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The first time he saw her, It was in the saddest little old bookstore that Kezzy Tressler had ever seen in his life. He wouldn’t have even known to go there, and might have missed her entirely, if it hadn’t been for a friend of his telling him that this hole punched in the wall was actually one of the last places you could find honest-to-God Nina Simone records.
And not just that- He’d been told that if you came on the right day, got the old man behind the counter in the right mood, and asked in just the right way- he would sell you one- which in all honesty, sounded too good to be true in the first place, but hell if he didn’t try.
Music was getting harder and harder to find, not that it was banned outright, but it might as well have been.
And Nina Simone, especially. Any artist with a history of protest music, really. Though in his house, she was held in a higher regard than most of her contemporaries. At least, as far as his mother was concerned.
Tressler had learned about Nina from his mother, and no woman had ever believed in the power of the blues so much, he was convinced.
She had sung some of her songs as lullabies and showed him how to play them on their ancient keyboard, her hands over his as she tapped her foot to help him stay on beat.
“But it’s just for the house, Keziah.” She would remind him, “Don’t go playing these at your little school talent shows or anything.”
He didn’t fully understand at first, but by the time he was thirteen the only place that sold CDs near him got gutted.
There was no other word for it, really.
He could recall the way the wet paper had squished beneath his shoes in the grey remnants of the snow, the door hanging off of its hinges like a broken jaw and the glittering scatter of broken CDs, shimmering in the late winter light. Their colors had all but bled, they were smeared out on the sidewalk. He should have kept going on to school, but instead, he had allowed himself to sift through the splintered bones of the place and as he did, a lyric book stared back up at him.
The Best of Nina Simone.
The song list itself was gone but in that instant, like turning on a light, he knew exactly what his mother’s warning had meant.
All of this brought him into the shop that day, looking for the old man, looking to catch him in the right mood, looking to buy.
Instead, he met *her*.
She sat behind the counter, flipping through a book with the cover torn off and didn’t even notice him until he was right in front of her.
“Hey.” He said.
She popped a bubble, the scent of juicy fruit gum wafted between them, at first he wasn’t even sure that she’d heard him but then she dog-eared her place in the book and closed it before looking up at him.
Her eyes were the same color as his, that warm, almost tawny brown.
“Hey.” She said, “What can I do ya for?”
Her hair was in a cascade of braids, dark brown at the top and coppery red as they approached the bottom, the ends were secured with wooden beads that made the prettiest clack-clacking sound as she shook her head when he asked if this place still sold vinyls.
“Sorry.” She said, “But my grandfather doesn’t do all of that anymore. It’s safer, y’know?”
And oh, didn’t he?
But the two of them kept talking, back and forth in a way that felt like maybe they’d known each other already, for a long time, as a matter of fact; nevermind that they hadn’t even exchanged names yet.
At that thought, he offered his hand, heart doing such an excited little jig by that point, that it didn't even occur to him how dorky and formal that probably was for someone who had just turned seventeen last month.
“I’m Kezzy, by the way.” He said.
In return, she said her name was Simone.
“Like Nina.” She specified, although she didn’t have to, Tressler was already half convinced this whole excursion had been an experiment in fate.
He didn’t leave with a record, but he left with a paperback copy of ‘Sarah, Plain and Tall’ that he bought for fifty cents, just so he had an excuse to poke around a little longer while he gathered the nerve to ask for her number. In the end though, he hadn’t even needed to do that, she had scrawled it in the front of the book before handing it off to him and reminding him to come back soon.
He did, and not long after that, they were inseparable.
He played the keys, and she sang.
She loved to read out loud and he loved to listen to her.
But most of all, they both loved to talk, and the words came in and out like the tide on a beach. Sometimes they would be on the phone well into the night before Tressler would notice the first gold threads of the dawn from his window and then have to hang up and try to get two hours of sleep in before getting up for school.
They held hands and never split the pole. If he had a few free hours in the evening, they were hers and if she had a weekend off from the store, sure enough, she was at his place. The two of them wound up spending an entire year this way and when he turned eighteen, he had a present for her instead of the other way around.
A portable radio.
It wasn’t new, but he’d served fries and shakes for five whole months to afford it secondhand, and it still gleamed silver, and worked better than it had any right to.
It wasn’t anything fancy, but Simone was so enamored by it that for two days after that, they barely talked at all, enthralled with switching stations and listening to the music that had slowly but surely, become harder and harder to truly hear in any capacity.
