We Only Possess What We Give Away
An unusual odor socked Donovon Guffey on his bungalow stoop between turning the bolt and twisting the knob. Not a gas leak, he decided. The neighbors’ Great Pyrenees broke loose last year and slaughtered a wallaby. Perhaps she’d made prey of some gangrenous skunk.
The square mailer Donovon carried inside could only be one of two orders: Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band or Eubie Blake and His Shuffle Along Orchestra. If inside was Kid Ory, he’d pair his new record with a Merlot. If Eubie Blake, he’d uncork a Cab Sav.
The package contained Eubie Blake. This vinyl recording of a 1959 appearance on The Larry Finley Show had taken a month to reach his porch after he’d tracked it down to a second-hand shop in São Paulo. It wasn’t for sale, the owner had argued. But weeks of WhatsApp-mediated negotiations secured an agreeable price. In exchange for it, Donovon set up an escrow delivery of his Jabbo Smith And The Rhythm Aces LP.
“I’m getting ripped off on this trade, as you know,” Donovon jabbed the Brazilian over text upon sealing the deal, “You’re lucky I’ve outgrown this Jabbo Smith record from overlistening.” Donovon’s previous attempts to possess rare Eubie Blake material in playable condition had proved ill-fated, so this quip was only partially true.
If the record indeed proved good quality tonight, his escrow officer would ship the Jabbo Smith album to São Paulo tomorrow. But first, the Cabernet Sauvign… no, first he’d inspect the spot for Eubie on his shelves. Under the B’s, between Blind Blake’s Wabash Rag and Art Blakey’s A Night At Birdland, Donovon splayed two fingers.
As he inspected the grooves along the LP, Donovon imagined the outside scent growing louder, like a volume dial knocked clumsily clockwise. A compulsive coughing fit delayed him from answering the doorbell.
“Rafel!”
“Does the jungle always quake this much?” chuckled a bony man with black-brown dreads wearing a leather vest. Past Donovon, into the house, he dragged a canvas bag plastered in metalcore band patches.
“What are you doing here?”
“You got my voicemail, or did you not? I had to pop in to see my only friend on this island before I fly back east.”
“How did you get my address?” stammered Donovon.
“Don’t you remember? You mailed my sister a beautiful postcard some years ago when you moved from one island to your new house on a different island.”
Behind Rafel’s grin, the alien fragrance’s origin made itself clear.
“I called you the day before yesterday,” Rafel apologized. “I’ve such a brief time in Hawaii. I had to see you— I wanted to see you. It’s been a minute, has it not?”
“It’s been several minutes. Sit down. Would you like coffee?”
Most wines pair poorly with most biodegradation aromas. If the pleasant flavor of any beverage could redeem the soiled atmosphere, it would not be his anticipated Basque-region Cabarnet Sauvignon.
“Just water for me, thanks,” responded Rafel.
For the nine months after they graduated from the same high school class, Donovon maintained an intense written correspondence with Rafel’s sister. Rut was a Spaniard with wry taste in art, whose trivia knowledge of the European jazz masters surpassed Donovon’s then-only-budding interest in the pioneers of American jazz. With brown, nearly-black hair and gently curved cheeks, she shared with her brother a strikingly similar countenance.
A daytrip to a public museum along the NY-PA border constituted Donovon and Rut’s terminal date. In the bedroom drawer opposite the wall from where Donovon now prepared refreshments, he kept as his memento a gingham handkerchief purchased at a bric-a-brac shop there. That Pennsylvania gift store’s imported Hawaiian art on display had come up years later in the interview conversation for Donovon’s first after-college professional job, for which he’d relocated to Honolulu.
Donovon returned with a glass of water and a ceramic bowl of pineapple chunks, offering them to his guest and observing, “You’re a famished man.”
“No one may buy entrance to the kingdom of heaven with fruits and vegetables,” Rafel muttered under his breath, taking only the water glass.
The pronouncement was an odd enough gratitude-expression that Donovon sat stupefied as his smelly guest gulped down the cold water.
“That is a slick photo of you,” Rafel remarked, setting down the empty glass to gesture. On a cherrywood plaque above the turntable between them hung a black-and white photograph of Donovon standing between two rows of his shelves.
Donovon explained the commemorative board, “The local newspaper here ran a story about my library of vinyl music recordings. Mine! Of private collections in the whole state, mine is the largest, if you believe their reporting. Would you allow me to lead you on a tour?”
Weakened as he was by his visitor's odor, Donovan delighted in gathering reactions from others on his collection of well-preserved 78s and LPs. His albums stood vertically on library-book shelves, constructed with a longer interior depth to accommodate the sleeves’ fairly uniform dimensions.
“Storing albums in egg crates does not scale very well beyond a certain quantity.”
“Must be a high quantity… a couple thousand I’d guess?” Rafel estimated.
