A Beautiful Song: A Musical Soul Story

by Michael Cantwell

  A Beautiful Song

  A Musical Soul Story

  MICHAEL CANTWELL

  A Beautiful Song is fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2011 Michael O’Lone Cantwell

  2nd Edition Copyright © 2012

  All rights reserved.

  WWW.KSMMIKE.COM

  KSM Publishing

  ISBN -10: 0615545211

  ISBN-13: 978-0615545219

  Back to Contents

  DEDICATION

  This novel is dedicated to my wife Anne, my children Kristen, Samantha and Matthew for being such a wonderful family. It is also dedicated to all who have ever played a musical instrument, written a song or served in the United States Armed Services.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  About the Author

  Back to Contents

  Chapter 1

  That hand crafted instrument would be my salvation from an existence from a world of doing chores and writing boring school reports. It sat in the window at what I called heaven on earth or as it’s known to local guitar pickers, Gordy’s Guitars. I would stroll home from school every day in 1969 past that small shopping center where Gordy and that small but majestic store made the world a better place. Well at least my world and a dozen or so who I would catch drooling in the same semi moldy store front window that held my personal holy grail. It was a 1968 CF Martin D45 acoustic guitar made with Brazilian rosewood, an ebony fret board, and some of the finest pearl inlay that when the sun was at the perfect time of day, it would glisten like the sunset on the ocean just before sun down. But for today, Stu Edrich was merely a thirteen year old school kid with maybe a dollar in nickels and dimes in his pocket.

  I would stop by most days that year and ask Gordy if I could clean floors or dump trash just so that he didn’t mind so much that I would sit there for hours listening to real guitar players who could actually strum a G chord. In fact, if you listen really hard you could hear a few notes from the Revolution riff they swore they knew by heart.

  Gordy would mumble over and over in ear shot, “Stu, a real player knows their own voice; not a bad rendition of John Lennon’s. Never forget that kid.” I had no clue at that point what he meant. I only knew when I heard those tones all was right with the world.

  Gordy Davis was the most famous person I had ever met. He had just come back from a two week vacation where he went to an upstate New York music festival called Woodstock. When he came back he told me stories of people bathing in lakes while listening to Joan Baez sing something about her husband being in jail or stopping some war. Gordy told me he was too busy getting the mud out of his boots to really hear what she was singing.

  He told me about Pete Townsend, who lit up the evening sky with his fingers, and Sly Stone prancing all over the stage like some semi out of control wild man with a sound like no other. He talked about the harmonies of four guys who were only playing their second gig together and left there early on Monday morning after some guy played the national anthem that he only called “Jimi”. He would finish every story with the idea that places like that were not for me.

  “Those places corrupt even the best of people Stu. You keep your nose in your study books and I’ll keep you letting you hang around here. That’s our deal, you study, I let you hang out in my store.”

  Gordy would also at times go off on another topic and say “I have seen the light”. He talked about being saved from a life of misery and this tiny shop was his salvation from a life that had turned out to be a far different path then he had expected. I could tell by the many creases in his leather like face that maybe he had seen things that I could only dream of, but he would always stop short of really telling me about his past life.

  I knew he was a real guitar player because he gave lessons in his shop and every once in a while if I did a good job cleaning the semi moldy window he would take a practice guitar off the hanging shelf and show me a few chords. But the lesson would always end with him shoving me home to do my homework and telling me that the key to my world was to follow “His Word”, and not some tones from an out of tune stressed out Fender Stratocaster. My reply of “maybe if you tune it up I could hear the word” didn’t sit well. Gordy was never impressed with thirteen year old humor.

  Then again not too many understood this thirteen year old boy’s humor, in particular my heavy handed father John who was a staff sergeant at a nearby training base. My mother, Margaret was a court stenographer who worked part time and tried to keep my younger brother and sister from running wild after school. It was just another reason for hanging out with Gordy and the cast of misfit musicians who really looked up to Gordy as someone they admired. Sure I had a few friends away from the music shop, as most boys my age do, but most were into things I knew would only lead to trouble with my strict father.

  I grew up in your typical suburban area just outside of Princeton New Jersey. My dad pushed me into little league and boy scouts. Unfortunately, from the first day I wandered past Gordy’s, I really lost interest in playing centerfield for Aaron’s Electric. Besides how many times can a boy strike out with the bases loaded before you realize that watching fastballs over the outside corner of the plate is not the best use of your time? As far as the boy scouts go, how many knots can you really learn to make before wanting to run screaming into the night? Or how many Princeton versus Rutgers football games can you attend singing one hundred bottles of beer on the wall on the bus ride home before you want to jump out of the back of the rented school bus? No, even at an early age, I learned life was all about choices. Speaking of which it seemed it was the choice of Sister Mary Joseph to pull the tiny hairs next to my right ear lobe every time I peeked at Linda Jacobs paper seated in the desk next to me.

