“Initials—for Nechama Dina. Kind of a mouthful.”

“Are you from Israel?”

“No, Far Rockaway.”

“Raised orthodox?”

“Conservadox.”

“Ah,” I said, “my best friend is observant.”

“Yeah? Me, not so much.” She pointed at the old Pioneer turntable. “You know how to work that thing?”

I smiled. “I do. You sure I won’t be disturbing you?”

“Not at all. What is it?”

“I…uh…it’s a test pressing from the early eighties…for a record that never came out. The Daily Telegraph.”

“Cute—never heard of ’em.”

“I don’t think anybody did.”

“Are you, like, a collector or something?”

“Me? No, I’m—” I scrambled for a fib. “I was asked to write about them…for this British mag.”

She said, “Cool.”

I wasn’t exactly sure why I was lying, but it was bad enough being a penniless Lyft driver, I didn’t also have to announce that I was the fake Sherlock Holmes. As I pulled the wax out, a yellowed cutout slip of newspaper fluttered to the floor. She bent to pick it up and we marveled at it together. A photoless ad for the Natural Fudge on Fountain Avenue, listings for the week of July 13–19, 1982. There they were in the Wednesday slot, The Daily Telegraph, opening for someone who called himself Bill the Balloon Man.

“They opened for a comic,” I said.

“That’s weird,” she said. “Usually the comics open for the bands.”

“Totally,” I said.

“Maybe these guys were a joke,” she said. “Like, even to themselves.”

She handed me the slip of newspaper and was about to walk away when she spotted a Little Martin acoustic guitar on the couch and picked it up with one hand.

I said, “You play that thing?”

She gave me a droll look and didn’t answer, retreated to her room and closed the door.

Alone now in the tiny living room, I placed the vinyl on the platter and lifted the needle gently onto side one. I turned the big volume knob on the amplifier down to three, just in case it was really gnarly, but the music came on rinky-dink, a rickety attempt at a sixties kind of guitar pop, with tinny little reverb guitar splashes and a simple riff that looped and looped. They were garage amateurs, for sure. But the words were eerie, mystical, heartfelt.

Runaway sunshine

Through the dangling trees

’Cross the morning breeze

It’s callin’ out to you, there’s nothing you can do

You can never ever catch

the runaway sunshine

Whatever it was, I liked it. Song by song, I floated on the rocky waves of garage-y teenage sound—you could practically hear the guitar cables snapping into the buzzing Sears amps. I didn’t know what instrument Emil played or if this was really even his band. But the songs were real songs, a little spooky, imperfect harmonies cascading with intense emotion, and I couldn’t tell if it was because of the passage of time or the murder in the backyard or the late hour of night or because they meant it that way, this spooky-ookiness from Cinnamon’s trunk in the land of brightly colored dot-to-dots. Just before the third song, Endi passed through the room, stopped, and smiled.

“They can barely hold it together,” I said apologetically.

“Yeah…but…yet, they kinda do. It’s good. Turn it up.” I did, and she backed into the funky old lounge chair and curled up on it and we listened together. I was grateful for the company.

Polka dot princess in the land of nod (ahhhh ahhhh ahhhh)

She’s got a little dot that’s a line to God (ahhhh ahhhh ahhhh)

Princess fair don’t lead me on

Tell me when you’re coming on

We’ll ride a battleship into the dawn, oh yeahhhh

Our eyes met. Endi said, “Wow,” and we burst out laughing.

When side one came to an end she said, “Ziva has some wine in the fridge if you want.”

I said, “Sounds great,” and I got up to go pour some glasses.

When I came back, Endi had crossed the room and was kneeling on the couch, flipping the wax back and forth, tilting the vinyl to the dim orange lamplight.

“What, scratched?” I said.

“No, no. You know how they engrave things into the run-out groove?”

“The what?”

“You know, the glossy band right before the label.”

“Oh, that thing? Show me.”

“See. This is awesome, look—” I leaned in but not too close and squinted over her shoulder. “T-D-T-4-3-V-3-R” she said. “The Daily Telegraph forever.”

“Wow. You’re right.”

Then she flipped the LP. “But check out the other side.”