Strummer

When he got to his house, he quietly unlocked the door and slipped in, hoping to avoid his mother and go straight to bed. However, he wasn’t a lucky kid, and she was in the kitchen waiting for him.
She smiled. He didn’t.
"How did it go," she asked with a look on her face that indicated she was not going to leave him alone until she received all of the desired information.
"Pretty well" he said, hoping to get this over with as quickly as possible.
"What songs did you play?"
He sighed. She was always asking her questions that demanded lengthy answers at times when he was in no mood to provide them. He would attempt to evade the questioning as he always did, mumbling some meaningless phrase and shuffling off, but it never worked. She asked the question again and this time received her answer.
When Will prepared for bed, even mundane actions like brushing his teeth took on a heavy importance. He was grooming and preparing a person that mattered. Everything had taken on a new gravity and weight. Now that a girl seemed interested in him, it mattered that he kept up his hygiene. Many things mattered that hadn’t before. It was a development he would ponder further in the morning. Now he went to sleep, cascading into a night of sweet and humble dreams, remembering the beckoning call of Lou Reed in "Street Hassle": "Come on let’s slip away."
Will might as well have skipped school the next day for the amount of attention he paid. What the teachers were saying seemed just as useless as ever, and he had gained something more important to think about. Something special had happened to him, and he needed a way to recapture the feeling. He decided sometime during third period, that the best thing he could do now was find Zooey. It would be his new mission. He did live in a fairly big town, but the odds of finding her were better than the odds that Charles Manson would get parole and go on a second killing spree. The point was, it was possible. Not even that hard in fact when one considered the ultimate hardships that many members of mankind had faced.
Will sat in his room after school with a Patty Griffin record on, racking his brain for a way to meet Zooey once again. Lightning fast, it came to him. Damn. Why hadn’t he thought of that before. She must be a regular at the record store. He’d meet her if he got a job there.
He’d never had a job before, and the prospect of getting himself hired made Will nervous. Remembering Zooey, he gathered up his courage and resolved to make his move the next day after school.
He walked into Stray Cat Records at about three o’clock, glancing nervously about. He wanted to give up his plan and just browse around. It was possible that she would come into the shop soon. The odds might even be better than he expected. Maybe she was there several times a week.
Either way though, he could use a job. He felt pathetic that at 16 years old, he still got an allowance. He looked to the side of the room his eyes had been avoiding. The owner sat behind the counter, staring off into space. He was overweight with greasy hair. He didn’t cut too imposing a figure, and Will realized nothing dangerous or painful could come out of talking to him.
As Will approached, the man gave no sign of acknowledgment. Most people in the man’s position would cock their head or raise their eyebrows, to show that they knew he had a question and were ready to receive it. There was obviously something different about this guy.
"I just wondered if you were hiring?"
The man took a second to answer. He continued staring into space and didn’t look like he was considering the question, but Will assumed he was.
"Nah," was the reply Will received.
"Thank you," said Will quickly, and slipped out of the store with equal speed.
He paused as soon as he was outside and realized that he was letting something important slip away. He had two options, and he chose the one that involved going back inside and trying his hardest to get a job.
"I’ll do anything you want if you hire me," he pleaded as he strode toward the counter, his mind a mix of determination and desperation. "Just give me a chance."
The owner ran his hands through that greasy black hair and seemed once again to be thinking. Then finally he opened his mouth.
"I’m sorry were you saying something?" the man asked, which was his way of trying to be witty.
"As a matter of fact I was," said Will and repeated what he’d said before while trying to act unfazed. He was impressed by his own composure. Too bad the slob behind the counter wasn’t. He just shook his head and pointed toward the door. Will was frustrated, but he didn’t know what to do other than exit as the man had so politely suggested. He complied reluctantly. Out of the corner of his eye, He saw Zooey headed down the street. The voices in his head were like auctioneers as his mind shouted what seemed like thousands of suggestions at once as to what he should do next. He disregarded all of them and ran to hide behind the dumpster adjacent to Reno’s Pizza. He hoped she hadn’t seen him. She gave no indication of it as she proceeded past him and into the record store.
Will decided what he would do next. He would go into the pizza place, order a couple slices and sit by the window. Then, when she walked by again after coming out of the store, he’d pretend he was just coming out of Reno’s and had run into her by coincidence.
He got his slices and he got a booth by the window. He ate the pizza slowly to stall and watched. Even at his slow rate, he ate both slices, and was still waiting.
Eventually it occurred to Will that she might have taken a different route when she left the store. He would have to walk by the store and see if she was still inside.
He gathered up his courage and moved ahead with the most nonchalant stride he could muster. He flicked a swift glance toward the record shop and snapped his head back to its starting point. In his newfound confusion, he had forgotten the calm, collected theme he’d had going.
Zooey was in the store. Not only that, but she was behind the counter. Not only that but the owner had his arm around her. Not only that, but she was smiling.
She was obviously not bothered by what was transpiring. Weird. What the hell do I do next? thought Will. No plan sprang forth from the dark chambers of his mind, and he was standing stock still in front of the door like an idiot.
A kid in a beanie with a Bob Marley t-shirt and some kind of beaded necklace ended Will’s trance as he jostled him aside and went into the store.
The spell broken, Will made his way home. His thoughts moved so quickly he could barely keep up. He imagined the record store owner and Zooey married, with two kids and a mortgage. He only hoped she didn’t drive those kids to soccer in a minivan. Ugh !
But that wasn’t possible was it? Zooey was his age. Wasn’t she? Was there any way Will could manage to spend some more time with Zooey, or was she off limits now. He was making himself dizzy and he sat down on someone’s front steps to steady himself.
Since his life was fairly dull, Will’s head didn’t spin often, and he didn’t like the feeling. He decided he would give the Zooey thing a rest for a while and find a new outlet for his newfound ambition. Hell, why not a new girl. There had to be other interesting girls out there. Right? Maybe.
Will could think of one way to find out and decided he’d do so. There was a dance at school on Friday and he was going to go.
The next day was Tuesday though, so he still had some time to wait. Will decided to implement a second part of this plan by trying to make a friend at lunch.

To Be Continued...