The Blue Guitar

by J. E. Wiseman

  “Apollo.” Orrin raised his eyebrows. “Wasn’t Apollo the god of music and poetry?”

  “Yes.” Hermes laughed. “I see you know your mythology.”

  Orin studied the man's face and thought about the unusual names. He noticed the stubble on the man’s chin, his thin mustache and wire-rimmed glasses, but then he looked down at the guitar he was holding and couldn't resist plucking the strings a few more times. He loved the sound and the vibrations. He closed his eyes and strummed gently with his thumb and felt transported, oblivious to the way Hermes was looking at him. He opened his eyes and handed the guitar back to Hermes and said he had to go.

  “Listen, Orrin, come back tomorrow. I will talk to my friend…maybe we can work something out. I’m usually closed on Sundays, but I’ll be here. Come at noon.” As Orrin left, Hermes returned the guitar to the window, and Orrin walked back to their house, which was actually his mom’s boyfriend’s house. The guy’s name was Jeffrey and he was ten years older than Orrin’s mother. He was a building contractor, had several men working for him and was a pretty decent guy. Not many men would take in a woman with a twelve year old son, but Jeffrey had invited Orrin’s mom to come visit, and a few weeks after that they were all living in Roxboro.

  The next day was Sunday and Orrin went back to the music store at noon, saw the closed sign on the door and thought it was strange that Hermes had told him to come back. He stood in front of the window and stared at the blue guitar, wondering what could possibly be worked out since he knew his mom had no money for a guitar. Just then, the front door opened and Hermes invited him in. When Orrin entered, he saw another old man with a white beard and wearing a black Greek fisherman’s cap on his head. He was sitting on a piano bench and when he saw Orrin, he smiled and looked into Orrin’s eyes.

  “So you are interested in my blue guitar.” Those were his first words. No hello, no introduction, but Orrin figured he must be Apollo.

  “Yes, I don’t know anything about guitars, but I liked holding it,” Orrin said, glancing up at Hermes standing next to him.

  Apollo turned to his friend. “Bring us the guitar, please,” he said, then looked back at Orrin.

  When Hermes handed it to him, Orrin cradled it in his arms and plucked a string and immediately felt that tingle again. He looked up and noticed the strange way Apollo was looking at him. Orrin looked away and plucked the string again. He held his finger there, then moved it up a little and felt the sound vibrate through his whole body—the same strange sensation he’d felt the day before.

  Apollo and Hermes didn’t say anything but just listened to Orrin plucking and strumming the strings. After a few moments, Apollo put up his hand for him to stop and looked at Orrin before speaking. “Listen, I will give you my guitar and I will teach you to play it.”

  Orrin could not believe his ears and felt like he was going to cry. “Why would you do that?”

  “I don’t know for sure. I love that guitar and I will not be making another one, but when my old friend Hermes told me about you, I had a feeling. I can’t explain it and for some reason I wanted to meet you, and now I know I want you to have my guitar. I have played the guitar all of my life and I have a feeling I can teach you to play like no one else. What do you think about that?”

  Orrin didn’t know what to say and couldn’t believe this was happening to him, but that was how he got the blue guitar and learned how to play. Still, he was curious why he had been given the guitar, and the first day he went to Apollo's house for a lesson, Orrin asked, “Why did you give me the guitar?”

  Apollo looked into Orrin’s eyes before speaking. “The reason I painted the guitar blue was because I knew whoever wanted to buy it in that color was meant to have it. There are no other guitars in the world like it, but when I met you and saw how you loved it, I knew you were the one to have it. It’s as simple as that. Does that answer your question?”

  “I guess so,” Orrin answered, still wondering why Apollo thought he was meant to have the guitar, but he just accepted the man’s answer.

  He began going to Apollo's house, first one day a week, then two, then almost every day and Apollo taught him to play. He told Orrin he was a natural and gifted musician and instructed him to let the nails of his right hand grow long in order to play properly. Orrin’s mother objected to the long nails, but once she knew the reason for them, she left him alone about it.

