It’s a hairclip, unremarkable but for its size. It’s tiny, barely fitting between two fingertips, and stuccoed with green sparkles which have worn off the edges. I wore it on a chain around my neck when I went to Toronto until I met Joseph, then he would clip it into his mass of hair and it would hide, occasionally flashing as a startling spark of green in the deep black red.
As a thing, it is uninteresting, as a history, it has more more personal value. I found it in the washroom of the Commodore, left behind by some random female. I picked it up and held it to my eyes after the show, smiling at myself in the mirror. I was dressed in peasant purple and my hair I don’t remember. It might have been plum or it might have been gold, but it was damp, I remember that much. I had danced to the point of collapse to the opening band, Velvet. Someone had noticed. “Jhayne, we’re heading out.”
I stepped out into the murky ballroom and a bouncer tried to shoo me out, but he was stopped by the group of people waiting. “She’s one of us, thank you.”
I laughed as one of them held up my shoes, “You should really put these on, little girl, it’s not safe out there.” and as I took them from him, he reached out and plucked the green from my fingers. “What have you found?”
It was Dick Dale.
He turned it over with magicians grace, the colour winking between his warped fingers like a cheap special effect, and took out one of his guitar picks. “I signed this, want to trade?” I said no, and he took my head in hand and carefully placed the clip in my hair.