Pop-Punk and Powdered Sugar

A few years in time and a two-hour drive away from the bed I sleep in now is a donut shop getting ready to close. As the hands on the clock inch their way toward 6 p.m. there is an unspoken understanding that this time is not for last-minute customer service, but for preparation. My friend empties the cash registers. I grab the trash bags from the back hallway. She puts out the speaker. I run for the key. When the minute hand hits zero I am already at the door. I hear the opening line of “12 Feet Deep” by The Front Bottoms blast from the speaker before the click of the lock. We stop to serenade the end of another shift together. We repeat this ritual each time we close until, one day, neither of us is there to sing.

All I have left of these days are vignettes of our camaraderie and a sweatshirt that, no matter how many times I wash it, still seems to smell like Sunday mornings spent pouring coffee and commiserating. It didn’t matter if the shop was empty at 5 a.m. or packed at noon — we were in constant conversation and, when it came to the subject, everything was on the table. Frequently, it was music. I can’t prove that the hiring process was intentionally designed to indoctrinate me to the music of Blink 182 and The Story So Far, but every one of my coworkers was obsessed with rock music ranging from indie to pop-punk to screamo. I was hired as an awkward, nerdy 15 year-old who had never been to a concert, let alone a mosh pit, and who listened to soundtracks from Broadway musicals on rotation. That any of these people would put up with me long enough to become my friends was a plot twist rivaling “Wicked’s.”

After a few months of post-work trips to the ice cream shop next door, shared rides home, and shift-long heart-to-hearts, my co-workers and I became inseparable. It was inevitable that some of their music taste would rub off on me. I developed a particular soft spot for the folk-meets-punk-meets-indie band The Front Bottoms, specifically for their EP “Rose,” which comprised much of the playlist of our first summer together. In retrospect, our friendship must have caused a scheduling headache for our boss. One the one hand, we were always willing to work the longest shifts together. On the other, we always wanted the same days off. When we finished work in time, we would pile into whoever’s car was most functional that day and drive to the Granville Gorge, a swimming hole in the foothills of the Berkshires. When I drove, the top down on my 2002 Sebring, the wind should have made it hard to hear the radio. My passengers made sure I never missed a line.

I moved to Cambridge while my friends stayed home to work and attend community college. Soon I found myself watching the adventures I used to be a part of via Snapchat stories in my dorm room. What still brings us together, across the distance and time and work and school schedules, is music. A friend’s tickets to a show at the Sinclair or to Boston Calling are opportunities for milkshakes at Boston Burger Co. and lunch between sets. I learn that many of my former coworkers now work at the same restaurant just 20 minutes from our donut shop and wonder, had I not moved away, if I would be working there too.

Last weekend, closing the restaurant I work in now, I asked my coworkers: “Can I play a song real quick that I used to listen to while working in high school?” They agreed and I attached my phone to the speaker, looked up The Front Bottoms, and put on “12 Feet Deep.” I closed my eyes and I swear, for a second, I could smell powdered sugar.

—​Staff writer Allison J. Scharmann's column, "Music as Memory," explores music through personal narratives.