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Cheapo Records

It is one of the last holdouts against gentrification in Central Square—Central Square, prime real estate, the glowering David hunkered down between the two Goliaths of MIT and Harvard, with its quirky summer gardens, its funky bookshops, its apparel shops for ladies of questionable chromosonal origins, its high concentration of Indian restaurants.

Gentrification is a euphemism for greedy real estate developers, for bright and cheerful national chains like The Gap, Starbucks, Baby Gap, The Limited, and—did we say Starbucks and The Gap? Gentrification pushes out the soul of a city and makes it safe for families to raise their children.

Gentrification is a good thing, until the residents of a neighborhood look up from their newly-clean streets, unlock their newly-unfucked-with mailboxes, and discover a letter from their landlord's newly-affordable law firm informing them that, due to newly favorable market conditions, their rent will be tripling, and if they don't like it, they can take this letter, fold it until it is all sharp corners, and stick it into an orifice not suitable for mention in a family-friendly neighborhood.

True to its name, Cheapo Records offers records for cheap. And CDs now, of course.

Eliza didn't know about Cheapo, because its edifice was below eye level. The Central Square she'd been introduced to was already mid-transformation—something like Jeff Goldblum halfway through the 1986 remake of The Fly.

She descended the steps to Cheapo in a daze after her girlfriend kicked her out of the house, two months before she was actually ready to make the split. A red-haired friend dragged her there. And the man at the front desk, whose job it was to make sure that punk kids didn't try to boost records, immediately began to hit on her.

"Dolores?" he said.

"No," she replied. She was wearing a shirt that spelled out "Provincetown" in the successive colors of the rainbow, her greasy hair caught up in a ponytail. Her jeans were that second-day-wear kind of baggy. She hadn't bathed since the argument. She'd never felt more undesirable.

"Didn't you used to hang out at Johnny's?" he said.

"No, sorry," she replied.

The truly bizarre part was that he really did look familiar. He reminded her of someone he'd grown up with, maybe one of her first boyfriends, back when she was into boys. Smooth, dark skin the color of roasted coffee beans. A baseball cap and glasses. Old-school 80s style African-American homeboy. Not from the West Indies, from Central America, or the Motherland itself. From Dorchester.

Molly, her friend, just shook her head and kept browsing through the soul section.

Eventually homeboy asked her if she wanted to discuss it over ice cream.

"You're barking up the wrong tree," said Eliza.

"I don't bark," he replied. "And I don't bite, either. Unless you ask nicely."

"Only in Central Square," said Molly, as they lugged their purchases up the steps. It was no use telling a man like that she was gay. It only made them want her all the more. Big ass, blonde hair, and a challenge. Every black man's dream.

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