Nylon Strings

"You must know a couple of songs, why would you buy a guitar if you didn't want to learn anything on it?" I asked.

"I guess I didn't know what I wanted," he said.

As we prepared to exit the dimly lit storage cell, my father slowly looked around the small room. His eyes glazed over, as if every stick of furniture and piece of china held a memory for him. He turned to leave, me following. The weary way he strode was the result of years of experience. Each carefully placed step stressed his laid back nature. We climbed into the car, and drove away.

I harassed my father about his ill-fated attempts to play his guitar. He gave nothing but lame excuses, no matter my pestering. The guitar was, simply put, very old. The shining black pick guard had all but fallen off, and cracks webbed underneath the wood finish. Dust plastered the small spaces under the nylon strings, which dug into the near-rotted base. It seemed as though the strings were the only preserved part of the guitar; I reached up and plucked one. The low hum that emanated from it was, strangely, in perfect tune. The painted rosette was worn and tired, like the ornate decorations of an ancient chapel. Sitting next to my father in the front seat, it seemed to match him. The way it was turned towards the open road gave the guitar a wizened look. The picture gave it the impression of a personality, or even a longing to be played. "Why did you want to take me to come and get it, Dad?" I asked. "No reason," he said. He looked straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel. I just sat there, my eyes drinking in the guitar's aura. I thought of the years it had seen and the places it would go. The driving snow of mid-winter made the stretching road seem unfinished, and all that could be seen ahead was the glaring red face of a stop-light. My mother and sisters would be waiting, I thought. Though my father seemed set in keeping the guitar at the house, I wondered whether or not he would concede to the rest of the family's opinion. I didn't understand my mother's reluctance at the time, and it didn't matter in the end.

Pulling into the driveway, the car left ridged indentations in the soft layer of snow. We paced together up the walk and through the door. Each step left a small shoe-shaped picture of the brick patio beneath, like a minuscule window or a layered painting. Inside, my mother waited for us with my two sisters. They glared at the guitar, as if it was unholy and wrong. "Oh, I haven't seen that old thing in ages. Why did you bother to go and get it?" my mother said. I stared into her eyes. Glancing back at my father and seeing the stony inflexibility of his expression, I knew, at that moment, that they were the ones who were wrong. I walked alongside my father into his room, where he stowed the instrument inside his closet.

Later in the day, when the sun glazed the first layer of gentle flakes of snow and the horizon was iridescently shrinking from view, I heard music coming from my father's room. I crept down the stairs, placing each foot cautiously in front of the other. My arms held my upper body as I leaned my head towards the music. The closer I came to my father's room, the clearer the music was. Finally, my ears could fully understand the tones hitting them. The soft chords and righteously plucked notes filled my head, echoing throughout my mind. After sitting for what seemed like hours, listening to every scale and riff my father could remember, I ran into the room with excitement. He immediately stopped. "Why did you tell me you didn't know how to play the guitar?" I asked. The look on my face must have hurt him somehow; his demeanor changed from passive to defensive within a second. His eyebrows furrowed and his mouth flattened. "I didn't think that I would be able to remember enough to impress you," he said. The curiosity overwhelmed me, and I asked, "What made you put the guitar in the storage shed in the first place?" As if a cloud were over his head, his face lost what little light it had left. For a few moments, it was if he wouldn't answer. But then he looked up and reassuringly grinned at me, "I had a family to take care of." With that, he handed me the instrument and walked out of the room. I felt the taught strings and brittle wood, and tried to remember the music my father had made with the guitar.