the wall featuring a woman’s naked back on the cover, and graffiti scrawled onto her skin. She’s not too keen on that. She isn’t sure what it means. Why would a young woman with evidently good skin and a good body allow someone to scrawl in ugly ink all over her back? She turns away. There’s no need to get distracted here… She has a specific goal in mind. Find that album and buy it. She can listen to it on the drive home after work.

What is the band called again? She wanders up an aisle, she is among the acts with F names and then G names – Franz Ferdinand, he sounds German or something, and later on, Gorillaz – on some level it bothers her that misspelling words has become so accepted, and now onto the H names and the I names (of which there are few) and then the more fertile territory of the J names… Look here, Janis Joplin. She respects Janis Joplin – what an orgasmic intensity that woman has – or rather had – alas, she was another of the sixties greats that burned bright but was extinguished too soon. Now suddenly and unexpectedly she is thinking of orgasms. Her hand hovers over the row of Joplin albums and now, not knowing why, she withdraws it. Orgasms. This is not the time to be thinking of orgasms. After a few glasses of wine with dinner and in the tub afterwards with candles – that’s the time – if the remembrance of things past does not make her melancholy instead – but here and now? This is not the time to think of orgasms. Buying a Joplin album won’t help. Where is her beloved “Speed of Sound” going to be?

If only she could remember the band’s name. It is on the tip of her tongue. If she saw the name she would undoubtedly recognize it. She takes a trip down the next aisle, through Killers to Queensryche. She has a feeling that she has meandered well away from where she is supposed to be… Her beloved song was written by a band with an initial letter much closer to the beginning of the alphabet. She knows it. She makes a deep arc around the aisles and over to the far wall where the alphabet begins.

She is running her hands along the front of the CD cases, ABBA to the Beatles, feeling increasingly at ease and almost comfortable, when she hears a loud, masculine cough. It comes from the doorway. She turns to look. Oh Good Lord. It’s the punk. He has spotted her right away. They exchange a glare and then her eyes dart back to the CDs.

“Thanks for staying later,” she hears the punk say.

“No problem,” says the girl.

“You aren’t listening to Coldplay are you?”

That is the name of her band. Coldplay. And here is Coldplay right in front of her – how synchronous. She picks up an album but shields her finding from the punk by turning her back to him. She looks over the song titles on the CD’s back. There it is. “The Speed of Sound.” This is the album. Meanwhile, she can’t help but overhear the conversation at the counter.

“How many times have I warned you about this?”

“Oh, Rich – just one guilty pleasure.”

“No. No. This is the beginning of the end. Next you’ll be listening to Hootie and the Blowfish and paying eighty bucks to see the Eagles in concert.”

Laughter.

“Rich, you know I won’t.”

“No I don’t… Well I’m switching it. You’re leaving anyway.”

“You are a music snob.”

“No I’m not. I’m just looking out for your best interests. You don’t want to get soft.”

“Snob.”

“Sellout.”

She dares to take a fleeting glance at the arguing duo. Sure enough, the girl is moving out from behind the counter and walking towards the exit. She is obviously on her way out. Within seconds there will be only the punk remaining.

Trapped. Good God. She’s trapped with her Coldplay album in her hand and the punk between her and the street. What can she do? She could simply return the album to the shelf, meander a bit to seem like nothing suspicious is going on, then casually float outside… She’ll buy the album from a different store. Easy enough. She now knows the band’s name… She could buy it at Future Shop on her way up 109 Street. It might even be cheaper there.

“See you, Rich!”

“See you, sellout… I mean, Stella.”

“Shut up.”

These are the last salvos exchanged before the population of the store is reduced to two. Her and the punk. And now, abruptly, the Coldplay has been silenced. There are a few moments of blessed silence. And now – she could’ve guessed it – a vicious, stabbing bass is kicking in, and seconds later, an excoriating slice of guitar static. Maybe because the punk pities her, the music is not quite so loud as usual. She can still hear herself think. Her thoughts have accelerated to a tempo surpassed only by the music. What do I do? Buy it here, buy it elsewhere? Never buy it? Give up on music? Listen only to the radio? Buy something else instead? March up there with – what’s this band – Dead Kennedys – that sounds pretty radical – lay it on the counter and defy that punk to pigeonhole me?

But the thought of spending good money on an album that bears a picture of a man’s face wrapped up in barbed wire seems utterly stupid. She doesn’t want the Dead Kennedys, whoever the hell they are. She wants Coldplay. And she is a consumer, free to make whatever choices she wants. She squeezes her CD even tighter in her palm – her now sweaty palm – and she walks purposefully to the front.

