the guitarist
Soft, safe, sad, painful, but movie painful, safe danger, safe danger and pain, safe because it was manufactured, not by reality but rather through a human mind, soft and sad but safe was the musical theme at that open-mic. Amateur musicians crouched over stools, doing all they could to physically envelope an acoustic guitar while playing patient, safe, cradling chords. And through the lyrics emerged a longing that was a physical longing, like something that takes up volume in one’s chest, but not a real longing. The soft, sad, safe songs allowed us to imagine a heart-break. They gave us the one that got away and real undeniable love and as our hearts struggled with those soft, acoustic songs, we longed for someone who wasn’t. And some of us searched our memories for faces of the past, for someone to fill that space of the one, the one that we could direct these sad, yet clean, completely fascinating, and most importantly safe feelings. So those songs of love and loss sang quietly in a small room on a much smaller stage in front of a few found beauty and sometimes mature tears once one could finally attach a real face onto those feelings. On some level, most knew that those feelings were false, and perhaps some, on their way out the door, regretted, for reasons they consciously were incapable of realizing, and were ashamed. But the beauty in those sad, soft, and safe songs is not within the memories or truths that it could have established but rather it in the cleansing of the most illogical, destructive feelings one has. We were permitted to experience love and loss in a sterilized, rational, straightforward, tangible experience. Love was never jarring, morally compromising, self-destructive, frighteningly dangerous and threateningly insane in those soft safe songs. They allowed us all to feel what love should feel like, what loss should feel like. And love should be safe, and soft, sad. And loss should safe, and soft, and sad. It should be an acoustic song rather than a panic attack. It should be a welling tear rather than endless insomnia, nausea, even violence.
And amongst these peacefully fake songs came (erupted) an unnerving and unexpected reality that was possibly one of the most amazing and spiritually beautiful things I have ever seen. When this man (boy, really), barely old enough to attend that event, dressed in jeans and an old hoodie, his hair disheveled in such a way that it was impossible to tell if it had taken a great deal of effort or simply the lack of effort to accomplish, approached the stool and microphone, carrying his guitar by the throat, his real girlfriend, red hair, white dress, beautiful, soft, safe, painfully safe, destructively safe face, touched his wrist. She caressed it briefly, not even with enough force to be noticed by him, but she touched it as though she were sending something with him. That she knew he scowled because he was entering an arena he was not prepared for and she was willing to sacrifice a part of herself to protect him. She touched his wrist and he ignored her and glared at the floor and had no intention of writing let alone singing a song for her because they were truly in love. And perhaps a song about true love may be just a five minute howl of desperation, defeat, and absolute, unadulterated life.
The boy who was technically a man but still a boy because he was still in love and his songs were still unwritten because they were still about real love, and he still allowed his feelings the ruthlessness that they deserved, plugged his acoustic guitar into the amp and looked at his audience not with curiosity or fear or appreciation but rather with passionate disdain. And although the love of his life sat close to the focal point of that crowd, his eyes made no acknowledgment and his avarice no hesitation. It was that red haired, pale skinned, slender, safely slender, and soft, who had approached the club alongside him. Because she had ruffled his hair as he almost ignored her, both of them half naked, both of them comfortably in love and he only slightly annoyed at the way she clung to him after sex because when she walked with only his comforter draped over what could only be defined as a moving Roman statue he loved her in a ferocity that seized him, leaving him distant, almost grumpy. She had ruffled his hair, enjoying the way her fingers broke the incredibly subtle grip of hair gel, and she had glanced at the computer screen over his shoulder (something she knew he hated but also a part of her and so a part of their love and so it went complained about but accepted, even expected) and saw the advertisement for the open mic. And when he closed the window and turned to her, she knew that, like a little boy, he dreamed of finding the courage to perform, but had lived long enough to learn the pervasiveness of self-doubt.
She convinced him to attend. Not really convinced but only convinced because there was an argument that ensued and there were concessions and persuasion despite the fact that she knew and he knew that he would attend the moment she approached the subject. Standing beside him, he almost carried his bulky guitar case back to the car, and he hadn’t even said anything, hadn’t even signed up, but rather she had signed up. And as love instructed him to, he acted scorned, a bit irritated at her presumption and confidence in him even though he felt such gratitude that if he had handled as a person would have rendered him incapable of leaving the front of that line, but rather paralyzed with her hand in his hand and only an EMT’s sedative would have freed her (if she had wanted such freedom) because when she signed him up for the chance to perform she was physically entering his body. She was becoming him only briefly, reading his thoughts, sorting his thoughts, understanding his thoughts, forgiving his thoughts, and doing for him what he meant to do, intended to do, but would have jeopardized the stringent, austere, grimace that he felt saved him from the world. If he had signed up that night it might have shown a hint of hope, something that threatened his resolution, something that she loved but could never mention and so loved even more. So she added his name to the performers and walked through the sighs and angry doubts cast at her the rest of the evening.
So when the room quieted, and watched, and expected, made room for some manufactured, clean, simple feelings, the guitarist began to play a song that he had written for the safe red hair but had altered so as to be about something completely different. It remains unclear what technically happened at that moment. It might have been that he hadn’t tuned his guitar or it may have been feedback or that he forgot the words, the new words, and had caught himself just before singing what he wished he could sing to her. Something stopped him amidst the first bar of that song that I’m not sure he ever played again. And as reality once again took a belt to that little boy, he shouted,
“Fuck!” Then he did something that was unusual in its context but made every bit of sense in true love and manufactured love. He turned his back to every person in that room, faced the back wall, and began performing Bob Dylan’s Lay Lady Lay. A song that could provide manufactured love but not because the artist intended but rather because the message remained misinterpreted by the audience. But halfway into the chorus, he fumbled the strumming, forgot the chords, and abruptly stopped.
There wasn’t much uncomfortable silence after he yanked the chord from his guitar and walked out of the building, completely ignoring the beautiful red-head who chased after him. Rather the room was immediately filled with relieved chuckles. Just barely dodging that glimpse of reality in our evening of fantasy, the next performer was announced quickly and we were quickly assuaged with safety. And I wanted to follow the couple. I wanted to stay just a second longer in those real feelings, the feelings that allowed space for pain, jealousy, anger, fear, revenge, pride, and humiliation because it recognized that the only way to be real and to exist would be to accept and coexist with all that makes one human. Those feelings that would never need to be mentioned, would never demand a song, or a poem, or any material compensation because they were so real, so absolute and undeniable that they became a part of what was real, accepted or denied, embraced or rejected, comfortable or jarring, sensible or completely fucking insane. That guitarist would never thank her for getting him in front of us that night. She will be verbally chastised for it. But the angry words, names, emotional pain that he lambasted her with during that drive back to his apartment were only more a part of what she was willing to do for true love. Because by signing him up, by taking that responsibility, she knew that she was taking the blame as well. And she was willing to relieve him if only of that small burden were something to go wrong. They were in love.
