Howard would never let him touch them. The old vinyls tucked safe away in cardboard and plastic slips; the soulful eyes of Howling Jimmy Jefferson and Larry Bigface Edison staring out blankly. Vince slowly picked out the one he knew was Howard's favorite. He would hear it playing in the mornings sometimes, when Howard thought he was still sleeping. He'd lie in bed and listen to it for a while, before deciding that the improvised saxophone solo had gone on long enough. Vince would then go out to the kitchen and complain whilst making a cup of tea. Now he drew the black record out of its sleeve and gently placed it on the turntable. Switching on the player he just sat and watched it spin for a while, the label blurring slightly before his eyes as he tried to read the track listing. Giving up he drew the arm over to the edge of the record and tenderly placed the needle on the outermost groove, as if the record could burst under too much force.
A second of fizzing and crackles made Vince's stomach jump. It was so achingly familiar that he almost yanked the needle away. But too soon the music began. A moderate-tempo trumpet backed by a bouncing drumbeat. Vince sat with his back against the wall. Bringing his knees up against his chest he wrapped his arms around them, fingers barely peeking out from the oversized corduroy sleeves. The jacket was at least a size or two too large for him, but it had the warm smell that Vince was used to. The warm smell that was beginning to fade away. The brown – or, "profound muffin" as Howard called it – clashed with the racecar red of Vince's jumpsuit, but for once in his life Vince didn't care at all. He closed his eyes as his head rested against the wall and he breathed in the still air. It was so, so still.
A light repeating thud interrupted Vince's thoughts. He hadn't been listening to the music and the first side of the record had already played through. It went by so much more quickly than he remembered, and was over much too soon. He turned the player off and sat there on the floor in silence. At this time of day, they would normally have been closing up the shop. Arguments would be made over who had the most sales, and the answer was almost always Vince. Howard would come in this room and take a nap. Or read. Vince was never sure, but it was silent and therefore Vince had declared it to be 'boring'. But Vince now sat in this silence that Howard would so often bask in and felt the sensation in his stomach again – a bubbling not unlike butterflies, but with much more uneasiness. It was too much all at once. The records, the jacket, the silence that enveloped him. Vince let out a sob as heavy tears flowed down his face and he ran his hands through his hair. Pulling on his dark locks he squeezed his eyes shut tightly and began to talk to the one he wanted most to hear him.
"Howard… Howard…" He repeated the name like a mantra of grief and was all he could manage at first. "I'm so… s-s-sorry, Howard. I'm so sorry. I – please…" A loud cry escaped as he realized his tears were puckering the printed album sleeve. He slid it across the floor away from him and laid down, a huddled ball on the pea-green carpet. For a while Vince let the sadness smother him and rage on inside like a hailstorm, cold and heavy and wet. When his sobs left, his breathing was sporadic and gasping and each breath brought with it the warm and fading smell. The smell of everything Vince once claimed to hate. Everything he wasn't able to stand. And here he was now, not able to get enough. His angular face was stiff with salt and his eyelids drooped low. A sleep came over the small man, lying there on the floor - now neither glam-rock nor jazz-funk but something inbetween. He couldn't keep coming back to do this but he also couldn't stop and as his shuddering breath slowed and his mind began to grow dim he whispered one more prayer into the silence.
"Please, Howard. Please come back."