The Sad Sound of Regret

The thick Atlanta summer night weighed heavily upon my damp skin. It seemed to slow every action down like I suddenly weighed a hundred pounds more. This must be what it’s like to be fat I thought to myself as I sluggishly pushed forwards. The moist evening air was filled with the distant sounds of a sedated, apathetic city turned bitter over the disheartening years of abuse and neglect - car horns and sirens that seemed to be working with the enthusiasm of a gas station attendant, distant murmurs of the drunk wandering the streets looking for the next bar to find cheap, easy, slippery sex, and the occasional bang of a dumpster lid followed by the hissing of fighting ferrell cat’s - undoubtedly quarreling over the prized find of a two day old, half-eaten Mcdonald’s hamburger.

My brain barely registered half of what my senses must be taking in. The stifling humid air must be seeping in through my pours and soaking my fragile, egg-like mind with the stale boredom that now permeated every fiber of my being. My mind only works while dry. This heat sucks.

I am running. Not physically - it’s way to hot to move any faster than the speed of a heroin addict high on some good shit. I was running away from my newly born son. I had just watched his birth twenty minutes ago. I realized as I saw him coming out of my one night stand, stripper acquaintance’s flabby, blown out pussy that I don’t have what it takes to be a father. Who am I kidding? I don’t want to be his father. His mother is a fucking junky - an ugly one at that. I don’t want to be attached to that manipulative, money grubbing whore who is now that poor bastard’s mother. I don’t want to spend every fucking dollar I ever earn on someone else. I don’t want to change diapers. I don’t want to be responsible for someone else. So I run. I run into the hot and sticky night because it will accept me.

As I snuck off silently into the indifferent darkness trying to figure out where I would go, what I do, I heard a faint sound echo up from an alleyway. It was like a metal drum being beaten with a wet noodle or a stick of butter - dull and damp. The sound was loud and quiet at the same time, sloppy yet perfectly precise. It was the same sound over and over again. It was being played at a slow, steady, methodical rhythm. I followed it, my footsteps dragging lazily across the dirty sidewalk. The sidewalk was littered with trash. I stepped in gum - it trailed off behind me leaving a spider web that gave birth to another anchor point on the pavement with every step I took. The heat made the gum melt and thus stick to my shoe. I hated this heat - it was oppressive, constricting, and I couldn’t fucking escape it.

The sound grew louder and a little bit more clear. It still seemed damp though. As I came to the mouth of another alleyway the sound hit my left ear, and I realized it was wafting out from the darkness. I turned and trudged down the desolate alleyway.

I began to see the flicker of fire dancing on the dark, graffitied walls - walls that rose up menacingly on either side of me. The source of the celebrating revelers of the night lay in front of me - a metal drum filled with burning newspaper. It stood spewing the unstoppable dancers that spread and grew on the walls around it. They were guardians - defenders fighting the dark. They were faceless agents fighting a silent battle against an unnamed fear. Maybe that’s why this fire was blazing on such a disgustingly hot night - to protect.

An old man sat next the drum. He was covered head to toe in layers and layers of dirty, old clothes. Clothes filled with holes. Holes that whispered the years of struggle the street forces upon those unlucky, unloved few. His dark matted beard hung gruffly from his sunken, weathered face. He seemed familiar. Was he an old, burned out TV star? One season on a mildly popular sitcom as a character who was lucky if he appeared for a few seconds per episode perhaps? Or maybe he was in a band - the bass player maybe. Not in the spotlight, but always in the pictures.

He gazed vacantly into the distance. I say into the distance not because there was a distance to stare into, but because he had the unmistakable look of desire in his eyes, like he was watching someone intently and didn’t want them to know. He was watching someone who was very, very far away. He strummed a one stringed guitar that looked like it had come from the dumpster. It probably had.

He strummed the guitar in a downward motion without looking at the string, over and over again in a very precise, relaxed rhythm. He strummed with surprising confidence seeing that he had only one string from which to pluck truth and meaning.

“Gloang . . . gloang . . . gloang,” went the guitar. He was calling to someone in the same fashion that warriors are called to battle with a mighty horn blow by their king . . . only it sounded muffled, tired, and worn down. Everything about this man seemed . . . fuzzy. It was like I was watching him on a TV channel that didn’t quite come in, like I was looking at a copy of a copy of a copy, only up close.

“What are you doing?” I asked keeping my distance.

“Gloang . . . gloang . . .gloang,” answered the guitar.

I took a step closer.

“Excuse me. What are you looking at?”

He did not look up. His gaze did not move. His focus remained unbroken.

“Gloang . . . gloang . . .gloang.”

I took another step forwards. My eyes widened a little as I became slightly more aware that I was alive. I felt sweat run down my forehead and around my eyes.

“Who are you waiting for?”

His hand froze in mid strum, the fingers trembling just above the old rusted guitar string. The tempo was broken, and suddenly the air felt different. I became painfully aware of an overwhelming sensation of awkwardness as it filled my shoes. It had the sensation of cold jelly.

