I was in the shower rinsing the soap out of my hair when I opened my eyes, I noticed my cell phone lit up I could see it through the glass door. The glass was steamed up I couldn’t see who had text me. When I finished rinsing, I stepped out to dry off and I leaned over to see who it was. It was a picture I couldn’t quite make out so I grabbed my cheaters and looked at the picture again I couldn’t believe my eyes. What I saw had sent me back many many years, I was in disbelief. The feeling of being in a dream like the happiest person alive and a feeling of being all alone to experience something so incredible that couldn’t be shared with another person shot through my mind at the speed of light. I was truly in shock for the first time in my life and when I read the text that was associated with the picture I froze because it said; hello I know you don’t know me and this may sound crazy but by any chance do you have anything to do with this blue guitar? There it was in a text a picture of the blue guitar the blue guitar I built and named KT80 over twenty years ago.
After I thawed out, I gently wrote back; hello yes, I built that guitar. Then the reply; I was on a guitar website and saw guitars for sale that looked exactly like this one and they had the same name on the headstock as mine. Now I was puzzled because the guitar in the picture was owned by a person I never met in my life, I stood there still dripping in complete amazement and total confusion then the person continued and wrote; I’ve been trying to track you down for over ten years, I always thought there was a great story behind this guitar and I wanted to find more information on who made it and where it came from, I can’t believe I actually found you. Then she asked; so, is there a story? I can’t wait to hear it. And I replied, yes, there is if I may ask how did you acquire this guitar? She replied, my father took me to NYC for my birthday and at that time I wanted to learn guitar, he said I could have any guitar I wanted for my birthday. We walked through a few stores I didn’t see anything I really liked then I saw the blue guitar hanging on the wall, I had to have it, and it looked like it was designed for a girl and so my dad bought it and we took it home back to Oregon. After reading that I paused to wonder why it was hanging on a wall in a guitar store. And so, my story began.
I met her in a bagel store she was sitting with a friend, we got to chatting and before I left, we exchanged numbers. We had some things in common one of them being music we started dating for a while and life was pretty nice and simple, I had an apartment on the second floor of a house right next door to the owners who were somewhat angry newly married people, I could never understand their relationship or why they even married in the first place. I had a female cat named Seuss and a stray male named Stenchy, Seuss used to sleep in my winter hat and Stenchy used to crap out the most horrible poops I ever smelled hence the name. I’m not a cat person but it was all I was allowed to have according to the newly married angry landlords. The two cats kept me company when I was a single guy. As time passed my relationship got heavier with the girl from the bagel store, we compared our music influencers because we both played instruments, she played guitar and I played drums. The only thing we didn’t have in common was that she was once married with two kids and I was never married and had no kids.
One day she got a call from a friend whom she was once in a band with, her friend told her they needed to get back together because a producer of a very popular TV show heard their music and wanted to use the band as a backdrop for a scene In front of the flat iron building in NYC. It was an exciting moment for the band to gain some exposure and no one knew what would become of it. After the show aired the band had been noticed by a very popular record label. They were eventually signed and headed straight to the studio to do a professional album. They were handed the best record producers in the industry not to mention the best recording studio NYC had to offer of which people like Madonna the Red Hot Chili Peppers and many more recorded in.
During that time, I was asked by the girl from the bagel store to build her a custom guitar, one made special to fit her hip and so I did. Her friends thought I was out of my mind to build her a guitar from scratch that it could never be done, even her ex-husband thought it was a task I could never live up to. Well, the guitar was finished just in time for the recording at the studio, the producers loved it so much they wore cloths that matched the color of it. Everyone had to hold it in their hands and play it. It was an incredible time and it was a great achievement for me being it was my very first guitar ever built by my two hands and they used it on the recordings, and they even mentioned me in the credits.
As time went on the record label made the band travel from venue to venue to promote the new album and I was lucky enough to tag along when I could the first tour was in NYC it was easy for me to be the band roadie. My job was to help unload and set up, during the show I would swap out guitars with the band while they were on stage. Some nights the guitars would be on display on stage next to the band for the audience to see. We knew how many pieces we had when we loaded the club with gear and we’d always take a count before we left a venue. One night during a break down of the set when I did my count something was missing, it was the blue guitar. Someone from another band had taken it from our pile and threw it in his trunk then piled a bunch of stuff on-top of it, when we called him out, he claimed he mistakenly took it as one of his, the only problem with his lie was all our equipment was color coded and his wasn’t.
The band eventually got dropped from the label, they were dragged along for about two years, I don’t know why they were let go, and it was either the label was trying to keep them on a shelf away from the competition or their music just didn’t cut it. Eventually I parted ways with the girl from the bagel shop, I never saw her again but I always wondered about the blue guitar, I always wondered where it would end up.
Since the blue guitar I went on to build two others in the same shape but in different sizes. I even built one for myself to learn on but this one took on a whole different look. As the years past I continued to play the drums, I got so good I decided to buy myself an electric kit so I could play without bothering my neighbors. This was the best thing ever till my hearing started to decay so I had to make a choice, sell the kit or keep playing and go deaf. That’s when I decided to pick up the guitar that I made for myself and learn how to play it and that’s just about the time my phone pinged with a text when I was in the shower.
The person who contacted me felt I should have the blue guitar back, for some reason she didn’t feel right owning it. She felt it should have never left its home and that it should be with its rightful creator. I bought the blue guitar from her and It’s back at home hanging on the wall between its twin siblings as perfect as the days I finished building it over twenty years ago. I wondered was the blue guitar stolen again and pawned off or did my ex-girlfriend from the bagel store need extra cash and decided to part with it, I’ll never know. To think the girl who sold it back to me was tempted to sell it several times in the past because she couldn’t seem to track me down but she knew better and persisted, and to think the blue guitar ended up on a wall in a store for sale in NYC to anyone in the world only to be bought by a girl and her father then taken all the way across the country for over ten years to then be sold to me without a scratch is completely mind blowing.
When the guitar arrived at my home the excitement was overwhelming, I opened the case and removed the bubble wrap and stared at it, my eyes filled with tears I could hardly move. The memories floated out of the case, on the head stock was a card and written inside it was the sweetest little note about me and the blue guitar.
Vincent M.