“I’m going to buy this,” she announces.

With a weary air, the punk picks himself up from his stool, looks at the CD and then peers up at her. To her surprise, rather than glaring and then proceeding to conduct this transaction with a taciturn and reluctant attitude, he smiles at her. It dramatically alters his face. His cheeks have more fat on them than she had expected. There are even very faint dimples on them.

“Coldplay, eh?” he says.

She nods her head. She doesn’t have a clue what to say to this. She meets his glance for a moment and then averts her gaze beyond, to the street.

“Very popular this CD,” he continues. “Very popular.”

“I heard them on the radio,” she says. She is starting to hold out hope that by being pleasant and talkative – rather than disdaining him as she would a drunk on the street – this might not turn out to be such an excruciating encounter after all.

He sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m not sure if I can allow you to buy this.”

He sits back down on his stool. He is still smiling.

She is confused. Clearly, he is playing a little joke on her, but how exactly should she respond? He no longer seems threatening to her – seeing now from close up that he actually has fragile green eyes and something of a weak chin – this has fully dulled her fears. But she is still left with a sense of floundering… of being entirely out of her comfort zone.

She will play along with the joke.

“I’m not sure I can allow you, uh, to not allow me to buy it.”

She feels quite proud of this line after hearing its echo in her own head. That was witty. It wasn’t very slickly delivered, but it was clever.

“No, seriously,” says the punk, his smile fading, and feigning a businesslike air. “I don’t feel I would be doing my job. This album is not going to hold up. You’re going to listen to it twenty times – and even then it will barely be much more than background music – and then you’re going to find it boring… incredibly boring, even though you won’t want to admit it to yourself. This album is like a cheap Korean car. It’s all polished and neat on the showroom floor but it won’t go the distance. And I feel it’s my job to advise you against it. You want an album that may, admittedly, take a bigger investment of patience and concentration in the short term, but will pay much bigger dividends in the long term.”

It surprises her to hear him speaking this way. Then she inwardly rebukes herself for being surprised. What did she expect? Grunts? Clicks and warbles? He might even be a university student – you just don’t know.

She’s aware that her awkwardness is making her blush.

“I’m not a kid anymore,” she says. “My tastes have changed.”

She is saying this apologetically, but immediately hates herself for it. What a terrible, lame excuse. What is she trying to say? Age is no excuse for anything, but here she is, talking the way she would have hated to hear adults talk when she was young.

“Your tastes have changed,” the punk echoes. “I don’t understand.”

He is looking at her intently, defiantly. This is simply beyond belief. Why should she have to explain her choice of music?

“Can I please just buy this and move on?”

She tries to adopt something of an irritated tone – a tone that says, I’m in a rush, I can’t be bothered, let’s hurry it up.

“Well sure,” says the punk, sighing again and getting to his feet. “I suppose. I suppose you can buy this and move on, and turn your back on approximately fifty albums better than this one that came out this year alone. You can do that.”

He runs the scanner over the album and his till emits a beep.

How dare he? How dare he make her feel guilty about buying something she wants?

“Where is your manager?” she says. This sentence spills out of her before she was even aware of its existence in her head.

The punks ceases his casual, nonchalant motions at the till.

“My manager?”

She loathes herself in this moment – simply despises herself. What the hell is she doing? She has never been the type to request a manager. Good God, she worked many years in retail herself while she was a student – she knows how it is. Only jerks ask to talk to the manager.

She struggles to contain her potentially uneven tone.

“I just want to buy the album and be spared the lecture,” she says. “If that’s not possible, I would like to talk to the manager.”

The punk nods his head. She has evidently unnerved him.

“It is possible,” he says. “I’m sorry. I was only joking around. I’m sorry. I do that sometimes, I—”

“I simply want to buy something I like and move on.”

She can feel herself getting worked up. This isn’t good. She knows her tendency to reach the verge, beyond which she goes into freefall – powerless to stop her descent into blind emotional outbursts.

“I understand, ma’am. I’m sorry. I just…” His eyes are pleading with hers. “Music is important to me and I… I get carried away. I get irked when people turn a blind eye to the good stuff.”

He is dropping the album hurriedly into a bag. The till is coughing up a receipt.

“Good stuff? Good stuff like this… this noise?”

He stops.

“This? Ma’am, this is the Clash.”