  Apollo taught him to read music and said he wanted Orrin to eventually be able to compose his own music, but he must first learn the music of the masters. Orrin learned to play classical guitar and Apollo introduced him to the music of Bach, Scarlatti, Vivaldi and many others. He also taught him to play flamenco, the music of the gypsies, as well as the folk music Apollo had known as a child in Greece. They listened to Apollo’s recordings of Andre Segovia, Jose Thomas, Narciso Yepes and many other guitarists, but Orrin especially loved listening to Apollo play. He loved how the older man seemed to be looking out into space when he played, hardly looking at his fingers. Orrin studied the way Apollo played, and knew he wanted to be able to play like that. He thought that Apollo’s playing was better than any of the great players he’d listened to and marveled at what a master he was, not just as a musician, but as a craftsman who made beautiful guitars. He often thought about Apollo, the god of music and poetry, and when he watched and listened to his teacher playing, Orrin knew he was experiencing something special, but could not articulate what it was he felt.

  One day, Orrin asked Apollo why he hadn’t become famous. “You’re better than anyone I’ve ever heard. You’re a master and you’re living in a small town making guitars.”

  “Being famous is not important. Making beautiful music is all that matters and I love making guitars so that others can make beautiful music. I’m very happy. I have made a lot of money selling my guitars. Musicians come to me from all over. A few of my guitars have been played on concert stages all over the world, but I wanted to be left alone. Believe me, I am content with my simple life in this little town.”

  Often, after their lessons, Apollo would make tea and they would eat goat cheese on crackers while Orrin enjoyed listening to the stories of Apollo’s life in Greece and how he had learned to play the guitar. The man told how his wife Elena died when she was young, how beautiful she was and how much he had loved her. “She was the love of my life and all the music I have ever written was inspired by her. She was my muse.”

  One day, after a lesson, Apollo asked Orrin if he knew the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orrin remembered reading it, but didn’t recall much until Apollo told him the story about how Orpheus played the lyre and his music was so beautiful and enchanting that everyone loved his music, he fell in love with Eurydice and she was drawn to his music. They married, but one day she was bitten by a snake while she was out walking in a field and died. Orpheus’ heart was broken and his music became very sad. He was inspired to go to the Underworld and beg Persephone and Hades to allow his wife to leave. He played a love song dedicated to Eurydice on his lyre for them that was so beautiful and haunting it made the gods of the Underworld cry, and they decided they would allow Eurydice to return with him on the condition that he must not look back to see her until they were no longer in the Underworld. Orpheus agreed and was overjoyed that he now had the love of his life back; however, just as he was one step away from being back on the surface, a moment of uncertainty came over him, a horrible feeling that he would lose her. He turned to look at her, and she suddenly disappeared and returned to the Underworld. He lost her again. She was gone and his broken heart returned. From that day on his music was filled with longing and the pain of his loss. He would sit under a tree with his lyre, looking up at the sky with his eyes closed and play the sad music that filled him. He would pluck the strings and the sound of his mournful music made everyone who heard it cry and feel sorrow for the tragic loss.

  After hearing the story of Orpheus, Orrin often wondered if his music would ever draw someone to him like
Orpheus’ music had. Orrin remembered the few times he had met beautiful women who had attracted him, but his shyness made it impossible for him to even talk to them. He would just feel awkward and tongue-tied, so he composed music expressing his feelings, but for some reason, he never had the opportunity to play it for them.

  Orrin took lessons from Apollo for two years, but then his mom and her boyfriend broke up and Orrin and his mom moved away. Orrin didn’t want to move and wished he could stay in Roxboro and live with Apollo, who was more like a father to him than anyone in his life, but Apollo was old and Orrin’s mom really needed him to get a job and help support them. He was almost fifteen when they moved away. He wasn’t doing well in school in the new town, hated the place and he never made friends. All he wanted to do was play the guitar and he practiced all the time and never did his homework. He remembered Apollo telling him something Mark Twain had said. “Never let school get in the way of your education.” They’d both laughed and Apollo told Orrin he had never finished elementary school, but instead became an apprentice to a guitar maker in Greece. After that, playing music and making guitars was all he ever wanted to do.

