"Running Ever Since" Wins Graduate Award in Racial Justice Writing Competition
A short story that explores “the more codified ways in which racism is enacted and resisted." -- JD Debris, guest judge
By Evan Miller
The Record Exchange Secret Contraband Underground Experience – or RESCUE, as students called it – was a thriving intramural trade of banned and hard-to-find records. Here’s how it worked: if you wanted a specific record but for whatever reason couldn’t get it, you would write the name of that record and your own locker number on slip of paper and stuff in into a locker on the third floor. Then you waited. Sometimes it only took a week, and sometimes much longer, but eventually, you’d get a return note telling you when and where you’d be meeting your trade partner, and what you needed to bring in return.
Never had Johnny needed RESCUE more than in the spring of 1964. Sam Cooke had just released Ain’t That Good News in February, and Johnny was dying to hear it. You see, Sam Cooke was Johnny’s favorite singer. Had been since he was ten and he had first heard “Bring It On Home To Me.” Johnny had been sitting in front of his little transistor, twisting the dial and searching for sound amongst the static, when he’d landed on a station playing the single. He only made it through about half the song before his father rushed in from his study and shut it off. Johnny could remember distinctly his father’s towering figure, his mouth slack with anger, his slacks sloshed with gin.
“I will not tolerate any of that goddamned jungle music in my house!”
“Perry!” said his mother, who was scrubbing dishes in the kitchen.
His father just shook his head at his disappointing son and limped back to his study. Johnny hadn’t understood the source of his anger, only that he was angry. He didn’t know what “jungle music” was, and he didn’t understand why the music he’d just heard – that high, clear, angelic voice, the gentle melody - could upset his father so. But he learned eventually, learned that it wasn’t the music, but the musician, that was the issue.
But by age sixteen, not only had Johnny ignored his father’s antiquated prejudices, but he had made it a point to hear every Sam Cooke record out there. And he’d heard it all, all except this most recent record. So, when he got the note in his locker in April telling him to be outside the girl’s locker room with any record for trade, he was over the moon.
That’s when Johnny first met Frankie. He had been reading the liner notes of the Gene Autry album he’d snuck out his house that morning when a voice spoke the secret code words: “you here to be rescued?” There she was, like a dream, like one of the girls Sam was singing about. Tall, lithe, and willowy, with legs that seemed endless and deep brown, confident eyes.
“Yeah,” he said nervously.
From her oversized shoulder bag she unearthed the red album cover and then, with deft, practiced hands, the wax record from its sleeve. Johnny did the same and they carefully exchanged the two records and slipped them into their new cases. This was part of the ruse, a way to keep the evidence hidden from disapproving eyes.
“Thanks a lot,” said Johnny, when the transfer was complete. “He’s my favorite singer, you know.”
She smiled, appraisingly but approvingly. “I can give you three days with that, and be extra careful, if it breaks or gets scratched, my Daddy’ll kill us both.”
Johnny grinned.
“What’s funny?” she asked.
“Nothing, just that if my father finds out about this, he’ll kill me himself. But don’t worry, if he does find out, I won’t tell him who gave it to me.”
“Oh?” she said, “well, if my father finds out, you can be damn sure I’ll tell him who I gave it to.”
Johnny felt ashamed, and he realized the truth he’d just betrayed. A deep, centuries-old silence hung between them. He was trying to find the words to speak when she saved him by saying: “don’t worry, I get it. To some people, this is just music, just nice words and nice melody and maybe something you can dance to. But maybe while you’re listening just remember that, for some people, it means a whole lot more.” She turned and walked away, leaving Johnny rooted to the spot, wishing he had her courage.
But out of that initial friction, a romance bloomed. Johnny had listened to that record closely, trying to hear what Frankie heard. Over the next several weeks, desperate to understand, he sought out more and more of these records, and, serendipitously, each RESCUE paired him with Frankie. Maybe it was that they each shared strict fathers and a love of Sam Cooke, or maybe it was something more fundamental, but with each meeting, their connection grew. She found his wide-eyed enthusiasm endearing, and he was enraptured by her coolness and courage and not mention her looks. Soon, Johnny was requesting music just so he had an excuse to see her, and eventually Frankie suggested they just start exchanging records on their own. Johnny was relieved. With summer approaching, he’d been wanting to suggest this himself, but he hadn’t had the courage. And boy was their summer a gas. They met in Venice Beach for milkshakes and up in Hollywood to see if they could spot celebrities, and these teenage trysts eventually led to their sneaking out at night, to Johnny stealing his father’s Cadillac and to them joyriding through the Hills. But no matter where they went or what they did, they always kept their meetings secret.
“You know he’s going to donate all his earnings from “A Change is Gonna Come” to Dr. King?” said Frankie one night over the summer as they laid on the hood of the liberated car, parked in their secret spot. “Also,” she said, “did you know that it was inspired by Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind?”
