Ode to Guthrie - Kevin Lichty

PFC Charlie Goodkind sat in a VA clinic examination room at Walter Reed Medical Center waiting patiently to hear the word “no” come out of his doctor's mouth. He stared at her lips, imagined her cracked and dry lips touching his and let her familiar words wash over him: addiction, opiates, control, will power, pain, dangerous, overdose. She was a small and fierce woman, with beady eyes, and when she got worked up she stood as if she were a statue, her body so tense that Charlie thought he might be able to split wood over her head.

Goodkind's hip ached. He could feel each individual shard of metal still embedded there, marching their way toward his femoral artery. He didn't care what controlled substance this doctor wanted to or didn't want to give him, he just wanted one of them.

"There are other ways to manage your pain, Mr. Goodkind,” the doctor said. “Yoga, Pilates, guided meditation, acupuncture, massage therapy. I can give you a referral for a good massage therapist. You should change your diet, try to eat more clean—whole foods, organic, avoid too much dairy.”

Goodkind sat and nodded.

“I can write you another prescription in 15 days. You can come back then. Make your appointment with the front desk." She turned and walked out of the room.

There was the “no” he was looking for. He slid off the exam table and stood up. He traced the eight-inch surgical scar that ran from his lower abdomen to mid-thigh, pressed his hip to make sure the pain was still there and put his pants back on.

Fifteen days. Two Oxycodone left in his bottle.

"Fuck it," he said and took them both, dry swallowed, grabbed his pack and walked toward Wisconsin Avenue to the Metro stop.

Goodkind could only sleep in 30-minute intervals. The cold crept into his hip, wrapped itself around the shrapnel embedded a half-inch from his femoral artery and twisted. He shifted, tried to alleviate the stiffness, wrapped his arms around his body tighter to force his body back into sleep. His skin itched.

He stared at the orange circle of light cast on the sidewalk and tried to ignore his skin. He estimated the temperature at 25. A freezing line of sweat dripped down the small of his back, an earthworm burrowing into his spinal column.

He shifted again, pulled his legs into his chest. He could feel each piece of metal in his leg bite into the soft tissue around his hip, scratch against his bones. "Overstayed my welcome," he said and got up. He massaged his hip, slapped it with his palm and exhaled into the light to watch his breath dance in the night air and began walking west on East Capitol St. toward the Mall.

He walked into the rotunda-shaped bathroom at the base of the Washington Monument hill at 7:00 am. A wall of stale urine and sweat greeted him on the other side of the door. He

walked over to a sink and looked in the mirror. He rubbed his chapped face, felt the stubble of his beard. He'd have to get a razor today.

He took his shirt off, placed it on the sink next to him, and traced the pockmarked scars trailing down the left side of his abdomen. He pushed on his hip, just to make sure the pain was still there, that he could still feel, that the leg would still move.

He started with his teeth, carefully brushing each one with a toothbrush whose bristles were bent in a thousands different directions and stained brown from old blood. His gums bled. He moved on to his face, using the liquid soap dispenser next to the sink. He rubbed his skin with his calloused hands, his chapped face stung as he splashed hot water over it. Another homeless man walked in, his dark face smeared in ash, his hair caked in oil. He walked over to another sink, pulled out a razor, and began shaving with shivering hands.

"Goddamn it's cold out there. My hands don't work," he said.

"Damn cold. I can't even feel my nuts anymore," Goodkind said.

The other homeless man laughed, “That's about right.”

Goodkind offered his toothpaste.

“Got my own,” the homeless man said.

Goodkind nodded.

They both turned back to the mirrors and restarted their grooming rituals. A boy walked into the bathroom holding his father’s hand. The boy danced on the end of his

father's arm holding his crotch, his face red, eyes shut in concentration. The father looked up and saw a shirtless Goodkind, covered in scars with his face a scabbed boiled lobster. He froze. The boy opened his eyes and started crying.

The father turned around and yanked the boy with him.

"But I've got to go to the bathroom," he whined.

