PREV: Part 4 - The Tour

In the days leading up to the banjo delivery, Michael joked about all the things that could go wrong in the handoff. They might just open the door, give you a hundred-dollar bill, take the banjo, and shut the door in your face. They might live in a mansion and have ten fancy cars in a huge circle driveway. What if you saw the banjo for sale on eBay the next day? He enjoyed flinging his imaginative scenarios at me. 

I assured him none of those things would happen. He said there was no way I could know that. I said I met them and knew it was not in them. He countered, saying I only talked to them for a few minutes and could not possibly have any idea who they really were. At some point, I said it was going to be fun to get updates about the instrument's travels and all the places it will go; who knows, maybe it will go on to great fame. Michael scoffed at this, asking if I seriously thought these people would ever talk to me again. I said I thought they would. He predicted that once we left their house, it would be the last time I ever hear from them. 

Our conversation reminded me of a moment I shared with my other best friend, Matthew, years earlier. Matthew and I are co-founders of a business. We were working with a lawyer to create a partnership agreement. We were on a Zoom call, and the lawyer asked me a question, which I honestly can't tell you what it was about. Money. Insurance. What happens to my shares in the company if I die. Matthew interrupted the lawyer, saying he couldn't ask me that. The lawyer was struck by Matthew's objection, saying it would be highly unusual for Troy not to express his wishes here. To this, Matthew said, "I agree with you, but what you need to know is our job here is to protect Troy and his family. For all his gifts, he is like a child in this regard and cannot make these decisions, so we will make them for him to protect him, protect his wife, and protect his children." I felt Mike's caution skirted these waters, and I spent some of the next few days thinking about how sucky it would be if Michael was right. 

When we arrived at the house (that was not a mansion), the dad was packing a travel van for a trip they were taking the next day. He met us warmly, and we were catching up in the driveway. After a few minutes, the boy appeared on the edge of our circle, looking at me expectantly. I turned, said hello, shook his hand, and asked if he had ordered a banjo. He grinned and nodded his head. I pulled the case from the back of my car and presented it to him. He took it carefully, turned, and walked briskly into the house. We resumed our conversation with the father. About ninety seconds later, we heard the first signs of life from the banjo. One of us commented on how little time that took. The father spoke of how excited the boy had been about this moment. We moved inside. 

The boy was seated. We watched as he plucked individual strings in turn, bending his ear towards the instrument and adjusting the tuning knobs at the end of the neck. I commented that the banjo had been sitting in my living room for the last six months, so it was probably well out of tune. After visiting each string and returning to some for fine-tuning, he raised his head, straightened his back, and lit it up. Before getting there, I asked Michael if he had ever seen a good banjo player first-hand. He had not. I turned to look at Michael as he experienced this spectacle for the first time. We all then watched the boy's articulating fingers, of both hands, move in their hard-to-fathom choreography. 

After a minute or so, the boy paused and looked directly at his father. A full-body grin crossed his face, a grin that only parents typically get to see, and usually only see a few times in a child's life. I asked if it sounded like he remembered. He nodded, still smiling, and was off again, lost in the sounds. We watched and listened some more. The father thanked me for doing this. He said I couldn't really understand what it meant to his boy and to he and his wife, and how he couldn't believe this was happening based on a chance meeting years earlier. As he spoke, tears welled in his eyes. 

After a bit of listening to the boy play and chatting with the parents, I said we should be on our way and let them continue packing. The boy stood to say goodbye. When he shook my hand, he transferred a folded-up hundred from his palm to mine. I smiled at the sly move. I told him and his parents that, as far as I was concerned, their boy bought this banjo through his many thousands of hours of practice. I said that when I saw the boy coming back again and again and again to play it, and seeing the way he could play it, from that moment on, I considered this his banjo, and I was just holding onto it until it could be properly turned over. 

Our exit was rich with hugs and smiles. When we slid into the car, I turned to Michael and asked, "So, do you still think that is the last time we will ever hear from them?" A bit sourly, he replied, "No, I do not". And before we got out of the neighborhood, I received a text from the father with the picture he took of me and the boy. Since then, I have received multiple updates and photos of the banjo's travels, and each one leaves me grinning, grinning almost as big as the boy did when he first held his new banjo in his lap. 

Fin.