Michael Chabon - Telegraph Avenue

Archy and Nat met at the property, an upstairs suite in a handsome commercial block of the 1920s, on the Berkeley-Oakland line. Red roof tiles, oak beams, stucco painted a Lena Horne shade of tan. The ground-floor tenants included a hardcore bike shop, an avant-garde knitting supply, and a dealer in vintage tube amplifiers.

“Already got that crank vibe going strong,” Archy observed. “You’re going to fit right in.”

“Funny,” Nat said. He was pacing off the larger of the suite’s two rooms, laying out the shelving, stocking it with vinyl. Wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling. Satan architecting Pandemonium. “It doesn’t make you nervous, three thousand pounds of records on the second floor.”

“Building had a total retrofit,” Archy said. “Two thousand one. Previous occupant was a Pilates. You know they have all those heavy-ass machines.”

“I have spent surprisingly little time around Pilates machines.”

“They are heavy,” Archy said with a show of patience. “Mr. Singletary had the floor braced, cost like ten grand.”

“‘Mr. Singletary,’” Nat said.

Archy put his hand to his chin, bunched up his shoulders, shook his head. Sheepish little smile on his face.

“Now the motherfucker’s going to own the building and the stock,” Nat said. “Doesn’t even care for music.”

“He likes Peabo.”

“Peabo is actually quite underrated,” Nat said.

“Not by Mr. Singletary.”

“Huh.”

The baby woke up and began to fuss. Archy took an Avent bottle from the hip pocket of his leather car coat, uncapped it, gave the nipple a sniff. Crouched down beside the car seat to urge the bottle on his son, fitted it to his lips, waited for him to resume his nap.

“Go to all that pain and trouble to have it,” Archy said. “Then spend your life keeping the little fucker sedated.”

“He doing okay?”

“Seems to be.”

“That’s formula?”

“Last of the frozen breast milk.”

“The lactation consultant couldn’t help you guys?”

“Nat, please.”

“Sorry.”

“Catch one baby, now you’re the damn La Leche League.”

“What’s the rent again?”

“Eight hundred.”

“Ouch.”

“Includes water and trash. A third interest in a half-bathroom. I’d say that’s low, for a building of this outstanding caliber.”

“I imagine you would,” Nat said. “That’s just the kind of thing a real estate agent is supposed to say.”

“Oh, I can definitely talk the talk,” Archy said. “Alas, that ain’t what’s on the exam.”

“Are you going to take it?”

“I’m still deciding.”

“The baby is a great gimmick. Who’s not going to want to buy a house from a giant-size cuddly black man with an achingly cute little baby?”

Archy pondered the question. “Almost no one,” he said.

“I think you have to go for it.”

“I think you do, too,” Archy said. “Mr. Singletary—Garnet—you already gave him too much time, as it is, to reflect on his rash offer.”

Nat looked around at the bare tile of the floor, black and glossy as a record, the freshly painted white walls, the three small windows that overlooked the alley behind the building. “Won’t be a counter. Nobody coming here to hang out, shoot the shit,” he said. “I thought that was all Garnet cared about at Brokeland.”

“I guess something put him in a generous mood. Mr. Jones dying. Dogpile Thang going south on Chan Flowers. G Bad’s moving the whole deal over to the city, going to put it in Hunters Point.”

“I heard Visitacion Valley.”

“But I’ll tell you, Nat, I get the feeling his good mood’s about to wear off. Chan Flowers is already back on his feet, brushing the dirt off his shoulder. Shifting the blame, pulling the levers. Got a guy in the economic development office fired because ‘the city government lost Dogpile,’ so on, so forth. The guy who got fired? Was Abreu’s brother-in-law.”

“No more counter,” Nat said, resuming his previous train of thought. “No more bins, writing up the little comments in Sharpie on the dividers. No more watching the world go by through the front window. That magic window. No more customers .”

“You would have customers,” Archy said. “All over the world. Every time zone, some Samoan, Madagascar motherfucker, hitting you up for a five-thousand-dollar original pressing of Blue Note 1568, deep groove, mono. Anyway, there’s folks, I’m not saying who, but there is a general consensus at large, Nat, says you are not really a people person.”

“I like people in theory,” Nat said. “That’s what was good about Brokeland. It was all just a theory we had.”

“Turns out,” Archy agreed.

“So now, you’re saying, it’s time to get real .”

“Follow my helpful example.”

“Selling real estate.”

“That’s only one of my many ways.”

“And for me to get real , I need to start a website that will sell forty-year-old chunks of vinyl on consignment to invisible Samoans.”

“I showed Mr. Singletary the books,” Archy said.

“You what?”

“He went over them. Got way down deep inside.”

Nat shuddered. “A man of courage.”

“He asked me a lot of questions. Who did I know that was trying to make it online, how they handled it, did they go through eBay or have their own online store or what. I guess he even went and talked to some people, talked to the dude at the mailbox store about shipping costs. He thinks you could do it. Sell off all of Mr. Jones’s wax. Make you and the estate some money. And Nat, if Garnet Singletary smells a profit, I think you got to take that shit seriously.”

“Wait, I have to get real and take shit seriously?” Nat said. “At the same time?”

The empty bottle fell out of Clark’s hands, startling him awake.

“Oh, shit,” Archy said. “Okay, little man. All right.” He unstrapped the baby and grabbed him, threaded him through the handle of the car seat. Cupped the baby’s bottom in one palm while the other hand played triplets on his back. Clark was not impressed. Archy fished an enormous key ring out of the other pocket of his John Shaft car coat, barbed with dozens of keys, each one stamped DO NOT COPY, the green plastic fob bearing the legend SINGLETARY PROPERTY MANAGEMENT. He jangled the keys in front of Clark’s face. Clark listened in apparent horror to their clangor. Archy tried to pass the key ring to the boy, let him jingle it for himself, and the keys clanged against the tile floor. At that Clark nearly jumped out of his OshKosh onesie.

“Wow,” Nat said. “Quite a set of lungs.”

“Sometimes you have to do this,” Archy said, taking his son under the arms and subjecting him to a firm oscillation, his hands sweeping and rising, sweeping and rising, back and forth across his body, steady as the works of a clock. As he was synchronized to the rotation of the earth, or maybe just stunned by the sudden increase in velocity, Clark quieted down some. But he remained unwilling to commit fully to silence. So Archy added a complementary leg move to the pendulum swing, a simple harmonic motion, up and down.

Titus Joyner appeared in the doorway of the empty two-room suite. He watched his father’s absurd dance routine with unfeigned, possibly good-natured scorn.

“What?” Archy said.

Titus held up Archy’s cell phone. “You left it in the car,” he said. “She called.”

“What I tell you about that ‘she’ shit?”

“Gwen. She called.”

“Yeah? Clark, man, come on. What’d she say?”

“Said don’t forget she’s working tonight. At the hospital.”