Story Telling Week 13

Twenty-Two Six Strings

Everyday Mike sat next to John on the park bench while he ate his lunch. They never spoke, in fact he only knew John’s name because John introduced himself the first time they sat down for lunch. John would hum and eat while Mike would talk on his cell phone with his daughter. Honestly he wasn’t even sure that was his real name. All he really knew about him was that he liked tuna fish sandwiches and drank Tab cola, which seemed odd to Mike because Tab cola hasn’t been sold in years, liked big hats and scarfs and that he did not like shoes. John was always barefoot. Mike on the other hand was a reserved, shirt and tie guy that always wore dress shoes. In a way Mike envied the freedom John must have felt being able to wear whatever he wanted and often wished he could do the same but instead he gave up his freedom years ago for what his boss at the copy store called “Job security.”

Each day after John was done eating he would politely nod goodbye to Mike and hand him a sticky note with a picture of a musical note on it. Mike would take the note and nod back to John and throw the sticky notes in his pockets and when he got home we would throw them up on the dresser and forget about them.
One day however, John gave came home and gave the note to his teenage daughter. She looked at the note and headed to her room. About five minutes after this happened Mike heard screaming.

“What’s wrong?”

 “Where did you get this?”

“A guy I know gave it to me. Why?”

“Oh my god! My dad knows John Mayer!”

“Who?
”
“John Mayer daddy. Look her on the other side of this note it is his autograph.” Mike looked at the note to see that signature of John Mayer. He went to his room and grabbed the other notes that he had tossed on his dresser. Each one had his signature on it; his daughter noticed that each musical note was different. “Dad, do you know what this is?”

“No. What?”

“It is a song. This is a song written by John Mayer.”

“Of course it is.” Mike did not want to seem to uncool to his daughter. Since she reached her teenage years he felt more out of touch with her than ever, so this was a moment he had longed for, a moment when his little girl looked up to him as someone cool again just like she did when she was three years old.

“Where did you meet him dad?”

“I have lunch with him every day in the park.”

 “Daddy you have to take me to lunch to meet him. I love his music. Please.”

Staring into his baby girls eyes he knew he had no choice but to tell her “Yes.”

The next day Mike and his daughter went to the park bench for lunch. When John walked towards the bench to sit down, Mike’s daughter jumped up and threw her arms around him, “Oh my god you are John Mayer. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

John was gracious to her and hugged her back. Mike looked at John as if to say, “I’m sorry.” After Mike’s Daughter calmed down, he pulled out the sticky notes from his pocket and showed them to John. “You gave me these, what are they.”

“Well they are your song. Well actually I guess they are her song. The first day I sat here with you I heard you on the phone with her and I was inspired to write a song about your daughter and you. I am working on my new album and well I was coming here each day for inspiration to finish this song. In fact today was going to be the last day because I am almost done writing the song. Actually after meeting your daughter I think I am done with the final note in the song. Those notes were the notes to the song and my gift to you.”

“Will you play me the song? Please?” The teenage girl was completely star struck by John, and even though he did not want to impose on John, he loved the feeling of being his daughter’s hero, even if it was just for a day.

“I will give you anything if you could play my daughter that song John.”

“Sure thing. I’d love to play that song for her. You say you would give me anything, well that sounds like a pretty good deal.” John pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Mike. “I need you to go downtown to the music store and in the back is a 1959 Les Paul Whitford 'Burst guitar. Hand that piece of paper to the store owner and he will give you the guitar. Bring the guitar to me and I will play you guys the song. Me and you daughter will wait her and have lunch together.”

Mike nodded at John, hugged his daughter, and headed to the music store downtown. He grabbed the guitar and handed the note to the owner and left the store and began to make his way back to the park. As soon as he was a block away from the store he heard singing coming from the guitar. Mike dropped the guitar and then heard it say, “Ouch! Why did you do that man?”

“What?”

“Why did you drop me bro, I was grooving, why you killin my groove man. Where are you taking me?”

“What is going on? How are you talking, am I on some weird television show, where are the cameras?”

“Nah man, it’s all cool here man, no one is messing with you. Where are you taking me?”

“To John Mayer.”

“That dude ha. He has been trying to get his fingers on my strings to hit a lick for a while now. Ok, well if you want to take me to him that is cool with me, that boy’s got talent, but first you have to answer me a question. I you are clever enough to answer it then you have to return me to the store. If you know the answer and try to be slick and not say anything then your head will explode.”

“What!”

“Ha, got ya. Nah there bro just relax I was kidding your head won’t explode. You will just go to hell. See I am the devil in disguise, and don’t go thinking you can’t play this game because you gave the owner the note and that is a binding contract. So if you don’t play then I get your soul.”


And so began the story of the twenty-two six strings.


Author's Notes
The is a retelling of the introduction to the "22 Goblins" tale listed in the assignments. It is a little long but I have cut it down in half already and could not cut it down anymore. The basic of the introduction is a king is given fruit by a wise man each day. The kings throws them away until one day gives one of the fruit to a monkey and then sees the monkey playing with a jewels and realizes all the fruit has jewels. He is so happy he gives the jewels a way to his assistant ( I guess that is the best term ) and promises a boon to the wise man. The wise man sends him to a tree to fetch a hanging dead body. The dead body contains a goblin and the goblin makes him answer questions before he can take him back to the wise man. If the wise man knows the answer then he has to say it or else his head will explode. If the king is correct then he has to return the goblin to the tree.

Picture attribution
By Delhovlyn (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons