Robert Hyers lives a pretty boring life with his partner and their pets.  He's been published here and there on the internets and has been known to spin happy hardcore records now and again around Philadelphia and New York.   When he's not spinning records, he's working on his MFA.  If you'd like to read more of his work and listen to some badass mixes, just go to roberthyers.com.
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spinning the record


I miss spinning the record.  I miss the feel of the label moving beneath my fingertips.  I miss walking the record to speed it up or holding the spindle to slow it down.  I miss losing myself in the music, and having to read the record's groove to remember where I am. 

I miss the record jackets, from the over-produced pictures of Madonna moaning with red hair and blurred sparkles falling around her, to the jackets with just a square, usually neon-colored label in one corner and the single's name printed in it, to the cheap, off-white cardboard with no print that's rough to the touch. 

I miss the vinyl inside those jackets.  I miss the 12" ones, the harder to find 10" ones, the 7" 45s. I miss the special edition 12" picture discs, usually made to kick off new remixes of old songs like Spin Me Round or Relax.   

I miss poring through thousands of dance records in dirty little record stores tucked away in alleys.  I miss poring through thousands of pop and rock and jazz and spoken word and salsa records in mainstream record stores that pretend to be unique, usually located in the center of a college town. I miss buying old, dirty records for pennies on the dollar, and then taking them home and cleaning them with vinyl cleaner to get the samples I want out of them.

Now there's no more vinyl.  It's all abstract zeros and ones, intangible information, that a computer beat matches to the zeros and ones already playing and starts in perfect time when you hit the lighted button.  Spinning no longer involves spinning.  All its character, all its gut, all its audacity and rebellion, has been stripped and melted in the name of improving profit margins.  It's no longer an occupation that needs specialized skills; anyone who can press a few buttons and has an ear for a hit can do this job now.    

I'm walking across the parking lot into Feathers, a remodeled nightclub/hotel in Asbury Park, New Jersey.  The sun's still shining when I walk in with no record bag across my shoulder.  I can hear the pride parade moving down Ocean Avenue.  Years ago I would've been jealous, would've told the club manager that I couldn't come to work until the parade was done. But not now.

I've been a resident DJ here for about five years now.  I learned to DJ because I'm ugly, and I had to figure out a way to get guys.  Yes, I'm ugly.  I've taken back the word, along with queer and faggot.  My skin is a pasty white and looks like its sweating even when it's not; my nose looks like it was once broken even though it never was; my teeth have grown in at strange angles, overlapping here and there.  I realized early on that I was destined to loneliness unless I found a gimmick.  Then I befriended a local DJ in the area, a really talented DJ who won numerous spin-offs and battles all over the country, and would've thought that spinning the latest house remix of a top ten hit for a bunch of cruising drunks was beneath him.  He taught me everything I know on the decks.  And he taught me that everyone wants to sleep with the DJ.  No matter what he looks like.  "It's the power," he told me once.  I found Feathers when it first opened, one thing led to another, and here I am. 

The main room of the nightclub is empty right now except for a few older fags with their drinks.  They don't interest me.  The bar is directly in front of you when you walk in, beyond that is the empty space of the dance floor, and beyond that is the DJ booth, slightly elevated.  I say hello to the bartender, go in to the room off the main floor to greet the manager, and make my way into the DJ booth to start playing with lights and buttons.

It doesn't take long for the crowds to show up.  First it's more of the older men, most in jeans and solid button down shirts, a few in cargo shorts, at least one wearing one of those obnoxious Hawaiian shirts spotted with white flowers.  These are the records you find in beat-up boxes in your parents' basement, warped and dusty with dated graphics and bands you've never heard of, and you know you'll find one or two in mint condition if you just put in the time to search.  These records have been placed on an untold number of platters, read by an infinite amount of needles, felt by innumerable foreign fingertips.     

Eventually the younger ones start coming in.  The newbies.  They walk in without the beneficial knowledge of overpriced hair care products or facials or men's nail salons, in frumpy solid shirts and jeans or jean shorts.  They're test presses at this stage, making sure the volume levels are just right, checking for defects before they commit. 

