Music had always been the only place I felt myself. When he played, the pressure disappeared. Expectations have vanished. I could breathe.
When I finally told my parents that I chose music instead of medical school, the table was silent.
My mother looked at me as if she had just confessed something terrible.
My father didn’t scream. That would have been easier.
He simply folded his napkin, looked me straight in the eye and calmly said, “If you don’t follow the path we’ve built you, then you’re alone.”
I thought I was bluffing.
I wasn’t.
At sunset that same day, the house key no longer worked.
Three months later, he lived in a cheap tent under a bridge near an abandoned warehouse.
It wasn’t much, but it was dry when it rained, and nobody bothered me there.
During the day, he worked part-time in a small downtown cafeteria. Mainly scrubbing dishes, cleaning tables and taking out garbage. It wasn’t glamorous, but I paid just for cheap food and for the occasional change of strings from my guitar.
Most days, he lived off the tips that customers left behind.
That afternoon had been especially slow. My manager handed me a sandwich that left over from the showcase before closing.
“Take it, Mike,” he said. “We’re going to throw it away anyway.”
So I sat behind the cafeteria, next to the containers, leaning against the brick wall and eating slowly, trying to make the snack last.
From the alley I could see the sidewalk.
That’s when I noticed.
An old man in worn clothes walked from person to person, quietly asking if anyone had anything to eat.
His coat was torn by the sleeves and his shoes were barely held.
Most people didn’t even slow down.
A woman shook her head without looking up from her cell phone. A businessman gestured to him to leave as if he was driving away a fly.