“Yeah?”
“He was mad apparently that a white man wrote such a good civil rights song and wanted to write his own.” A comfortable silence fell between them, the songs, no doubt, running through their heads. “I sure do hope he’s right though,” said Frankie after a minute.
“About what?”
“That a change is coming. I just wish there was something more I could do. Go march with Dr. King, get thrown in jail if I have to. I’m just tired, you know? I’m tired of the dirty looks, the name calling, the discrimination, the hate.”
“Who calls you names? Is it someone at school? I’ll sock ‘em for you, I swear I will.”
Frankie turned and looked upon Johnny’s innocence with pitying eyes. “Oh Johnny, how could you ever understand?"
He looked back at her and knew she was right, knew it wasn’t that simple, that a punch on the arm would solve nothing, but he hated feeling powerless and wished there something he could do. Johnny lifted the record Frankie had brought him that night and held it oblique to the sky, watching the moonlight dancing on the grooves. “I just wish we didn’t have to keep this a secret,” he said.
She smiled, sadly. “Yes, if only things were that simple.”
And he realized that neither one of them was talking about the records.
It was a windy and cool Friday in December of that year when everything changed. Johnny came home to find his parents waiting for him in the living room. His mother looked anxious, his father, livid.
“Sit down.”
He did. The room was filled with the heavy, combustible silence that Johnny knew presaged judgment and wrath. Without a word, his father produced that very Gene Autry record sleeve and the Sam Cooke record hidden within. Despite his fear, Johnny cringed watching his father’s fingers smudge the wax.
“What did I tell you about this music?”
“Dad, please be careful, it’s very fragile.”
“Careful? CAREFUL?! You, boy, are the one who needs to be careful.” He stood up quickly, as quickly as he could with his shrapnel-peppered knee. He was gripping the record like a gun or a medal, like the hard-won order and freedoms he’d fought for that were being threatened by the goddamn songs he held in his callused hands.
“Dad, please, it’s not all bad, really. Just give it a chance…”
His father looked as though he’d never seen his son before. He stood there, wheezing, and then, without pretense, he snapped the record over his knee and tossed the broken pieces onto the ground. He continued shouting, but Johnny didn’t hear a word, didn’t hear the vitriol or epithets or his mother’s sobs. He just stared at the shattered record and thought of how disappointed Frankie would be, and how angry her father would be, and that it was his fault. His and his father’s and his father’s hate.
“Where’d you get that blasted thing anyways?”
Johnny had thought about this moment for months, had decided that if he did get caught, he would be as brave as Frankie and would tell his father the whole sordid truth. About RESCUE and Frankie and all of it. He didn’t care about the repercussions, but just as he was about to speak, he froze. For some reason he couldn’t bring himself to answer. And as his resolve weakened, his shame grew. All he wanted was to be able to look his father in the eye and tell him to go to hell, that he loved this music, this girl, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. But he couldn’t. He wasn’t brave enough. Couldn’t even stand up to his own father. Eventually his father stopped yelling and his mother stopped crying and he was left alone with only his thoughts and the broken pieces of Frankie’s record and the thought that despite all his resolution, because he hadn’t been able to speak, to stand up for himself, nothing changed at all.
Johnny went to see Frankie. He didn’t care that he was showing up unannounced. He’d make some excuse about why he was there, that it was something to do with school, but he had to see her, had to make his confession about the record, about his failure, his shame. He couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t. It took several loud knocks before the door was opened by a stately, well-dressed woman who looked distinctly forlorn. He asked for Frankie, lying about why he was there. The woman didn’t question him, but was very kind, and presently called for her daughter.
Scared as he was, his fear dissolved when he saw her, for Frankie’s normally bright eyes were red and puffy, her blushed cheeks stained with the ghosts of rivers of tears. At his request, she followed him outside.
“Frankie, I’ve got to tell you something.”
“It’s okay. I already know.”
He stared, and then realized that they were speaking of different things, but what news could she possibly have been expecting from him.
“No, Frankie, I need to tell you…I’m so sorry, I don’t know how he found it, but my father found your father’s record. The Sam Cooke one. And…shoot…he broke it. Frankie, he snapped it right over his knee.”
He was expecting a similar fury to what he had just faced, but instead she just shrugged, more tears welling in her eyes.
“Don’t matter now,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that it don’t matter. Sam Cooke’s dead.
“Dead?”
“Dead. They shot him.” And she told him the whole tawdry story and by the end of the it her grief had indeed turned to rage. “But he must have been set up. Those muthafuckers set him up. Wanted his money, were jealous of his fame.”
“Frankie, it’s gonna be alright.”
“Oh, what the hell do you know Johnny? You don’t, but it’s okay. It don’t matter what you know or don’t know, because I see how upset you are over something as simple as a broken record. But it’s just a thing Johnny. Just a big waxy circle with grooves. But there are millions of records. Wear one down, get another. But there was only one Sam Cooke. Ain’t no getting him back. Ain’t no one never gonna hear him sing.”
