Harry Haller’s Records

The top shelf was too highly priced but, when funds allowed, they would drink their fill of the house red that the owner, Tomas, served them in a small carafe bound with cane.

“Why do fucking tourists think we drink wine from a basket?” He asked Agnetha for what she felt was the hundredth time. She gazed at him with her serious eyes, hooded and aware as she spoke.

“I sometimes wonder what is to become of you Hermann.” Her theatrical studies sometimes made her prose flowery, but it was not as attractive as she believed it to be.

“What is that supposed to mean?” He asked.

The place was crowded and small, but their early start always assured them of a table in the late afternoon when the tourists had repaired back to hotels, exhausted from sightseeing to prepare for dinner. This was a time the serious drinkers who had not yet begun to consume vodka in lieu of breakfast.

“I think you are sliding toward a precipice of decrepitude and if you cannot reverse course, you may lose yourself in this cheap wine, never having achieved anything.”

The words stung a little. The truth will often do that he mused as he stood to leave.

“If I am so decrepit then I shall take my leave and bother you no more.”

Two could play at theatrics he thought as he rose, a little unsteadily, and artfully threw his black coat over his shoulders. He pushed past the other tables causing a small commotion as the garment dislodged glasses.

“Where are you going?” He heard Agnetha, shrill and loud behind him. “You owe me for the drinks you cheap shit.”

Her words were lost in the universal noise of a bar as he pushed open the door and fell into the cold embrace of an October evening.

Since the age of ten Hermann had often spent his days wandering aimlessly around through the busy, small, confined city. Large enough to be labelled a metropolis yet small enough that to cross its core on foot was the work of no more than a moderate stroll.

His collar up, his gaze fixed on a point in the middle distance he did not attract company. He saw himself as a human repellent with an invisible barrier able to dissuade anyone from engaging him in anything but the most cursory conversation.

No one stopped him for directions, no couples asked for photos. This was his superpower that he had cultivated so diligently yet which he was increasingly resentful of on these lonely laps of the city.

He wondered, as he often did, on the nature of his being and that of those around him. The supreme pointlessness of existence in the petri dish that humanity had so spectacularly sneezed into. He saw the insects flitting about, desperate to see this or that, to check items off their list of must-dos before they headed back to continue as drones in Insurance or some another pointless endeavour.

In this reverie he became aware that he was in a street he did not recognise but was wonderfully empty. He was in fact its only occupant just as the final light of the day was disappearing. Had he crossed the water? He could not remember doing so.

A single shop was illuminated more brightly than its neighbours. The sign above said Harry Haller’s Records. Was this a new place? He felt certain he had not been here before but how was that possible? The shop seemed familiar, and he had recollections of a recurring childhood dream.

The frontage was small with a large single pane window through which he could clearly identify boxes of records waiting patiently on tables inside, long forgotten by all but the most fervent of audiophiles.

As he pushed on the door to enter a small bell jangled.

The space was larger that he might have expected. The records all sat in plywood boxes around half a metre in length, filled with the familiar, colourful twelve-inch squares of LP covers. He wondered idly if the owner made the boxes himself, they had that look. Now inside he could see he was not merely the only patron but the only human in sight. A large dog lay on a dirty bed towards the rear of the store near the empty counter. It glanced at him lazily through barely open slits, perceived no threat, sighed a little then closed its eyes again.

He idly started to thumb through the first box. He owned no record player of any description, who the fuck did anymore? Yet the familiar feel of the sleeves and the action of his fingers and thumbs acting in concert as they danced across the edges to skim between the titles made him nostalgic in a way he did not understand for a time he did not fully recollect.

“Help you find something?”

A raspy voice behind him sudden and abrupt, accented from somewhere else, Slavic maybe? Hermann turned around.

A small man stood before him. Not short, just small in way that he found troublesome. His features, his hands, his limbs all appeared normal and yet somehow out of proportion in a way that suggested something he could not define.