“I hired a carpenter to build these rows after twenty thousand. Wish I’d done so sooner.”
Donovon explained how he’d experimented with different organizational methods. Early on he’d abandoned color-coding by spine as impractical. Too many retained only their barest rice-paper sleeves. Another attempt sorted them by recording company and release date, but the less-documented imprints had impaired that technique. He disliked sorting by genre, as Donovon never wholly felt satisfied with his subgenre distinctions. For the subgenres with multiple names, as with Hot Jazz and Dixieland, do these belong in the H’s or D’s? For those artists who crossed-over genres, albums separated on opposite sides of the room made appreciating their complex careers a counterintuitive challenge. Donovon settled upon arranging his collectibles by artist’s last name, or, on collaborations, by the last name of the first billed musician. Separators for each alphabet letter facilitated this system.
“How is your sister?” asked Donovon, returning his guest to the listening room.
“Rut got a new job as a Data Analyst for a digital advertiser, but she’s on leave just now.”
“Is she still single?” Donovon winced at his indiscrete forthrightness as the words spewed like a geyser.
Rafel answered factually without betraying any perception of gaffe. “She is a widow. She and Dave were not even married one year before his terrible accident. Not even two blocks from the house, walking the dog. The epileptic seizure slammed his head to the concrete ground of the sidewalk. He entered a coma and died two days after.”
“That’s terrible. I hadn’t any idea, and I am so sorry.”
“Dave was born here, but his family moved away when he was an infant.”
“Born here on the islands?”
“Rut needs a copy of Dave’s birth certificate for her life insurance claim, and she couldn’t find his original. I’m here to get a copy since Rut shouldn’t travel during this time. You’d think life insurance companies could show a little patience, especially towards grieving widows.”
“You flew here on Rut’s behalf to retrieve the birth certificate of her recently deceased husband… ex-husband… not ex-husband, but her dead husband.”
“By the way, if you have life insurance through V_____, switch immediately. The worst company.”
“But Rafel, there’s a problem with your story. The state capital building is on Oahu. You’re standing on the wrong island.”
“The wrong island. I admit that. You’ve forced me to come out and confess my intentions. My own motives bring me here, beyond municipal bureaucracy-hopping. I came here to see you, Donovon. For you.”
“To see me? Why me? On Rut’s behalf?”
“No, not on Rut’s behalf. Not on her behalf, except for the retrieval of Dave’s reproduced birth certificate— accomplished Tuesday.” Rafel tapped his laundrybag-style rucksack. “She doesn’t know I’m here on Hawai’i island. In fact, I made a detour to the big island because of your reputation.”
“My reputation? As an investor?”
“You have a reputation back in Erie as an audiophile. Everyone knows you’re a musical connoisseur.”
“I doubt that’s what I’m really remembered for.”
“Donovon, I’ve been running a music zine for the past five years, showcasing local, up-and-coming bands involved in the punk, hardcore, and thrash scene surrounding the greater Buffalo metropolitan area. A labor of love for me, as most of our contributors have their own projects. When bands visit, our zine shows them we have more than just another cultureless small town.
“A few years ago, our subscription derby found sufficient attention that we rented a burnt-out café building in the cobblestone district. For the first time, our new space brought us all together to work in a single location. It’s really that space which upped the zine’s production quality. How it looks like a real magazine now! With minimal staff, we’ve established Western New York’s only underground culture periodical.
“Our problem is the landlord repaired our rundown office (without our consent) and doubled the rent to match the rest of the city’s. Our subscriber numbers stayed the same, and even grew, slightly, but the shortfall grew faster. We floated selling ads, but corporate pandering would destroy our credibility with exactly the people we need as subscribers. Our writers oppose selling out too.”
Donovon deduced, “So instead of raising prices you want me to subsidize your magazine.”
“Our subscribers are musicians, artists, students… Most can barely afford to support us.”
“Rafel, I haven’t lived in Erie for a long time. I remember your band The Green Onions.”
“Grushenka And Her Onions.”
“Right, that was the name— You won the high school talent show.”
“After we broke up,” Rafel reminisced, “I focused more on other musicians; that’s what led me to reviewing concerts and recommending other bands.”
“A music scene— I never… I didn’t know Erie had one!”
“Not just Erie, but all of us along the shore of Lake Erie, from Niagara Falls to Detroit. We understand you moved away, but we’re in the fingers of fate, falling further and further behind on rent. According to the eviction notice taped on our door, if we don’t pay the past due by the first: curtains. It would mean so much to everyone back home if you made a one-time donation to save our zine.”
Donovon sighed. “You brought copies?”
“Let me get one!”
Rafel opened his bag and the stench finally overpowered Donovon, who heaved over and retched.
“I don’t need to see an edition, on second thought,” Donovon worked out between spasms.
