Other essays on this theme

Essay: "Music"

by Jeff West

When I lived on the streets of Santa Cruz I had a friend who played guitar. Sometimes he would come up with his guitar, keep it for awhile and then lose it. Our life was simple and on the move, dragging around a bulky guitar was difficult. Like most homeless folk we would stash our belongings, including guitars, in remote and hidden areas, knowing sooner or later that stash spots would be discovered and everything would disappear. Losing and replacing stuff defined our life-style as much as having no home did.

My friend was an addict: a guitar junkie. Going without it, and he went without it frequently, was painful for him. When the need for a fix became overwhelming we would ease into a music store and ask for the used guitars. The staff would eye us warily until they saw him pick um some box with strings that wasn't worth fifty bucks. We were obviously not prosperous citizens but they would tolerate us as long as we didn't try to handle any high-dollar items. It didn't matter: my friend had talent, the kind of talent that goes beyond mere technical proficiency. His talent poured out of him and into his music, forging something that was more than music, something magical. Even jaded sales staff, many themselves musicians, would fall under his spell.

When we weren't haunting music stores we were working at day labor, or panhandling. When we had money we bought our food and slept in motels. More often we would eat at soup kitchens and sleep at Saint Francis.

Saint Francis was, and may still be, a Catholic mission and as in any mission the variety of people who stayed there was wide. Santa Cruz has deep counter-culture roots and those roots yet bore fruit. The rainbow kids might be considered as such: gentle creatures who dressed in colors appropriate to those who trailed behind the Grateful Dead, criss-crossing the country, until Jerry Garcia medicated himself into the next world. Then there were those who had rejected the super-sized American way and who strived to live a zero-impact lifestyle. We saw the usual drunks and addicts, and a few spectacular ones too. These were the victims of the economic wars and the victims of unknown wars whose minds had been broken.

We were outcast from American society, but we were not without a society. If one preferred his integrity to the corporate labor climb, if one would rather have freedom than a thirty year mortgage, or a bottle, if one was a victim of battles lost, or merely a victim of apathy, one was never alone. We were, all, one and the same. We were together.

Except the deaf girl.

We called her the Deaf girl because nobody knew her name, where she came from, or anything else about her. We had no way to communicate with her. Perhaps she read lips, but nobody could get close enough to find out. The Deaf girl was wild-deer shy. She was always wary and either poised to bolt or already gone. At night we would sometimes see here stand in front of a window and flail away with her hands. It didn't take long to figure out she was using sign language and watching her reflection in the glass, but was she practicing? Or did a need to talk drive her, a need which could not be denied, and was her own dim reflection her only companion?

My friend and I were in the park on a weekday morning when she snuck up on us. I was lounging in the sun listening to him play his new guitar. The park was empty but for us, or if there was anybody else I was too lost in the music to notice them, which is probably why she was able to walk right up without us noticing. Or I should say without my noticing; my friend couldn't help but see her, but he had given no sign, and I struggled to match his composure. I didn't want to be the clumsy oaf who frightened the deer away. She stood close, watching my friend, and from the corner of my eye I could see her glace darting to me. She held for a few moments, then took a couple of steps forward and put her hand on the guitar. I don't remember what he was playing, something with strong major chords, but I saw the constant flight-or-fight tension leave her as the music rolled through us and bound us together. She looked at me and while I can't say she looked happy, at least the fear was gone. It wasn't even a minute before her demons got the upper hand again, and she was gone.

My friend kept playing. I watched and remembered a few nights ago those...hands lift a rock and shatter the rear window of a blue Volvo station wagon in the small hours of the morning, and the guitar yanked out by those...hands and I wondered: how from the same spring bitter water, and sweet?