Plastic Gods Chapters 4 & 5
"Cheap Jerry"; "Nathan"
Table of Contents
[ Chapter 1 ] [ Chapter 2 ] [ Chapter 3 ]
Cheap Jerry’s Record Store was a hole in the wall, maybe fifty feet by one hundred feet wide, with barely any space to walk through the maze of cardboard boxes full of dusty records. Most of the store was full of beat-up used records of all different genres, with one wall dedicated to new ones. These were in better condition. There was a leak in the ceiling which dripped through the once-white ceiling panels and onto a box full of dirt-cheap records that no one ever bought. In the corner of the store was an old relic of a cash register, sitting atop a small green plastic countertop with a bin full of pins and patches and stickers and various other junk. Behind the counter was an old beat-up record player, on which Mona occasionally played music. The music was from her ‘personal collection’—a cardboard box full of records she didn’t really care about, which she kept there for this exact purpose. Hanging on the wall above the record player was a cheap acoustic guitar which her boss (Cheap Jerry himself) kept there for show. It allegedly made the place more ‘welcoming.’
Aside from sweeping floors and dusting shelves and working the cash register and occasionally leaving a note for her boss to reorder a record that was selling well and running low, Mona Blank’s main job at Cheap Jerry’s was to convince customers to buy albums. Mona was good at this—that’s why Cheap Jerry liked her so much. She knew a lot about music, and she knew which types of music would appeal to which people. She was pretty charismatic, too, when she wanted to be. This gave Mona the honor of being Cheap Jerry’s most valuable employee. Of course, Mona’s only competition was a young kid named Brian who came in stoned every shift and ogled Mona shamelessly like he was watching her on television. Still, there were perks to Mona’s status. It meant she could get there a few minutes late without Jerry complaining. It meant she could take days off when she wanted to, because he knew that she knew that he was better off with her than without her. It meant that she had a place to store her surplus records. It also meant that, when the store was empty and she was feeling up to it, she could pluck the dingy old acoustic guitar off the wall and actually play it.
It was the middle of the winter, which meant the store was empty a lot. On weekdays, Mona could go hours at work without seeing another soul. When the store was this empty, she spent most of the day playing music. Occasionally she’d write music, too—she always brought her little black notebook with her, just in case.
In fact, Mona got more creative work done at Cheap Jerry’s than she did at home. It might have had something to do with being surrounded by records and people who wanted to buy them. More likely, though, it was because she was stuck there with absolutely nothing better to do.
There was also a thrill to potentially being heard by a customer walking in. It made the music feel more important, especially compared to the lonely music she played at home, destined to be heard by no one (except perhaps her geriatric upstairs neighbor).
This performance generally lasted all of about three seconds. There were two little bells tied to the doorknob that rang whenever the door was opened, and Mona’s ear was trained to pick up on any sound coming from those bells. After this she’d promptly freeze, put the guitar back down, go to her designated post at the register, and ask the customer if they needed anything.
It was a Tuesday, and a particularly slow one. Only one customer had come in all day, and he left without buying anything. It was a rainy afternoon; not exactly the kind of day that someone would want to leave a store with an arm full of dusty old treasures (or slightly-discounted new releases of new ultra-processed pop music that juxtaposed the ‘vintage’ feel of the record store horridly). Jerry had stopped to check in earlier, which meant that there was basically no chance at all of him coming back. So, after rearranging some bins and popping one sagging ceiling panel back into place for the third time in a week, Mona grabbed the guitar and began to play.
Mona’s songwriting generally followed a familiar pattern. She’d start messing
around with a few chords—a simple, repetitive chord progression—and let her singing lead the music. She’d come up with some lyrics on the spot (usually nonsensical ones) and play around with the way the words sounded. When she was satisfied, she’d jot the idea down in her notebook, and only then would she make intelligible lyrics for it. This last step was the ‘polishing’ of a song—formatting it and bringing it all together with lyrics that she was proud to sign her name to. Of course, this description drastically over-simplifies the process. Littered throughout it was intense, agonizing pain. Laboring over the same lines over and over again, switching between the same few chords endlessly and getting nowhere closer to a decision. Mona felt the whole process as a literal physical sensation somewhere in her chest.
This particular rainy Tuesday early-afternoon seemed to bypass this. Mona had come up with a unique strumming pattern and began strumming the same few chords that she always did. After a few minutes of practice (after which point the pattern became muscle memory), some words suddenly came to her, so she went with it, playing around with the dynamics of her voice, alternating between loud and soft. After a while she lost herself. She closed her eyes and faded her consciousness into the music, the lyrics which were repetitive yet somehow alive. The song ended in a massive crescendo where she strummed the guitar with all the strength in her arms and sang as loudly as she could.
She suddenly got the overwhelming instinct that the song was over, and she opened her eyes. As soon as she did, she saw someone standing in the room with her. She jumped, and the man immediately averted his gaze, pretending to look through a dusty bin full of old jazz records.
Mona’s face felt hot. She quickly put her guitar back on the stand and went to her regular post behind the cash register.
As she did so, Aios Roe pressed his archive button to save the recording to his computer.
