Naked Without a Hat

chapter one I left home mostly because I don't like Ray. I called him a liar and a riot pig. I didn't mind him being in the police so much, but he worked nights, you know? He slept in the day so I couldn't play my guitar. I could play it anytime before he came along. Anytime, day or night. All afternoon if I felt like it and sometimes I did. It kept me from thinking. Now I couldn't play when I wanted and I wished to hell Ray wasn't my mother's lover. I told her that, but she didn't want to hear it one little bit. She just couldn't take it. She said she wanted us to be a happy family--Ray likes you, Will. He really does. No, really. How dare I call him a pig and a liar? She just stood there waiting for me to say sorry. I apologized for saying pig, but either he was lying or she was. I hoped it was him because say it wasn't? If my own mother was lying to me, how could I ever trust anybody? She always said I played a mean guitar. Those were her exact words. I took it to mean she thought I was good. I wanted to believe that but maybe it was just another lie. I taught myself mostly when we were living in Denver. I had an acoustic given to me by a Spanish guy, name of Pablo. A real old guy he was--skin so black and flaky he looked like he been smoked. He used to work the bars, and one time he saw me sitting lazy on a low wall and he sat down right next to me and asked what I was thinking. "What you thinking, boy?" and I told him I'm tired of thinking. "Don't think. Just listen," he said, and he shut his eyes like he was sleeping and played his guitar until my head filled with birds rising and the wind blowing the corn and I thought I would burst with the beauty of it. After, he took his guitar and put it in my lap. It fitted just right, like I was born with it there. I held it in my arms. Touched it. Stroked it. It felt like a living thing and I didn't want to put it down. "You have her," Pablo said. He had a deep laugh mixed with a cough. "Have my old lady. She's tired of old men's fingers." And that's how I got to keep his guitar. He came by on and off and showed me tricks. All different sorts of music--classical and rock. No one ever knew he came around except me. The wall where we played was out of the way. I used to wait for him there on warm evenings. He wouldn't turn up if it was too cold for shirtsleeves. He told me that. He told me a lot of stuff. I don't know how, because he never spoke much. He didn't seem to need many words. One day he just stopped coming. I don't know why. Died of drink maybe. Fell off a wall maybe. I missed him pretty bad, but the way to stop missing him was to play his old guitar. I played and played until I got it to sound just like him and as long as I kept playing, it felt like he'd never gone. One afternoon my mother came in from working on some campaign and caught me sitting on the swing seat in the yard. Rumpuss was under the swing chair licking his belly fur in the shade and I was playing "Wild Thing." I played it straight off--no fluffs. It sounded good but I never knew she was listening until I heard clapping. I turned round and there she was. Well, my mother couldn't believe what she'd heard and she said I played a mean guitar. Afterward she was always wanting me to play for people. I played for Ray. The first time he heard "Wild Thing" he said how good it was. He said it sounded just like the real thing but by the end of the week he'd gone off it big time. He shouted at me down the stairs--if I played that fucking song once more--just once more--he'd take my guitar and shove it up my ass. I got to thinking he'd lied about me being any good from the start and that's what finally made me want to leave. My mother came to my room after all the shouting and said she didn't want me to go--I didn't have to go--I was her baby, but then she stopped cWillis, Jeanne is the author of 'Naked Without a Hat' with ISBN 9780385731669 and ISBN 0385731663.