There were a lot of drugs consumed at the store. That was why we had an office. The first time I walked in I could barely see through the haze of smoke. On my first day at work John said “There’s a bong in the back fer ya.”

I honestly had no idea what he was talking about, since I had been little bit less into drugs than the rest of them. But I was game and went into the back and took a hit off this enormous bamboo bong. Ten minutes later, completely stoned, I was alone in the store for the rest of the day working the register and telling people the stuff they wanted to buy was crap, while the rest of them took the day off.

We sold unauthorized live recordings, bootlegs, at Cymbaline. The guy who distributed them came around with a load of them in his car every couple of months. There were some amazing things that had not seen the light of day before. Hendrix , The Stones, The Who. Live recordings or studio outtakes. The guy always gave us a lot of cocaine when he visited, which put us all in a buying mood. Mostly we kept all the best stuff for ourselves but we sold some of the things that we didn’t want or already had.

For our Christmas bonus Nan and I each received a big chunk of hash. That was nice. For a few weeks we all took Quaaludes, but that got old fast when Polio took so many his head swelled up like a pumpkin.

We also bought and sold used records, which was cool and gave us the opportunity to add out of print rarities to our personal collections. We were all into building our own record collections primarily, and were not too concerned with our annoying customers. One Sunday I was working all day alone because they all took off, naturally, and Nan had had a gig the night before with her Punk band The Small Nambas, and had slept in. A rather smelly street person came in and asked if we bought used records. I was busy ringing up a line of people who I had to judge and take money from, so I told the guy to set his record down and I would look at in a bit. It was a really crappy beat up double live Fifth Dimension album with a medley of “Up Up and Away” and “Aquarius.” I told him when he came back to the desk that we couldn’t use it.

“Whata mean, you can’t use it!? You could give me something for it! I found it in the garbage, you fuckin’ cheap little weasel!” he said as he withdrew the records from the sleeve and hurled them at my head.

When I told the bosses about it, Polio said, “Well, you are a cheap little weasel.”

The store is long gone and so are all our good looks. I have not seen Jeff or John or Gloria in many years. John and Gloria divorced long ago. Polio is chubby and has a son and lives with his wife in LA and works in the film industry. He had something to do with the Crow movies a few years ago. Nan is in the industry also as a sound engineer. She is still odd.

Every few weeks at three in the morning the phone will ring at the station and I hear a familiar voice on the other end say, “Weasel.”