Rock Hard

Wasn’t the idea of recording records to sell them and make money from your art?

How was that a bad thing if you stayed true to your vision?

Parking was easy, since I was later than usual, and most people had already gotten to their day jobs, including those who served coffee to the likes of me. It was a mixed blessing, to be sure. While I lamented their loss of autonomy, the very notion of me trying to use an Espresso machine brought about a sense of existential dread that was roughly on par with the feeling I got when I thought about nuclear proliferation.

“Tall hot chocolate with whipped cream.”

“Going on a detox?” Skyler asked, punching in the order.

She was the barista who was always here, and knew that I was a regular.

“Good guess.”

Not that there wasn’t still caffeine in the hot chocolate, of course. Just a lot less than even the smallest latte. I wasn’t to the point of muscle jitters, but I thought it was a good idea to give my heart a break. I wasn’t as young as I used to be and two and a half decades of copious coffee consumption could be cause for concern.

Following the time-honored tradition, I stepped to one side, and waited to be summoned by the beverage guardians. The chair creaked softly under me as I eased down, even though it was unlikely to be a long wait.

I saw someone I didn’t want to see just then, and wished I could pretend that I hadn’t, but there was no way to avoid it.

I would know her anywhere, even though I hadn’t been told she’d been released. She hadn’t seen me yet and my first instinct was to run. Her name, Clara, was on the tip of my tongue. It was an unutterable hex that could only lead to my immediate doom.

Never had I been more thankful for my change in appearance. I just turned in my chair, so my back was to her, wishing I had given Skyler a fake name to call out when my order was ready.

Seth wasn’t that unusual of a name. Far from a Tad or a Layne. But still nowhere near as common as a Curt, even with the Germanic K, or a Chris.

I got ready to move fast when beckoned to the counter, an event that couldn’t come soon enough as far as I was concerned. And mercifully, I retrieved my beverage without any drama.

My arch nemesis, Clara, hadn’t seen me. She couldn’t try to stalk me or ruin my life, at least not any more right this moment than she already had.

I was so glad to be out of that coffee shop and in my own car. Of all the gambits I’d pulled off in my life, successfully steering a Ducati with a full take-out cup of hot chocolate between my thighs ranked near the top. I made it to the office in record time.

Cup in hand for an accessible way to sip it, I blew past the security in the building, who damn well knew my face by then, and headed for the elevators. Suspicious Activity had started in a garage before moving to a disused factory in an industrial zone. My friend Cam and I had initially wanted to call it Factory Records, but that name was already taken, as were Virgin and Rough Trade.

The name that stuck came from an incident when the cops raided the factory space without cause, or a warrant, for the third time in a row. Apparently, they knew something we didn’t about our business, as they always seemed certain there was something illegal going on.

They were wrong. Some of the musicians we recorded smoked cigarettes, but last time I checked that was still legal.

I started to sometimes regret the name by my mid-30s, because it was a mouthful and it also kind of made us sound like hooligans, but it had already become our brand. Something none of us really expected.

Cam and I had started the label as a way to release our own stuff, following in the independent footsteps of The Beatles’ Apple Records and Frank Zappa’s Barking Pumpkin.

But we caught the attention of the local scene and grew from there, even after our band, Autumn Corrosion, broke up, due to a fatal case of dead drummer. With the change in fortunes came a move of locations.

Cam and I, and our other band mates, moved to our very own corner of the beating heart of the big scary city. We’d mostly grown up in Olympia, so it was something of a culture shock.

“Morning, Holly,” I told the receptionist.

“Morning, sir.”

“Please, you know you can call me Seth.”

“Sure, but do I prefer to?” she asked, with a cheeky wink.

I knew she had a boyfriend and was just playing with me. Like when servers ironically called me ‘young man,’ it being well understood by both of us that it wasn’t the ‘man’ part of that phrase that was in question, but the ‘young.’