Free I Am (Not) the Walrus by Ed Briant Page A

and again as I closed it. The room I’d stepped into looked as if a tipper truck full of old, battered, and unwanted musical equipment had been emptied into it. It was crammed floor to ceiling with instruments I recognized, including saxophones, trumpets, trombones, accordions, and violins, but there were a number of instruments I’d never seen before. Dangling from the ceiling was something that looked like a combination of a saxophone and a trumpet. Right next to it was a violin with a triangular body, and standing next to the door was a trombone with piano keys.
    At first I thought the place was empty, but then an echoing voice said “Good evening.” Even with the echo, I could tell that the voice had a faint foreign accent of some kind.
    Once I got used to the dim light, I could see that there was actually a pathway between the piles of instruments on the floor. I made my way down this path toward where the voice had come from.
    Next to the counter was what appeared to be a seven-foot-tall saxophone with a pair of trouser legs attached to it. With the other weird instruments, I wasn’t surprised to see a sax with legs but then the legs moved back, revealing that they were not actually part of the instrument, but belonged to a man with a face the color of rosewood and shoulder-length dreads. Clutched in his hands were a number of rods and plates, presumably from the sax.
    â€œMay I help you?” he asked. I could hear the accent more strongly now. Maybe it was a little French, but not really from any place I could put my finger on. He put his head back into the gigantic bell of the sax.
    I did a quick survey of everything that was hanging from the ceiling. Drums, cymbals, bits of oboes, cellos, banjos, and bongos, but no guitars or basses I could see. Maybe it was one of those shops that only catered to the kind of musicians who wore thick glasses and beards without mustaches.
    â€œDo you have any electric guitars or basses?” I said.
    â€œUpstairs,” came the reply. Without taking his head out of the sax he pointed to the back corner of the showroom with a screwdriver. I stepped carefully in the direction of the screwdriver. Hidden in the shadows was a narrow flight of steps with a handwritten sign saying guitars and basses.
    â€œThanks,” I said, and climbed the stairs.
    The second floor was even more amazing than the first. I almost felt like I ought to genuflect. Or maybe it was more a museum than a church, because three of the four walls were jammed to bursting point with electric guitars and basses, all different colors and shapes, and all of them either old or ancient.
    The instruments dangling from the first wall were totally in keeping with the downstairs. All crazy shapes and colors. I didn’t recognize a single one.
    Not so the second wall. This one was taken up by Japanese copies of famous American guitars. These were all well made, and good to play. It was the third wall that got my attention though. These were all the original American guitars and basses, made by Gibson, Fender, Rickenbacker, and Gretsch. The Cadillacs of the guitar universe.
    The fourth wall was a window that looked out onto Ombard Street.
    The first thing I did was start counting the instruments, but I got sidetracked at the twentieth one. It was a p-bass, the same as Shawn’s, but this one was really battered. Most of the lacquer was gone, leaving the bare wood of the body. The price tag said ninety-nine, ninety-nine. I could afford that. I could get a part-time job and it wouldn’t take me too long to save up. I pulled the bass off the wall, propped it on my knee, and plucked a few notes. Funnily enough, for a bass that looked like a piece of driftwood, it felt really good to play. I moved up and down the fret board. It was perfectly in tune. I turned around, sat on the stool, and plugged the instrument into the amplifier. I placed my fingers on the fret board and plucked three notes. I