“Track Six:” Viv

[Los Angeles. 2018.]

Get me out of here. Same route. Same routine. Same run around the city.

Get me the fuck out of my own mind. Skip. Next. Nope. I keep tapping my phone screen over and over. I should make a new playlist- this one is tired. I’m bored and I’m blue and I want to see something new. 

“Renton-” She plucks the phone out of my hand, effectively canceling my privileges as D.J. “It’s two minutes and thirty seconds of your life. Just let it play.”

“Isn’t that sacrilegious or something? Coming from you.”

“Depends. Sometimes a song is just a song.” She clocks me staring at her. “Fine- yes, a song is never just a song, but I will murder my only child if you hit next one more time.” Fair. 

It bothers me sometimes, how decisive my mom is with her creativity and her outlooks. Like ideas just come to her. 

I search for them everywhere, but for her- poof. They just appear. 

 “Are you sure I can’t come with you? I’ve been practicing on the board at home.” I should have put the new songs on my phone for her to listen to. 

She grins at me, slipping her sunglasses down her nose so I can see her eyes. “You’re my kid- of course you’re getting good.” She pushes her glasses back up her nose. “But I didn’t raise a nepo-baby.

The son of Elsie Kelly, and I’m sidelined, destined to produce my own music in my bedroom for eternity. Or until I’m 18. Which is the same thing.

She pulls over in a fire lane. “I’ll be back around 6-”

“Unless it’s closer to 7 or 8…” I drone. I know the routine. 

“Your dad’ll get you if I’m not out by 7 this time. Cool?”

I nod. “Cool.”

She drops me off on the corner of Sunset and Cahuenga before heading to her studio in Beachwood Canyon. It’s painful how much cooler my mom is than me. She’s off to produce for an indie band from Camden Town, and I’m going to another movie at the Cineramadome and shopping for records for the fourth Saturday in a row. 

 I make my way over to the dome, buy an overpriced pack of red vines from the ancient-looking counter, and go inside to watch a special 70mm screening of Grand Prix and absorb absolutely none of it. Instead, I spend the whole time thinking about what it will be like when I finally get to travel the world. 

At some point, the movie ends, and I have my afternoon Ponyboy moment and step out of the darkness into the bright sunlight and walk down the block towards Amoeba to finish out the remains of my Saturday. You’d think the kid of two wealthy workaholics would have the liberty to mess around Los Angeles at will- or at least stay home. But that’s not Elsie’s style. My mom wants me out in the world. ‘You don’t find inspiration in your bedroom, Rents- that’s just where you write about it.’

It’s my favorite thing she’s ever said to me. It’s also my standing ticket to seeing a band that starts at 11pm on Tuesday when she tells me it’s a school night. 

Amoeba is always buzzing on a Saturday afternoon. The music is loud, the lines are long, and the racks are overflowing with serious buyers and first-timers. I may hate sitting in the dark of the movie theater to pass some of the time, but moving around in the bright buzz of this shop never gets old. 

I bounce around for the first hour, sifting through the DVDs, books, and posters before I move on to the vinyl. 

I love it all so much that most days, I think I was born in the wrong decade. The only thing I love my phone for is the amount of music it can hold. It’s funny what you notice when you look up and everyone else is looking down. Seriously, half the people in the racks with me- they flip past three records before they have to reach for their phone. And no one today seems to be looking up, let alone singing along to the-

Huh…

Almost no one. 

Except for her. 

She looks about my age, but she’s pint-sized. There’s a short stack of records in her arms that practically take up a third of her body. She’s mouthing the words to ‘Redondo Beach’ because it's playing on the store P.A. And she grins every time she pulls a record to add to her stack. 

“Can I see what you’re getting?” I don’t remember walking over to her, or when the decision to talk to her was made. Only that it happened. 

“Huh?” I’m not tall, but she had to look up at me. Which feels weird for me. I never feel tall, or fit for that matter. Not in L.A. Here I’m a scrawny pseudo-punk who’d rather go for a run before a show than give two fucks about abs, acting and headshots. 

“Your records. Can I see what you’re picking up?” I ask again.

She shrugs, passing them to me. “Sure. It’s kinda all over the place.”

Blondie, Teenage Fanclub, A Tribe Called Quest- two Dimestore Saints imports and a Leo Kane acoustic release of his first solo record; my instinct to get to know her instantly confirmed. 

“I’m Renton.”

She cocks her head to the side. “Like, the guy from Trainspotting?”

I nod. “My mom loved the soundtrack. And Ewan McGregor. Not heroin.”

“Rad. I’m Viv.” She says. 

“I’ve never seen you here before.” I pass her records back to her. 

She studies me. “Do you work here or something?” 

“Nah. I just come here a lot.”

“Oh. Well, you’re not wrong. I just moved up here from San Diego.” 

“You liking it?”  

She shrugged again. “The music scene is better here, but…” She adjusted the pack of music in her arms. “I dunno.”

I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything about her. Not really. 

Not yet. 

“So you don’t like it here,” I said.

“I’m just ready to graduate.” She was practically spinning in a circle. “To see what else is out there.”

“You’re about to graduate?”

She rolled her eyes. “Hardly, I turn sixteen next week. Eighteen feels like an eternity from now, ya know?”