An hour or two pass and now the more experienced twinks start dotting the dance floor.  They went home between the parade and the club to nap, to shower, to stare in front of their parents' bathroom mirrors and search for pops and scratches in the contours of their faces, then bury the defects in dabs of cover-up.  They wear the latest trends: ridiculously tight jeans, tight polo shirts with the collars stuck straight up, pink and purple and rainbow belts with outrageous diamond-studded belt buckles.  They only have three, maybe four, goals: look good, dance, maybe get high, and get laid.  Which is fine by me.  I like to take one home whenever I can.  It's not just the sex, which sometimes is mind-blowing and other times awkward; it's their attitude.  I love to circle it, to orbit it, sometimes enter it and touch it, then exit back into the orbit again. 

Normally I'm ecstatic during Pride because every twink comes in from all over Jersey.  And there are a lot to choose from tonight.  Blondes.  Brunettes.  One or two redheads. Light skin.  Light skin that's been turned a perfect golden by a suburban tanning booth.  A few shades of brown skin.  One looks Indian or Pakistani or whatever -- from that region -- and the other two look like some kind of Latin.  And two black ones.  While I'm waiting to press the blinking play button, I look back and forth from one to the next and back again.  I'm sure I could have any one.  But I don't know.  They're all way passed the test press stage; the vinyl has been pressed from a master whose father was created long before any of us in this room, and we're all just waiting for the wax to dry.  Soon the background noise will creep in from the pressure of countless needles.  I'm looking at songs that, technically, are different, but are only off a few beats per minute from each other, and all contain the same phrasing, the same buildups and breakdowns,  the same breaks for lyrics, the same verse-bridge-chorus structures.  I don't think I'll be taking any home tonight.  I'll just play the music they want to hear until closing, then go up to the after party. 
 
For every Pride there are multiple after parties in the hotel, but the after party of after parties is held on the last floor, paid for by this gross old couple who does it with anybody they can lure into their lair with drink and drug.  They bring their own velvet rope and the floor becomes a club on its own, complete with a doorman and a list.  Past the velvet rope are drag queens dressed in gold lame and black mini-skirts and beehive wigs and white gloves.  They stumble up and down the beige hallway alongside club kids and queens.  All the room doors are closed.  I knock on the first in the row and am let in.  

The rooms are beige as well, with a bathroom to the right as you walk in, and a large room with two double beds, one large piece dresser with a TV sitting on it and a large mirror hanging above on the wall.  All the rooms look like this.  A laptop with tiny speakers that sound like the large ones hanging from chains attached to the club's ceiling downstairs are blasting some big black diva telling everyone to leave her alone and let her live her own life. The song came out a few years ago; I know I'd spun it sometime earlier in the night and it's just come out on one of those frightening gay party compilation CDs.  The usual queens and fixtures in Feathers are here in their tight black outfits and short, cropped haircuts.  Some of the bar backs are here also.  One or two are clanking glass on the far side of the dresser, making mixed drinks.  I move a little closer to the bed and I can see into the next few rooms.  An inside door separates each room on any given floor, and the old men open them up to make one large party.  Except for the last three rooms.  They stay closed.   

I say my hellos and kiss some moisturized cheeks, then move into the next room where the club owner and manager are.  Someone has taken out a jar of ketamine.  It's a coveted commodity now, ever since the term "special k" made into the vocabularies of the network news stations, ever since vets wised up and put in security systems.  I don't like k, so I move into the next room.  

Another laptop with those special speakers is on this room, playing some awful disco hits compilation CD.  The TV has been removed from the large dresser and a line of handheld mirrors sit in a row.  Some faghag with a pretty intricate rainbow painted on her cheek is setting up the lines as another faghag and a few queens come up behind her and snort them with cut straws.  I'm sure they're all pretending they're Andy Warhol, remembering the good old disco days none of us are old enough to remember and have constructed using bad movies that regularly rerun on VH1, the days before AIDS, the days when cocaine was a recreational drug and any sexual misadventure could be cured with a visit to your local pharmacist.  Although I don't mind coke (it doesn't make you all stupid and unable to remember your night like ketamine) I just don't feel like any tonight.  And even if I did, I'm sure as hell not waiting for this queer trash to suck up all the good powder and leave me with residue. 

