Louder Than Love || Chris Cornell

Here's To Old Friends

I walk over to the section where all the vintage and new band shirts were hung up and start to flip through them. Yes! there are tons of shirts  I would wear in here. Pantera, Black Sabbath, Aerosmith, even a new Sepultura shirt. I loved how Nancy was always able to find a distributor for the newer band shirts. It amazes me how a record store like Easy Street Records had nothing, but I come in here and find everything I love.

"Andi... Oh my god Andi... is that you?"

I hear a familiar voice and look up from the shirt rack that I was flipping through. It was Selena.

"Holy shit... Hi..." I smile in surprise as she walks up to me. She almost looked exactly the same, obviously a little older, just like me, but still the same. She embraces me in a hug and I suddenly get emotional. I never realized how much I've missed her until now. Damn these hormones.
"Shit... it's been so long eh?" She giggles as she pulls away from me.
"Yea... fuck, has it ever..." I giggle back and wipe my eyes as I set my sunglasses up on my head.
"Shit... how are you? How've you been?' She smiles at me. Fuck, where do I even start?
"I'm good... I'm really good actually," I giggle as I try to wipe another tear from my eye.
"Um... are you busy right now? or... I mean do you want to go grab a drink and catch up?" She smiles at me.
"No I'm not busy at all really, just looking for some new shirts..." I say.
"Cool... well I'm pretty much done my shift here so I can just ring you up then," She says.

"Wait... you work here now?" I ask as I grab the shirts I picked out off the rack.
"Yea... It's been like a year now," She says as I follow her up to the register.
"Is Nancy still here...?" I ask as she walks around the counter and I hand her my shirts.
"Uh... no, she sold the business just after she hired me... She almost had to close the place down so she sold it to and investor or something... so I technically run it as a GM..." She says as she rings up my shirts.

"Really... well I'm glad the store was able to be saved..." I say as I hand her some cash.
"Yea... it's still a work in progress, I wanted to make sure that it mostly stayed the same," She says as she bags up my shirts. I take the bag from her and she quickly heads to the stairs where the basement was and yells down to someone to let them know she's leaving and then heads back over to me.
"Alright... let's head outta here," She smiles at me as she grabs her bag from behind the counter.
"Cool," I smile and we head out of the store.

Bad Animal Studios, Seattle Washington

"Chris... I need more from you... I know you can give me more..." Michael Beinhorn presses the mic button so Chris could hear him from the control room.

"What the fuck do you mean? I've been singing the same god damn part, 20 thousand times now," Chris says frustrated, removing his head phones.

"Chris... did you listen to the CD's I gave you?" Michael says through the mic.

"Ok as much as I respect Frank Sinatra, I can't sing like him so... and I don't even think it goes with the song," Chris says looking at Michael intensely.
"Chris... trust me..." Michael says.
"For fuck sakes... Fine! Fine..." Chris says and sets the headphones back on his head.
"Ok... roll tape.... take 137," Michael says as Adam Kasper starts the tape back up.

•••

Chris walks out of the studio, out the main doors, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it up as he leans against the brick siding of the studio. He runs his fingers over his shaved head, feeling the fuzziness of his hair or lack thereof. He still remembers the look on Andi's face when she walked into the bathroom and found him right in the middle, his dark curls no longer around his shoulders but splayed out on the bathroom floor, shedding from the buzz clippers he held in his hand.