Lincoln Wiseman

The Song and Me

Neon signs disintegrate as my boot punctures reflections in puddles on Berry Street. The tarnished brass handle turns and screaming guitars penetrate the dreary moan of cars and drops on windowpanes. I tell Mac to turn that noise down because I can’t even think. As The Kinks fade to nothing I swing my black guitar case onto the unilluminated stage.

The scent of old glue and polish saturate the air as her busted case creaks open. The cracked, golden letters sparkle in the yellow beam of a PAR light. My baby wakes up from her crushed blue velvet bed. Kate lies sleepily in my lap as I gently cradle her neck. She’s a young girl with an old soul. Her family’s no stranger to the stage. I tell her about how Dillon Hodges won the National Flat Picking Championship with her mother and how John Mellencamp played with her aunt at Red Rocks. How Ryan Adams showcased her sister at The Norva and how Darius Rucker played her cousin for Elmo on Sesame Street.

I tell her about my second dad: How he taught me everything I know. How proud he would be of her, of me. How I wish she could meet him. I tell her about his bushy mustache and his massive forearms and how he scrunched up his face when he was getting in the groove. I tell her about Bread and sing Part-Time Love. He loved that song. As I quietly strum the final notes I hear his reflection in the melancholy timbre. The manager tells me, to wrap it up; curtain‘s in five.