Most of it was censored, sometimes the lyrics were gone entirely, with only the instrumentals left behind for a discerning ear to pick up on if they happened to already know the tune. One night, Tressler heard ‘Sinnerman’ that way, and it made him think of the monsters out in the stars. The ones that the Interstellar Fighter Pilots kept at bay, and what might happen if, per chance, they were ever overwhelmed by those forces.
Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?
It wasn’t that he thought about it all that often, really. He didn’t like to anyway, and Simone- she didn’t like to hear about it. But as time went on, it became harder and harder to ignore. The big cats on top controlled the soldiers, and those on the ground had to do as they said. What would they do if they didn’t? Face down those looming terrors all on their own? How long would it be before they were all wiped out if that were the case? No, no- It was better to obey, better to let them tell you what you could read, study in school and listen to on the radio.
It should have been better, anyway, easier- or at least- if it was none of that, It could have at least had the decency not keep getting worse, and worse and *worse*.
But of course, it did.
Budgets got cut to keep the State paid, to keep the program going, or so they said. But then, if that were the case, then why was the turn around rate so very *high*? Why did the people on the ground start regarding the job as a death sentence taken up by the most desperate. And hey, speaking of which- why were they *all*, so fucking desperate these days? When did that happen, exactly? It seemed like there should have been a tipping point of some kind, but Tressler can’t pinpoint one exactly. It’s a frog in the water type situation, everything getting a little warmer and warmer until, dead on his feet- he ends up applying to The Academy. They need the money, the free ride to college, the lifetime of aid that goes to his listed beneficiaries even if he ends up dying up there among the stars.
Which he will, of course.
It seemed like a guarantee.
His mother said she was proud, that she was *always* proud of him, but he heard her crying through the thin walls of their apartment every night since he came home with the news. Worst of all, he can’t even retreat into the comforting drift of the radio.
It’s gone.
It belonged to Simone, afterall, and she’s gone.
When he told her the news, she’d been furious. She’d said that there was no way he was going to make her a widow before he even got her to the altar. Sorry, Kezzy.
He wanted to fight her on that, say that this was the best way to take care of everyone- the *only* way to take care of everyone. And he *would* marry her, if she would have him. That was the only thing that made sense, *she* was the only thing that made sense, so he had to do everything he could for her, for everyone he cared about. Didn’t she understand that? Didn’t she?
Apparently, the answer was no.
But even if it wasn’t, even if there was more to it than she was willing to disclose in her brokenhearted state, it didn’t seem to matter. What was done had been done. There was no taking it back on either end.
Sinnerman, Where you gonna run to?
It wasn't until the last night before he was set to leave home, that he heard a knock at the door, soft and tentative, as though it hadn’t fully committed to being there at all.
It was late, so late that even the cars had left the road alone for the most part. The traffic lights changed from red, to yellow, to green with barely a passing cab to show for it.
He had been in his room, and at first he thought he’d heard wrong before the knock came a second time, and then a third. Finally, he got up and went to the front door.
Simone was there, she was still crying. He wondered if she had ever really stopped, but rather than ask, he wiped one of the tears away and hugged her tight, right there in the doorway.
“You wanna come in?” He asked, breathing in the scent of her hair.
Jasmine and green tea, God, was this really going to be the last time he ever smelled it? Her arms are around him just as tight. The drum beat of their hearts met somewhere in the middle. She said nothing. Had she even heard him? Had he spoken at all? Or was that just another wish he didn’t dare to voice out loud?
But then she spoke,
“I can’t, Keziah.” She said, “I can’t, I’m sorry. I just came to give you this.”
She broke away and reached into the backpack she’d slung over her shoulders. Anew round of tears started as she handed him the radio.
“Oh no,” he tried to protest, “Simone, I can’t. It won’t even work up at the station.”
“I want you to keep it for me.” She insisted, and pressed it into his hands, her palms flat and relinquishing the possibility of grasping it back and away from him.
“It’s a loan.” She said, “You keep it safe and give it back to me when you come home.”
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The radio is all static up here. Try as he might, no matter how much he turns the dials or adjusts the antenna, all he gets is static. He knew it would happen, of course, but it doesn’t make the nights pass any easier. He knows he ought to just leave it be, that there are better ways to spend his limited free time and that the white noise that lures him to sleep bothers his roommates, but he can’t help it.
This is the only piece of home he has left. This is the only reminder he has of who he used to be; of who he’ll never get the chance to be now, and of everyone waiting for him down on earth in spite of the fact that they must know what he knows.
Like it or not, this radio is a relic. It’s already gone.
And so is he.
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
A long way from home,
A long way from home.