My Name Is Tom

Bob could see I was struggling to get my words out due to the excitement. So instead of making me do so, he reached under the counter and produced a twelve-inch-sized colourful paper bag, stapled at the top with a label on it reading, “New Order – Blue Monday 12 - Tom – Saturday PM”.

I thanked Bob. He patted me on the head and simply said, “Enjoy.” I had every intention of doing so.

“Thanks, mate. See you next week.”

I didn’t really want to leave the shop, but Bob was pretty busy putting labels on things. We could chat later.

I began to make my way home with my head down and one eye firmly on the bag in hand. Bob chose to use paper bags for his customers’ wares. I imagine that was a financial decision on his part. It didn’t exactly fill me with confidence that there wouldn’t be an accident, though.

As I approached the top of my road, I began to periodically break out into a series of small runs. I was getting closer to my record player all the time, but it seemed like an age before I made it to my front door.

When I finally did arrive, I rang the bell, as, of course, I was not allowed to have my own key. My mum answered and looked quite happy, which was strange. She didn’t even give me any instructions with regards to volume. She just let me in and watched me as I made my way upstairs. All was good. I still waited for something to go wrong.

I sat on my bed, carefully removed the two staples from the top of the bag, placed the label on my bedside table as a keepsake, and pulled out my new twelve-inch single.

It was a thing of beauty and made to resemble a computer floppy disk with no mention of the band or song name anywhere on it. I lifted up the creaky lid to my record player/sideboard, carefully placed the vinyl upon it, the needle on the vinyl, and sat back to listen.

Dum dum dum dum, dumma dumma dumma dumma, dum dum dum dum, dum dum, dum dum, dum dum. It took me a while before I realised that the intro was going on for too long, even on a song that I hadn’t heard before. I approached the record player and watched as the needle got to the second lot of dum dums and kept shooting back to the beginning, thus repeating the same dum dum, over and over. So this was what was going to go wrong. The record had a scratch. Bollocks. Not good. My day was ruined.

All the anticipation of the last week or so seemed to be pointless for that brief moment. No matter, I thought. I’ll just go and get another copy. Bob would oblige. I closely examined the record and could see that, right near the start, there was a small line that looked out of place in the otherwise shiny-looking piece of vinyl. I decided that I would go and try it on my parent’s record player.

The scratch, although visible to the naked eye, had no effect on their turntable at all. Mine was incredibly old and, let’s face it, up till the days of the record box had only had complete shite played on it, so it was probably still harbouring a bit of resentment.

I briefly looked at my parents’ collection of god-awful records. Several of them by James Last, others by Mantovani, and an Abba album. All of the J. Last albums featured dubious-looking pictures on their covers, a far cry from the artistic nature of all the records I owned. I thought it might be amusing to put one of them on for a few moments. It had been at least a couple of years since I had heard any of them.

My God, what is this crap? I quickly removed it and decided to get myself back down to see Bob as soon as possible, but first off, I needed to return to my bedroom to listen to “The Lovecats” as the mental residue from that few seconds of James Last had to be removed from my mind before it had any lasting effects.

“Bob,” I said. He looked worried.

“What’s up, Tom? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“The record, Bob ... dum dums ... it’s scratched. I can’t get past the second set of dum dums,” I said, breathing erratically.

Bob took the record out and placed in on the in-house record shop turntable. It made it past the second set of dum dums without a problem. This was alarming. The only realistic conclusion that could be reached was that my turntable was not capable of playing it, which of course I already knew.

“The only conclusion I can reach Tom is that your turntable isn’t capable of playing it,” Bob said. I knew that.

“Yes,” I replied “That seems to be the case. Er, leave it on anyway.” “How does it feel, “To treat me like you do, “When you’ve laid your hands upon me

“And shown me who you are?” it went. What ... the fuck ... did that mean? About halfway through, I turned ’round to see everyone in the

shop looking towards the counter in total awe of the song. It was like a spaceship had landed near the chart listings. But it hadn’t. It was all down to the amazing tune.

As it faded out and the shop patrons went back to their businesses, the world didn’t seem the same anymore. Before the song started, there was an audible murmur in the shop as everyone chatted about music, but during it, the shop became bathed in silence, everyone just trying to take in the new sound that planet Earth and its inhabitants had made.

“That, Bob, is the future, is it not?”