She is about to say, yes, that’s exactly what it sounds like, but stops herself. Oh when did she become so old? It’s not her fault. You don’t see it coming when you’re this punk’s age. Her complaint with him has nothing to do with music. It’s about his sheer insensitivity. Look, all she wants is to listen to that song whenever she wants, wherever she wants, and let it sooth her after a hard day’s work. That is all. God knows she’s earned it. She longs to have the music fill her car like water into a gently rippling pond, and feel it wash over her while she steers herself past the glass towers reflecting the light of the setting sun… She longs to feel the tension in her chest slowly deflate… She will maybe even set her CD player by the bathtub and let it play while she immerses herself in oils and lotions… She deserves all this. She has lived, and this punk has not.

“You can have your Clash, and I’ll keep my Coldplay. I don’t need the lecture.”

“I understand, ma’am.”

He is handing her the bag. He is afraid of her. She despises the way he has started to call her “ma’am.” This is what you call a sexless lady. This is what you call someone for whom you have nothing but commercial interest.

“I don’t think you do understand,” she insists, almost ripping the bag out of his hand. “I come in here, looking to spend a little money, and wanting a little bit of music to make me happy, and you treat me like this? You don’t know me. You don’t have a clue what I’ve been through. I had a husband and lost him – lost him to someone your age. It didn’t matter how hard I fought for him or how faithful I was, I still lost him. And now I’m thirty-five. I work six days a week. I have financial commitments up to my eyeballs. My stupid husband was a dreamer – he wanted to write for a living – and he barely had any money, ever – and I’m left trying to sell our house and our car, meanwhile, he disappeared the second our divorce was done, taking this little nymph with him to Latin America – God knows what they’re doing – and he has no sense of responsibility, or accountability – it’s all in the moment with him…. He gets what he needs with snake-oil charm. It’s all the intensity of wine and words and music – yes, music, too – that’s part of his reason for being… And you just can’t live like that. You hurt people like that. When you don’t account for your actions and you care only for the pleasures of sex and art and whatever—”

She is forced to a halt by a constricting of her throat. If she keeps on this path she is going to be in tears. She has said far too much. The punk is looking at her with an attempt at empathy but he is probably appalled and embarrassed – much as she is. How on earth did she let herself go off like this?

She forces out the words, “Thank you, anyway.”

She turns and half-runs out of the door. She is aware of the punk’s eyes following her the entire distance. It is time to get some lunch but she doesn’t want lunch... She glances at her watch. Her next client is in twenty minutes. She can hardly bare to face him. The client is forty and evidently affluent and has a deep tan from a recent vacation in the Cayman Islands. She isn’t at all interested in him, but the client has such self-confidence that he appears to have assumed she is interested, and he knows she is no longer married – he noticed between one appointment and the next that her rings had disappeared – and she is terrified that in the close quarters of the examination room, her loneliness is an odour that is tangible, and whenever he sniffs, which is often – it’s a tic of his – she feels her heart jump, as if someone tugged at the veins and arteries that moor it. She feels that it is almost impossible to face him in her current state. How did she so quickly become undone? She is going to have to walk around the block a few times, take a few deep breaths, calm herself down, restore her sense of purpose.

What an afternoon… what a tension-filled, awkward, agonizing afternoon. But she gets through it. She gets though it. Afterwards, she hurries to her car, eagerly anticipating listening to her new album. She backs out of the lot and onto Whyte Avenue, rolling along smoothly in her Nissan Maxima. She turns up the volume and the music bursts into life.

Something is wrong. She is not enjoying it as much as she ought. The singer sounds weak and unsure of himself. And where is her beloved song? The Speed of Sound? She tries to give the initial tracks a chance, but after the first minute of each, skips impatiently to the next one. Finally, at track seven, the Speed of Sound comes on. Bell-like tones descending, the drums kicking in, the voice again singing to her that familiar refrain. But it doesn’t sound the same. She increases the volume. There is a swell of melody, but unlike before, the swell is not matched in her chest… She feels nothing. How can this be? The song sounds bizarrely hollow.

She stops at the traffic lights. The song has hit the chorus – the moment that she should enjoy the most – but now enjoys the least. The anticipation has ruined it. What is wrong? What is wrong with me, she asks herself. She bows her head, not wanting anyone to possibly see her distress – the traffic is heavy and she’s surrounded. She looks down and there are her thighs pressed against the seat – thicker than they have ever been. Oh God… What am I going to become?

An angry honk from the car behind her jolts her attention back to the road. She drives the rest of the way home in silence.