#2 Tim Grant

| November 2, 2010 | 0 Comments

From Lilly’s Blog

Despite being my age, I never talked much to Tim Grant growing up. His family owned the local record store at the end of Commons Street. They were nice folk and I knew them better than I did him. Most kids did, simply because that was the only place to buy music around here.

In school Tim and his friends kept to themselves. They were the local misfits, the group everyone assumed spent all their time behind the bleachers smoking a lot of pot and hating everyone. Not that Tim ever projected that attitude himself. He seemed a generally friendly person, just extremely shy and happy to let his friends be the loud ones. The one thing everyone did know about him was that he was easily the smartest kid in school. Funny enough, it was the nerds that hated him for constantly coming out on top in the honor rolls, despite no seemingly real effort (and all the aforementioned pot smoking).

His senior year of high school, a couple of particularly loud and excitable underclassmen, Christopher and Kristine Paley (cousins most commonly referred to as the Khrises… but we’ll get to them at a later date) decided to nominate him for Class President. My most vivid memory of Tim was the day he walked into school and found the hallways plastered with “Vote for Tim! He Rules The Rest Freakin’ Drool!” posters prominently featuring his face. I will never forget his look of absolute terror upon seeing them. Surprisingly, the look of terror was quickly replaced with one of anger, smoke practically shooting out of his ears as he ran towards the freshmen lockers screaming “Christopher! Kristine!” at the top of his lungs. No one had ever seen him upset, let alone furious. I believe that that’s the reason why, despite ordering the Khrises to tear down the posters and never showing up to the debates, he still managed to come in second place. His determination impressed the hell out of everyone.

Despite his stellar grades, Tim chose to forgo college and take over the family business. He loved that record store, he loved spending his time there, so why waste time and money on college if he knew he would just be doing this afterwards? His parents, happy and supportive, decided to give him complete control and eventually left Ephton Valley for a life by the beach in California.

Not content to just sell music, Tim renamed the store “The Disaster” and expanded to pretty much sell any and all types of pop culture media. He had a DVD section, a book section, a comics books section and so on. You name it, he had. And if there was something he did not have, he would find someplace to order it for you. No one in Ephton Valley had ever seen anything quite like it. Most small artsy towns like Ephton have access to high literature and museums but pop culture is hard to find. The locals find it “beneath” them. Tim’s friends embraced the store and it became their local hangout as much as it did a business. On weekends, after store hours, they began holding parties in The Disaster that ran late into the night. The townsfolk dubbed them all the Insomniacs.

I am only really just getting to know Tim Grant through our new mutual friend. But without him and his little store, a lot of people our age would either have to conform to the very specific model of adulthood Ephton Valley promotes or leave their hometown all together. We all owe him a debt of gratitude, even though he would be the last person to accept it. He’s just doing what makes him happy.

Copyright © 2010, Rolando Garcia.
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Category: Drama, Humor

About the Author ()

Rolando is extremely excited for 30 character. He has spent most of his time since graduating college in 2002 working the film industry. But his passion has always been storytelling and he is going back to his roots. He can't wait to see what everyone else is cooking.

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