“No, I’m just having a look.” He stared down at the man, or was the man staring down at him? He could no longer tell. His eyes were blue in a way that he had never seen before, wait were they blue or green?

The man stood next to him and pulled out a disc from the box that was next him, it was in the section labelled S.

The man held the record out in a way that suggested Hermann needed to take it from him to save it falling to the ground and shattering.

“Take a listen, you will enjoy this one I think.” Not a order, but a power emanated from the man that was hard to explain as Hermann dutifully took the item from him.

“I actually don’t own a record player.”

“Then why did you come into this store?”

“I’m not sure, I just saw the light was on and I realised I hadn’t seen the place before.”

The shopkeeper gazed at him with an intensity that was disconcerting. Hermann tried to hand the record back.

“Take it as a gift, find yourself a player and take a listen.”

Hermann wanted to leave. He felt sick suddenly, like vomit was desperately trying to abandon ship through his mouth. The path to get out of the shop was clear, say thank you, take the stupid thing, turn and get the hell out.

The bell jangled again as the door closed behind him and he walked, more quickly than usual, until he recognised familiar streets and shops. He looked down at the cover of the record which he realised was almost completely white. On closer examination of the title the little man had been so keen to give him, it read.

Steppenwolf.

He spun the sleeve round and on the rear saw there was only one track listed titled ‘For Madmen Only.’

He did not know the band but was certain they were heavy rock, not his thing at all. Why just one song though? No other information about copyright or producers or indeed anything. It was a plain white cover with no other markings save the name and the lone track.

He was outside a fast-food place and the bin has disgorged its topmost contents onto the pavement. The stench of grease and the squeak of synthetic burger boxes was in the air. Had it been empty he would have dumped the wretched thing but instead he walked on to see the only person he knew who was so determined to appear alternative that they owned a record player.

Her apartment was in a small building on top of a shop that sold stationery and office supplies. He rang the bell next to her name.

“Have you come to pay me for the drinks shit head?”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Just a guess, why should I let you in?”

“I’ve got a cool old vinyl record I bought for you as a gift, let me up and we can play it.”

“You bought me a gift?”

“Can we have this discussion in the warmth please its freezing?”

Silence for a second then the buzz of the door mechanism remotely activating. He pushed against the handle and bounded up the stairs. Agnetha was waiting at her door when he arrived, a little breathless from the stairs.

“Let’s see it then, I don’t believe you.”

He held the prize aloft, triumphant. “Oh, yea of little faith.”

She took it and moved aside to let him enter.

“Hang on, Steppenwolf, what the fuck do I want with this?”

“Kind of ungrateful Aggie, you got anything to drink?”

“If this is shit you still owe me for the wine.”

“OK but can we just please put it on and stop going on about fucking money.”

She succumbed and emptied the vinyl disc by holding her hand under the opening and gently sliding it out. The act was practised, muscle memory but almost reverential. Always careful not to touch the surface she examined it in the light.

“Looks like there really is only one track.” She surveyed the continuous groove cut into the surface. “That’s pretty unusual, I wonder if it’s a concept kind of thing.” She sounded almost hopeful.

The provenance was especially important to Agnetha. Interesting and unique always won over actual musical quality or her preferences. Maintaining her mystique triumphed over substance every time, though she would never admit it.

The familiar crackle started as soon as the stylus touched the surface, and the voice began with no preamble or any musical accompaniment.

Our story begins. It is a tale of the hardship of loneliness, perceptions of the ignorant, the cruelty of happenstance and the fear of the unknown.

Hermann walks to school every morning. It is always cold, and he has a thin coat and poor shoes. The walk is longer than any child should endure but endure it he must. He craves knowledge above all other things, he is young but aware that education is all that will keep the wolf of the cold from his door and his dear mother safe as she grows ever older and frail.

There is a dense wood which is dark and forbidding. There is a route around, but it takes longer, and Hermann is keen to get to the little wooden classroom where the warmth of knowledge will keep his fingers from freezing.

