Page 3 of Reckless Youth
Momma waved him off. “Now, Sage, honey. Of course, you can. This is my gift to you since I didn’t get you anything for your birthday.”
He knew it was all a bullshit lie, because my momma made the best cake this side of Texas for him, knowing full-well that his father would undoubtedly forget his son’s birthday. That was my momma. Compassionate and caring. It didn’t matter that she had three of her own children, my friends always had a place in our home and in her heart.
Shooing us off in the opposite direction, she sent us on our merry way.
Walking side-by-side, I bumped his shoulder with mine.
“What do you think you’re gonna buy?”
I’d only asked the question to hear him say it out loud because truthfully, I already knew. I just wanted to see his face light up with the desire that he’d kept hidden deep inside him.
There was a music store in the mall, full of instruments and all kinds of musical equipment, amps, songbooks, tuning apparatuses. And I knew Sage like the back of my hand. He had been eying a guitar for the last year, looking at it wistfully every time we passed the store window, although he’d tried to hide his yearning.
Sage had always been interested in music and knew every song on the radio. He’d sing along, with a pretend mic in hand, belting out the tunes at the top of his lungs. And he was good.
He could also write lyrics and had notebooks filled with words and poems. In fact, that’s what I got him for his fourteenth birthday a month earlier, a beautiful, handcrafted leather-bound notebook so he could write down his thoughts and feelings and turn them into music.
“I’m going to get that guitar,” he said, pointing to the window where a shiny acoustic six-string guitar was prominently displaced.
He might have stood there all day long staring longingly at that instrument had I not grabbed his wrist and pulled him inside the store. When we stepped in, a salesperson came toward us from behind the counter.
“May I help you two today?” His nametag said Clarence and he smiled at us politely.
Sage moved toward the guitar, hesitantly stopping himself from reaching for it.
“Yes, sir,” I replied. “He’d like to buy that guitar. How much is it?”
The man nodded and plucked it off the stand, the tag dangling from one of the pegs.
“This one here is one-hundred and seventy-two dollars.”
Sage’s body jerked as if he’d been shot and he slowly turned back to me, an expression of sorrow and defeat written across his face.
Knowing he wanted nothing more in the world than that guitar, I did what any good friend would do in that case, I gave him some of my money as a loan. He could pay me back when he earned enough through odd neighborhood jobs that summer.
He was never one to smile a lot, but a huge grin overtook his face and he hugged me tight.
“Thank you, London. I’ll pay you back, okay? Don’t you worry about it.”
“I’m not worried a bit. But the least you can do is write a song for me someday, okay?”
And from that moment on, he was rarely ever seen without that guitar in his hands. He’d keep it in his locker while we were at school, telling me once that he was worried his dad would hock it for booze money if he didn’t keep it away from him.
That summer was when it became glaringly obvious that Sage had a talent so incredible that he was destined for big things someday.
One night, as we laid next to one another out in my backyard under the stars, Sage began to play a song he’d written that day just for me.
It may have been rudimentary at the time and needed some polishing, but it was still the most beautiful song I’d ever heard because it was filled with all the things that he couldn’t say but felt to the bottom of his soul.
I climb into bed each night,
Closing my eyes tight.
Hoping to wake with something different
Than what I’ve been giving in my life.
I thank the good Lord for my friends,