He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t just the record that had upset him, that he wanted to learn how to be brave like her, but just as it was with his father, he couldn’t find the words. Instead, he just said, “I’m sorry Frankie. I am. Just tell me what I can do.”
She just crossed her arms and stared, stared like he represented everything she raged against, like he was the one who had pulled that trigger. “Nothing you can do. Nothing any of us can do anymore.” And with a small shake of her head, she turned and walked back inside, leaving Johnny to wonder if and how he could ever change.
It was a few days later that she called him at home. His mother passed him the phone with a nervous, quizzical look. He put the receiver to his ear and heard Frankie say: “I want to go the funeral.”
They skipped school and changed into funeral clothes in the bathroom of a Sears. They didn’t speak on the bus, nor on the walk from the bus stop to the church. She was still angry, though maybe not so much at him. They arrived, but then were stopped in their tracks, dismayed. The line to get into the church was around the corner. Hundreds had come to pay their respects, and they realized that they were unlikely to get inside. Johnny felt Frankie shiver beside him, heard her teeth chattering, though he doubted it was because of the cold.
But then he had an idea. “Come with me,” he said, grabbing her hand and leading her down the alleyway that separated the church from the tenement behind it. He crouched down behind some sentried trash bins and placed his ear against the church’s cold wooden wall. She hesitated for only a moment before indelicately kneeling beside him, ignoring the gravel that might rip or stain her stockings. She placed her own ear against the wood, her eyes locked on his.
Together, they listened. They couldn’t make out the sermon, but they could feel the sounds vibrating through the wood: the hum of the choir, some scattered “Amens.” A piano began to play, and they heard hammered keys and a voice Johnny thought he recognized, who he would learn later was Ray Charles. They stayed crouched there for the entire service. It might have lasted an hour, or maybe several, or maybe a lifetime, but the next moment the walls rattled with the unmistakable sound of the bereaved exiting the church, and their cries rent through the winter air as they did. Johnny shivered, his teeth chattering, his soul too. There was so much pain in those cries, pain that extended beyond grief. It was terrible to hear, terrible to listen to, but appropriate for how Johnny himself felt, like there was nothing but turbulent waters and dark skies ahead. Johnny lifted his eyes to Frankie’s and was surprised to see them blazing, blazing with that same fire he’d been drawn to all those months ago, though he didn’t know from where it had been sparked or kindled. She rose and he followed her out from alleyway into the mass of bodies unsure of where to go next. Suddenly, a new sound rang out, blending with, and soon overtaking the mourning. Johnny knew it but couldn’t place it, but then he saw that Frankie was smiling.
“Johnny, it’s Sam.”
But where was it coming from? They and others looked around, and then almost at once, as one, the crowd realized the singing was coming from so many open windows surrounding the church. It wasn’t just one song, or maybe it was, because it was all his songs, but the product was one glorious, joyful melody. Like a wave in a rising tide the mourning swelled, quickly, powerfully, into a celebration. Johnny listened, and joined, and as he did, he finally understood what sparked that fire in Frankie’s eyes. Sam Cooke’s death was not only his own but represented the death of everyone who was a voice for change, everyone who was brave enough to risk their own destruction to fight for what they believed. And in that moment, surrounded by that ringing chorus of hope, Johnny realized that it was he, Johnny, was who Sam was singing about, that inaction was in many ways just as bad as hatred, that snapping a record was no worse than keeping love a secret, than repressing your beliefs: it all just amounted to silence. Then and there, Johnny resolved to keep playing those records, his father, the world, be damned. And so he and Frankie and Frankie’s father and Aretha and Ray and Marvin and so many others kept that music playing. They played it long into the night, long after the tears had dried and the celebration had ended. They played it through the weekend, through the chills of winter and the first buds of spring, played it through dreams had and bullets shot, through fluttering fists, through spangled guitars, through beloved words and the cries of caged birds, through more fists but these ones raised, through the thuds of knees, through riots and protests and inaugurations too. On that winter’s day in California those who longed for a different world started wearing down the wax on records they knew might someday break, or be broken, but then they’d just play another, because they knew that silence combusts into Fire and Judgment but change is ignited from noise, and so they kept those turntables spinning, running, wild and loud, like the Mississippi, even against the most vehement, vile resistance they kept them running, and just like that mighty river, they’ve been running ever since.
Evan Miller was born and raised in Massachusetts. After earning his B.A. in Music from Boston College, Evan spent several years working in living in various states across the country, including California and Hawaii. Evan’s writing is often informed by his passions: playing guitar and piano, cooking, spending time in nature, and travelling. Currently, Evan is pursuing a dual master’s degree in English and Teaching from Salem State University. He lives in Beverly, MA with his wife.
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