I move into the next room and see a white queen; I can't remember if I'd seen this one on the dance floor or not.  He just finished putting something up his big Italian nose.  His index finger is pressing one of the oversized nostrils; his eyes roll into the back of his head; he waves his free hand in the air and gives out a long ahh.  Sitting next to him on the bed is another young white kid, one I know I didn't spot on the dance floor, one that I couldn't miss.  He doesn't look like anyone else here.  He is wearing some kind of punk rock outfit, a tight black shirt with some band's name scribbled on it, those red pants with plaid designs and all the belts, and big black boots.  He's thin; his skin is white with a few freckles, and I can see some scratches in various stages of healing around his chin and right cheekbone.   His hair is buzzed short and dyed purple.  He has long lashes surrounding blue eyes that pierce my chest when he looks at me.  He reminds me of one of those "straightbait" guys in some gay porn; guys who are straight but experiment just that one time it's filmed, and you know the whole time that they're actually flaming fags beneath those scratched and rough exteriors, but no one dares say it out loud for fear of ending the fantasy.  I walk over to him.  

I say hello, introduce myself ("My name is Matt") and ask him his name. 

"Mikey."

"Very nice to meet you, Mikey.  Do you mind if I sit?"

He shakes his head.

His white queen friend gets up. 

"I'm not intruding am I?"

"Oh no, not at all," the queen says.  "This is why we brought Mikey here."  He smiles and Mikey rolls his beautiful eyes.  "I'm gonna see what's going on in the other rooms.  I'll take my time getting back."

Mikey nods.  

"So what are you doing here?"  I ask him.

Mikey laughs.  His teeth are straight and white.  Probably the result of painful and regular orthodontist visits, a sign of a good suburban upbringing.  "I was brought here for a purpose.  I might be letting down my friends though."

"I don't mean that.  Shit, almost everyone is here for that, dear.  I mean... well, it's not like," I look around the room, then back to his blue eyes, "you don't fit in very well around here." 

He laughs again.  "I know.  Some friends I've made at the Gay Alliance Club thought it would be fun to take me to my first Pride."

"How do you like it so far?"

"It's cool.  We did the parade this afternoon, then went home to nap and shower and stuff, then came back.  We didn't get in until the club almost closed.  Then one of my friends met this old guy who invited us all up here.  So, here I am."

"Did you hear any of the music in the club?"

He nods.

"How did you like it?"

He shrugs.  His bony shoulders move up and pull up his tight shirt.  For a moment I can see his pale lower back, the start of his spine, the waistband of his boxers. 

"I'm the DJ."

He looks unfazed.  Normally the young eyes light up, look straight at me, all of the attention focuses, and he asks me what it's like to be a DJ.  Then you can see the wheels turning in the boy's head, plotting a way to get me into bed.  But not this one.  

No one speaks for a moment.  I am scared now.  The DJ thing didn't work, didn't cover me in a mystique that distracts him from my jagged teeth or pasty skin.  I assume our conversation is over.  But then he speaks.  

"Do you spin records?"

"Of course.  Real DJs only spin records."

Now his eyes light up.  He becomes animated, and I notice a black leather bracelet with metal spikes on his left wrist as his hands start moving around while he talks.  He loves records and we talk about vinyl and needles and outrageous prices we've paid for records, and analog versus digital, and counterweights and gauges and cartridges.  Finally he asks if I want to see his record collection.  

"Of course." 

Before we leave we have to find his friends.  We see them two rooms away.  It's two white queens, both blondes in tight polo shirts and tight blue jeans.  Mikey tries to keep them at a distance from me so that I can't hear what's being said, but they end that quickly by bringing Mikey back to me. 

"Finally," one said, "our little bi punk rocker is becoming a faggot."

"I remember the days when he was straight," the other said.  "Where did the time go?  They grow up so fast."

The two twinks start laughing and Mikey is smiling.  I smile also, making sure to keep my mouth closed. 
 

He's living with his parents in between semesters in a new condo not too far down Ocean Avenue, so we decide to walk.  I can smell the salt air; the sun is rising out of the ocean, giving everything a dull, orange glow.  There's no sign of Pride now, except for a few little rainbow flags and some pink triangle stickers in a wire mesh trash can here and there.  As we walk, we talk.  Well, he talks.  He tells me that he's just started college, he thinks he wants to be some kind of artist, he wishes he lived back in the 60's and 70's because he loves all those old album covers, like that Rolling Stones tongue one or the Velvet Underground banana one.  He's living in the guest room of his parents' new house, the house they bought after retirement and want to die in, the house they made clear to Mikey is only a temporary space for him until college is done and he can live on his own

"What do you think of that plan?" I ask him.

