The snob in motion is hard to head off. But the seventh sense the snob attains is most dearly prized: that of a superior taste. And the smug possession of taste is far more infuriating to the wide world (which is, of course, lamentably without it) than any offensive lyrics or annoying noise.
The fact was that the true snob, even if he wielded his taste like a stick, cared about the quality he kept waxed in his garage and did know at least enough to make an effective show of superiority, which, for the most part, was all that was needed.
In the academic world where snobbery was native, it earned you enemies and promotions in equal measure. Being an Austrian émigré didn’t hurt at all either. Joey wondered whether if his name were Amilcare like Ponchielli’s, he would fare better and have more friends. But were friends worth the risk?
You really like that stuff? Caz’s crooked smile pretended to honest interest without success. In this role — Joey would reply, negligently waving the cardboard sleeve of the store’s only Tosca arias — well, in this role I prefer Giuseppe Di Stefano. In Joey’s case, ignorance encouraged certainty. According to Caz, if Joey liked opera, Joey was a fairy, and that would account for his curious lack of interest in girls, although no one could have had less success in this area of life than Caz himself. He responded to Joey’s withering scorn with sullen malice.
Joey took to addressing him, when he had to, as Mr. Castle Cairfill — Mr. Castle Cairfill, could you come over here a moment please and assist this young man who wants something in grunge — concluding his request with a smirk that Joey, on his way to becoming Joseph, would later edit out. Caz, during maliciously spent after hours, would put Benjamin Britten in the Brahms box and distribute Debussy randomly among the Strausses, or he would hide the store’s single Massenet altogether. Not that anyone ever asked for Massenet.
Joey’s fondness for Giuseppe Di Stefano would later fade, indeed disappear, when he learned that there was an Argentine soccer player of that name. For “Moonlight in Vermont,” which he couldn’t remember, he substituted the signature bars of “ ‘A’ Train.”
These were small skirmishes both parties tried to keep from Mr. Kazan, who brought his beard around every morning at ten when the store opened, if he remembered the key; otherwise Joey would have to go to the drugstore next door and phone Mr. Kazan’s wife to ask her to fetch it, please, as Mr. Kazan had forgotten again. Caz and Joey would wait with Mr. Kazan in front of the door as if they were customers eager to get in, though Mr. Kazan never held a sale or marked anything down, not even demos (though he insisted they be clearly labeled as such), so there was no point in looking eager. A reasonable price is a reasonable price, and if the price is right there is no reason to change it. Otherwise, he’d say, anything that’s fair is fair forever. As a consequence there were a great many old records in brand-new condition that remained at the price of their issue years ago; and in the back of the shop there were bins of 78s and 45s no one wanted or could play — speeds limited to the poor and lonely, Joey guessed, thinking of Mr. Hirk’s even more antiquated equipment.
In his knotty dark beard, Mr. Kazan’s wet red lips lay most invitingly. Joey, almost from primeval instinct, was partial to them. Mr. Kazan spoke in a gentle voice and often smiled without cause, lengthening his lips and softening their glint. However, he appeared to be a very nervous man, lingering near the office at the back of the store but only after peering up and down the street through the window in front. He only approached customers after he had watched them browse in the bins for a bit. By noon, though, he’d be gone for the day, unless some special business, such as inventory, required his presence. He sometimes seemed happy the goods he had once ordered were still there in case and box, on shelf and counter. Mr. Emil’s absence in the afternoon meant that either Caz or Joey would turn the worn-out lock and set the antique alarm before they left at five, except on Saturday when Mrs. Kazan, pleasantly dowdy and mildly overweight, would appear to pace the floor till nine.
The Kazans were a pair of decently agreeable shopkeepers who had apparently more interest in keeping a shop than in the items it sold. Nor did it seem to concern them that Joey often stayed for hours after five to practice on the piano from scores in their stock, or to play the few operatic records the store had — of course only albums that wore a demo sticker — unfortunately La Gioconda and Parsifal were among them. To Joey’s private “Why these?” there was no answer. A great deal depended on what the salesmen were flogging, of course, and the samples they were prepared to offer, as well as the specials in catalogs and other mailings. The Kazans clearly couldn’t keep up with pop culture and depended on promos to stay abreast, or on the advice of their principal clerk, Mr. Castle Cairfill, whom Joey felt they trusted only because of his name — Careful — which was a switch, his name normally giving Castle nothing but trouble.
Mr. Emil was unaccountably close with money, and Joey supposed that was the reason, though there was an old phone fastened to the wall, they had no operative service. Imagine trying to run a business, that far back in the habits of the old days, in these lazy technological times. Like driving a car without a horn. But Mr. Emil said only bad news came through the receiver; that’s why it was black, why it gave off an odor of death, and why only gossip got spoken through the cone. But suppose, Joey said, you had a fire — only for instance, mind — or one of us fell ill, and you wanted to call for assistance? Mr. Emil’s beard would wag. Nit, he would say, nit. You see them sometimes? eh? they all wear boots, those Cossacks. Caz reminded Mr. Emil that Mr. Emil had a phone at home, which was a good thing because they needed it to call about the key when the key was forgotten — as it, a lot, was. On account dear Missus Kazan wants one, Mr. Emil said, wiping his mouth. So we have one. Consequences come like bad news through those threatening wires. We know you can call — understand? — consequent we are careless about the key. He shook his head more emphatically. If you have to walk eight streets, you make yourself careful and keep to your character and don’t forget the key. Without a phone at home I’d be a better man.
Joey would often stay till the light failed. While he played he’d whisper “We were sailing along on Moonlight Bay” or “Moonlight becomes you, it goes with your hair.” Oldies weren’t pop anymore. They were just easier to play. Into the slender stock of scores had somehow slipped a copy of an instructional book called Theory and Technic for the Young Beginner. It taught you to play by numbering the keys, and Joey found this little book so wonderfully helpful he took it home but quickly brought it back so the book could be propped where the music stood. He sat and dreamed. Streetlights would come on, and Joey would go faintly gooey, feel slightly soft inside. Sometimes he’d slip on the “Moonlight Sonata” in a performance by Claudio Arrau, which was the only one they had, although the album notes had warned him that Beethoven hated the popular sentimental description of the adagio sostenuto—the latter word one Joey had adored long before he knew what it meant or how something sostenuto sounded: in this case, a dreamy drifting calm before the storm. Despite Beethoven’s disapproval, the streetlamps made moonlight when they came on. The stand-up cutout of a strumming Johnny Cash would become a silhouette against the shop’s front window, and then Joey would slip out the back and walk home, haunted by grave meditations on beauty, futility, and change; though with winter coming, since he didn’t want to turn on the store lights, his practice time would shrink — it might entirely disappear.