How a Burning Desire to Perform Leads to a Surprise

A few establishments down from where I stand, I spot a dimly-lit bar with live bands auditioning for a gig. Amidst the throng of sweaty musicians, I see an old friend — accomplished guitarist Jazzyboy — getting ready to perform. He’s dressed in a leather jacket and is slinging a shiny new electric guitar onto his shoulders. He doesn’t seem to have a band backing him up which is unusual, but I could be mistaken.

The urge to enter the bar and watch him perform is like iron. I want to go in and give moral support to my friend, but the wife is waiting for me at the hotel restaurant several doors down.

I force my feet to head towards the hotel restaurant and do my duty but my heart’s not in it. The wife is there. And some other characters, possibly my in-laws. The dinner is tasteless. I remember nothing about the conversation. The evening with them is as bland as boiled chicken.

The Performance
I leave the dinner early, hoping to still catch Jazzyboy’s live audition, and rush to the dark, seedy bar. The only problem is I have no cell phone coverage inside. I look at my worthless Nokia brickphone and think to myself: “No bars inside the bar.”

I realize I am doomed. There is sure to be some wifely wrath that this decision will bring about. I just know it.

Jazzyboy delivers his usual dazzling solo acoustic guitar performance, and I sit mesmerized but also blatantly charged with this electric need to join him onstage. The urge, the desire to perform, to expose the artist’s nerves beneath my fake, husbandly epidermis — this thrill envelops me like noxious gas. I am poisoned with the desire to let go, to let it out.

The Argument
My wife accosts me in the sidewalk outside the bar. “Where were you? Do you know I’ve been looking for you? Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

The argument begins to well up between us. There is a throb in my temple and butterflies in my intestines.

I say: “There was no signal inside. I just went here to support Jazzyboy’s audition at the bar and wish him well. He’s trying to get a regular gig. See here? No bars in this spot.”

I show her my cellphone screen which glows orange and true enough: dead air. No signal. No nothing.

My wife hugs me and apologizes.

This surprises the bejezus out of me because it usually takes a while for her anger to dissipate.

What is this, I wonder? A new phase for us?

But it is a pleasant surprise nonetheless.

Choosing Old Guitars from the U-Haul Trailer

The back of the U-haul trailer is hot and dusty. And I’m swimming in confusion. There are guitars of every kind strewn about everywhere in this storage unit, and some of them are mine. But which ones?

Paulo is ready to move to some distant state. I’m not sure how I feel about that. My high school best friend moving away? We lived down the street from one another all our lives.

I look down at the guitars in the pile. They’ve been here for years. There is a mandolin with its neck broken which I borrowed from the drama club and never returned. There is a guitar made in a local shop, still in the original black and white vinyl soft case which I bought back in junior high. There are some Fender stratocaster electric guitars I never owned.

This is bittersweet for me. So many guitars to choose from. But so much sadness to follow. The nostalgia, it bites me like a snake in the grass.