"I don't know yet." 

He starts talking again and I look around.  I don't recognize this street anymore.  When I was growing up it was a place to find trouble, to find transients and addicts and stores that sold alcohol to minors and porno theaters that didn't care if you were 18 and all sorts of illicit drugs.  Now, in the name of revitalization, in the name of retiring and dying and having your ashes sprinkled at the Jersey Shore, they're all gone. And anyone who might know these things once existed now pretends they never did.  His parent's condo, indistinguishable from its neighbors, is less than a block from where the porno theater stood.

The driveway is empty.  He unlocks the little white door and lets us in.  We have to take off our shoes in the tiled foyer.  Beige carpeting covers the living room and runs up the steps.  Mikey tells me the house was built for the modern homeowner, with a big open kitchen that flows into a dining room on the first floor and large walk-in closets for the two bedrooms upstairs and a separate second bath for the master bedroom.  He offers me a drink in the kitchen and we go up to his bedroom.

The walls are still white.  At one side of Mikey's room sits his unmade bed, a dresser, and his walk-in closet.  Next to this I see one Technics turntable, an amplifier and two little speakers on a wooden stand with a few black milk crates of records besides it.  At the other side of his room are boxes still left to unpack.  Everywhere in between are dirty clothes, a few pairs of those strange red pants with the plaid designs and all those belts, some tight black T-shirts with band names I don't recognize, lots of socks, and a few boxers.  The room smells of musk and dirt and sweat and boys, a wonderful oasis in this desert of the vacuumed and Febrezed.  
    
He looks embarrassed at the state of the room and tries to pick up things here and there.  I tell him not to worry about it and he asks me if I want to see his records.  Of course I say and we walk over to the milk crates.  He turns on the turntable and amplifier, then starts going through the milk crates.  He pulls out records with mostly black sleeves, with band names like Stiff Little Fingers and Cock Sparrer. Some of the album covers are neon yellows and reds, with the band names written in a neon green slime that slides down the cover.  He tells me about them, when they were pressed, their impacts at time of their releases, their impacts on him personally.  Then he plays one or two tracks from each.  They're loud and abrasive with rough, fat guitar riffs and young white kids yelling and sounding really pissed off. 

While he's playing them I look through the milk crates.  "What's this?" I ask him as he puts Cock Sparrer back in its sleeve.  The record I'm holding has a white background.  Pink lettering says "If you were a transformer you'd be…" and then in a cartoon-like font and colored in rainbows it reads "FAGATRON."

"They're a queercore band."

I nod.  I have no idea what queercore is. 

"They're broken up now."

He watches me pull the record out and inspect it. I give it to him.  He tells me to tell him what I think of it.  He plays their cover of Madonna's Like A Prayer.

"So?... "

"I think it's... interesting."  I have no idea what I'm talking about.

His blue eyes widen.  "I think I might have a double."  He goes through another milk crate and pulls out another of the same white album over with pink and rainbow lettering.    
    
"Do you want it?"

I'm not sure what to say.  I'm not sure if I want it.  "Of course," I tell him.  

He hands it to me and smiles and I smile back, not realizing that I've shown my teeth.  

"So show me something," he says to me, pointing the turntable. 

"Show you something?"

"Yeah.  Like some scratching or something." 

I nod and move over to the turntable.  "I need a beat."

Mikey thinks for a minute, then disappears and returns with a small boombox.  He puts on the local radio station whose cookie-cutter DJ is mixing together remixes of the station's top forty hits. 

I start with a baby scratch.  It's pretty simple; I just pull the first sound of the record forward and backwards on the upbeat.  I look down for a moment at the record and then at Mikey.  He's nodding his head.  Then he moves closer. 

I hear lyrics on the radio. I use the volume control on the amplifier to turn the baby scratch into a chirp scratch and move the chirp in and out of the verses and bridge.  When it moves to the chorus, I end with a scribble scratch.  I stop to look at Mikey.  He's right on top of me.  I can feel his cheek about to touch mine.  I think he's going to kiss me.  
     