"We'll go somewhere else," the father said. "It smells like livestock in here."

Goodkind watched them go, waited for the door to close, and began washing his armpits. At the U Store on New York Ave, Goodkind took the lock off his storage unit, rolled open the door and stepped inside. He wished he could sleep in here. He tried it once. He remembered the blows being rained down on the back of his ribs by the police who came around 1:00 am after a security guard discovered he was in there.

He looked through everything he had left: three Pop Warner football trophies, the plastic figurines frozen in a cheap imitation of the Heisman, a green plastic lawn chair, three boxes filled with letters from his wife she sent him while deployed in Afghanistan, pictures of his son as a baby, elementary school report cards from his daughter, his birth certificate, stacks of worn paperbacks and his guitar case.

Goodkind took a key from around his neck and unlocked the case. Inside was his grandfather's guitar, a 1938 Martin D28. He touched the finish with his fingertips, felt the scars of the road, tested the strings to make sure they weren't dead. He'd have to restring it soon. He took the guitar out of the case, sat in the green plastic lawn chair, placed his fingers on the

fretboard, its lacquered finish so worn by decades it played like polished volcanic glass. He tested the action on the strings and played a G, letting the chord echo around the corrugated steel and concrete walls.

The D string was flat. He placed his finger on the fifth fret of the A string and played them together until they sounded like the same note. He played a G again. He listened for dissonance. The notes poured out of his guitar like pieces of ice.

Satisfied, he put the guitar back into the case, closed the lid, picked it up by its handle and started walking toward Independence Avenue, the Smithsonian.

Time to go to work.

Sometimes he would play for hours without anyone stopping. So he played to the empty air and went on journeys:1930s Mississippi Delta, front room bar in a house of ill-repute in August, shirt-sleeves stuck to his body, the walls heaving with the moans of sailors, the wail of his guitar timed to their inhalations; 1990s Seattle coffee shop, surrounded by plaid flannel shirts and olive-colored sweaters, unplugged, his voice a scar; 1940s Eastern Kentucky, county fair, his fingers falling through the strings like water, trying to keep up with the banjo which pushed the tempo faster and faster, the horse hair on the fiddler's bow straining with the friction against strings; 1980s London Underground...

He was brought back to 2013, D.C., a park bench in front of the Freer Gallery by four quarters falling into his guitar case. He looked up and saw a little girl in front of him, about 10, her hair pulled back by a pink headband, her jeans adorned in sparkles. Her father stood five feet behind her.

“Thank you,” Goodkind said. “Would you like me to play you a song?”

“That's a beautiful Herringbone,” said the father. “'41?”

“'38.”

The father took a step towards the guitar and bent down. “You take good care of it.” He squinted, inspected the finish, the pickguard scratched and worn by a million downstrokes. He could smell the road on it—gin, cigar smoke, the dust of cotton fields.

“I want to hear a song,” the girl said.

“Look at the snowflake pattern on the neck,” the father said. “They changed that in 1945. I wasn't even born yet. This guitar is older than me.”

“Daddy,” the girl whined and stamped her feet.

“Go ahead, honey,” the father said.

She turned to Goodkind, flashed a smile. “Do you know One Direction?” She asked.

“One Direction? Let me think.” He played a few notes, tapped on the body. “You know, you remind me a lot of my daughter. She's a little older than you, though. She likes Justin Bieber. Do you like him?”

“Ew, Bieber is so sketch.”

“Smart girl. What's your name?”

“Sophia.”

“Sophia,” he repeated. “One direction is a hard one, but I think I know something you might like. Ready?”

Sophia nodded and smiled.

Goodkind dropped his low E into a D. He put his guitar pick in his jacket pocket, cracked his fingers and placed his hands in position over the strings. “Pictures of You by The Cure,” he said and began.