  Orrin didn’t know whether he would ever get the chance to play for Emily, but felt certain that if she could hear the music he was composing for her, she would know he was a lot more than just a janitor at Ainsworth and Thelin and fall in love with him, but he also realized that was unlikely. She was already in love with someone else.

  Orrin knew he was lucky to get the job as a janitor for a large, prestigious law firm. When he got back to the States after two tours in Iraq, it was hard to find a job. The economy was bad after what had happened on Wall Street. He didn’t know much about that. All he knew was that a lot of the guys coming back had trouble finding jobs. Some were homeless and many were really messed up, both physically and mentally.

  Orrin still had nightmares about what he had seen there. It was dangerous and he remembered not knowing who they were fighting. They’d walked the streets with their uniforms and guns and never knew when a bomb would blow up. He knew they were supposed to be fighting terrorists, but it was impossible to know who was a terrorist and who was not. He remembered seeing a bunch of his friends get blown up riding in a truck in front of him and thinking he could have been in that truck. That had happened more than once.

  Orrin had his blue guitar while he was deployed and tried to play every day. He knew that if he hadn’t had his guitar and played his music, he would have gone insane. He got badly injured when a bomb went off while a few soldiers were walking past a market that sold fruit and vegetables. He was lucky because the guy next to him had his head blown off and another guy had his arm blown away. Orrin got hit with pieces of shrapnel that went into his leg, shoulder and head. He lost a lot of blood and still remembered the excruciating pain. The doctors weren’t sure whether they could save his leg or not, but luckily they did. Now he had scars and a slight limp. Another friend of his, actually his best friend while he was there, lost his hand, and Orrin pondered what would have happened to him if he had lost a hand and couldn’t play the guitar. Still, he grieved for his friend’s horrible injury.

  Though Orrin was shy, he did have his first sexual experience while he was in Iraq, and it was there that he had learned how powerful his music could be. He would often sit by the Tigris River playing the guitar. One day when he was playing, a young Iraqi woman, wearing a long black dress and with her head covered, came out from behind a nearby grove of date palms and he turned and saw her listening. He smiled and she came and sat beside him. She spoke a little English and told him she was drawn to his music. He went to that same place whenever he wasn’t on duty and she would sit with him by the river and listen to him play. She told him she was eighteen. Orrin was nineteen at the time and although most Iraqi women were frightened of the military, she was not afraid of him. They met often and fell in love. Both were virgins and despite the restrictions on Muslim women, they made love often in the secret spot they’d found.

  Their first time together was on a night they met by the river in the evening under a full moon. After he played for her, they made love. He remembered how shy and tentative they both were, but she allowed him to hold her, then eventually as their passion grew, she took off her long dress and the black scarf from her head and he ran his fingers through her long dark hair and entered her as gently as he could and felt their bodies moving slowly and softly, then faster and more passionately until they both exploded in exquisite, unforgettable orgasms, the first of their lives. Afterward she lay quietly in his arms. They looked up at the huge moon and he loved the way it shone silver on the still waters.

  They met several times a week for three months and Orrin knew it was his music that let them break the barriers between the two cultures although his lover, Aasera, would have been severely punished if their relationship had been discovered. This occurred before Orrin’s injury. When that happened, Orrin had no way of contacting her and the ache in his heart for the pain he knew he was causing her by suddenly disappearing was excruciating. Though the two lovers disappeared from each other’s life, Orrin knew he would never forget her. He knew Aasera was gone from his life, but hoped that one day he would meet someone who made him feel the way she had. That yearning could be heard in his music.

