Self Storage

A Serial: Episode 12

12.

Faraway, reverby drums were all K. was aware of, as he shielded his eyes from the light outside the darkened room. He may have been on his knees when the strings entered, framing the sustained, tremulous tones of a doo-wop balladeer.

And when I told her
I didn't love her anymore
She cried

“She cried,” confirm the backing singers. The balladeer explains, a bit more matter-of-factly than the situation would seem to demand:

I thought that our romance was over and done
But to her it had just begun

“And when I told her,” he continues – “Sha-la-la,” add the backing singers, flippantly. But how could they be so cruel?

And when I told her
Another girl had caught my eye…

Here the cruelty suggested by the initial reaction of the backing singers is underlined, reinforced like a boot to the gut when one is already on one’s knees: “Sha-la-la...la! Sha-la-la!”

“She cried,” says the singer again, without remorse. And then joins the backing singers in unison, like a mocking crowd from which no one dares dissent for fear of the mob turning on them next, or if they dissent it is by mouthing the words to appear safely still a part of the group while letting no sound actually escape and contribute to what are now a rain of blows hurled at the victim like so many verbal stones: “SHE CRIED.” But a silent protest is not a protest, thought K., if voiceless it is acquiescent to a group that takes pleasure in having singled out the weakest, the most vulnerable, most miserable among them specifically for vocal abuse. Wouldn’t a protest in this instance also require the use of a voice, if not some kind of physical contact?

An instrumental verse accompanied these thoughts of K., no longer on his knees but somewhat bent over as if in pain but truly more in confusion at this display of cruelty and at his own change in circumstance so rapidly experienced as light, noise, and now touch while a group of hands pulled him upright.

The backup singers were skillfully executing a complicated turnaround to a final verse. Was it a key change? Or just a change in register that pushed above the visual din blinding K.’s still-dilated eyes.

Sha-la-la...la! Sha-la-la!

And with one last hysterical, abbreviated half-verse – the balladeer not even bothering to complete the repetition of the blow - the music stopped.

The hands supporting him simultaneously withdrew. K. blinked. Surrounding him were four silhouettes, or so they seemed to his bleary eyes: at the edges were the swaying body movements K. recognized as the bickering Art and Jerry. Frieda stood solidly in the center, the director as usual of any situation she found herself in, but this time glancing sidelong at another imposing figure, a bit behind yet with arms long enough to have been a part of the eight-limbed group grabbing and lifting K. to his feet. That figure muttered a few syllables to Frieda, and K. immediately recognized the mora though not the language.

Barnabas! K. knew, before his vision finally cleared and the unhelmeted and unshaven messenger faced him once again.