The other children avoid the wood. They prefer the longer walk around the edge. Their parents tell them what lies within and what has happened to children of yesterday who dared enter.

Hermann is unconcerned. Perhaps a little foolhardy but brave and resilient, the woods do not scare him. But perhaps they should.

On this fateful day the cold is biting. The snow has fallen overnight, and the scene is one of an otherworldly quiet as the icy white layer softens the footfall and dampens all surrounding noise. There are no birds today he notices, probably too cold for them. The quiet is disconcerting though.

He marches on, through the snow, his pitiful shoes almost no barrier to the pervasive cold.

The path ahead branches, as it always does. Straight ahead through the woods or right for the longer path around.

He takes the shorter path, and the light grows noticeably dimmer as the trees encroach overhead to slowly blot out the morning sky with its thin, cruel sun.

He hears a sound. A rustle in a nearby bush. It is close and it moves closer. He is alone now, deep in the wood, no shorter way out than straight ahead. The sound again, so close he can feel it.

Its behind him. He spins around and comes face to face with a giant slavering wolf.

Its enormous white head dips as he snarls at Hermann. His teeth are exposed and fearfully sharp, his hackles stand proud, the green eyes flare with anticipation, he is about to pounce.

Hermann drops his little school bag and stands still. He cannot move for fear, he is rooted to the spot his knees shake and he starts to cry.

The wolf stares at Hermann, eyes impassive and unfeeling as he inches forward towards the little boy.

He thinks of his mother, alone at home and wonders what will become of her when he is dead, how will she manage? Will it hurt or will the wolf bite him in two so quickly he does not notice?

He bows his head, closes his eyes and weeps. Then the wolf spoke, in a low growling voice that only a beast of such proportions could manage.

“Why have you entered my woods boy?”

Hermann was terrified and the words came in breathy gasps.

“School is quicker this way, and I am cold.”

The wolf looks at the boy. He sees his pitiful shoes and his tiny quivering frame.

“You would not be a meal for me boy. If I decide to spare you tell no one of this and never enter my woods again or I shall come to your house and eat your family, I assume they are fatter than you.”

Hermann nods and closes his eyes expecting the wolf is merely tricking him, he waits for the jaws to clamp down.

After a few seconds the boy realises he is still alive. He opens his eyes slowly to see that the wolf has gone. He has been spared.

He spends no time thinking on the reason why, he picks up his little bag and runs as fast as he can to school.

Several years pass and Hermann is now a strong young man who has almost finished with school. He is the best of his small class, and the teacher is hopeful he will be the first boy from the village to go to the university. He has chopped much wood and carried many pails of milk for his dear mother and the effort has made him strong and no longer the scared little boy he used to be.

On his final day of school he feels strangely afraid to leave, to begin the rest of his life and leave his boyhood behind.

“Thank you Hermann, you have been such a good pupil, but now it is time for you to go now and live the life your hard work will give you.”

The teacher bids him goodbye for the final time.

It is dark when he steps outside, how late it has gotten, mother will be frantic.

The events in the woods all those years ago seem somehow dreamlike and although he has never set foot in the woods since or told a soul of the encounter tonight he feels he must take the short way home.

Watching from the trees a pair of green eyes follows his progress.

Agnetha stared at him as the arm of the player lifted and returned to the start.

“What the actual fuck is that apart from massively creepy, how weird he was called Hermann.”

“You owe me for the drinks shit head this record is awful; it makes no sense.”

Hermann stood, his green eyes glassy and unseeing. When he reflects on this moment in his later years he realises that the dormant wolf was awakened this night.

He felt the blood coursing through his body, his pulse rang in his ears as the words from the recording flooded his synapses.

Hermann watches her eyes and sees astonishment, fear, anger and loss. He would grow to desire this look over all other things in the years to come but tonight was such a delicious surprise. Such a privilege to be in the presence of a soul taking flight.