He stopped me on my way out, a couple times. Once he realized that he had a classical section he’d not showed me. Another time he wanted to give me a country album that’d cut a decade ago. And then he wanted to explain something. He liked my vibe, he said, and he liked that I really cared about records. He’d been cheating death for five years and, though his treatments were done, and he felt good, and was gigging, he wasn’t sure if he was cancer free. Or how many more years he had to live. His son loves music, but he didn’t want to burden him with an entire collection of records. It was too much, so he was thinning things out now. He wanted the special records, whichever they were, to go to people that really appreciated them. He asked me about the classical section. I professed ignorance of anyone who would know what to do with those. He walked me out, into that serious heat, and said goodbye with the trigger pull of two fingers, as I circled the cul de sac and headed for the freeway