There is an uncanny charm that seeps from Wax Trax’s heavily postered walls. It goes far beyond the age of the building, the circus of mice seen only by lucky store-closers, or the tale of a rockstar visiting when they’re in town. No, the store’s charm seems to exist in the more mysterious people who shop here.
It was early November. He was a tall man with an impressive brown coif and a surprisingly well-fitting suit for a man of his almost Goliath stature. (Or perhaps he wasn’t so tall. When a personality can fill an entire room, it is difficult to remember someone as small.) The suit was made of khaki-colored corduroy, decorated with an oversized plaid tie in magenta, teal, and some despicable brown. A larger-than-average ukulele was strung over his shoulder, and his eyes were wild and intense. He looked like a Wes Anderson character with a dangerous mystery.
“If you were a Death Cab for Cutie super-fan, what is the record you wouldn’t have?” he asked.
I paused. I’m a smart-ass about many things, but Death Cab isn’t one of them. Luckily he quickly changed the course of conversation, “What is a good gift-card amount to apologize for breaking up with someone?”
It was a delicate question. I have never given such a gift. Severance pay for those recently laid off by love struck me as a strange idea. We decided on $25; enough to purchase a record, but not so much to suggest you never wanted to break up with them. And not too small to put salt in the wound, or feel like a second thought.
Once that was settled, he swung the ukelele off his shoulder and placed it on the counter. “This was my ex-girlfriend’s, and I need you to return it to her. She comes in here sometimes.” He said his former girlfriend only answers to a nickname, but wrote down her legal name as a litmus test for ukulele ownership.
I scotch-taped the gift card to the ukulele’s head and set it behind the counter where she could easily lay her eyes on it.
“If she hasn’t come in by Christmas, do whatever you want with it,” he said, and turned to leave, wild eyes set on the door. Then he stopped and looked back at me. “I forgot to tip you.” He fumbled through his khaki pockets and pulled out a bottle of sake, placing it softly on the counter.
That night, I drank hot sake as I recounted the experience to my parents.
Over the next couple of weeks, I watched Doug, my co-worker, fall in love with the ukulele. We joked almost daily about starting a noise band comprised only of comically small instruments. Eventually, holiday traffic picked up and we forgot about the instrument altogether. The bottle of sake sat ignored in the back of my fridge, half full.
But on the day after Christmas I remembered it. I had initially planned to get Doug a cowboy hat for Christmas, but I couldn’t source the perfect cap. So I dusted off the lonely ukulele, wrapped it in silver tinsel and put a sticky note on it: “Merry Christmas Doug.”
I came into work a couple days later expecting a grateful and joyous Doug. He was instead panicked and confused. “Somebody stole my fucking ukulele,” he said.
I could hardly believe it. Which one of my coworkers could be the Judas? Did a customer decide the grinch came late this year? Before we put a picture of the ukulele on a milk carton, we decided to make some urgent phone calls to the rest of the staff. Everyone seemed perplexed, except one, who said that a strange man with wild-eyes and a remarkable coif had retrieved it. Apparently, the man had made up with his girlfriend. The ukulele had presumably been returned to its original owner.
The next day, just minutes after Doug left for his break, the tall man returned. He was wearing a purple and brown check suit over a yellow floral undershirt. I wondered if he remembered me. He had definitely read my sticky Christmas note to Doug because in one hand he held a different ukulele, teal and built like a fender stratocaster, and in the other, a large Mark Twain Effanbee doll that he refused to call anything other than Samuel Longhorne Clemens.
Both were consolation prizes for the ukulele, he said. Disappointed by Doug’s absence, he left with the promise that he would return the next day.
Doug said it made his stomach churn to wait for such an unusual character to bring him such unusual gifts. But he never did come back. Doug never got to meet the whimsical man. And no one here ever met his girlfriend. Apparently, she’s very shy.
Last week I was walking up 13th Avenue, and I saw the tall man with whom I presumed to be his girlfriend. They held hands and smiled as they walked down the street. After getting the smallest glimpse into their peculiar lives, I couldn’t help but crave autobiographies, HGTV-style home tours, and invites to their ukulele concerts. But that is the beautiful part of working here at Wax Trax.
I have a job that allows me unique access into the lives of people who love art, and people who love art often seep whimsy from their pores. I will grow sick with curiosity about another couple. I will get to know individuals who are too Lynchian for their own good. And maybe I will write about them.
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