Ch. One
Ch. Two
Ch. Three {part 1}
Ch. Three {part 2}
Ch. Four

Solly was not the first to lose at the racetrack, but he did it with alarming skill and frequency. He bet the horses with a labyrinthine system to do with weather (keenly observed and measured for long periods) and fur sheen (more keenly observed for shorter periods). He factored in jockey couture (pure opinion) and attendance numbers (estimated). He kept abreast of the diet, demeanor and temperament of the horses, owners, jockeys, veterinarians, track groundskeepers, and stable hands. Solly calculated and considered. Solly held great meetings with leading opinion-havers in human and equine trends and behaviors in the regal -- if slightly too pink -- men's room at the Aqueduct race track in Queens. The other gamblers called Solly the Archimedes of the Big A for his knowledge of all things horsing and racetrackish, though none of them knew precisely who Archimedes was, originally.   The nickname stuck despite, or perhaps because of, Solly's educated losing streak, broken only on the rarest occasions.

Solly was not the first to wear a moustache, but he loved it as if that were the case. He stroked it when he was lost in thought. He stroked it when he was out of thoughts. He tugged it when he knew you understood him. When he was angry, he'd point it right at you. All of his expressions started there and spread about the rest of his face slowly. It was never the same color as the rest of Solly's hair. When the hair on his head was brown, his moustache was as red as a policeman's. When the hair on his head started to gray, his crumb catcher leapfrogged it and became a regal silver. According to Solly, it kept his face warm in the winter, which was important, "as my face is one of the best parts of me, and my moustache is the best part of my face."

There were many other things at which Solly was not the first. Inebriate. Vagrant. Womanizer. There was one particular thing at which Solly was the first, the very first to do in the modern age in America. Many have followed in his footsteps, though none who do know the great debt they owe to this great man. This pioneer. This American original. Solly was the first to play his guitar in the street and sing, the case open in front of him pleading on his behalf for money from strangers with which to finance a career losing at the track, grooming his moustache, drinking, and womanizing. Some argue that gypsies, minstrels, and troubadours preceded Solly in the act of begging to music, but the distinction Solly himself would draw is about intention. Solly came up with the idea one day in the park when he was too drunk to remember to close his case and put it behind him as he played and sang. It is possible that because he was wearing dark glasses at the time, he was mistaken for a blind performer. Regardless, a passerby dropped a nickel into Solly's guitar case and a man found his calling. Gypsies, minstrels and troubadours played in order to earn money. Solly played regardless. It was never about the money, which he never refused.

Solly was not only the first street musician (a term he coined) but he was the best for a very long time.

Solly was not the first to teach another person how to love music. How to play music. How to love to play music. But he was the first to teach Pigeon Boy. And Pigeon Boy was his first student. Or his second, if you consider a self-taught musician to be his own student.

"This one sounds like this," Solly told Pigeon Boy and strummed what neither of them knew to be a C chord. "And this one here sounds more like this."   Pigeon Boy was still struggling to hold the instrument. His heart was still dense and rotating slowly and painfully over the loss of his friend two days ago. The rest of his insides were still running around in circles until they were dizzy and then racing around until they fell down laughing and still kicking their feet into the air and tickling each other over seeing the gray eyed girl one day ago. With all that going on inside, his outsides were having a hard time with the guitar.

"You are crying and smiling in turns," Solly told him.

"I'm sorry," Pigeon Boy said, his voice deeper and more gnarled than Solly's.

"Do not get me wrong, Pidge. I do not mention this for you to apologize over it. It is good for what I am trying to teach you. These two things are what music is for. There may well be a third thing, but if this is the case, then I do not know it."

Solly used the tortoiseshell button that served as his pick to scoop up a tear snailing its way down Pigeon Boy's cheek. The tear sat, a bubble atop the button, ignoring the four little holes beneath it. Solly gave the button, tear and all, to Pigeon Boy and said "use it."

Oh how Pigeon Boy practiced. He practiced with Solly. He practiced without Solly. He practiced at Moses's feet as Moses read the newspapers they all used for blankets come the night. He practiced near Rudyard when the old Indian played marbles with the children who lived near the park. He practiced with his pigeons who seemingly practiced their cooing alongside him.

It took years, but they had years. Solly taught Pigeon Boy to play. He taught Pigeon Boy first to love the music and then to love what it brought. Money. Friends. Women. Like every other form of musicianship, street musicianship brought the performers women. Street women. "Know your audience," Solly said. And they did. Biblically.

The gray eyed girl lived in Pigeon Boy's thoughts, but thanks to the other girls he knew, she lived in the very back of his thoughts for many years, where the rent is cheapest. Until one day. The day they celebrated Pigeon Boy's twenty-first birthday. It turned out to be very close to his actual twenty-first birthday, but only by coincidence.

On the day they celebrated his twenty-first birthday, no, on the night of it, he saw her. There was no question in his mind it was her. His mind was too busy doing somersaults to ask questions. And thoughts that were stuck in the back were jostled and ended up in the front, stuck in the middle of other thoughts. A gray-eyed girl and wolves interrupted wholly unrelated thoughts. For now, these were only tenuously connected thoughts. For now.