Guitar Boy

He hummed softly as he plucked the strings of his guitar. The gathered crowd seemed to enjoy the slow beginning that rose into fast cords of music. He was an exceptionally skilled musician, and you should have been able to find his songs in a music store; instead, he played his solitary pieces on the sidewalk of the busiest street in a rather sleepy city.

The morning sun glinted off the highly polished office buildings while suit- wearing men and women hurried to get to them. The boy put down his guitar and coughed in his hands, then resumed playing. He watched out of the corner of his eyes as an expensive-looking lady extracted a penny from her overlarge purse, poising a delicate hand over the little Styrofoam cup that was marked 'Operation' in black letters. However, the man beside her snatched her hand away and pointed toward something else.

"We don't want to fund beggars," he said, and went off in the direction of the bank.

Funny. That same man came every weekend and stopped to hear him play, yet he'd never given the boy as much as a piece of lint. He sighed and placed his mind upon the notes once again. Someone tossed a quarter into the little cup as they passed. The lights flicked on in the largest bank in the city.

Today's earnings: two quarters, seven dimes, three nickels, and sixteen pennies. A dollar and fifty-one cents. Any way he looked at it, the boy couldn't help lacking the hope his mother waved like a banner in times like these. He wasn't a deadbeat; it was just that all the employers wouldn't hire him, for fear that he'd drop dead at any second and his parents would somehow sue their at least that's what he had interpreted.

The guitar slung across his back thudded against him as he walked home; he didn't have a car because he had already sold it to pay some medical bills. The afternoon sun burned low as he rounded the corner and his family's small house came into view. He walked up the sparsely cobbled drive and pulled open the door that was practically hanging off its hinge.

Waiting in the living room was his five-year old sister, who attacked him, equipped with a hug.

"Calm down, sis," he said as he put her down, coughing slightly into his hand.

"Are you O.K.?" she asked, genuine concern etched over her young face. "I'm sorry."

Their mother, apparently having heard her son come in, appeared in the doorway leading from the kitchen.

"Did you go to the bank today?"

His mother looked uncomfortable; she wrung her apron with her hands before saying anything. "Sara, why don't you go and play with the toys in your room?"

The little girl evidently got the gist and picked herself off the floor, heading down the hallway.

"They wouldn't let me take out a we'll pay for your operation somehow. I know we'll be able to. I'll ask my boss for an advance on my next paycheck."

"A twenty-five thousand dollar advance?" he asked bluntly. He didn't mean to sound so disrespectful, but he couldn't visualize the silver lining in any of these dark storm clouds.

There was the sound of the door opening and closing. "How was your day, honey?"

His father's face was white as he walked through the door. "My me."

"Why?"

"He said he needed a younger, more vibrant worker." His face was grim as he trudged slowly into the kitchen.

Mother followed him, but turned around in the doorway and called back to her son, "Tell Sara it's time for dinner!"

The teen slumped and made his way to his sister's bedroom. "Mom says it's time for supper," he said, rapping his knuckles on the door. Sara opened her door and peered out at him.

"Aren't you eating?" she asked.

"I'm not hungry," he said, even though his stomach was rumbling.

*~*

Mr. Mensarius paused on his way to the bank a month later. Everything appeared as it normally did on a young Saturday; office windows gleaming, the few trees amid cement, and men and women wearing business suits. But there was something Boy!

There was an elderly woman standing in the sidewalk; he recognized her as one of Guitar Boy's regular fans. He approached her, wondering if she knew what had happened to him.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Do you know the boy who's always playing here?"

"Yes, of course," the woman said, sniffing.

"Do you know where he is today?"

"He was admitted to the hospital a week ago."

"What?"

He listened while the woman told him the boy's name and he, on some impulse, hailed a cab. The hospital was only a few miles down the road, after all. The woman behind the reception desk told him the room number and he hurried to the elevator, pressing the up button. He tapped his foot was it taking the machine so long?

When the elevator reached the lobby, he clambered in, only to be halted on the next floor up by a woman who seemed to have marinated in perfume before she went to the hospital. He emerged three floors later, coughing his head off. He looked back at the giant, smelly woman as the doors slid shut.

"Good riddance." He located the room the boy was in, to see a client from a month ago standing beside the bed. The woman had wanted a twenty-five thousand dollar loan, but she and her husband had a bad credit history, and he'd denied the request. The machine on the side of the room let out a chorus of beeps.

"What are you doing here?" the woman asked. She was leaning over her son, eyes empty and seemingly void of emotion. Beep, beep, beep.

"I-I." Mensarius's voice faltered. The beeping became faster.

"Why don't you just go?" The rate of the sounds increased still.

He had just turned on his heel, when the noises ceased altogether. The woman, presumably Guitar Boy's mother, issued a strangled sob.

Mr. Mensarius turned and left.