MOONLIGHT MILE EXCERPT
Wednesday came and Ralph turned up an hour early.
“Are you on your own in the shop?” he asked.
“Yes. Why?”
“Hold on.” He called Diane, his wife, who was outside in his SUV. He told her to come in with the SUV keys, which she did.
“Diane will watch the shop while we go out to the SUV.”
“What for?” I asked.
“Just follow me.” He was smiling. “Hope you’ve had your porridge.”
He opened the back of the SUV and there were crates of LPs.
“Here. You’re bigger than me,” said Ralph, “Take this out the SUV and into your shop.” He passed me the nearest crate. We repeated the process until ten crates were in my shop, me sweating and Ralph giving the SUV keys to Diane, who then left. I looked at the booty, confused.
“A confession, Don. I didn’t give George all my records.”
“So I see.”
“He doesn’t need to know that. You know what he’s like.”
“Yup,” I replied.
“There’s 500 lps there. I’ll be honest, they’re not the most valuable records.”
P.1
“Yeah, but...”
“But nothing, Don. Call these records your commission for selling my collection for me.”
“Thanks. But I have to give you something for them.”
“Mine’s a Guinness. Look, we always say we’ll do a beer sometime. Well, today is sometime.”
I thought about it and was about to say come back at 5.30pm.
“Close the shop, mate. You’ll make a tonne of cash on these records. Take the rest of the day off. You only live once.”
I looked at the records and calculated an afternoon off could be afforded. We went to Stones a local with fine beers, malt whiskeys, and even a cigar outdoor area. We sat there all afternoon, getting slowly smashed.
“For a man so into his music, Don, it’s criminal that you don’t have a proper record player. I’ll bring my record player to you at the weekend. Least I can do is replace that piece of shit that you use to destroy records in your shop. Christ, it always annoyed the crap outta me.” He wheezed a laugh and coughed up a guffaw.
“You’ve got a Rega 2 Planar if I remember right?” I asked.
“Yup. Diablo George wanted it. Tried to make it part of the deal, of course.”
“Of course he did.”
P.3
Hearing how his love of music had started when he was in the army and had developed into a vinyl obsession was fascinating. He told his life story through what music was on the go at the time and what records he’d bought when.
“That’s been a very full life, Ralph.”
He stared into the night sky, tapping his cigar, muttering,
“That it has, Don, that it has. Well, all good things have to come to an end.”
“Eh?”
“There’s Diane to pick me up.”
Over the road was their SUV. The lights flashed.
“It’s been a pleasure, Don. A real pleasure.”
“Yeah, it’s been great,” I replied.
“I meant the years of buying records from you.”
“You’re too generous with that load of LPs, Ralph. Let me give you something for them.”
“You earned them.”
“Maybe but, George paid me a Boogie Bonus for putting him in touch with you.”
“£1,500. I know.”
P.5
I must have worn that look record dealers wear when confronted with LPs by Neil Diamond, Scottish Country Dance, Sidney Devine and other such charity shop stalwarts.
“Don’t panic,” laughed Ralph. “Fleetwood Mac, The Doors, Blondie. No shite.”
“What are you looking for?”
“A pint.”
“No, I mean for the records.”
“Told you. A Pint.”
“A Pint?”
“Yeah.”
“A pint of what? Liquid gold?”
“Nah. Don’t like Tennents. More a Guinness man. Or any stout.”
I looked at Ralph, knowing this was a joke but just not hearing a punch line.
“Don, look, you got me a good deal from George. These records here would have been lost forever buried under 10,000s of other records in George’s famous warehouse. No one would ever have heard them again. You know what he’s like. He wants to have all the marbles just so no one else has them. But I want others to experience the pleasure the records gave me.”
P.2
“He called it a Rolls Royce.”
“But offered a Lada price?”
“Something like that,” said Ralph, laughing.
“I might be able to stretch to a Ford Escort type price.”
“There’s no charge. Call it my legacy.”
“That’s...quite a gift. Are you sure?”
“I’ll not need it now, Don.”
“I guess not.”
I made a mental note not to tell Diablo George I had acquired this beast of a record player as part of the deal.
“I have to ask, Ralph, won’t you miss collecting?”
“I’ll miss all of it, Don. Every damn bit. But it was worth it. Every minute.”
Ralph looked like he was going to well up. It was the end of an era, for sure. We swapped hunter stories about rare beasts we’d found and the ones that got away as Ralph breathed his way through two cigars which I passively shared with him. His pride and joy was a mint condition first pressing of the Rolling Stones classic, Sticky Fingers, which contained his all-time favourite song, Moonlight Mile.
P.4
“You know?”
“Yes. George told me.”
“He’s a fucken chatterbox, ain’t he.”
Ralph laughed. “Life’s too short for secrets.”
“Aye, but sometimes you want to choose your time,” I said, lightly laughing.
“Sometimes you don’t get that luxury.”
Diane tooted the horn and Ralph walked towards the car lights, and I said cheerio to his silhouette.
P.6