by
Jaye B.
Something told me not to intervene. So I watched the woman struggle until she got out into the sun past the parking lot and pulled out her phone. She punched something on the screen and played some Led Zeppelin.
That's when I walked over and stood in front of her.
"I'm the world's greatest guitar player. Better than Jimmy Page." I told her and strummed a chord on my cracked and beaten travel guitar.
"Yeah?"
"You know he’s a satanist don't you?"
She laughed, placed her phone in her lap and started combing out her hair. Her blouse fell and exposed quite a bit of her shoulder. She didn't seem to care and kept on combing.
"The Pacote Springs church here is trying to raise money to send my husband to treatment."
"The one down the road? Someone invited me to one of their prayer meetings but I declined." I told her.
"Yeah. They're stagnant there. You only need to hear about Lazarus in one sermon and not three for Christ's sake." Lisa rolled her eyes and laughed again. She seemed transparent to me, as if all her suffering had polished off her veneer to reveal something quite beautiful.
I started warming up on my guitar and she squelched the Zep. I then played the opening bars to my song Waters Flowing Clear Again and she started tapping her foot. On her ankle was a tattoo of an ankh and a rose which melded with the sunburned skin. Her fine hair, now fully dried, waved in the wind and was oddly in synch with the rhythm of the song. My guitar opened up to her-not an easy thing for it to do in a town with the weirdest of vibes. It opened up like when I'm alone in the desert playing for the mountains. Could feel the resonance in my thymus glands.
I was in the presence of a genuine soul and couldn't hide my tears as I played the rest of the song. Heard later that the two women who work at the senior center were watching us from their office window. They thanked me for serenading the woman, but it should have been my audience that they thanked.
Lisa gave me a big hug and I felt her warmth go into my own core pain and she rolled off in her wheelchair back towards the RV park.
For several days afterwards I would wait for her to appear in her spot. But she never showed.
Ran into the preacher of the stagnant church and he said they barely raised enough money for the treatment program for the husband. He seemed to have given up on it. Like he knew it was a lost cause or just didn't care.
Prayed out in the desert for Lisa and her family for quite some time afterwards. Found out today that she returned to the east coast and that she is very happy to have gone home.
So am I. But who can I play my guitar in such a way for now?
Blessings to you Lisa-my angel. You truly are missed.
BTW, Here’s the song I composed for her but was sadly never able to play for her. I was warned by the women at the senior center of a possible JHA aka Jealous Husband Attack, so I squelched it. Sadly, at present time I can’t even remember how to play it and am going to have to tap deep into my musical brainstem to recover it:
To Lisa: My Angel
( C G D F D F )
You wheeled up out
Into the sun.
I stood before you,
And could see.
Your hair waved,
In the rhythm of the,
Song you played for me.
I did my best to strum along,
But you were so far beyond,
What tried,
To keep you down,
So far beyond.
Then you disappeared in the dust,
That a sudden wind from
Nowhere kicked up.
I asked everyone where you went,
But no one ever saw you.
I still want to find,
The woman who is able,
Because she's not confined,
Where is my angel?
Where did you go?
I waited in the sun,
For your return
And the answer I got,
Came only from you:
Try to see through what is broken,
In everyone. See through,
See right on through.
(It was then that I realized,
That I had some learning to do)
Then you wheeled
Back up into the sun.
It was then that I knew
Where you really were from.
But I still ask:
Where is my angel?
I still want to find,
The woman who is able,
Because she's not confined,
Where'd you go?
Where is my angel?
Where did you go?
-Dedicated to Lisa G. T.
(C)2017- Jaye B.
Please help support Reset News @ Paypal, Cash App or contact the author for other options @ jayeb444@protonmail.com
***
Jaye B. is a writer, musician and artist. His art criticism has appeared in Art Paper, New North Artscape, Art Muscle, Northfield Magazine and elsewhere. His articles have also appeared in City Pages, Twin Cities Reader, Mysteries Magazine, Fahrenheit San Diego, High Plains Reader, New Dawn and Rain Taxi. He has appeared on BBC Radio, WGN Chicago, WLW Cincinnati and elsewhere in the mediasphere to discuss his work. Please help support Reset News @ Paypal, Cash App or contact the author for other options @ jayeb444@protonmail.com
I want to know where she went, too...I seem to miss her. It's your song that did that.
Beautiful lyrics, Jaye! I really love this.
JHA...😂