Pride and Prejudice
The Thoughts and Words of Brian Pride

Silent Serenade by Brian Pride
Copyright 2002 - Pride

    It were my first guitar. Well not really, my first guitar was a hollow red plastic thing with plastic strings and a picture of the face of Elvis pasted on the face of the instrument. I actually took it to a music teacher and asked if he would teach me how to play. He said sure if I wouldn't mind getting a real guitar. I turned as red as that plastic stringed toy. I never did take lessons though I must admit that plastic Elvis guitar came in quite handy while fending off my older siblings in rivalries of revelry. Sooner than later getting smashed over one or the other's heads.
    So my first semi real guitar was a pawnshop steel string special with a whammy bar. I traded in my old black and white TV for it along with various other odds and ends that disappeared from the house that morning. It needed some work so I took it apart and fashioned it back together with pieces leftover from the Thanksgiving Turkey. Trust me when I say a turkey thigh makes a great bridge. Having missed out on guitar lessons earlier in life I wasn't about to face further humiliation. I decided to teach myself. Not owning an amplifier and not clever enough yet to feed it through an old tape deck I would sit and strum this solid body electric turkey to my hearts content both day and night. I didn't know any chords, which didn't much matter, as I didn't know a thing about tuning any of the strings.
    Still I would sit and strum clasping my fingers randomly up and down the fret board whirring up wild rhythms wearing down a series of picks. Quite often I would bring the turkey with me to the gas station next door where I worked as an attendant. Filling gas, checking oil, wiping windows and selling an occasional pack of cigarettes. One fine spring day I was sitting inside the station jamming madly away at the strings of steel imagining I could hear a melody in my wild disbursement of hormonal overdrive. I had the look all right. Long hair, tight white jeans with a fierce dragon I had painted down one leg. I even had a scruff of a beard if that's what you would call the few hairs that grew from my chin.
    I can remember the song and every now and then will play it for fun. It was like the chugging of a steam locomotive as if it were charging full steam running along the bottom of Lake Erie with a hurricane churning the waters above into a torrent. Toss in with that the sound of stray cats scratching each other's eyes out in a back alley while knocking over garbage cans full of empty tins of tuna and you pretty much have the sound of my song. Still to me it was like music. Or as close to music as I might ever come while playing an out of tune Thanksgiving Turkey without an amplifier or any cool effects. Sigh, those were the days, (or were they?).
   At the height of my solo a car pulled into the station. I wasn't much of a grease monkey so I couldn't say much of what kind of car it was. They all looked the same, either American or foreign. At least in those days one could tell an American car from all the others, this one was made in the US of A. The engine was hot, so it had obviously just got off the freeway. I went up to the driver's side and noticed an old man with a little girl sitting next to him. I asked what he might want but he just kept hiking his thumb up in the air and smiled. So I figured as much from an old guy like him that he wanted me to fill-er-up. Which I did but was surprised when the pump clicked off and gas splashed out over my dragon jeans after just a few gallons.
   I leaned over the driver's side window and let him know it didn't take that much and asked if he might want me to check under the hood. Then I noticed the old man was sitting there smiling with tears coming out of his eyes. The little girl with curly brown hair dangling over her sprightly green dress turned in her seat and exclaimed to me. "He's deaf!"
   She then went on to tell me that they had been driving down the highway, well on the other side of town, when he heard some music. He hadn't heard music since he was a child so he set off with his granddaughter to find the source. He followed the sound of the music and it led him to this gas station where it stopped when I got up to attend to them. He didn't need any gas or oil. He just wanted to stop in and thank me for playing such beautiful music. It was the one thing he wanted most out of life, to hear music again. Through his granddaughter's translations he thanked me from the bottom of his heart and wished that I would never stop playing. He was sorry to have disturbed me and wished I would continue playing. He added that I should never stop playing no matter what may come in my life. If I could bring such joy to one person as I had brought to him then I should play my music loud and strong for everyone else to enjoy.
   Sigh, I only wish I had paid as much attention to his swan song as he did to mine. As he drove away the old man was crying so much he had soaked his shirt. But his wide smile let me know these were tears of joy. The little girl snug in her seat belt next to him turned and waved good-bye as they drove away. I could see her patting her grandpa's shoulder as they turned out of the station and headed back to the freeway.
    As true a story as any of my many other strange tales I wonder often about this experience. The next day I told my friend Phil about it and he asked if he could hear just what it was that I was playing on my unplugged turkey that could be heard as music by the deaf. A little embarrassed to attempt this mess in front of a live audience I decided to make a recording that I could share with others. I played the recording for Phil later that day and he fell to the floor in convulsions. Phil passed out but recovered well after I stopped the tape and slapped him around a bit. Gently I might ad. I thought he was joking the whole time but he got very upset. He warned me never to play this tape for another person ever again. Which I obliged. Sill I wonder who might have had the better ear? This deaf old man out on a drive with his granddaughter or my good friend Phil who later held me up at gunpoint one night the following year…