The Summer of Stars on 45
It seemed like every single night the moon went through its whole bag of tricks, and there was a fine dust over everything, radiant, the color of new tennis balls in the moonlight. Bacterial, almost, the way some awful thing will bloom all dusty and green under a black light. The dog plowed through the dust, oblivious to the swelling moon, although what the hell did I know about a dog's oblivion? The rattling that was reported across the region was the jostling of skeltons in the trees, twisting from their ropes and plinking --marimba-like, some said, or at the least vaguely Latin, an unforgetable sound. Part of the climate. Bone chimes, the old timers called them. Really something to hear when a storm was riding in. Some of the skeletons still had names, the occasion of their having come to hang in those trees still memory to some of the older residents. Law forbade their removal.
There was an old church on the corner, a ruin, really, a place apparently devoid of congregation, although some ancient and shabby cleric might still be occasionally sighted puttering around in the graveyard out back. I had long assumed that the church served as some sort of lonely last call or even perhaps place of banishment for the poor old fellows who found themselves stranded there at the bottom of their obviously undistinguished careers. Nothing otherwise of note had gone on there for many years, and I'd pretty much ceased to pay the place any attention. A few years back one deranged reverend had attracted some small notice by climbing up into the belfry one evening and beating upon the old bell with a hammer. That had been moderately interesting and not entirely explicable, but the recent business was a whole new and unexpected thing. For several days there had been seen a steady stream of violin players headed up the broken path to the church, and this was followed by long nights of feverish music.
One night in the midst of this activity I made my way down to the corner with my dog, and there encountered a distinguished looking older fellow who was staring across at the dark church. This man acknowledged my presence with a nod and handed me a business card bearing the contact information for some sort of insurance agent. "When I give the word," he said, "another Stars on 45 lp will hit the streets." At which point he turned away and strolled off down the sidewalk in the direction of the abandoned Holiday station.
6:19:18 PM 
|
|
