The last time I saw him alive he was negotiating the steps
to his front door while carrying a six-foot ladder, and I said to him,
“Can I give you a hand?” To which he responded, “No thanks.
I think I got it!”
I knew he had cancer, though I’m not sure what kind it was.
And it couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks later
that my upstairs neighbor told me that Mike had passed away.
Soon after, I saw his grown son carrying out Mike’s belongings
that included several guitars which I knew were his pride and joy.
I also knew that Mike considered himself a professional musician
even though he worked in security to make a living.
I remember that we had several conversations with regard to the music
we both loved, which was mostly music and guitarists who came
to prominence in the late sixties and seventies—guys like Eric Clapton,
Mike Bloomfield, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Peter Green, Carlos Santana,
B. B. King, Al De Meola, Duane Allman, Terry Kath, Steve Miller,
and so on and so on. . .
I miss Mike, and think of him sometimes when I hear one of the great
guitarists, many of whom are now gone as well.
Jeffrey Zable is a teacher, conga drummer/percussionist who plays for dance classes and rumbas around the San Francisco Bay Area, and a writer of poetry, flash-fiction, and non-fiction. His writing has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and anthologies, more recently in Chewers & Masticadores, A Sufferer’s Digest, among others.
