Banjo

2017

Two months ago I still had $2,000 and an arm without scars. Today I’m sleeping in Central Park with seven dollars and a banjo. This all happened ‘cause I left.

I left her just like she was. Right there on that couch where she built her own empire. That couch, stained with bruises of old sour milk, had turned from green to brown like a sad summer moving into an unlucky autumn.

I think about how that extra 350 pounds of flesh on her body might be my fault. There were too many nights when I brought her muffins and pound cake at 2:00am. Bonbons at 2:20. Cheese pizza at 2:45. Just like clockwork. Then I brought her all of these men: Jack and Jim and Jose and Don Julio and Tito. I brought them straight up to her and set them down on that ugly red table next to her empire. That ugly red table; I hated it.

I left her there with three ulcers in her stomach and heartburn that should’ve killed her.

The nicest thing she ever said to me was something like Dylo Jean your skin is golden brown just like a hot, plump biscuit. But that’s really ‘cause Daddy is a Black man and she’s as white as day. But we don’t even speak about Daddy ‘cause one day when I was four a cop shot him in the back of the head in this old unforgiving town. The South is something like a civil war zone: important men in uniform carry mean, empty pursuits. Black men exist like martyrs fighting partial battles that kill pride and steal dreams. Mama told me crying wouldn’t do any good.

I figured the next best thing the South had to offer a yellow golden boy was another bullet with no name. I headed North.

The plan was to leave and go play that banjo until it killed me, or until somebody paid me for it. When I was a kid I wanted to be like those performers on those old music videos that came on in the high dark of the night. I saved up my money and bought a banjo at a local pawnshop. I picked up a chord book and some Bo Carter recordings. I learned those songs 'till I knew them like my own hands.

Nobody knew I had been saving. When I set out to leave, Mama cursed me, then she cried. I said I’m going up north. She said Well you ain’t gonna get very far. By the time I reached Richmond I had been on too many buses to count. I was headed for New York. I heard about how people make it big out there because of all those big lights that help you dream.

I found a nice room in a hostel. Young people from everywhere came there to find common ground. We talked about rough worlds and selfish government. I played that banjo day and night.

After four weeks of steady hustle, I found a small gig in a folk bar playing chords for next to nothing. I went from bar to bar, venue to venue. If I could chew up and swallow all of the times I heard that’s not really our style and we’re full, we’ve got a band or I don’t have room for you, I’d be as fat as Mama.

After nearly two months that heroin needle had become my salvation. I wasn’t concerned because I actually played real good when I was high. It was like sitting up in rock hard clouds.

One night I sat on a curb in front of a nightclub in Manhattan, playing on that banjo like it was a good woman. I said I would find my way back home in the morning. A man named Joe Tate came outside and he smoked on a cigarette. He said: play that chord again and add a flat 7th to it. I did and it sounded damn good.

He said: You ain’t from around here are ya? Judging from his accent and those ugly steel-toed boots, he wasn’t either. I heard the South all up in his loose tongue.

I thought: I’m in the process of giving up on life, shooting dope up my arm, and this idiot is worried about where I’m from.

“Charleston.”

“Got a name?”

“Dylo Jean Guillory.”

“What if I said I had a job for ya?”

“You own this club or somethin’?”

I was hostile and mean, beaten down and partly broken. I was vexed at the fact that dreams don’t work. I was angry for leaving home and in the same breath I didn’t value human life the way I once did.

He said, “I do.”

“Look sir, if you want me in your club you’re gonna have to pay me good. I ain’t got no place to rest my head right now and I—“

He cut me off.

“I’ll pay you $75 an hour. $600 for a full set every Thursday night.”

I was resisting. My saving grace had come and slapped me dead in the face and all I could think about was how I was strung out on the devil’s vaccine, homeless, and afraid for dear life.

I took the offer.

In between sets I looked around to take a break and wipe the sweat off my head. I was coming down now and that needle was on my mind. I looked around, took a seat, and set my drink down on top of a red table.

I thought all red tables I’d seen before were ugly and then I wondered if Mama was betting on me to give up. Really I did give up but I was saved by the ache of a loud clamor in my gut that said God almighty you better will your way through this.

Then I thought about who might be bringing Mama pound cake and men at 2:00am.