When he got home, he took the guitar out of its case and again admired its finish and shape. Then he opened up his laptop and pulled up a webpage displaying chords laid out in little grids, small dots like morse code instructing which fingers went on which strings in which frets. Then he began to tune the guitar using his new tuner, its LED screen lighting up with red, yellow, and green graphics telling him if the strings were in tune.
He delicately adjusted the tuning knobs and plucked at each string until the tuner showed green lights. To his ears, the strings still sounded oddly harsh and off-key, but he wrote that off to his own inexperience.
He looked at his laptop screen showing guitar chords and decided to start with the E chord—easy enough, he thought, using his index, middle, and ring fingers to press down three strings, all next to one another. He compared his fingering one last time to the chord chart, then strummed, using one of his new picks.
A jarring, metallic sound assailed his ears.
He frowned and looked down at his fingers. They were in the right spaces. He tried again and winced—this time the noise that came from the guitar was even more harsh and dissonant.
He tried tuning the guitar again. The tuner showed all green lights, meaning that everything should be at the right pitch. But despite what the tuner said, each pluck of the strings sent a wave of searing pain cascading through his ears and into his temples.
He decided to try another easy chord. The “A” this time: three fingers, all in the same fret, all next to each other. He double checked his fingering, looking between the chord chart and his fingers on the fret.
He gritted his teeth in anticipation. Then he strummed.
And a sickening squeal filled his head with a painful white flash as the chords reverberated then diminished.
#
He put the guitar away for the day, thinking that maybe the doctor’s appointment had put him in the wrong state of mind to begin learning the guitar. But then he tried again the next day and again heard only squalls of unbearable noise. He tuned and retuned the guitar, and each time the tuner showed green lights. But the strings sounded increasingly sour, their vibrations emitting a caustic din that left him with a pounding headache.
He took the El back toward the pawn shop, this time propping the case on the seat across from him. He warily regarded the battered case across from him, which now reminded him of the black silhouette of a funeral shroud. He swore he could hear the guitar’s terrible shriek above the rumble of the El car as it shuddered its way along its tracks.
The pawn shop clerk affected a bored expression as Oliver told him story, about how he’d tuned and retuned the guitar but couldn’t get it to sound right. After Oliver said his piece, the clerk flashed his now-familiar canny smirk and wordlessly pointed down to a sign on the glass counter.
“ALL SALES FINAL.”
Oliver shook his head in frustration, gave the clerk one last baleful look, and left the store.
When he got home, the guitar now cumbersome in his arms, he set it down and tried to clear his head by putting on an old favorite of his on the turntable – “Nirvana Unplugged.” But after the familiar applause and Kurt Cobain’s introductory mumble that opened the record, in place of the melodic strains of “About a Girl” came the awful sound of steel wires vibrating in a clamorous jangle.
He dashed to the stereo and tore the record arm up with a warbling screech. He held the record up to the light. It looked even and untouched.
He stared over at the guitar, still in its case, looming ravenlike in the corner.
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