The door chimes behind me as I step into the store, the heel of my boot clicking on the linoleum floor. The boy behind the counter glances up and then immediately looks back down, and I notice a book in his lap. I walk toward the aisles and run my finger along the edge of the many records, flipping occasionally through a row, pulling out any that catch my attention and tucking them under my arm. When I've covered an entire aisle, I walk up to cash register and place all my records on the counter, reaching over to the candy rack and adding a pack of gum to my pile. The boy looks up and raises an eyebrow at all my records, but says nothing. He rings me up, the gum first, and I keep my gaze steady on his face as I open the pack and unwrap a piece, sticking the gum in my mouth and dropping my wrapper in the tip jar. He glances at the jar and looks back at me, his eyebrow raised again, but in a different manner. He looks unimpressed. I sigh, frustrated, and take my bag of records from him.
He didn't recognize me, of course. They never do.
I try. Every day I try, and with every one of them I think, "This time it will be different. This time, they'll remember me." But they never do.
I step back out onto the street and park myself on a bus stop bench, pulling my legs up under me and pulling my records out one at a time, taking a closer look at what I've purchased. I blow a huge bubble, and when it pops, the sound is accompanied by a voice, "That's a lot of vinyls you got there." I look up, startled, and a guy with messy chestnut brown hair grins at me, a gum smile; wide. Most people don't talk to me unless I acknowledg them first. And I don't acknowledge many people that I haven't visited already. "Yes," I say, uncomfortable, not sure what to do with my hands, suddenly. He sits down next to me, "You heading to Boston, too? Or just a stop on the long journey ahead?" I clear my throat, looking down at my hands, which are now clasped, and saying, "I'm not sure." He grins at this, "So just taking to the road then? Got your vinyls, got your feet, got a ride." He leans against the back of the bench and stretches his arms along the length of it, and I sit up straight and stiff, frozen, as his left arm is resting behind my back. "Don't need much else, do you?" He grins again when I glance at him from the corner of my eye. "I reckon you'll need a record player, though, or you won't have much use for those," he adds after a moment of silence. I tuck my hair behind my ear and murmur, "I have a record player."
"Oh yea?" I nod. He looks out at the road, and a breeze blows his hair in front of his eyes. "So you don't know where you're going...but do you figure it will take you farther from or closer to this record player of yours?" I'm silent for a moment, a little thrown off by the question, and I finally say, "I don't really know, I guess. I just..." I pause, and look away from him, to the front of the record store, where that boy is taping a flyer to the front window. I try to catch his eye, but the door chimes behind him again without his giving me a single glance. I sigh. "I just have to keep moving. I'm...searching." I don't know why I'm telling him this. I'm not sure if I'm even supposed to, although I'm not sure who will try to stop me. I just don't understand why this person is talking to me. "I'm Jacob, by the way," he says, sticking his hand out to me, a huge grin still plastered across his face. "What's you name?" My eyes widen and I stare at his hand, my thoughts screaming in confusion. I don't know what do to. No one ever talks to me out here, and the people I visit never ask for my name, as their mind usually connects me with someone they know out here. I try to think of it: my name.
Do I have one?
I think about making something up, but I'm really terrible under pressure when I'm out here, and I can't think of anything. "I don't think I have one," I tell him, finally, once his eyebrow has raised in response to my lack of reply. He laughs, "No name, huh?" This doesn't seem to startle him at all, instead, his grin– somehow– manages to grow even wider. He pulls his hand back and leans against the bench, his eyes narrowing, his grin shrinking, just tugging at the corner of his mouth like he's trying not to laugh. "Let's see," he says, and I crinkle my eyebrows in confusion. "No name..." he says, his voice trailing off, his expression focused. "Emanon. Nemano." He pauses anf glances at me. "Maybe one less letter?" I raise an eyebrow, realizing what he's doing, but say nothing. "Amone. Onema. ...Nonam." His face lights up, his grin back, and he claps his hands together, "Nonam! That's good. I like that. We'll call you Nonam."
"That's a terrible name," the words come out of my name without my thinking about them, I blush brightly after they've been said. He laughs loudly, "Well, dang! I thought it was pretty good." He pauses, and then says, "Eh. Doesn't matter what you think. I'm gonna call you Nonam anyways." I blush brighter and cross my arms over my chest, and he laughs, just as the bus pulls up. He stands up and offers a hand to me, "Well, come on, Nonam, we don't want to miss our bus. You've got places to go." I stand up, following him into the bus, and glance at the passengers, searching each of them for a neon. "And people to see," I murmur, and he grins before taking a seat and pulling me down next to him, and when he waits a moment to release my hand, I find that I can't focus on searching these people for neons, instead thinking only of the feeling of this boy's hand in mine.
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