  I was an average student all through school. Like most, I did my homework and studied enough to keep my parents from grounding me, but I never worked hard enough at my studies to be a future valedictorian. I never aspired to be the next Albert Einstein.

  The summer after my eighth grade school year was a nervous one for me. It meant graduating from our local small catholic elementary school to a much larger and intimidating high school. There were unknown students from different parts of the area, who I only saw from playing sports. I of course got an even better view with all the time I had watching from the bench. Someone has to keep the bench warm you know. I think Gordy liked the idea I played sports after school on odd days. I could only run the broom across that once white linoleum floor so often before even he would feel guilty. So even though I would like to complain and say I had a hard life to that point, I would be lying to you. Sure I didn’t always like having to cut the grass and wash the dishes after dinner but what rational kid does?

  Like most my age, I tried to fit in with the neighborhood kids. There was a
vast array of characters. There were the Kerns brothers, three of them, who terrorized kids like me for lunch money, but sure were your best friends when they wanted to shoot hoops in your back yard. There were the two Farley brothers, who I think beat on each other, more than anyone else in the group. Then of course who could forget Beets McHenry. That kid could mess up the lyrics of every song ever written. He still thinks Brown Sugar was written about what his mom put in his birthday cake every year. Sly Kearney, he was one of my best friends at the time. I mean his mom served a wicked chicken roll sandwich, and eyeing his cute sister was only a bonus when we hung out at his house. There was Chris and Jeff Homes and another close friend Danny Sutcliff. Up until that summer, they would get me to play ball at the school yard on Saturdays. On Sundays we all spent time in church as Alter boys. I volunteered for the Saturday night masses for a few weeks. That was until Kerry Kerns took apart the bells when I was not looking. When I rang them, they didn’t work. Kerry blamed it all on me. Father Daniel banished me back to Sunday morning at six thirty mass where only my grandmother and a few stray nuns would worship. But that’s another story for another time.

  Some would later call it the “Summer of Love”. I called it the summer of trepidation and despair.

  The summer started out like most summers. I was awake to do my chores in the morning as my brother and sister watched “I Love Lucy” reruns. They didn’t understand why I wanted to get all my chores done before nine am. My siblings didn’t have the same responsibilities as I did. I was a few years older than they were and was given far more chores.

  My grandmother lived a few blocks away and one of my chores was to walk her dog every morning. He was a mean old German shepherd, who only let a few people approach him. Baron was supposed to be trained, but I think even he had gotten old and too cranky to want to obey anyone, including me. He did however appreciate the fresh air from time to time. After all, my grandmother’s house had an odor that smelled like no one had opened a window in years. I am not sure anyone had. After the walk and chores, I would meet up with the neighborhood boys for game of basketball or maybe a game of pool over at my friend Chris’s house. Sometimes we would play some poker, but most wanted to play pool or stay outside. I think the poker game became far less popular when one day we were all talked into playing a game of strip poker and Chris’s mom came home early and caught most of us down to our tighty whities. Not our finest moment that summer. Usually I would find an excuse later in the afternoons to disappear. I would hang out at the music shop for an hour before going home for dinner. A few of my friends were already in high school and assured me there was nothing to worry me. But the unknown at that age is usually something to fear.

  The local grocery store was at the opposite end of the shopping center where Gordy had his shop. Every once in a while I would go with my mom food shopping pretending to want to help. Really I was attempting to get her to walk by Gordy’s for a peek at my future prized guitar. She somehow managed to park nowhere near the music shop. To rub salt in my wound, she would turn the car in the opposite direction on the return trip home. All of my best efforts failed to get her into Gordy’s shop.

  To this day she has no idea, nor does my dad, how much time I really did spent in that shop over the years. Like most parents of that generation, as long as your grades were ok, and you were not being chased down by the police, and your clothes didn’t smell like smoke, they didn’t ask too many questions. A few of my friends would never have passed that test. My guess is their parents either didn’t smell close enough, or care enough to have a sniff test. My dad could smell French fries on my breath from ninety feet.

  I guess by now you might think I was a nerd, and maybe you would be correct. But I looked at it like I was a shy kid who knew his place. I was not one to bust up Mr. Johnsons new mailbox or egging the cars of people who didn’t give out good Halloween candy. It was just not in me to hurt others. Maybe it was all the bible studies for nine years of Catholic school. Quite possibly it was my dad’s icy stare when there were rumors of the neighbor’s cars being egged. My guess is, maybe it was both.

