Kim and Jack's Band — Chapter 4 — The Wrong Osvaldo
Near home there was a place where some guys played — and an Osvaldo very different from the one you know.
We don't have a band. Kim insists on making that clear.
Near where I live there was a place where some guys played.
It was a studio. Belonging to a man named Osvaldo.
At first I just stood outside, at the window, watching. Bands came and went all day, and I tried to copy what I saw. They played electric, not acoustic, but it looked like the same thing — the finger positions looked identical, so I memorized them and tried to reproduce it right there, with the beat-up old guitar I had with me.
Osvaldo would shoo me away.
— Get out of there, you little stinker. You're bothering the bands with that shit sound.
I'd leave and come back the next day. And the next. No mercy.
Until one day I showed up and there wasn't a single band. Empty studio.
Osvaldo saw me at the window again.
— Hey, brat. You again. — He sighed like I was an electricity bill. — Come here, stinker. Go on, in.
I don't usually trust adults. But I'd been there so many times I almost felt like part of the place.
— Play something on that piece of junk. — He pointed at my guitar.
I played.
— Man. — He made a pained face. — What are you doing? That's way out of tune.
He ripped the guitar out of my hand with hatred, tuned it string by string grumbling, and handed it back.
— Now play.
I played. It sounded a little better. Still bad, but less.