The Record Store

By Peter Bowden


The record store was a cramped, smoky cave where the black lights hummed like a drunk beehive, casting everything in a shade of purple that made your teeth itch. The air clung to you, thick with patchouli, sandalwood, and the ghost of every joint smoked behind the counter. Posters papered the walls like a fever dream – Peter Max rainbows swirling in a Technicolor scream, Robert Crumb’s twisted cartoons leering out at anyone brave enough to make eye contact. Bowie stared down from a cardboard cutout, all jagged cheekbones and mismatched eyes, daring you to try on his strangeness.The back wall of the shop was a riot of optimism, plastered with peace posters in neon hues, tie-dyed bursts of sunflowers, and swirling fonts declaring, “Make Love, Not War” and “Flower Power.” Smiling yellow faces with the words “Have a Nice Day” beamed down like a chorus of beatific Buddhas, their simplicity a small, stubborn act of rebellion against a world determined to come apart at the seams.
A kid in wire-rimmed glasses worked his way through the bins, the cardboard sleeves soft and fraying under his fingers. He looked out of place, too neat for this place where the albums were almost alive, hissing and crackling from worn-out speakers, their covers splitting at the seams like the bands they once held together. He paused, one hand hovering over The Dark Side of the Moon, the prism already bending light into something that felt like a dare.
He stood there for a second, caught in the pulse of a bassline too loud to think over, and let the world fall away – the incense, the posters, the slow-motion swirl of a lava lamp. Just a kid with a record in his hand, staring into the abyss of a 12-inch groove, wondering if maybe this was as close to understanding the universe as he’d ever get.

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