The Cure's A became Goodkind's D minor 7th. He twisted tempo, Skip James fingerpicked it, masked time with complex blues rhythms, bent strings. Slapping the ground with his feet, he undulated with each beat. His voice, a wail, a wish, a longing, stabbed the cold air and vibrated the crystallized molecules of his breath. He savored each bend of the string, each run of his hands across the frets, held each vibrato an extra half-beat. By the time he hit the turnaround he was in full swing.

“Ew, what is that?” Sophia shouted.

Goodkind stopped. “What?”

"It's gross. One Direction is so much better." Sophia turned to her father. "I want my dollar back.”

“Honey...” her father started.

“That's okay,” Goodkind said. “The customer is always right.” He fished the four quarters from his case and gave them to the father.

“That guitar really is beautiful,” the father said. “Please give me a chance to buy it.” “The guitar is not for sale,” Goodkind said.

“Fair enough." He took a card from his wallet and tossed it into Goodkind's case. “If you ever change your mind.”

“You suck,” Sophia said and took her father's hand.

“I'm so sorry,” the father said.

"I find it odd for someone who knows so much about guitars to have a child who knows so little about music." Goodkind took the card out of the case and held it out to the man.

"Please, keep it. In case you change your mind."

As the two left Goodkind heard Sophia say, “Daddy can we go get a Frappuccino?” Goodkind shrugged, threw the card back into his guitar case and counted what he had in there: $12.50. He took the money, fished his Ziploc bag out of his backpack and placed it in with the few remaining dollars still in there.

He packed up his guitar and stood up. He pressed his hand against his hip to make sure the pain was still there.

Some days are better than others.

He started walking north towards New York Avenue.

Goodkind sat on a steam vent wrapped in a thermal blanket clutching a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey. The steam surrounded him in a wet, hot shield against the chill. Coveted territory. It reminded him of bath-time with his son and daughter, their little bodies covered in bubble bath, as he sat on the toilet and played “Yellow Submarine” to them. They'd sing the chorus with him...

We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine ...splashing and laughing and dunking each other under the water.

“Be careful. Don't splash the guitar,” he'd say leaning back to protect it when the water went flying through the air.

It was the only time he was alone with them.

“Daddy, sing it again,” Amber would say.

“OK, baby girl.”

In a town where I was born, lived a man who sailed to sea...

Goodkind sat on the vent, staring, his vision blurred by pain. He tried to stretch his leg. The pain shot into his spine. His skin maggots, writhing, eating the soft tissue beneath. He was drenched in sweat.

He rolled over onto his belly. His right leg stuck out like driftwood. He pulled himself up with his arms and pulled off his jacket, his sweater and his t-shirt. He took off his sweat pants and cargo pants too and stood in his underwear.

He couldn't feel his head any more. His leg was a mass of rotting nails burrowing to the surface.

He collapsed onto all fours and retched. He retched again and again. Half a bottle of Wild Turkey splattered beneath him on the sidewalk. The smell of stale whiskey and bile filled his sinuses. He opened his eyes and looked at the splatter pattern, spit into it, closed his eyes and tried to breathe through the pain.

You think this is pain motherfucker? You love this pain. You sleep with this shit.

Steam rose from his naked skin. It burned in the night air. His head was stuffed with pneumatic drills. He could hear blood rushing in his ears.

Move, you piece of shit, move, move, move.

He stood up.

“Yes, sir,” he cried out.

He took his Wild Turkey, clutched it to his chest and took a long swallow. Then another. And another. He tossed the rest into the street, gathered up his clothes, his blanket, his backpack and started moving.

He walked to an entrance of an alley on 22nd Street and approached what looked like a 15-year-old kid wearing an over-sized Eddie Bauer sub-zero coat.

“You carrying?” he asked.

“You a cop?” The kid said. He looked up the street and then down the street. “You a cop?”

“I'm not a cop. You carrying?”

“You got dap? I ain't got no time for no hobo looking mo who ain't got no dap,” the kid said.

“Yeah, I'm not playing you, man. I can pay. You got hydros?”

“What do you think?” The kid said.

“Tens?”

“You think we slinging shit? How much you need?”

