Lucky Caller(65)

“Could I … Could I play it?” Lucas asked.

“It may not be in the best shape … I restring it every now and then, but it’s been a while…”

“Please,” Lucas said.

There was a flurry of activity to find an amp for it—Mr. Tucker eventually located one in the band room—and in the meantime, Joydeep and Sasha asked Lucas about his experience with musical instruments.

“I’m not the best,” Lucas said. “In the band, we don’t really … We travel with musicians, you know, with our band, so there’s not really a focus on us playing or anything. But I’ve been learning guitar for the last couple of years.”

Mr. Tucker had emerged triumphant with the amp by that point, and they set it up onstage and hooked up the guitar.

“Give it a whirl,” Dan said, passing the guitar to Lucas.

Lucas stood, looping the strap over his head, and began plucking out a melody, slow but competent. Shrieks of recognition, or maybe just general shrieks of joy, rang through the crowd.

He fiddled around with it for a little while longer, and then handed it back to Dan amid cheers.

“Will you?” Lucas said. “Please?”

Dan looked ambivalent for a moment, but then conceded. He sat—didn’t even stand like Lucas had—and with the guitar on his knee, he began to play.

He began, more specifically, to shred that guitar like Tyler Bright himself. Like every heavy, intricate riff we had ever heard preceding an absolutely unintelligible Existential Dead chorus.

The surprise on Sasha’s and Joydeep’s faces was probably mirrored on my own.

“Holy shit,” Jamie said next to me, an echo of Lucas.

When Dan finished, the crowd let out an enormous burst of applause. He smiled and then unplugged the guitar and set it back in the case.

“Thank you,” he said, like it was nothing. A dip of his head, a smile, another “Thanks very much,” like it was nothing at all.





61.


I STOPPED RECORDING WHEN LUCAS and Dan left the stage. The sounds of Sasha and Joydeep wrapping up the show were absolutely lost in the noise from the crowd. The two of them joined us in the wings, and the crowd was still cheering when Lucas turned to Dan.

“Can I see it again?” he asked, nodding to the guitar case.

Dan set the case down and pulled out the guitar. Up close, we could see the details Lucas had described—a peeling sticker, a lightning bolt scratch, some initials. The guitar looked beat-up, well-worn.

Lucas held it reverently, and then looked up at Dan. “Twenty thousand.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I want to buy it.”

“Oh, wow,” Dan said. “I think—”

“Twenty-five,” Lucas said.

“You’d really pay that much, just for an old guitar?”

“This band means so much to me, you have no idea,” Lucas said. “And anyway, I’ve spent way more for way less before. You could set your price and I’d pay it.”

Dan smiled. “That’s not exactly how you go about bargaining, son.”

Lucas flushed. “Would you be interested in selling it, though? Could you part with it?”

Dan considered him for a moment. “Well…” He glanced at me. “Give us a second,” he said to Lucas, and moved to the side, away from the group. I followed.

“What do you think?” he asked, conspiratorially.

I blinked. “I mean … it’s yours. If it’s important to you, you should keep it.”

Dan shrugged. “It was a different part of my life. I’m happy to let it find new life with someone else.” His eyes narrowed, crinkling at the edges, looking keenly at me. “Unless of course it means something to you. Then I’m happy to pass it on to you.”

I shook my head. Existential Dead was meaningful to me in a completely different way than it was to Lucas, and a physical representation of it mattered less, I think.

“I’m okay. But thank you.”

Dan nodded. “It’s decided, then.” He moved back to Lucas. “What do you say—I’ll give it to you for five, with ten grand each donated to the school and the charity being supported here tonight.”

“It’s a deal.” Lucas clasped Dan’s hand and grinned, bright and devastating.

Mr. Tucker ducked in.

“Hey, I think maybe we need to go back out and, uh, reaffirm the end of the event,” he said. “I’m not sure people are accepting that it’s over.”

“You know”—Lucas turned to us with a wry smile—“TION always does an encore.”

The crowd roared when Lucas stepped back out with Tyler Bright’s guitar. He pumped one arm in the air, encouraging the applause.

I looked over at Dan. He was beaming.

“This was fun,” he said, looking back at me. “Thank you for thinking of me.”

“Thanks for helping us,” I replied. “Thank you for…”

Being here. I couldn’t finish, but I think Dan knew.





62.


SEVERAL PEOPLE ASKED FOR REFUNDS, despite there being absolutely no claims or confirmation of Existential Dead—or any of its living members—performing. Fortunately, among the station and radio broadcasting class members present that night, Mr. Tucker had tapped Sammy to run last-minute ticket sales, and consequently, refunds. “If you really want to take money away from charity,” she said, fixing them with that dead-eyed stare. “If that’s what you’re saying. That you gave money to charity, and now you want to take it back.”