The last week has been kind of a blur for me. Working more than five days in a row does funny stuff to my brain. Things happened and then whizzed by.

For example, going to the cinema two evenings in a row; on Thursday I saw Dogtown and Z-Boys, which was excellent - almost made me want to jump on a skateboard - and on Friday Throne Of Blood, which I also enjoyed even thought it dragged in the middle (Noel, who was there but I didn’t know until I met him after, agreed) and I was pretty exhausted.

I would have gone to see Rashomon the following evening, had a ticket and everything, but a pounding headache in work on Saturday afternoon made a mess of those plans. I was working all afternoon Sunday so I missed Yojimbo.

Yes, work really fucked me up this week. As a result, I can’t even remember on which day the following events occured:

A strange old man, in his late fifties or early sixties maybe, came up to my till one morning last week and asked to speak with a manager or somebody in charge. He called himself ‘Mr. Molloy’. I asked what it was pertaining to. He said something about the history of the company.

I ring the assistant manager, who sounded a tad agitated. He’s busy going through CVs and doing interviews all day. I inform ‘Mr. Molloy’ that there are no managers or people in a supervisory capacity who are currently available to speak with him, but ask if I can be of any help. He responds by lifting up a white plastic carrier bag he has brought with him and produced from it an old vinyl record in a brown paper sleeve. Upon further inspection, it appears to be a very old record indeed, possibly 78rpm, at least 50 or 60 years old, the sleeve and record label emblazened with the original logo of the large music store (from back in the days when the company was in the business of making records, not just selling them). I notice a date written in pencil in the top left-hand corner, some year in the 1940s. ‘Mr. Molloy’ asks me what I think of it.

Before I had a chance to reply he produced another record in a similarly branded brown paper sleeve, but this time much older, the year 1917 written in pencil in the same place - and as far as I could tell, in the same hand - as the other one. As I examined it ‘Mr. Molloy’ produced two more items: small branded tin boxes of phonograph needles, no bigger than a ring case, in near-immaculate condition.

At this point I’m wondering what was the point of all of this. I ask him if he wants to know who much they’re worth, or historical information about them, and if so that he should get in touch with our head office (since we are just a retail outlet, not a museum). He says no, that wouldn’t do. Very cryptic.

Then he asked me how much I’d pay for them. I said I couldn’t possibly do that; that they’re worth a lot of money, maybe hundreds, if not thousands of Euro, and that he should take them to an auctioneer to get them valued. I was very surprised when he scoffed at that suggestion. He began to mumble about being unemployed, and he offered them to me for €40 right there and then. I said no, it would be like stealing to take them off his hands at that price knowing that they’re most likely worth a small fortune, and therefore I’d be morally obliged to refuse. (I actually said that, ‘morally obliged’.) I again urged him to go to an auctioneer to get them valued. If he needed money, surely that would be the first place he should go with items so potentially valuable? Again he scoffed, looking at me as if I’d cursed his family name, saying in an angry tone something about throwing them in the bin if I wouldn’t take them off his hands, that they were his and he could do what he liked with them.

His eyes were very yellow. He was freaking me out now. I could feel my heart palpatating wildly behind my breastbone.

When he realised a few moments later that I wasn’t going to change my mind, ‘Mr. Molloy’ turned and left. Needless to say I was quite relieved.

It didn’t even dawn on me that the 78s and needles were probably stolen until I’d gotten home that evening and relayed the story. No wonder he didn’t want to take them to an auctioneer. No wonder he only wanted €40 for them.

Now I’m wondering what he actually did with them, or with himself. I haven’t seen anything on the news or read anything in the papers yet.

I would much prefer it if strange things like that didn’t happen to me. I understand that they make for good life experience (and potential writing fodder) but so does LSD, and I’m in no hurry to drop acid anytime soon.

Tue 03 Sep 2002 at 18:10   ·