The Corner

                              The Corner


He was there on the corner by the drugstore every morning from just after dawn until noon.
Same wooden folding chair, old fedora open-side up on the curb for tips, and a shiny red
dobro that may have been as old as the guy himself. To a punk 15 year-old boy, the old
man appeared to be about two hundred.

I spent many a Summer day or Winter weekend standing around, just listening and watching
his fingers. The highlight of my life had to be when he reached in his pocket, pulled out a cut
down beer bottle neck, and slipped it on the little finger of his left hand. The sounds coming
out of the guitar were indescribable. It seemed like a cross between the Rock and Roll on
the radio and some of my grandmother's Hawaiian records.Add to that the words about
men getting shot, gambling, drinking, and I was in musical heaven.

One Saturday I figured it was time to take a chance, so I put my cheap Stella acoustic in
its case and set out for the corner.The old man saw me coming half a block away, and he
rested his instrument on his knee and smiled his big, mostly toothless grin.

"Well, ghost of my granpappy, if it ain't my biggest fan with a geetar case. Whachoo got
in there, boy? You bring us lunch?"

He laughed so hard at his own joke he almost fell off the chair, and I started to turn and just go
back home.

"Now hold on there, boy, I was only teasing. What kind of guitar do you have?"

It was weird how he slipped so easily from the vernacular to proper speech, depending
on the needs of his audience. He knew I was embarrassed, so he stopped the slang and
teasing and became serious.

I mumbled something about it being just a piece of crap and how I should have left it
at home, but he cut me off.

"Bobby, guitars are like people. They come in all sizes, colors, and qualities. How they sound
and perform depends mostly on how you treat them and take care of them. Now let's have a
look at it."

I took it out of the case and handed it to him. He fingered a C chord and grinned so hard
I thought his head would disappear.

"Boy, you done started off jest right. It's in perfect tune."

I should hope so! I'd put on new strings, pulled the stretch out of them three times,
and tuned it about twenty times. I smiled back at him and then he started to play my guitar.

Sounds came out of that old box that I couldn't make then and can't make now. He knew all
the tricks, like hammer on, bending the note just right, and muting the strings he didn't want
to sound. I learned the same tricks later on, but they didn't sound the way his did.

"Let's play somethin' together," he laughed. "I'll show you what chord patterns to use and
I'll add some notes and slides."

Turns out the first song we ever played together was an early version of "Hoochie Koochie Man,"
made famous by Muddy Waters. My timing was way off because of the rests in each measure,
but after a little help I started to catch what he told me. It would have sounded better if it were
just him playing, but I was so happy I never wanted it to end.

People stopped to listen to the old black man trying to teach the young kid his licks, and most
of them smiled, tapped their feet, and put change in the hat. When the old man got tired and
was ready to call it a day, he tried to give me half of the hat money. There was over thirty
dollars, but I refused. I told him I had an allowance and a paper route, so I didn't
need the money. He argued, but not very hard.

The old man had never been seen taking a drink, so everyone wondered what he did with the
money he made. He probably made twenty dollars a day, most days, and the guy in the drugstore
always made him free soup or a sandwich because he brought business to the corner.
I didn't find out where his money went until a few years later.

I almost lived on that corner for the month of June one year. My father started grumbling
about how his son was spending too much time with "that ______." That's when my mother came
unglued. I had never even heard her raise her voice, but that changed in an instant.

"John, you will NOT use that word around me! He's a good old man who's teaching
our son more in a week than he could learn from a music school in a year. If you weren't passed
out most of the time you would hear him playing guitar in his room at night. You will leave him
alone and never call that old man another name!"

Whoa. My mother was bright red, and my father had turned whiter than his newspaper. Nothing more
was said then or ever again within range of my hearing, and I continued to go to the corner for three
more years.

One Saturday in August of the third year following my parent's argument, I went to the corner,
only to find it empty. I went inside the store to ask Mr. Dickson where the old man was, and
I knew by his face something was wrong. My insides did a flip-flop, and I prayed that the old
man was OK.

"Bobby, the old guy had a heart attack or a stroke or something. They took him
to the hospital. If I were you, I'd get over there right now if you want to see him alive."

I ran all the way to the hospital. I almost got hit crossing a street, mostly because I was half
blinded by the tears. At the hospital they started the old saw about are you a relative and other
stupid questions, but I was stopped in mid-scream by my mother. She was the duty nurse in the emergency
room, and she told me to hurry back to the ward, as the old man had been asking for me.

My God, he looked already dead when I saw him. Tubes and needles everywhere. When I got to
the side of the bed, his eyes opened. He forced a small smile and whispered my name.

"Bobby, I'm 'bout to play my last chord. The Lord wants to hear me play just for him. Now you
stop lookin' so sad, boy. I got to move out the way to make room for kids like you to make the
music. You keep playin' and mebbe write a song about this old man."

I told him he was crazy, that he wasn't done yet, but he shushed me. He told me to look in
his pants pocket, over there in the closet. Right front pocket.

"What's in there is yours now."

I went to the closet, reached in the pocket of his pants, and I knew what it was just by feel.
A smoothed off neck of a beer bottle. When I turned around to thank him, he was gone,
with a big smile on his face.

.......................................................................

About a week after the old man died, I found out what he did with his money.
There was a front page story in the local paper, with a headline that said:
"Strange millionaire passes away, leaves fortune to orphanage and music school."

The old man, whose name isn't important now, had been born and raised in Oklahoma. When
his parents died they left him a 160 acre farm, mostly dirt. Under all that dirt there happened
to be a bunch of oil. He sold the farm, banked the money, and went out to do what he loved:
playing music and bringing joy to other people.

I never did figure out why he took the tips in the hat, but I think it was because
people really don't appreciate what they get for free.