The Record Salesman
My first creative non-fiction piece was recently published in The Washington Square Review of Lansing, Michigan
If you’re of an older age group and compliment my music taste, I’ll probably write an essay about you.
I’m not unlike most 20-something New York City transplants. In fact, I think I fit the mold exactly—there’s nothing original about me. The Record Salesman knew this.
In March 2022, while I was living in New York City as part of a Syracuse program, I visited Chelsea Flea Market, which I stumbled on accidentally one day before realizing it was the famous Manhattan flea market that goes up every weekend. I’d read about the flea market years ago in a middle-grade novel called Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life. This detail did not make it into my final essay.
It was at this flea market that I met the guy I call the Record Salesman, who would not let me buy just one obscure folk vinyl, and he knew exactly what to say to convince me.
The best stories are the simplest. There’s nothing too extraordinary about this piece, but it received overwhelmingly positive feedback from my workshop class last year. So much so, that I thought I might send “The Record Salesman” out to a few places, and sure enough, it was picked up by The Washington Square Review for the Summer 2023 issue.
You can read the essay here:
“The Record Salesman”
In March of my college junior year, I visited Chelsea Flea for the first time. My eyes glossed over tables cluttered with old jewelry, compasses, swords, ripped-out book pages, and other trinkets before I stopped at the record stand. Plastic milk crates labeled for every genre sat across three folding tables, arranged in an open square beneath a white tent. I flipped through the crate labeled “Folk” in thick sharpie until I came across “Tim Hardin 1.” I pulled the record, tucked into a murky sheet of plastic, from the stack.
“Do you take Venmo?” I asked the white-ponytailed man in an aviator jacket working the stand. Each record was about $20. I would have bet five this man had been to Woodstock.
“I sure do,” he said, with the distinct voice of a cartoonish old man who regularly uses “Gee” in sentences. “How else would I convince you kids to give me your rent money?”
His eyes widened at the record in my hand.
“You’re a Tim Hardin fan?” he asked.
I knew Tim Hardin from reading Patti Smith’s memoir. I’d done a lot of reading, particularly books set in New York, since moving to the city in January for a semester-long program. In Just Kids, Patti and her then-lover, Robert Magglethorpe, slow dance to Tim Hardin in their Brooklyn apartment. After reading that scene, I closed the book and opened Spotify. I only listened to “How can we hang on to a dream?” and “Georgia on my mind,” so I couldn’t quite call myself a fan. But the record was $12, the only one under $20.
“I’m just starting to get into him, but yeah.”
“No kidding,” he said, “I’ve had this record in my bin for years!” He held the record out in front of him to admire the cover. “He’s so forgotten, Tim Hardin. I didn’t know any young people still knew him.”
A few weekends prior to meeting the Record Salesman, a friend of mine, KJ, who had already graduated and was in town for a wedding, met me in Washington Square Park, back when I was still reading Just Kids. He told me I looked “very Manhattan” and cited my oversized denim jacket and black Docs Maartens. Then, he saw my book lying on the bench.
“That’s a good one,” he said.
Of course, he’d know Just Kids. As if I didn’t find the book on Tik Tok. As if it wasn’t sitting on display at the very front of The Strand. KJ was a journalist like me. My non-journalism or non-English major friends would have considered my reading obscure. But to those in my circle, I’m basic. In Washington Square Park, I was another college girl in a denim jacket and Docs, reading Patti Smith after visiting The Strand. My Saving Grace, I never carried a tote bag.
The Record Salesman made me proud of my selection, which should have clued me in to his talent and cautioned me walk away while I still had my rent money.
“Listen,” he said. “If you like this one, come back next weekend for the second album.” He dug through a crate and pulled out “Tim Hardin 2: Live.”
“Recorded right here in New York City,” he said.
I saw the price sticker on the album—$20.
“Maybe I will,” I said.
“No pressure!” He pulled out his phone to complete the Venmo transaction.
I left the market, my new Tim Hardin record under my arm, wondering if anything could happen in the next week to change my mind about coming back.
A week later, I returned to The Record Salesman’s stand unsure if he’d even remember me at all.
“Hello,” I said. “I’m back for my record.” His face sank.
“Ah, shoot,” he said. “You know what, someone might have beat you to it.”
“You’re kidding.” Had another girl read The Strand’s #1 bestseller and beat me to one of the world’s most famous flea markets? Preposterous. So much for my being original for once.
The Record Salesman flipped through his bins.
“It’s funny, actually,” he said. “I replaced the record you bought—first time in about three years—and I was telling the guy about you, how I had this record in my bin forever, and this young girl finally—aha!” His face lit up. He pulled out the sleek, black record showing Tim Hardin standing on stage, barely illuminated by a single white spotlight, with “Tim Hardin 2: Live” in red letters.
“Look at that!” I reached out my hand to take the record from him.
“Well wait,” he said. “If you want this one, you gotta get the third album. The trifecta.” He pulled out the third album, Tim Hardin 3, and slipped it behind Tim Hardin 2.
Maybe Tim Hardin would have been more memorable, I thought, if he’d been a little more creative with his album naming. Also, Woodstock here is pushing his luck. I may have been basic, but surely, I was not naïve enough to fall victim to capitalistic persuasion. He must have seen the concern on my face and sensed he was losing me.
“Tell you what,” the Record Salesman said. “I’ll give you both albums for $30.”
“Really?” I said. Then, I did the mental math to realize he was only shaving $10 off the order.
“You made me so happy when you bought that Tim Hardin record,” he said. “Because he’s so great, and so forgotten.”
Was the Record Salesman telling the truth? Was he really telling random customers the story of the young girl who bought a Tim Hardin record after it collected dust for years? Or did he know exactly what to say to flatter me into buying an unnecessary trilogy of folk records? Did he take one look at me, in my denim jacket and Docs, and see another college kid living in New York City with the burning desire to be as underground, as complex, as individual as possible when she’s anything but? If so, he was mostly wrong. I knew I was going back for that second record the moment he offered it. Not because I’m a fan of Tim Hardin (Tim Hardin. Do you know him? He’s kind of underground). I went back for Tim Hardin to avoid his fate, so, unlike him, I would be remembered. I loved the idea that the Record Salesman remembered me, like I remember him, now. The more strangers we have out there telling stories about us, the more we exist, the more fully we have lived.
“Alright,” I said. “You have a deal.”
If I walked away, said “no deal,” I’d have no tale to tell my friends, my family, my future kids, about the old, hippie record salesman who sold me three Tim Hardin records while I was living in New York City in my 20s. Then again, I also wouldn’t have three Tim Hardin records.
Maybe the Record Salesman still talks about me to customers every time they pick out Tim Hardin 1, 2, or 3. Or maybe another 20-something girl in a denim jacket has already picked some obscure record, one of the Tim Hardins or some other artist whose relevance has faded, and heard, “This record’s been in my bin for years!” I’ll never know.