  When Orrin got back home, he lived with his mom for a while, in a small apartment over a dry cleaners store. He would smell the steam that rose from the first floor. His mother worked as a waitress in a pizza shop and had a boyfriend who often stayed in the apartment. Orrin felt like he was in the way and the man, Ben, didn’t like Orrin’s music, while Orrin couldn’t stand the loud heavy metal music Ben played. When Orrin finally got the job as a janitor he moved into his own apartment on the third floor of an old house. The old woman who owned it, Mrs. Rose, was deaf and so she didn’t mind that Orrin practiced and composed music late at night.

  One day, Orrin got up the nerve to see if he could play music in a restaurant. He had heard about a place called Mama’s Café that had different musicians play at dinner and throughout the evening, so he got up the nerve and asked if he could play there. He had to audition and noticed that when the owner, Julie, heard him play, her eyes widened and she seemed mesmerized by his music. She called a few of her employees over to listen and Orrin observed their reactions. Julie said she had never heard anyone play the way he did. That really surprised him. He’d hardly ever played for other people before. He had in Iraq, but only a few of the soldiers liked his music and most thought his blue guitar was weird.

  It was hard to describe Orrin’s music. It was a combination of classical, jazz and blues. Though he loved classical music--especially Vivaldi, he’d started listening to jazz guitarists like Django Reinhart, Larry Coryell, Kenny Burrell and a few Delta Blues guitarists like Honey Boy Edwards, and somehow he combined all that into his own music.

  So, there he was playing background music in Mama’s Café on Friday and Saturday nights. Julie couldn’t pay him, but she gave him dinner and he could have a beer, or sometimes a glass of wine, and he would sit in the corner and play. He had a large glass cookie jar that people put tips in. Sometimes he made forty or fifty dollars. It was nice to make the money, but what really mattered to Orrin was the way people listened.

  Even though they were there for dinner, or to sit at the bar and drink, when he played, he could tell people liked his music. It was amazing how the whole place would get quiet and instead of providing background music, it was like he was performing. People even applauded and Julie told him that he was the only musician playing there who got applause. She told him that her business was much better when he was playing, and that he was drawing people there. She even made a sign with his name on it which she put in the window when he played—Tonight, Orrin Star. Star wasn’t his real name, but for some reason he chose to use that instead of his true last name, Richardson. The name just popped into his head. Things like that happened to him. It was like his music. The me
lodies and harmonies just came to him in a way he couldn’t explain.

  He often pictured the way Apollo looked up at the ceiling when he was playing the music he'd composed for his dead wife. When Orrin played, he would do the same thing. He looked up at the ceiling, then his eyes would close and the music would come to him. He felt he was playing music for the girl of his dreams. He must have been doing something right because so many of the people who heard him play at Mama’s would drop money in his cookie jar and tell him his music was exquisite, and some women said it made them cry. He started seeing the same people come back week after week, and it made him feel good to see how deeply his music touched them.

  One Friday night, he was playing with his eyes closed so he hadn't seen Emily sit down at a table with a tall man. When he opened his eyes, he couldn’t believe she was there and would hear his music. He saw the surprise on her face when she glanced at him, but she continued talking to her boyfriend. At first, she wasn't paying any attention to his music. Orrin tried not to look at her, but a few times, he glanced over and saw her holding her boyfriend’s hands across the table and felt a painful thud in his heart. He tried to concentrate on his music, but occasionally, when he glanced in her direction, he noticed that she had stopped talking and was listening to his music. Several times their eyes met, but she would quickly return her focus to the conversation with her boyfriend. When they finished dinner, they both came over and the other man put two dollars in Orrin's cookie jar, but Emily smiled and said, “Orrin, I didn’t know you were such an amazing musician. Your music is beautiful, it really is. I loved it.”

  When she left, Orrin couldn’t get her words out of his mind. He was so happy that she had found out he played the guitar and was more than a janitor. On Monday, when he was sweeping the hallway, he glanced in and she looked up and smiled. Their eyes met and Orrin felt she was looking at him differently. When he finished sweeping and cleaning the bathrooms, Orrin went into her office to empty her wastepaper basket and she stopped working and smiled.