“Please just check it out,” Rafel insisted.
The tabloid cover bore a pen-and-ink illustration, apparently adapted from a photo, of a sweaty four-piece rocking out onstage.
“Earlier this year, Propagandhi gave a tremendous show at the performing arts center.”
“Let me read it, let me read,” Donovon huffed.
The headline said: At Buffalo performance, Propagandhi Adds New Verse to Classic Anthem
The subhead: Hardcore giants Propagandhi chose their recent performance at Shea’s Performing Arts Center to unveil a new verse for their classic anthem “Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes.” Staff writer S___ O’____ discussed its meaning with the band backstage.
“I… Rafel, hardcore punk isn’t even the music I enjoy.” On the coffee table before them lay two separate copies of Charles Mingus’s Mingus Ah Um. “This is the type of art that really means something to me. Shall I put it on?”
Rafel sank into the divan.
As Donovon brushed the dust off the black wax, he observed, “With multiple copies, you notice subtle differences in the mastering decisions. Because of an ordering mistake, I possess two copies of this album: the 2009 fiftieth anniversary edition and the 2010 remastered edition. I put little effort into selling online; for these, the retail price or worse would be all I’d get back for my trouble. I’m a collector, not a merchant. I have a number of other activities I’d rather spend my time doing than photographing my darlings and fussing with shipping.”
Donovon dropped the needle. The two men’s only speech interlude for the duration was Donovon asking Rafel if he wanted more water during the flip from side A to side B, and a second question about a mutual acquaintance which also faded off unanswered.
In the still afterglow, Donovon asked what was not a question, “You don’t actually have any place to stay tonight.”
“No, I did find somewhere,” Rafel countered, averting his eyes.
“I’ve heard the rental companies around here charge extra if they notice the car’s been slept in… But you don’t have a rental car.”
Rafel exploded, “Everyone means the word ‘crustpunk’ as a derogatory aspersion, but if there’s one thing I learned touring with Grushenka And Her Onions, it’d be how to sleep in public spaces without drawing attention— believe me, I’ll be fine walking.”
“Rafel, Kona airport is a two-hour drive; nobody walks that!”
Pride flashed into Rafel’s eyes, “I already did.”
“No, let me drive you; their last flight of the day always departs at nine PM. They’ll have enough time still to swap out your booking.”
Car windows rolled down, a DJ introduced the song “Eruption” by Van Halen over the FM radio in Donovon’s Roadster.
“That jazz album slapped,” mused Rafel.
“Do you know what,” Donovon replied, “Why don't I mail it to you. How much can I enjoy two copies of what’s almost the same record? If you don’t like it, maybe Rut will. You can give it to her and tell her how it’s a gift from me.”
“No, I dig it. No bullshit. I wonder have any contemporary hardcore bands cited Charles Mingus as an influence… It came out what year, the original?”
“Fall of ‘59.”
“If so, an idea for an article might be there somewhere.”
A justification of Donovon’s earlier decision seemed in order. “If your zine identifies itself as so authentic and local, it ought to be locally supported. I just can’t consider myself a Pennsylvanian anymore after living here so long. The Pacific is my home, and it has been for a while. If your readers worry over your selling out, how would they take it knowing your magazine stayed alive only by money from the other side of the continent? What about soliciting members of your own community: the Buffalonians and Erieites?”
Rafel gazed at his own shredded denim shorts and drew in humid, tropical air.
“I will ship you the Mingus album. I’ll pack it into a mailer tonight. I’ll need your address of course. Write it for me on the day-planner inside my glovebox.”
* * *
Nine months later, Donovon reflected on that strange evening while filing another homeowner’s insurance claim from his extended-stay hotel room. Volcano damage was not covered, the V_____ Home and Life Company had announced to all displaced residents of the lower Puna district. This last-ditch appeal would be denied as well, Donovon suspected, but a man who has lost his everything must exhaust every recourse. His vinyl collection was insured separately, but that claim also was denied a payout on the technicality that no photograph of the destroyed records had been offered; therefore, no concrete evidence had been supplied that the records really were, in fact, destroyed. “How would we know,” an insurance sophist had deliberated on the phone, “they couldn’t be hiding in a storage unit at a different location?”
Donovon’s house, along with the homes of all his neighbors, lay under 30 feet of igneous rock, solidified magma from a once-per-millennium geological event; his records melted into the two thousand degree geothermal lava slide.
Donovon sat in a tough quiet before the same online web appraisal form he had filled out before and whose too-familiar text input fields sunk his stomach.
Last year, after dropping Rafel off at the Kona airport, Donovon had procrastinated mailing his gift. He never sent Mingus Ah Um to his former classmate at all. “If I had,” Donovon mumbled aloud to himself, “at least one LP could have been saved.”
