Counterweight
At ten the roll-up gate rattles like a snare. I key the lock, flip OPEN, and the shop breathes: cardboard, old paper, a thread of dust that smells like electricity. Sleeves whisper when I thumb the bins—A to Z plus a stubborn “Misc.” that keeps its secrets.
First ritual: drop the needle on the test turntable. A faint thup and the room assembles around a bassline. I wipe the listening station headphones and wedge a matchbook under the wobbly leg of the reggae bin. The label gun wakes; I price a box of arrivals in my best tidy handwriting, tiny slashes for the 7s.
People arrive like different tempos. A kid in a hoodie asks where the “sad guitars” live; I point him to post-punk and he leaves a space in the Joy Division slot that looks like a decision. An abuela brings a list in pencil—Los Panchos, Agustín Lara—and tells me the year she learned every lyric on a patio with a crooked moon. I find her the right crackle, the kind that remembers voices without stealing them.
A man in a suit wants a gift that says I pay attention. We pick a first-press soul record with a name etched in the runout: —to M. He doesn’t know M. He likes that it mattered to someone. I slip it into a poly sleeve as if tucking in a child.
Between customers I alphabetize, then de-alphabetize when I decide Metal should stand next to Mariachi just for the conversation they might have after hours. A warped copy of Rumours curls like a question mark. I hang it above the counter: $2, art project.
At noon a light rain starts and the bell above the door taps rimshots. The room slows to a room-temperature groove: brushes on a snare, a piano deciding on Sunday. A guy in a rain jacket asks to hear Track 3 Side B of an LP he swears changed his life at sixteen. He puts on the shop headphones and grins at a part only he can see. When the chorus lands, he taps the counter twice—thank you, or amen.
Every sleeve holds a small weather report: coffee ring, club stamp, a love note nobody mailed. I file these climates into plastic and cardboard and call it inventory. When the hour leans quiet, I flip the record, lower the arm, and watch the needle find its river. The room inhales. We all align to the groove we didn’t know we needed.
At six I flip the sign to CLOSED but leave the last song to finish. Outside the rain has decided. Inside the record says one more minute, and I obey. Some days this job is retail. Most days it’s stewardship—of stories cut into circles, of afternoons that want a soundtrack, of strangers who leave lighter than they came.
