Jenson Miller

The wiper blades scraped dry against the glass, pushing a dark slurry of soot and water before the downpour overwhelmed them again. Water pounded the roof of the sedan with the flat, dead thud of thrown gravel. Through the blurred windshield, the neon sign of the corner diner bled red across the pavement. Under the narrow concrete ledge of the pharmacy, a figure stood hunched over a acoustic guitar. His fingers moved across the frets with stiff, mechanical precision, the notes lost entirely to the roar of the storm. Rain ran down his jawline, mixing with the dark streak of dirt on his cheek. The front right tire dropped into the unseen trench along the curb. A thick wave of black water blew upward, hitting the alcove and flattening against his knees. He did not flinch. He did not look up to curse the driver. He simply wiped his wet palm on his jeans and reset his hand on the neck of the instrument. The brake lights cast a long stain over his drenched boots. Three months of silence had done nothing to dull the exact, sickening angle of his shoulders. The memory of the auditorium microphone feedback; that high, thin whine before Ian's voice cut through the applause, sat heavy in the back of the throat like ash. "The beggar's degree," Ian had called it, while the projector screen flared to life behind the stage, showing a grainy video of a paper cup and a pair of worn sneakers on a public plaza. Ian, your father had ruined him and you with him. The car idling in the flooded gutter offered no warmth. The heater blew cold, stale air against the windshield. The ring finger on the steering wheel felt light, bare, and completely numb. Through the glass, his mouth moved, shaping words to a song nobody on the street could hear. The driver’s side door heavy-swung open, letting the freezing rain flood the leather interior. Leather boots hit the black sludge on the pavement.