  The summer was coming to a rapid close when one Saturday morning my mom reminded my dad that I would need a lock, and some school supplies for the start of school later the following week. I was really not sure why but his stare didn’t work on my mom, only us kids. Her stare seemed to work on him though, we rarely saw it. As fate would have it, the school supply store happened to be next to Gordy’s shop. I hurriedly jumped into the station wagon once my mom gave dad the icy stare. He grumbled a few words about getting home in time for the game of the week.

  “You kids better not take too long picking your supplies”, he moaned at us kids. I really didn’t care about the color of my notebooks. I practically ran up and down the aisles getting all my supplies and forcing my brother and sister to do likewise. My brother of course had to have the Oakland Raider notebook cover, not that he had a clue what the Raiders were, he only knew I didn’t like them. Somehow that was good enough for him.

  As we were leaving the store, I begged my dad to come inside the music shop for only one minute to meet Gordy. He refused to meet Gordy after looking at him through the store window.

  “Please dad, just for a minute, I really want you to meet Gordy and see the store, please.”

  Gordy was still standing in the window with his torn jeans, long hair and tie dyed tee shirt. Gordy was waving us in but my dad refused to budge.

  “There is nothing that hippie can tell me that I want to hear Stu. All I see in there are punks. I have no desire to go in there, now or later. Forget it.”

  Not only was I stunned at the comment, for the first time in my life I was not proud of my own father. Somehow those words, that I was not proud of him, must have dribbled off my tongue and out of my mouth. I am not sure who was more stunned.

  He looked at me in a way I had never witnessed. I was very confused as to what it all meant. After what seemed like hours though I am sure was maybe 4 seconds, he walked slowly into the music shop for the very first time.

  Gordy opened the door for my dad with the same hospitality he had always showed me in the past.

  “It’s my pleasure to meet you Mr. Edrich. You must be so proud of Stu. He might be the finest kid I have met in this store.” My dad took a step back grumbled something under his breath that sounded like “thanks”.

  Gordy didn’t stop there. “I know he is very proud of you, he tells me all the time how hard you work and he appreciates the fact that you keep him straight”. Here again my dad stood like a statue till he finally pulled his hand from his rigid waist line, to offer a shake to Gordy. Gordy later winked my way when my dad was not looking. Gordy knew how to sell. I was not sure I ever put those words exactly that way to Gordy about my dad but I was not complaining.

  I proudly proceeded to tell my dad that the D45 Martin guitar in the window would soon be mine. He glanced ever so slightly at the price tag and then followed with that stare that I was so familiar with. Another grumble was coming out when Gordy pronounced that I had talent with a guitar in my hands. My dad announced his comeback of, “well not while using that guitar that I can assure you.”

  Gordy then upset me more than he ever had when he told my dad, “Your son is not ready for a fine guitar. Don’t worry; I wouldn’t let you buy it for him even if you offered me cash right now. Stu needs to learn how to respect an instrument before he can touch something like a new Martin guitar.”

  I think my dad was a bit unsure of Gordy now. I mean how could someone like Gordy who my dad went out of his way to avoid all these years, actually be someone he could respect. Maybe it was not that dramatic, but I knew Gordy didn’t care. Gordy Davis was very happy with the person he had become in life. He reminded me of that every chance he got.

  “I’ll tell you what Mr. Edrich. Stu has been busting his butt cleaning up the place for weeks round here and I know he wants to take some guitar lessons. I’ll be happy to offer them
at half the normal costs. But only if he promises to keep his grades up, and work here four hours a week. How does that sound to you?”

  My dad ever the non believer asked to see a price sheet. When Gordy informed him he was an honest guy and that his offer was real my dad backed down from his request pretty quickly. It would be $8 a week for the 2 lessons and another $2 a week for the use of that beat up Fender Stratocaster he let me play when he was showing me a few chords. My dad peeked at his watch and informed all that the game of the week was about to start. Nothing came between my dad and the baseball game of the week on Saturday afternoon television. Gordy informed him the offer was good for a week and my dad smirked and thanked him for his time.

  For the next few days, you would have thought our house was littered with eggshells. I was not about to get under my dad’s skin. Not once did I bring up the subject of lessons, but it was apparent on my dad’s gruff face, he knew what was on my mind. High school was starting on Thursday of the coming week. On Tuesday night my grandmother fell while trying to walk the dog before bed. Grandma knew she should have stopped walking the dog at nights, but she was a stubborn old bird.

  My dad then announced at the dinner table on Wednesday evening that I was now in charge of walking my grandmother’s old dog, Baron. It would occur before school every morning and before bed time. You never refused my dad’s commands. Truth be told, I didn’t want my grandmother having to do it any longer, and I would have happily done it, had she had asked. But that was not all the news of the dinner table.

  “I stopped by to meet with Gordy on my way home Stu. I paid for one month’s worth of lessons. However, the first time you miss taking that dog out, or don’t get your homework done, the lessons stop. Is that understood young man?”

  “Yes sir, and thank you.”