Another Story
It’s a quiet thing, how a life changes. Quiet as the pine trees in the Texas wind, quiet as the hum of fluorescent lights in the lab back at Rice. That’s where it started for me, in a room full of circuits and solder, my hands too quick to settle, my mind too restless for equations. I never told anyone then, but the hum of those lights made me ache—not from their noise, but from how they seemed to echo the melody that lived inside me, trapped, waiting.
I was supposed to be an engineer. It sounded right at the time: scholarships, internships, family pride. “Practical,” my father called it, his voice clipped and sure, the way a man sounds when he wants to hide his own small, quiet hopes. My mother didn’t say much, just nodded in agreement, her hands folding over one another the way she did when she was unsure.
But I wasn’t made for the precision of their world. The equations on the chalkboard felt like bars on a cage, and the steady cadence of lectures made me long for something wild and unmeasured. It was the guitar that gave me my first taste of freedom.
I found it in a pawn shop on Montrose one sweltering afternoon. The shop smelled of dust and varnish, and the man behind the counter looked like he’d been carved from the same stuff as the wood-paneled walls. The guitar wasn’t much to look at—its body was scarred and its strings tarnished—but it called to me.
At night, I’d play until my fingers bled, my textbooks forgotten on the floor. Each chord felt like a secret the world had been keeping from me. It wasn’t long before I dropped out. My parents were furious, but they didn’t fight me. I think they saw something in my eyes that scared them—a kind of determination that comes from realizing the life you’re meant to live doesn’t match the one everyone expects you to.
The first few years were hard. I played wherever they’d have me: coffee shops, street corners, honky-tonks out in the middle of nowhere. The music didn’t bring money, but it brought something else—a kind of belonging I’d never felt before. The way people leaned in when I played, like they were hearing their own hearts in the notes.
Then came the night in New Orleans. A man in a sharp suit approached me after my set, his hand extended, his words smooth as river stones. “You’ve got something,” he said. “Something people don’t forget.”
He wasn’t wrong. The rise came fast—too fast. From sticky-floored bars to sold-out theaters, my name lit up in neon. The papers called me a sensation. They loved that I’d walked away from Rice, as if failure made my success more thrilling. I loved it, too, at first.
(“Powerhouse is so monstrous he sends everybody into oblivion. When any group, any performers, come to town, don’t people always come out and hover near, leaning inward about them, to learn what it is? What is it? Listen.”)
But fame has a way of hollowing you out. The louder the crowds cheered, the quieter I felt inside. The nights blurred together, and the drugs started as a way to fill the silence. They were easy to find, easier than peace ever was.
Now, lying here in this hotel room, I think about the pawn shop, the smell of varnish and dust, the man with the carved face. I think about my parents and the way my mother folded her hands when I told her I was leaving school. I think about the lights at Rice, their quiet hum like a question I never answered.
The syringe falls from my hand, its echo soft against the floor. The room tilts, spins, settles into stillness. The guitar leans against the wall, its strings silent.
In the morning, someone will find me here, a headline waiting to be written. But for now, there’s only this quiet—soft as pine trees, steady as the hum of a melody I’ll carry with me into the dark.
[ChatGPT prompt: “write a short story in the style of Eudora Welty, told in first person, about a Rice University engineering dropout who becomes a famous guitar player but then dies of a drug overdose”
Oh, and there’s a new song, the last one I composed before the overdose. JK. Click on the image to listen:
There’s a “key” or secret explanation for the lyrics of this song. The first 1000 listeners to figure it out will get a … uh … very special … one-of-a-kind …. something. – I’ll come up with something.
OK, now back to the organic, hand-made stuff. Thanks for listening.
