My Record Player

I choke out a few short, rough coughs. The smell of stale cigarette smoke, burns the back of my throat as one the club patrons near me lights-up the last cigarette in his pack, slowly burning it down until its ready to be crumpled into the ash tray with the rest of its old friends. My eyes fixed on the stage while I soak in the sounds of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Herby Hancock, Art Blakely, Buddy Rich, and Django Rinehardt. Songs like “Monk’s Dream,” “Take Five,” and “A Night in Tunisia,” drift around the room. But this venue doesn’t only provide a stage for jazz greats. As soon as Blakely and his “Jazz Messsengers” finish their last song, Eric Clapton, The Yardbirds, Led Zepplin, The Who, The Beatles, and a string of others line up to take the stage. Song after song, band after band, I take it all in. Some of it I love. Some of it I hate. I close my eyes for just a second… “Screech!” I look up to see my dad moving the arm of my record player off to the side. “Food’s getting cold,” he says. I stand up and walk over to the player, drop the Donovan record in its sleeve, and put it on the shelf right between Danzig and Bob Dylan. “Joe. Dinner. Now,” I hear my dad say from the kitchen.  “Yeah, I’m coming…”