The producer looked around to see if there was someplace he could go and waste some time. There was a John’s Pizza across the street, which was next door to a high-end ice cream parlor, which was next door to the Pink Pussy Sex Shop. The television producer wasn’t hungry for pizza, expensive ice cream, or edible panties, so he decided to browse in the guitar store.

“Can I help you?” asked a salesman wearing a porkpie hat and jeans that ended about three inches above his ankles.

“Expecting a flood?” wisecracked the producer.

“Pardon?” said the young salesman, a blank look on his face.

“Never mind. I’m going to look around,” said the producer, “by myself.”

“Look all you want. If you have any questions, just let me know. Just ask for Jimmy Joel,” said the salesman.

The television producer grunted and moved off toward a banjo player sitting on a stool trying out a six-string. The song the banjo player was picking for his own pleasure was “Riding the Danville Pike,” a bluegrass tune the producer recognized. The producer loved bluegrass music. People were always surprised when he said so.

The producer stood listening to the banjo player for a few minutes, tapping his right shoe. The banjo player was a heavyset bald guy with lots of red hair everywhere but on the top of his head. He had bushels of it growing over his ears and flowing down the back of his neck onto his shoulders. He had a big, bushy red mustache and beard that hid the lower half of his face and neck. He wore green overalls, a white T-shirt, and sandals.

The banjo player looked up at the producer and smiled.

The producer didn’t return the banjo player’s smile. He moved away instead. He passed a glass case filled with mandolins. The producer had played a mandolin in college. The sight of the mandolins brought back memories of his university days, the campus’s Great Court surrounded by those beautiful old ivy-covered buildings. The lunchtime crowd of students gathered in the open air to listen and watch the producer’s trio: Joe Bigatel on bass, Weskar Medal on guitar, the producer strumming his mandolin. The three of them singing in decent harmony. God, that was fun, recalled the producer. Maybe the happiest days of my life. He wondered for a moment whether he could still play a mandolin or remember the chords of the old songs they used to sing.

“Can I show you a mandolin?” asked the salesman who was still waiting for the flood.

The producer looked at the salesman, said nothing, and walked out of the store.

The door to the rooms above the guitar store was to the left of the store’s entrance. It was old and had big scratches and the paint was peeling. A brand-new letter slot had been recently added. The polished bronze looked ut of place in its decrepit surroundings. To the door’s right was a line of dirty worn buttons and little slots. Names written or typed onto old pieces of paper had been pushed into the slots. One, lettered in pencil and almost illegible, was the cripple’s.