My Baby is Back!
A backstory: So I'm trying to get through the revolving door of a hotel. Behind me is an Arabic cabbie, screaming "Fuck you! Fuck you!" over and over at my back. He's upset because I refused to pay him the $17 and change he demanded. This is because meter said $14 and change. "Rush hour charge," he had explained, which was funny considering I had spent most of the trip from Ronald Reagan Airport reading the sticker on the inside of the window that listed all the charges, and a rush hour charge was not on there. What was on there was a number to call if the cabbie asked for any fare not on the meter. He didn't like that I pointed this out to him, and the screaming started while in the car, continued as he lobbed my bags out of the trunk onto the concrete and intensified when I handed him exactly what was on the meter and said "ironically, your tip would have been three dollars."
This was, in fact, one of my last experiences in the United States of America.
Trying to get through the revolving door and wanting to make it in with my duffel bag, my backpack and my guitar--everything I was taking for the next two years--simultaneously (for fear that leaving anything outside would entice the yelling cabbie to mess with it), I ungainly rammed the head of my guitar (protected only by a lightly-padded canvas guitar case) into the glass.
My guitar has a name, Baby. It is my acoustic-electric knock-off with a beautiful green finish and a really nice sound. I actually own a really expensive Washburn, but it didn't have a name, and it wasnt being taken to Ukraine. Oh, and don't ask what my electric guitar is called; it's not fit for print.
In any case, Baby's wood had already been weakened because she had been shipped in the unpressurized belly of a plane from Oklahoma City to Orlando without me loosening the guitar strings beforehand; bad idea. When I unzipped the case in my hotel room, I saw that her head had snapped forward, a few tendrils of wood away from being completely off. My roommate, Mike, another guitar player (his guitar sitting in the case equivalent of Fort Knox) shook his head and said: "I'd leave it."
I set her in the corner, was going to let the maid throw it out when, leaving the next day for the airport, I had a sudden change of heart and brought her, resolving to repair her in Ukraine.
A long-distance discussion with my mom's fiancee, Jerry, also a guitar player (he gave me the Washburn), and he said he'd ship some industrial glue and clamps to me. The break was in such a way that if I could firmly reaffix the head (now having come completely off between America and Ukraine), then Baby would play without problems, as no damage had been done to the fretboards.
He mailed the glue in October.
I spent four months playing first my Obhiev host brother's guitar, then my Zhyomyr host brother's. Ukrainian guitars, to be blunt, suck ass. The action is too high and the sound is janglingly horrible. I went through countless jam sessions with other volunteers, always playing on someone else's guitar (usually Ashley's, who brought hers with every intention of learning more than the few chords she knew. Since she knew she couldnt keep up with us, she was always happy to loan it to me while she sang along. Thanks, Ash!) and always missing my own, my Baby, who now sat in corners with no head, looking sad and pitiful.
The glue arrived in Febuary. Four months. Must be a record for the Ukraine Postal Service.
I waited two weeks until I tried to repair her, wanting the available time to follow every instruction on the bottle to the letter, knowing I probably had one chance to fix her before she was completely beyond repair. She sat for 24 hours, leaning against a chair, two clamps affixed, the metal padded by a faded blue shirt I was willing to sacrifice for her.
After the clamps came off, I wrapped Baby's head in duct-tape, that clothbacked adhesive gift from God, in the hopes that it'd help take a bit more pressure off the glue when the strings went on. And on they went, last night, slowly, being tightened in little turns, the process taking twenty worry-soaked minutes, Baby facing away from me in case the wood snapped under the pressure and her head flew forward.
Then, finally, all the strings were in tune. My heart racing, waiting for the wood to break, I gently played an E chord. She sang. That hunk of wood hadn't made music since Florida and she sang. My heart sang with her.
I played less and less gingerly and, three hours later, was still playing. I felt great. As people will attest, I get attached to things, and I was attached to this guitar. She's been played in hostels, homes and hotels in a dozen states and two countries. She's been there for different stages of my life: I've played her while sweating and ecstatic on ecstasy, each note sending pleasure signals up my fingers. I've played her in the background while my students in Oklahoma took turns reading, in salty, sultry ways, "The Weary Blues" by Langston Huges. I've played her for my infant goddaughter, Molly, who was more interested in the movement of my hands than any music I was making.
She's probably helped a couple people fall a little bit more in love with me. Or at least in lust.
In any case, she wasnt left for some DC hotel maid.
And here, at the end of a Ukranian winter, she's been brought back to life. Although the temperature has plummeted yet again, I'm warm with her in my lap, sitting cross-legged in front of a plugged-in heater, shirt off, eyes closed, fingers on her strings, listening to her sing.
My Baby is back! And I'm a happy man.