“Sorry,” Mona mumbled. “Can I help you find anything?”
“Oh, no thanks,” the stranger said. “I’m just browsing. I never knew this place was here.”
“Oh, yeah,” Mona said. “Well, let me know if you need anything.”
Mona rested her elbows on the counter and started mindlessly digging through the bin full of pins and patches and stickers that was sitting next to her. There was a dislodged cuticle on her thumb which she promptly started playing with.
“You know,” the stranger said, lifting up an album from one of the ‘rock and roll’ bins. “I actually think you could help me with something.”
Mona nodded her head, gesturing for him to go on.
“Have you ever listened to these guys?” he asked. The album he was holding was from a group called ‘Dirt,’ a popular rock band. “My brother swears they’re not that bad.”
“A lot of people like them,” Mona replied. “Personally, I think they’re a little over-hyped. You probably would, too, since you followed up your question with ‘your brother swears they’re not that bad.’” Mona left the counter and walked up to the table he was looking at. “Have you heard of The Marionettes? Same kind of thing, only more original and a lot less… manufactured.”
The stranger smiled. “I love that band,” he said. “Violet Dreams is my favorite album. Not a lot of people know about them.”
“Yeah, well, I’m supposed to be the expert, right?” She rolled her eyes.
“You know what,’’ he said. “What song were you singing earlier? That’s an album I’d buy.”
“Oh that?” Mona’s cheeks flushed. “That was nothing. Just a couple chords I was messing around with.”
“You’re really good. You’ve got a great voice. Really different. I’ve never heard anything like it.”
“Thanks,” Mona said, smiling and averting her eyes.
“I’m Nathan,” the stranger said.
“Mona.”
Nathan walked over to the counter and reached over to shake her hand, his lips twisting up in a boyish, sideways grin.
Nathan was handsome. He had a friendly face and complex, dark green eyes that she glanced away from after only a second in fear of looking at them for too long.
“So, are you in a band?” Nathan asked.
Mona practically jumped. “No,” she said. “Definitely not. I mean, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Hm. You could be, you know.”
“No way,” Mona replied. She was starting to feel uncomfortable.
“No way meaning you don’t want to, or no way meaning you don’t think you can?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Both, I guess.” She started fidgeting with the basket of stickers again.
“Well, I don’t want to disturb you, then. If you change your mind, my brother and I are actually looking for a singer. We have a little band we’re thinking of starting up. Just something for fun, nothing professional. And we’re nowhere near as talented as you, of course. But it could be fun, seeing as you’re not tied down anywhere else.”
Mona didn’t know what to say. She just looked at him, frozen. The silence was making them both nervous.
“Think about it. Here’s my card,” Nathan said, laying down a shiny black business card on the counter. “Have a nice day, Mona.”
He flashed her a big smile then turned around and left the store before she could reply.
“You too!” Mona called out. “Thanks!”
Mona heard the sound of the bell rattling against the door, and Nathan was gone.
Mona looked down at the card. On one side of it was the band’s name, “Soma,” which Mona recognized as a reference to a mythical psychedelic mushroom which was common in ancient lore.
In fact, ‘soma’ is something of a mystical word. In English, it refers to an ancient hallucinogenic drink, and is used often in literature and the arts to represent a potent wonder-drug.
Mona was intrigued. She flipped the card to the other side. The name ‘Nathan Weiss’ was written in small lettering in the center. Under this were the words “songwriter/multi-instrumentalist,” and under that was a phone number. Mona smiled. She thought it was kind of dorky that a band that had just started up would go out of their way to make business cards.
Mona didn’t call Nathan that day. She considered it when she got home but decided against it, sticking his card in a junk drawer in her kitchen just in case she ever decided to change her mind.
She did change her mind eventually, but not right away.
First, Nathan became something of a repeat customer at Cheap Jerry’s. He dropped in every few days, each time making up some excuse like, “You know, I think I actually will pick up that Marionettes album. Remember the one we were talking about? It’s my brother’s birthday this week,” or, “I have some buddies coming over later. They’re not really into music. Do you have any idea what the cool kids are listening to these days?”
Each time he stopped in, Nathan would remind Mona that he’d given her his card, in case she ever decided to change her mind ‘about the whole band thing.’
When he’d leave, he’d flash a big smile and walk out the door with a wink.
The last time Nathan dropped in unannounced was a little different. He’d been there the day before. Having exhausted all plausible reasons why someone might want to buy a record (and, in all probability, spent more money than he could afford), he resorted to a different tactic.
“Oh, I was just passing by, and hoped I’d be able to catch you singing again. I’ll leave you alone. Have a nice day, Mona.”
This was all Nathan said.
Later that day, Mona dug the business card out of her drawer.
5 - Nathan
Soma was a good band. When Mona entered the picture they became a great band. Nathan played guitar, piano, banjo, mandolin, and basically any other instrument that he could get his hands on that he might want to feature in a song. Nathan’s older brother Simon played the bass, and the drummer was a guy named Craig that the brothers found by putting up flyers in coffee shops around the city.