I did fucking know! I stifled my excitement but I wanted to yell it; my insides were buzzing. “Yeah. I hear ya.” 

I fell into place beside her, and we started flipping through the racks together. 

Bad, Cop, Bad, Cop- 

Banner Pilot-

Beng, Beng, Cocktail- 

“Holy shit!” Viv said at the exact same time that I thought it; both our hands went for the record at the same time. “I love them-”

“-They changed my life last year.”

Our words tumbled over each other, the two of us reaching for the album at the same time. She got to the vinyl first; the chipped neon polish of her thumb and pointer finger held the sleeve, and three of my fingers landed on hers.

“Uh-” Viv pinched the vinyl a little tighter.

“Sorry-” I flinched, my hand lifting off of hers like it burned. 

The two of us stared at the pressing of this random band out of Lille, France- until I plucked it out of the stack, inspecting it. “You take it.” I handed it to her. “I’ve got this one already.” 

“You sure?” she asked me.

“I’m sure.”

She looked at her watch. It was one of those digital ones with the tiny calculator on it from the 80s. “Shit. I should get in line. I need to go meet my family at the movies.”

“Can I wait in line with you?”

She looked at my arms, which were empty. “You’re not buying anything?”

“I’ve got a lot of time to kill, and I can’t seem to find anything I want yet.”

“Maybe you’re looking too hard.”

“Huh?” 

“Like when you’re trying to find sunglasses that are already on your head- and if you just slowed down, you’d feel them there. Ya know?”

“Sure, I guess-” she reached past me to the rack and pulled a record back. 

It was another Beng Beng Cocktail album. “It was in the next slot. Misplaced.” She smirked at me. “Sure you have this one at home?”

Waiting in line, she was nodding along to the Telecaster flaring through the sound system, it was King Princess’ ’1950.’ Viv, lost in her stack of records, started to sing along, like it slipped out without her realizing it. I can tell, because once she looks up and finds me staring at her, the pale of her cheeks turns neon pink like her nails. 

“You’re pretty good.” I said.

“Thanks.”

She’s taping her fingers against her leg, on the beat. “You play anything?” I asked.

“Guitar and some piano. You?” 

“Uh-” I hate this part. I feel like I come off like a prick. “A little bit of everything I guess; drums are my favorite- but producing’s what I really want to do.”

She laughs, “What? You have like, a studio at home or something?”

“Nah. You know, just some apps.” I dial everything back, terrified I’ll come off like an overprivileged dick. “We should play together sometime.”

Viv shrugs. “Maybe. Kinda sorta violently terrified of playing in front of people.”

 “Oh. Got it, yeah. No worries.”

We wait awkwardly in line again with the Saturday crowd that’s lined up all at once.

I look back at her, thinking of something else to say and she’s biting her lip. “Fuck it.” She says and passes me her stack of records. “Hold these a sec.”

She rifles through her bag and pulls out a lime green notebook no bigger than her hand, the face of it covered in stickers. Viv scribbles something down and rips it out before taking back her stack. 

“Here-” she holds out the paper, but as I go to take it, she grips it tighter. “This isn’t like, a swoony-crush thing. But you know- maybe we could try and play some music together sometime.”

She lets go of the paper, and I see her number written on it.

“Can I?” I nod at her notebook, and she passes it to me with her pen. 

In between the racks, in a line of people buying ancient forms of music, I write my number on   a piece of paper for a person I just met and time doesn’t feel like it normally it does. It feels like what I want I always wish it would feel like. 

The clerk calls her up to the next spot with an open register. I pass her notebook back to her, my number torn out and resting on top. 

“Ya, know. For non-flirting purposes only.” And I mean it. 

I don’t know why, but this girl’s not someone you date at fifteen. I think she’s someone you keep in your life forever. 

“Deal.” She laughs and heads off to buy her Saturday finds. I have to hang back, no spots open for me at any of the bays. 

And it bothers me.

It bothers me? 

Yup. It bothers me. I met this girl less than an hour ago, and I’m mad I’ve missed out on knowing her my whole life.

Viv finishes up and heads for the door to the end of the counter to collect her bag. 

I want to play it cool… But I never find people who feel like they can be my ‘people,’ and I let the words vomit out of my mouth. 

“Hey- you call me whenever you wanna come down to shop-“ Viv stops, the clerk passing her a yellow bag filled with her vinyl. “Or, you know, whenever you don’t,” I added. “You can call then, too.”

Viv clutched her yellow bag at the end of the counter and nodded. “See ya around then, Rents.” She said and left the store with my number in her pocket while I stayed in the racks of Amoeba with her number in mine. 

I looked at the time on my phone. 

4:45.  

I bail on the line for the register and decide to sift through the used bins on the floor of the Soundtrack section; if I’m going to find a gem, today’s the day it’s gonna happen.

I pull Viv’s number from my pocket and save it in my phone for safe keeping, and go back to flipping through the boxes on the floor. 

I’m bored and I’m blue and I want to see something new-

My phone buzzes. 

It’s Viv’s name’s on the lock screen. 

I swipe at her text to read it: Same time next Saturday?

Next to you, I think.

And I text back ‘yes,’ straight away. 

*Inspired by the first and last lyrics of the Brendan Miller’s song, “Viv” & a continuation of  existing characters from THE VENUE.