I wake up spooning Mikey.  My arm is draped over his sleeping skin and his fingers are interlocked in mine.  He's still naked.  I managed to slip into a boxer and T-shirt after he first fell asleep.  I take in the salt air floating in through the open window. I'm not sure what time it is, definitely early evening.  His parents won't be back until tomorrow morning; he just asked for me to be gone before then.  I told him not to worry about it.  I  can respect it.   He's not like those twinks at the club.  I know he's not out to his parents, but I can wait.  We can see each other at least once a week at the club until he leaves; maybe we could meet and go out for something to eat now and then, talk some more.  Maybe we can do it tonight.  I know a lot of nice restaurants around here.  Then we'll figure out what to do about college when we get to it.  It's only late June; the summer's just begun.      
    
"Hey Mikey!  We're comin' up!" I hear from a window. 

I touch him softy rouse him.  "Mikey?"

"What?" he says slowly, squinting. 

"Somebody outside said they're coming up here."

"What?"

"Yeah, it sounded like a kid."  Shit.  I sound old. 

His eyes widen.  "Fuck!"  He shoots out of bed.   

"What's the matter?"

"It's Tony and Kate."

"Okay."

"They can't see you here." By now he is dressing himself in whatever is closest to him on the floor.  He throws me my clothes and I start putting them on.

"Why?"

"Because I'm not out to them."

"I guess Tony wasn't with you at Pride?"   

"No, no," he says quickly.  "Those were my college friends; these are my friends from high school."

I nod.  "Well I can leave now if you like."

"No, they'll see you and wonder what's up."

I hear them taking off their shoes downstairs. "I think they're in the house."

"Fuck!  I always forget to lock that fucking door!"

"I could go into your parent's room, then leave when they're in here."  I hear them coming up the steps.

"No, it's too late for that.   Hide in the closet."

"What?"

"Come on, please."  He walks across the room and opens the closet door.

"You've got to be kidding."

"Just for a few minutes -- I'll get them out fast."

The footsteps are coming down the hall. 

"No way in hell!"

"Please."  His blue eyes capture mine.  "Just for a minute."

I walk into the closet and he closes it behind me.

He opens the door and I walk inside.  The smell of musk and dirt and sweat and boys is more intense in here.  It makes me nauseous.  I can't feel the floor beneath piles of clothes and a few pairs of boots.  How much goddamn clothing does this kid have? Then I hear his friends walk in.

They talk for a little bit.  Kate asks him about the strange shoes downstairs. 

"I don't know," he tells them.  "They were here when I got home last night."

Then she asks him about a strange voice she just heard.

"I don't know... maybe somebody outside?  All the windows up here are open." 

The conversation continues with some gossip about some friends I assume are from his old high school, about hair dye, concert tickets, a possible run to the mall.  And no mention of the man he just slept with now sitting in his walk-in closet. 

This is ridiculous.  I wanted to experience a whole different genre of music with a different set of instruments and rules and lyrical content and I got it in Mikey.  The punk Mikey, that wax has dried and hardened, the grooves have been somewhat worn, and the record is familiar.  But the gay Mikey, that vinyl isn't even in the test press stage yet.  And what if after listening to it he decides he doesn't like the new song, doesn't like the phrasing, the buildups and breakdowns, the breaks for lyrics, the verse-bridge-chorus structures?  What if he decides he doesn't want the vinyl, doesn't want to branch out into new genres and stays with the familiar master? Where will that leave me?

I open the door and walk into the room.

The conversation stops.  Kate, with red spiky hair and a diamond in her nose says hello.

"Hello," I say.  The other two are silent.

Kate turns to Mikey with a smile.  "Mikey, you didn't tell us you were hiding a man in your closet."

Mikey just stares. 

I walk over to the turntable, pull the record off the platter and put it back in its sleeve.  "Thanks for the record," I tell Mikey. 

Then I make my way out of the house.  No one says a word as I leave. When I get home I'll see what samples I can get out of this and pull out some of my old collection.  Who knows; maybe I'll even ask around, see if any club owners are still looking for a DJ who spins records.
Robert Hyers