*vicious*, eddie roundtree

iii.

. . .

INTERVIEWER: Did you enjoy your time at Tower Records?

CHRISTINE: Did I enjoy running into Robert Plant, Stevie Wonder, and fucking Ringo every other shift? Hell yeah, I did.

. . .

"Coming through!" Chris yelled as she carried an impossibly heavy stack of records, piled so high she could hardly see in front of her. She maneuvered the aisles of Tower Records effortlessly, like she'd been doing it all her life. She knew where each genre was located in the store, where you could find the 45s, and could point you to any venue on the Strip. In her few months of working there, she became the employee of Tower, and she knew it. She had become an expert in nearly every genre, devoting most of her time to listening to artists and bands she'd never heard before. She'd memorized release years, band members past and present, producers, labels; you name it, she'd know it. Her coworkers idolized her, as she made their jobs infinitely easier. If a customer had a question they couldn't answer (or simply didn't want to), they'd direct them to Chris. She made that store her bitch, and she loved every second of it.

Most of her coworkers were musicians as well, and Chris loved nearly every one of them. Tower housed some of the coolest people in all of LA, and she felt honored to be a part of it. She hardly felt like she was working most of the time. All she had to do was talk about music all day and hang out with other people who shared her passion. Her coworkers quickly became some of her best friends. And to get paid for all this? Chris felt she was robbing them. She often ended up funneling a large portion of her paycheck back into the store, as she was constantly finding new albums that caught her eye. It was certainly a bonus working at one of the largest record stores in the world, as there were constantly famous musicians wandering the shelves, always spotted immediately by Chris. She'd tell the story of cashing out Robert Plant until the day she died.

"Chris, I am having an emergency here!" Ronnie followed Chris as she dodged the various customers still standing in her way.

"Take half of this stack and maybe then I will consider listening to your melodramatic psychobabble," Chris sighed as her arms ached from the utter weight of the records.

Grabbing only a few off the top, Ronnie began the dramatic retelling of his date the night before. Chris was only half listening as she cataloged her stack of LPs alphabetically.

"And then he said he didn't like disco! What kind of psychopath doesn't like disco? I can't see him anymore, Chris, I just can't."

"This psychopath doesn't like disco," Chris said, pointing to herself before returning to organize the records in front of her. "And you still love me."

"That's debatable." Ronnie smiled as he pushed himself off the stand he was leaning on and joined Chris in putting her stack away.

"Whatever, I'll see if I can find a new beau at McNasty's tonight," Ronnie said, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

Chris looked at him incredulously. "Fat chance. McNasty's is a ghost town most of the time. That's why we like it, remember? It's not all sweaty and crowded?"

"I thought we liked it because it's a fifty-foot walk."

Chris pondered this for a moment. "Well, that too."