Jeff Jackson - Mira Corpora

“Maybe he hasn’t quit,” I say. “Maybe he’s making music in secret. Maybe he’s waiting for people to catch up to his new sounds.”

There’s a stretch of silence where the only sounds are the clank of utensils in the kitchen and the murmur of foreign dialects. Then Lena smiles. She says to her friends: “I told you he was all right.”

Lena pours some tea into a chipped china cup and hands it to me. It’s a clear liquid that turns out to be pure grain alcohol. I cough after the first burning swallow.

Markus laughs and pats me on the back. “We love the tea here,” he says. “It’s their specialty. You’ll get a taste for it pretty quick.”

Hank remains silent. He still seems to be evaluating me. His arms are crossed and his thumb circles one of the black totems on his bicep. His gaze remains trained on me. “Before we get all cozy,” he says, “we need you to do something for us.”

Hank looks pointedly at Lena. She nods and fishes in the inner pocket of her overcoat. She places a runny can of silver spray paint on the table, then slides the cardboard stencil next to it. Lastly, she produces a cassette from her bag that looks strikingly similar to mine. She gives me a shrug that seems apologetic, almost.

Hank says: “Paint some tags around the neighborhood to help us spread the word.”

He says: “Give the tape to someone who might have information about Kin and see what you can find out.”

He says: “Once you’ve done that, come find us.”

Hank rolls up the sleeve of my sweatshirt and writes a street address on my forearm in black felt-tip marker. Then he throws a few crumpled bills on the table and leads the others out of the restaurant. Lena waves to me over her shoulder. “Hope to see you soon,” she says. I watch as the door swings shut behind them. The bell tied to the handle clangs several times and the sound echoes through the empty dining room, rippling in waves that take a long time to dissipate.

I sit alone in the booth, scarfing down the leftover dumplings and emptying the teapot. My mind slowly grapples with the tasks I’ve been assigned. I absently scrape the silver paint from the nozzle of the spray can while strategizing the most effective placement for graffiti and ideal candidates for the cassette. There are so many variables that my head spins. Eventually I decide the best solution is to complete my charge as soon as possible. Spray a few desultory tags across the neighborhood. Give the tape to the first person I see.

When I leave the restaurant, my sweatshirt bulges with the tools of my mission. Almost immediately, I spot the Asian waitress. She’s now talking on the pay phone, the plastic receiver cupped in the crook of her neck. She speaks in a terse code punctuated by stabbing and balletic hand gestures. It doesn’t sound like English and given the hushed quality of her voice, it could just as easily be an invented private language.

I decide to wait for her and duck into the alleyway. I kill time by experimenting with the stencil and spraying the design onto the back of a nearby air conditioning unit. It takes several tries to get it right. I freestyle the last part and underneath write the word “Unseen.” I’m admiring my handiwork when there’s a scuttle of overturning trash and toppling boxes. At first, it sounds like a pack of ravenous rats. But then I realize it’s the perfect solution.

I walk silently toward the metal dumpster on the balls of my feet. I switch the cassette excitedly from hand to hand. It feels heavier than usual. I recall its potential to open up new vistas and alter the fabric of the recipient’s dreams. And here is someone who truly needs it.

The fat kid’s head pops over the rim of the dumpster. He must recognize me but the unformed expression on his face doesn’t give anything away. His eyes are mere holes. His blotchy skin is pasty and puffy. His cheeks are full of food that he mechanically continues to chew.

I hold out the cassette in the palm of my hand. I smile and inch closer, moving with calm deliberation, the way you’d approach a skittish doe, trying not to spook him. The slightest ember of light glints behind his dead eyes. He seems intrigued. “Don’t be scared,” I coax. “This is a gift.”

I have faith this simple gesture will be understood. The traffic behind me sounds like a guitar being tuned up, a discordant series of notes that’s preparing to resolve into something glorious. I move a few steps closer. I keep my palm perfectly flat. “It’s a tape,” I say. “It’s for you.”

He seems to comprehend. He tentatively reaches out his stubby fingers and snatches it from me. He sniffs the edges of the plastic case and kneads it with his hands. Then he removes the cassette and raises its shiny black shell to the sunlight for closer inspection. He stares at it with a sense of wonder, as if he spies another world in there among all that tape. Maybe he’s more like me than I thought. This is how I must have looked when I first received this music. “Thank you,” he says in a slurred voice.

I remove the walkman from the folds of my sweatshirt. But before I can hand it to him, he pops the cassette into his mouth and cracks it between his teeth. As he begins to chew, bits of unspooled magnetic tape curl between his lips, but somehow he manages to swallow. He pats his stomach. His beaming cheeks form a grin. His shiny eyes well up with tears of gratitude.

I stand in front of the window, hypnotized. There I am staring back at myself staring at the arrangement of green Gretsch guitar, white drum kit, black enamel bass. The instruments look like they’re floating on top of my body. One reality superimposed over the other. I’m flanked by Markus and Lena who seem to be experiencing the same thing. It’s like a hallucination, or maybe a vision. The three of us must all be thinking something similar but I’m the one who says it, half-whispering the words under my breath because the idea is so potent that anything louder would shatter the glass: “We look like a band.”

There’s no point entering the store to inquire about prices. The place is so new it hasn’t officially opened for business, but more importantly we’re flat broke. We peel ourselves away from the display window, hijacked by a snarl of conflicting emotions. My words have clearly initiated something. As we walk back to the squat, we argue about who would play what instrument. Markus immediately claims guitar for himself. Lena shouts drums like she’s calling shotgun. I finger the shell necklace around my throat. “I don’t care,” I say. “As long as I get to sing.” They raise their eyebrows in concert, but I’m pretty sure I could do it.

When we reach the deteriorating tenement, we linger on the street until the homeless couple turns the corner, then scurry down the steps to the basement. The kids call this “the squat,” but it’s an actual apartment Lena inherited from some relative or another. She removes the key pinned inside her eloquently distressed wool sweater and unlocks the door.

I’ve been crashing with them for several months, but this place hasn’t lost its novelty. The sprawling, raw space is furnished with a few rickety chairs, soiled mattresses, and corked piss bottles. Food wrappers carpet the cracked concrete floor. Black tapestries annul the windows. It’s modest but there’s electricity and running water. And even better, a booming stereo system. We’re about to announce the discovery of the music store when the sound blasting from the speakers stops us.

The muffled ferocity is immediately identifiable. It’s the bootleg cassette of Kin Mersey’s final show. This particular recording is almost never played. In the time I’ve been here, the kids have only dared to break it out once. Hank sits on the mattress he shares with Lena, wrapped in their stained sheets, hugging his knees. It almost looks like he’s been crying. We’ve clearly arrived in the aftermath of something.