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The Vinyl Underground
Author: Rob Rufus


      one

   Eve of Destruction 1968

   “Free Love” is bullshit. Nothing is free.

   But I was too distracted to see it that summer. My brother was, too. All those new rock-n-roll records were too good for our own good. They hypnotized us, man. They psychedelicized us; they baptized us in the shiny and ever-changing sounds of ’67. They made it easy for heavy topics to sink to the bottom of our consciousness.

   Whenever I’d mention the war to Bruce, he’d change the subject by dragging me into his bedroom to play me whatever his new favorite record was—The Grass Roots, The Yardbirds, maybe Otis Redding’s live LP—it was always something different, something righteous as hell and truly exciting.

   “Why talk about the future when we can listen to it?” he’d say.

   Whether he meant our future on the radio or that of our country, I’ll never know. Because that was before he shipped out. Before the beaches emptied and the school bells rang and the Summer of Love got divorced.

   Now it was winter. Now it was cold.

   Now it was a new world.

   Now it was New Year’s Eve and my brother was dead and the sky was a gray slab of granite. I stood at the window of his bedroom, looking out at that dead sky. It seemed to stretch bigger than the whole wide world, hard and indifferent, a lot like the God who had organized this shitshow in the first place.

   The gloom of winter didn’t mesh with North Florida, and our neighborhood looked strange beneath it. The Southern homes with their bright pastel panels, the willows and red-berried hollies—in this new world their colors were dull.

   I imagined the strange cold front had occurred in homage to Bruce, as if the atmosphere itself was in mourning. I visualized his last breath leaving his body and soaring up into the heavy sky of Vietnam and over the black waves of the Pacific, across the deserts and cities and plains until it finally reached Cordelia Island, Florida—a cloud made up of nothing, a cold front that blew him home.

   I shivered and turned away from the window.

   Dad said I spent too much time in Bruce’s bedroom, and I knew he was probably right. But it was the only place I still felt like myself. Ever since Bruce died, the rest of the world made me feel like a jack-o'-lantern—hollow and out of season with an unconvincing smile. But in his room, I could turn the music up loud enough to drown my new world out.

   I could live in those old songs for a while, like we used to. So I walked across the room to his record collection, which consisted of seventy-seven LPs and over three hundred 45rpm singles. Bruce stored the LPs in milk crates and organized the singles on his shelf by genre—pop, soul, rock-n-roll, folk, girl groups, Brit rock—labeling each with a thin strip of duct tape.

   I took a single from a small stack that I’d tucked in the corner of the shelf. It was the only unlabeled group of vinyl. The others sat exactly as they had when Bruce shipped out. Same with all his things—wrestling trophies still sparkled on the dresser and pictures of girlfriends still hung beside his bed. Bruce’s bitchin’ 409 Bel Air still sat imprisoned in the garage, guilty of a crime that it didn’t commit.

   That was my parents’ thing—keeping what little remained of Bruce exactly as it was. They worked as meticulously as museum curators, tending to everything but his stereo—a Marantz SLT 12-U turntable, which was fancy looking and had a tonearm that protracted straight from the cradle. This unusual design flagged it as an object of concern: dormant but dangerous, like a neighborhood stray or an old stick of dynamite. So my parents never touched it. They left that job to me.

   I flipped on the stereo. The speakers popped into consciousness. I placed the adapter onto the center of the turntable so it would fit the bigger hole of the 7” vinyl. I turned the speed to 45rpm, and then took the single out of the sleeve.

   -COLUMBIA 45RPM-

   WE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE

   (Mann—Weil)

   THE ANIMALS

   A Mickie Most Production

   I sat it on the turntable. Then I reached back into the dust sleeve and pulled out an envelope. Inside the envelope was a piece of paper folded twice down, three times over. I opened it up, smoothing it on my thigh. I held it before me like I was about to give some kinda proclamation. Then, with the other hand, I put the needle on the record. The vinyl crackled, and the song began.

   Eric Burdon crooned above the walking bass line as I read the words my brother wrote me all those months ago.

   Listen to: “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” by The Animals

   How’s the weather, Raspy Ronnie?

   Hope your summer’s been righteous. Believe it or not, little brother, boot camp isn’t as tough as I figured it’d be. Hell, Paris Island is a laugh compared to Dad’s wrestling practice workouts!

   I think some of the boys in here with me came outta the womb with itchy trigger fingers. But I guess I should feel lucky to be surrounded by psycho killers like this, am I right? I know it’s only been two weeks, but

   “Ronnie!” Dad called from downstairs.

   I sat the note on the speaker and dropped the volume to a whisper. I opened the door.

   “Yeah?” I yelled back.

   “Your mother says come set the table.”

   “OK.”

   I flipped the turntable off and slid the needle arm back into the cradle. The Animals made a silent cool-down spin, then stopped. I picked up the record, then slid it gently into the dust sleeve.

   I didn’t bother finishing the letter. I already knew what it said. I knew what all of his letters said. So I folded it into the envelope, slid it into the dust jacket, and put it back in the unlabeled stack at the end of the shelf.

   Then I switched off the lamp and walked out, shutting the door behind me. It was New Year’s Eve and my brother was dead and I went down to set the table.

   ―

   Pork loin. Red potatoes. Green beans. Biscuits.

   It’s what Momma made for dinner every New Year’s Eve. We passed the steaming plates around after Dad said grace. He was sitting at the head of the table, drinking a bottle of Jax. Momma and I sat facing each other. The end of the table was empty, as was the high chair—Roy, my two-year-old baby brother, was in his playpen, chewing on some toy or other. Wolfman, our cockapoo, was asleep in the backyard.

   The absence of dog and toddler allowed me a thankful moment of silence. I enjoyed the sounds of dishes clanking, knives cutting, and teeth chomp-chomping . . . enjoyed it while it lasted, anyway. Silence never lasted long at our dinner table.

   “Hey Ronnie,” Dad said, “guess how many bodies our boys bagged this year.”

   “I dunno.”

   “Cronkite said we killed a hundred and forty thousand of those bastards,” he pronounced, slapping his heavy hand on the table like a punctuation mark.

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