The day of Dad's funeral, I am on the floor of his doublewide, flipping through the only thing he'd left me: a box full of vinyl country records. It isn't much, but Dad didn't have much to leave. Growing up and listening to Dad's records, I had learned about this world where the good guys wore white hats, and the whiskey and women were important and mysterious. Among the Hoyt Axtons and David Allen Coes, I find Johnny Paycheck's Greatest Hits.
That takes me back to when I was eleven years old, riding in Dad's pick-up. The local country station began playing "Take This Job and Shove It," and I sang along, Paycheck's gritty voice begging me to holler out the "shove" with the same naughty glee that came with reading "ass" aloud from the Bible. But before I could, Dad's new girlfriend, Mary, cut me off.
"Hush for a bit, okay, hon," Mary said. She was sitting between Dad and me, her arm looped through his. Dad's left elbow dangled over the edge of the window, tickled by the wind. She blew cigarette smoke through the corner of her mouth.
"Hey, Robby," Mary said to Dad, "let's drop by Gilley's for a burger and fries."
"They don't have milkshakes there," I said.
"Oh, I'm sure they'll have something for you, hon," Mary said, brushing her fingers against Dad's beard.
"No, they won't. They won't have milkshakes."
Dad turned his eyes off the road and onto me. "She said they'll have something, so they will. Understand?" I protested with my elbow out the window, eyes closed against the wind. I sang in my head, and if you could imagine your Dad's new girlfriend as a job, then that song was about her.
I am in college now. Mary had become his second wife before I started high school, and my teenaged years were marked by fluctuating tensions and truces with Mary. Dad took whichever side kept the house quietest. After the funeral, I couldn't think of anything to say, so I gave Mary an awkward hug. All she said was, "He left a box for you. It's in the trailer. You need to get it before Saturday." She was selling the doublewide and moving to Florida.
In Dad's trailer, I balance the center of the Paycheck album on my index finger, spinning it slowly as I think about that day. I was drumming my fingers to annoy Mary when "Take This Job" ended and started over without explanation. "What's happening?" I said.
"Who knows? It's a good song," Dad said. "I guess someone really wants to hear it."
As the song played again, I glared at Mary through the corner of my eye and thought about Johnny Paycheck's guest appearance on my favorite show, "The Dukes of Hazzard," which Dad and I sometimes watched together. I once asked Dad who he'd rather be, Bo or Luke.
"Neither. I'd be Boss Hogg," Dad said.
"No way!" I said, studying his face to see if he was putting me on.
"Boss Hogg ain't all bad," Dad said, and it was true. Boss was no mob kingpin, and his white hat meant something when some even badder apples hit town. "Besides," Dad said, "Bo and Luke, everyone knows they're heroes, and so you come to expect it. But when Boss saves the day, now that's something."
When "Take This Job" started a third time, my heart started racing. Back then, TV and radio were the most stable institutions in my life. Shows always started on time. No one stumbled over words, and the music was always perfect. The repetition jarred me. Was there a masked gunman in the studio? Maybe the DJ was bleeding to death, and this was his cry for help. And although I was too old to believe in aliens, at that moment an invasion seemed possible.
Studying my wristwatch, I noted the song lasted exactly two minutes, thirty-eight seconds. The fourth time, Dad said, "Christ, that's annoying," and switched stations. Following my watch, I waited for the 2:38 to pass before punching the plastic button that brought back the song for a fifth time.
"Dad, maybe we should call the station," I said.
"It's a good song, just let them play it," Mary said, and punched in another station. I punched it back when my wristwatch signaled me to. Loop number six.
"Dad, please, you've got to do something."
Mary groaned, and changed it again. "Robby, can you do something about this?" Mary waggled her cigarette over her shoulder at me. Dad reached across Mary and clamped his hand around my wrist. "You want to walk home?" he asked, not entirely rhetorically. I started sniffling. Dad squeezed tighter and told me I'd better not cry either.
I don't know how many times that song ultimately repeated, and I never found out what happened. Most likely a pissed-off DJ had pulled some stunt like walking out and leaving the song to repeat. In such a small town, it could've looped for hours before management realized.
There in the doublewide, I picture what I had imagined as kid. The DJ is tied up and gagged inside the studio. Dad nods at me, and then we race to the station, kick down the door and save the day. I roll my eyes and then smile at the memory. I look for the record player, but it's gone, and there's nothing much else left here either.
James A.W. Shaw's work has appeared on Pindeldyboz, Storyglossia, Raging Face, 55 Words, and the Menda City Review. He has been a runner-up in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine's flash fiction contest. He is a graduate of Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, and now represents labor unions and workers. James previously worked as a journalist, sociologist and labor union president, and he studies writing at Grub Street in Boston.