Week 43: Ryan Thrower- Time to Disappear and Reinvent Oneself

Full Prompt:

Story: The teen turned the guitar over in his hands. He’d had it for longer than he could play it. He’d had it longer than he could even hold it. His mother’s friends left it as a parting gift when he was just five years old. It crushed him to even think of pawning it, but he was in a tight spot. He resolved to come back as soon as he could to reclaim it. When he first touched it there was no way he could not grasp how much it would come to mean. And at this moment, he could not fathom that the guitar itself was not done with him.

~

The pair apprehensively entered the small music store. Not because they were unfamiliar with music or instruments, in fact one of them was quite the accomplished musician. No, their apprehension stemmed from the language barrier they would most certainly encounter. However, they had been in country for several days at this point and picked up a few words; enough of them to get by. One of the pair had their sights set keenly on obtaining an acoustic guitar. 

“Guten Tag,” came a greeting.

“Guten Tag,” the pair chimed in a passable but obvious accent. 

“Ah, American,” the shop’s proprietor inquired.

“Canadian,” the taller of the friends, the one interested in the instrument, replied. 

They were, in point of fact, American, but had pulled a Canadian cover over themselves to ward off any unwanted judgement or hostility. But the shop’s owner was a kind man, clad in a classic rock t-shirt, round spectacles, and long gray hair that was pinned back with a clip shaped like a skull. 

“I think I’ll take this one,” the taller friend said toward the shopkeep without taking his eyes and hands off the instrument.

“That’s a good looking guitar, man- that’s got some songs in it for sure,” the shorter of the friends affirmed.

“Very good choice- that’s actually made from sapele wood, instead of mahogany. It comes from West Africa,” the proprietor added.

Something had moved the pair to wanderlust. They were quick to abandon their responsibilities, leave their homes, their families, and pursue the unknown. But nothing in their planned trip had gone smoothly. They found themselves in a country they hadn’t intended, living with friends they’d not seen since university, who were now replete with small children. They sought the guitar for some semblance of familiarity. Something to while away the time and take their minds off how far afield their adventure had wended. When it came time for their journey to continue, they left the new guitar as a gift for their friends’ small boy.

~

She lightly thumbed the full envelope which had recently taken up residence in her bag. Standing outside the local branch of a chain bank, she looked around knowing exactly what she wanted to do, all she needed was the right person. She sat down on a bench half a block from the bank and people watched. There was a woman leaving a grocery store whose paper bag was fighting against its contents and her grasp on it. She witnessed the bag split and the speed at which a seemingly homeless person rushed to aid the woman in picking up her goods. The woman recoiled at the help and the person offering it. She watched the woman walk away, leaving all of her purchases on the ground and the would-be helper’s head sink below his shoulders in shame.

“Him,” the young woman on the bench said quietly to herself.

She stood from the bench and walked over to the man who was, in his situational desperation, now gathering the goods himself. 

“Here- let me help you. That’s too much to carry. You can put it in my bag, I’ll just take my things out,” she offered him. 

The woman removed her keys and a few personal items from her large shoulder bag and began to help the man.

“I can’t take your bag,” he refuted.

“Oh yes you can… and you will. I saw how you were trying to help. So let me help you.”

“I haven’t always been like this, you know? I had too many turns of bad luck… all in a row. I just couldn’t get back…” he breathed and paused his gathering, “it’s amazing what a human can get used to.”

The woman smiled.

“Well, I decided today to change my life. So, who knows, maybe it will rub off on you.”

“Thank you- I’m Clyde,” the man extended his hand.

“I’m Nenna,” the woman shook it firmly. 

She parted ways with the man, having deliberately left him her bag, its new contents, and the envelope she’d been thumbing. An envelope containing twelve thousand, seven hundred, eighty-two dollars and ninety-seven cents. Her entire life’s savings up to that point.

~

The old man turned the guitar over in his hands. It had a remarkable grain to it, something he’d not seen before. Something more exotic. 

“Careful with the merchandise bud,” came a biting voice from behind the counter 

The old man had gone directly to the pawn shop, as it was the store he was most accustomed to. By the time he had discovered the envelope full of money in the woman’s bag, she was long gone. All he had was her first name. It was a big city and he had next to no resources. He would never find her again. In his youth he had aspired to be a musician- it was part of the reason he had been living on the street. 

“I’ll take this guitar please… and that coat hanging there… and that cowboy hat behind you.”

~

“Looking for anything in particular?” A sweet voice echoed through the density of the shop.

“Kind of, yeah. I pop into these places from time to time. I had this guitar once. I had to pawn it. I’ve always regretted it, so I keep an eye out.”

The man looked to where the voice had come from and found it belonged to a lovely brunette, sitting behind the pawn shop’s counter. He smiled.

“I’m so sorry to hear that! We only have three guitars right now. They’re over there- I hope it's one of them!” She smiled back at the man.

He looked over to their acoustic inventory and quickly dismissed them all as he approached the counter.

“Unfortunately it doesn’t look like it. Mine had a really specific grain. I think my mom said something about African wood? I don’t remember. But I’ll know it when I see it.”

The brunette intended to offer condolences but was interrupted by a song on the radio she very much enjoyed.

“Oh, I love this guy,” she turned up the volume, “Clyde McClintock.”

“Yeah, me too! Wild- his story, yeah,” the man asked

“His story?”

“Yeah, apparently he was living on the streets and someone gave him some cash. I guess the first thing he bought with it was his guitar- from a pawn shop, ironically.”

“…really?”

“Yeah! I read this interview with him. He’d always been a musician and he just hadn’t had any luck. Living rough though, it actually gave him a lot to sing about and now he donates tons of money to charities and all kinds of stuff. Pretty remarkable,” the man shared.

“I have his new album right here, haven’t listened to the whole thing yet,” the woman said as she slid the vinyl’s sleeve ‘round to the patron.

“That’s so weird,” the man’s brow furrowed.

“Hmm?”

“His guitar- it looks exactly like the one I had.”

The radio station crackled: “we’re going back-to-back from newcomer Clyde McClintok. This one’s a live recording from his most recent tour.”

“This one is for you- Nenna. You changed my life with an envelope. And hopefully, just hopefully, a few of these tunes and a few of the bucks they make can help some others out… Anyway, here we go,” the musician’s voice rang out.

The man looked at the name pinned to the shopkeeper’s shirt. It read Nenna. His brow unfurrowed and raised with intrigue. 

“Well that’s a coincidence,” he said.

The shopkeeper’s face had drawn up into a beaming smile as tears formed in the corners of her eyes. 

“I don’t think any of this is a coincidence,” Nenna said.

“Are you okay,” he asked.

“I’m wonderful,” she replied.

“Do you want to get a cup of coffee,” he offered.

“I do,” she replied.