I felt like I shouldn’t be here. I was interrupting something intensely private and personal. I felt like a peeping tom. I felt dirty and selfish. Although his eyes remained vacant and lost in another universe his lips moved a little like a child murmuring words in its sleep - but no words came out.

“Gloang . . . gloang . . .gloang,” his guitar spoke for him. His lips pressed back together before he actually made a sound of his own. The distant look of far off concentration spread comfortably back across his wrinkled face as he retreated back into his shell.

I bent down. I was now just a foot away from this man. He smelled of the streets. His fingers were grimy, and the fingernails untrimmed - even torn off in places. He sat cross legged, but one leg seemed to be sneaking out from underneath the other. It made him sit at an angle so one end of the guitar pointed a little upwards towards the sky, while the other pointed down - down to the base of the fire drum. Sitting at a slanted angle like this added to the impression that this life had stopped caring about itself years ago. There must be another reason he was still going through the motions of life, because it wasn’t for himself - he had obviously given up on that.

He sat with his back against the wall. He seemed to be resting against it as if he was tired, but somehow seemed upright and at attention at the same time. It’s strange, hard to describe, but if you can picture someone who was asleep and running an Olympic marathon at the same time you might be able to envision how this man looked. His arms seemed to be moving of their own accord, separate from his face which held strongly to its deadpan stare into nothing.

I cleared my throat.

“Gloang . . . gloang . . .gloang,” interrupted the guitar.

“Are you calling to someone?” I asked, my voice now louder and steadied by my newly peaked interested and the distant feeling of potential danger that seemed to be lurking in the shadows behind me. It felt like something dark and faceless was stalking me, a predator that had just recently smelled fresh blood.

“I don’t have . . . enough strings,” the man replied drearily. His stained yellow teeth - a few of them missing, were peeking our from beneath his cracked lips as he spoke. His eyes remained transfixed with an eery gloss that seemed to emanate sorrow.

“I am trying to call,” he croaked in a desperate, raspy voice. I could hear the decades of cigarette smoke and alcohol abuse tearing at his lungs. His hand shook, and a tear welled up his eye. The methodical strumming was once again interrupted as he halted his song. “I can’t play . . . I can’t play the song. Not enough strings. Not enough strings. Not enough strings,” he repeated as he began to rock slowly back and forth. All the confidence this man had exuded was now gone.

Once again I felt danger creeping up the alleyway behind me, but this time it was close. I could feel it staring at my back, salivating at the smell of my fresh flesh. Somewhere deep in my subconscious my body readied itself to feel the skin of my neck tear as sharp teeth punctured the meat of my neck. I was only aware of this sensation momentarily however, because I was overpowered by an abrupt feeling of sympathy and sadness. This poor old man. I thought of the money I had in my wallet. I would give it to him.

I reached for my wallet, but was stopped as my fingers grazed the top of my pocket. “Tristan,” he said shakily. “Tristan Miller.”

I paused. The hairs on my neck rose to attention.

“My son. He has been lost for so long now. He ran away. I was a bad father. I was a bad, bad father, and he left. I just want to find him, I want to do good. I want to hold my Tristan again and tell him it’s alright, tell him I will take care of him. I want another chance. I want to be a good daddy to my little Tristan.” He began to cry with his head hung low. He shook as quiet sobs rolled over him. His fingers began to strum the lonely string once again forcing it into action as it cried with unhappiness of an elderly instrument coaxed into performing years beyond its duty.

“I’ve been trying for years to play his song,” he murmured over the methodical rhythm. “To call to him . . . to find him. My strings were broken by angry father time, because . . . I made him angry, too. I did bad things and I was punished. Now I can’t play his song. I can’t find him and he can’t find me.” His sobs became louder. “All I can do is play the first note and hope he hears, hope he recognizes it. I can only hope that he comes.” His voice trailed off and was overtaken by the reverberating sound of the old, broken guitar as the noise bounced off the concrete walls around us.

I stood up slowly and backed away, the fire dancing over my sweaty face. The firelight camouflaged my features - made the shadows cast by my nose, ears, and mouth shrink and grow randomly. It made my identity indistinguishable as I sank back into the night. I was a jungle cat stalking it’s prey, only in reverse. His sad strumming continued, and his sobs grew fainter as I moved backwards. The sound of the first note of the sad song that called to a lost child reverberated loudly throughout the alleyway. It was so loud that he could not hear the sound of my footsteps as I escaped.

I stopped. I pulled out my wallet and withdrew the wad of cash - everything I had on me. I set it down in the middle of the alleyway so he would find it - hopefully. I was shaking.

I turned and ran. I ran back towards the hospital. I was really running now. I no longer felt the heat. It had somehow been lifted and was replaced with a smooth, cool breeze.

I was going back to my son. I am a father and I, Tristan Miller, will not make the same mistake as my father. It was to late for him, to late for us, but not to late for my son to have the father I never had.

I will never hear the sad sound of regret cry out of a busted one stringed guitar, and neither will my son.