The Accordion Man

When I was quite young, there was a man who used to sit at the corner of Sixth and Abelard and play the accordion. Judging by the clothes he wore -- simple and faded and worn through in places -- he couldn’t have made much money doing it. Come to think of it, I don’t recall even seeing a tip jar, though admittedly memory that early rarely serves us. But every day, rain or shine or snow or hail or wind, he would sit there and play, dawn to dusk, pausing only for a small, simple lunch at noon.

I always used to wonder why he did it when clearly it left him nearly destitute. I learned later from my father, in the skewed, roundabout way that unpleasant things reach young children’s ears, that he was doing it to hide. And, of course, that confused me at first because he always did his playing in broad daylight, and at any rate playing, making sounds, with the sort of potency and vibrancy he did didn’t seem like a very effective way to hide from someone. But, my father explained, he wasn’t trying to hide from someone so much as something -- and even then, not so much a thing as an idea. He was trying to hide from the past, my father said. From his pain.

This, of course, piqued my eight-year-old curiosity and lead me to ask what was so bad about an idea, a past, a pain, that it could prompt a grown man to hide for years behind an accordion on the corner of Sixth and Abelard. My father sighed, and with some hesitation told me a very long and very vague story about a very sick little girl, the high cost of medical care, a death, depression, unemployment, a divorce, a foreclosure, and a sister who offered a bed but refused to face the real problem. He had been hiding on that street corner for nearly twenty years now, my father said, and that’s why he got no tips anymore. He refused to accept what happened and to try to move on with his life. He was a pathetic excuse for a man.

But, my God, could he play! He played aloud the desperate mourning of a broken soul. I remember, even as young as I was, marveling at his music, so sweet and sad and bitter and beautiful all at the same time. I’d never heard anything else quite like it, the sound of a soul. I’ve never really heard anything like it since. Inevitably, inexplicably, every time I’d pass by him on the way home from school, I’d walk away feeling a little older, a little wiser, as much as a child my age could. Sometimes I can close my eyes, go back to that place, and feel myself growing wiser still.

When I was eleven, the Accordion Man died. I cried reading his obituary. I didn’t understand why at the time: I’d never spoken a word to him; I’d seldom even looked him in they eye. I think I understand now, though. We may never have talked, but his music had told me everything. I had seen -- had felt -- his life just as he had: melancholy and imperfect, the happiness mingled with that tragic end. I had been there with him, and when he passed , I felt I had lost that part of my life -- of our lives -- forever.

I tried to learn the accordion myself some years later, a tribute to his memory, I suppose. I practiced and I practiced until my fingers were sore and my ears were swimming with sound, but something just wasn’t right. Oh, I played well enough, hit all the notes, but there was something missing. I even tried toting it across the country, all the way back to my hometown, to the corner of Sixth and Abelard. I don’t know what I expected, really -- maybe that something about that place would inspire me. But it wasn’t the same. It couldn’t be. I may have come to understand his pain through his music, but I hadn’t lived his life, and I couldn’t make his experience come through. My playing, by comparison, felt flat.

I was back in town again just the other day, visiting an old friend, and for some reason, driven by some peculiar, obsessive attachment to my own past, I went past that street corner again. Nothing has changed, nothing, in all the years since I’ve been there. At least, that’s what everyone else would say. There’s still the same drug store with the same red bricks, and the pavement is still missing a big chip on the Abelard side, and there’s still that old graffiti carved into the curb, J + H with a heart inscribed around it. But everything changed for me. It became empty. A couple kids stand where he used to sit, bouncing a ball off the drug store wall. It just feels wrong: this place means nothing to them. But me? When I look at that corner, I still see that poor, nameless man sitting in his simple clothes with his love-worn accordion. And I can hear, clearer than ever, the sad, miserable, beautiful notes he played.

Author's Note

Copied and pasted this directly from a document I wrote some time ago... hopefully there are no significant errors in it.

Reviews

[Anka Starr]

Whoa! I didn't expect this to be THAT good. The way you point out such crisp details puts me in the place of the speaker so perfectly. Oh man, the jealously is filling my tummy... I gotta read this again when I get the chance.

[Samuel Dickens]

Wow, I'm just amazed. You've done an outstanding job with this touching, poignant and wisdom-filled story. Many here could learn from you.

[Georgia Stone]

Thank you very much! I'm glad you liked it.