Nathan was tall and lanky, and although he could be incredibly charming when he wanted to be, he was actually quite serious, particularly when he was playing music. Simon, on the other hand, never stopped cracking jokes, and always had a smile on his face, which only intensified when he was playing. He was even taller and even lankier than Nathan and wore thick glasses with black frames that he was practically blind without. Craig was stocky, with a big, red beard and a voice that often startled people by being even deeper than one would expect from a man who measured about two Nathans wide. This effect was intensified by the fact that he barely spoke at all, meaning that people could often be in his company for hours before finally hearing him. He was a lot like Mona in that way.
If referring to their immense success seems abrupt, it’s because it was. Soma was something of an overnight sensation. In fact, in Aios’s case, they were literally an overnight sensation. When he left the office on Thursday, Soma was rehearsing in Nathan and Simon’s basement apartment, and when he came back on Friday, they were negotiating a record deal.
It made sense. They were a band packed with so much talent that it seemed like divine providence that they were all born in the same neighborhood of the same city, and all managed to cross paths at precisely the right time.
Nathan and Simon fed off of one another. Simon’s effortless ‘groovy’ bass lines stole the show during the music’s quieter moments and kept Nathan grounded during his long, experimental solos. Craig’s fans would maintain that it was his drumming that lent the music its power. He could drum as hard and as fast as any musician alive, but he was tasteful—if a song demanded a minimalist approach, he’d go quiet and mellow, and the song would be all the better for it.
Shredded magazine called the band ‘a miracle,’ and few within the music industry could deny it. They’d heard rock music before. In fact, they’d heard so much of it that the genre was losing popularity by the day. But no one had ever heard anything like Soma. A converging of talents like that happened once a generation—once a millenium, even.
But this may be jumping ahead a bit too far.
If one is to really understand the legend that is Soma, it is necessary to start at the beginning. In this case, that means Mona Blank’s apartment building on a Saturday night—three Saturday nights after the stars’ first meeting, in fact, after she’d come home at 8pm and, between her second and third glass of wine, realized that she didn’t actually like playing music alone at home.
Or maybe it’s better to start an hour or so later, when Nathan, after telling Mona that he was home alone with nothing better to do, left the bar where he was sitting with his brother, a couple of his brother’s friends, and some girls they’d decided to chat with for the evening, and promptly showed up at a different bar where Mona would be.
Maybe it was an hour or so after that, when the two, their heads woozy and light, started talking about music and ambitions and dreams and life and death and everything in between, with the brutal honesty you can only give a tipsy stranger.
Or maybe it was the day after that, when Nathan brought his guitar to Mona’s little studio apartment and they started playing music together, or the week after that, when Nathan finally introduced Mona to the band.
In reality, the real catalyst might just be a quiet Monday morning sometime within that first month, when Cheap Jerry’s Record Store was closed, and Nathan was at his day job filling out spreadsheets or whatever it was he was doing at the time (the particulars are irrelevant to this story).
Wired but still a little foggy after her second cup of coffee, Mona decided to take a shower—a long one, since her landlord was the one who paid the water bill. Her mind scanned through thoughts about her job and her music and her mom (who she hadn’t called in weeks), and what she was going to do with her life (really do, once this band dream inevitably died down), and how her mother told her not to get a communications degree because she’d wind up still working at the same record store once she graduated, and how it didn’t really matter, and how maybe, just maybe, she’d actually get what she wanted out of life this time. She thought about Nathan, and how she never really gave the idea of letting someone into her life a chance.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a little black dot, and that’s when all her other thoughts evaporated and her mind became flooded with thoughts about that damned spider.
She didn’t know what made her do it. The most likely cause was that she felt threatened. All she knew was that out of the corner of her eye she noticed a little black dot and was startled, because in all of her thinking she’d completely forgotten that she’d allowed a spider to live in her space. Then another glimpse of movement caught her eye from the opposite wall, and she realized that she was actually bathing amongst two spiders.
They were approximately equal in size, although the one that first grabbed her attention looked slightly bigger. They both had the same white dot on the center of their plump bodies. She realized that she couldn’t distinguish between them, had no way of knowing which one was her spider and which one was the intruder. She paused for a second and then, almost without thinking, detached the shower head from its mount on the wall and flushed them both down the drain, starting with the one that had first grabbed her attention and ending with the one in the opposite corner that had almost evaded notice.
She instantly felt bad. She’d tricked her spider—coaxed him into thinking that she was a friend and then betrayed his trust once he thought he had nothing to hide. She felt powerful. She’d washed away their lives without even a thought. Not only that, but the value of a spider’s life was so small that she could tell anyone in her life about her little double-homicide, and no one would bat an eye. No one would even think it was something to feel guilty about. They were just spiders, after all, and they were in her space. It’s what you were supposed to do.
Mona said a little half-hearted prayer for the spiders (and for her own conscience), and wondered whether they were still alive, and if not, what killed them. Was it the water (could spiders swim?)? The impact of being thrust into the drain?
Then, for the first time in her life, she felt a strange feeling. The feeling that this had somehow happened before, that it was predetermined somehow. She was supposed to kill that spider, not because it was the right thing to do but simply because it was what she was going to do. With that realization came a strange feeling—a feeling of being watched.
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