“How much for five.”

“Five for fifty.”

Goodkind hesitated.

“You wastin my time? Hurry up...five for fifty or move on.”

“I don't have fifty. How much for two?”

“Two for twenty-five.”

“Come on, man. That's too much.”

“Five for fifty, two for twenty-five. Take it or leave it. I ain't no fuckin Wal-Mart pharmacy.”

“Fine.” He turned around, reached into the pocket of his coat and took out his money. He counted it. He had twenty-seven dollars left. “Here,” he said and handed it over.

“Wait here,” the kid said and disappeared into an apartment.

Goodkind waited.

Ten minutes later another kid, this one about 19-years-old walked out of the apartment covered in tattoos, his teeth full of fake gold. “You a cop?” The new kid said.

“Not a cop, man.”

“Cool, cool.” He looked up the street and then down the street. “Nice doin business with you,” he said and reached out a hand. Goodkind took it, felt the transfer. “Any time you need somethin come hit me up. I got you.”

Goodkind nodded and walked away. A block away he opened the bag, took out the two small white pills and took them both.

He had four hours before the headaches came back.

“Hello?” The voice on the other side of the phone wasn't the one Goodkind fell in love with. The voice of the other side of the phone was a harsh voice, a smoker's voice. His wife didn't smoke.

“Please...” Goodkind said.

Silence on the other side.

“I just want to talk to Noah. I want to sing him a happy birthday. I've got my guitar ready” Goodkind sandwiched the phone between his ear and shoulder and played a few notes.

“You still have that thing? You take better care of that guitar than you do your own children,” his wife said.

“That's not fair, Deb. I just want to sing him happy birthday.”

“His birthday isn't for another week. Come on, Charlie. You know that. And he could use money a lot more than your singing, Charlie.”

“I can't sell this guitar, Deb. It was my grandfather's. It's been with me my entire life. It's all I have left.”

“Well, then, that's your child now. Take care of it. And forget about us.”

“How about Amber. Can I talk to Amber?”

“She doesn't want to talk to you. No one wants to talk to you—”

“Who don't I want to talk to?” he heard Amber say.

“I just want them to know me, know who their daddy is.”

“Their daddy is dead. He died a long time ago.”

Goodkind closed his eyes. “I just want to come home,” he said.

“Just—just get your shit together.”

He heard a click, then a dial tone. He held the phone up to his ear and listened to the soft monotone as long as he could. He looked at the calling card in his hand, let it drop to the floor, and walked away from the bank of pay phones.

Goodkind stood in front of the “For Son” section of the Hallmark isle of the Rite Aid on the corner of U and 13th Street trying to figure out which card he could buy for two dollars. He picked up each one, turned it over, and looked at the price. He didn't care what the card said. He picked up a card with dogs shopping in a dog butt candle store: $3.95. Snoopy surrounded by Woodstocks singing the happy birthday song: $3.29. A cupcake on top a pile of presents: $3.49. A cartoon dolphin wearing a cartoon birthday hat saying “happy birthday” in dolphinese: $2.95. He gave up when he overturned a pug stuffed into a mailbox with a stamp attached to its forehead and saw $1.95.

On the way out he saw three quarter machines -- one full of gumballs, one of bouncy balls, one full of plastic eggs filled with toys. He fished 50 cents from his pocket, put it into the plastic egg machine, turned the crank and opened the metal flap. He looked at the egg. Inside was a set of stick-on tattoos filled with butterflies in eight different colors.

He fished out another 50 cents and tried again. He opened the egg and fished out a plastic gold ring with a green plastic center stone.

He put the tattoos and ring in his pocket, went back to the card aisle, took an envelope from behind one of the cards, folded it and put it in his jacket, then walked out and headed towards the Post Office on Florida Avenue with one dollar left.

It was a warm 54 degrees. Goodkind sat on a park bench beneath a leafless tree in front of the Old Smithsonian building. He opened up his guitar case, threw his last four quarters in and unfurled his sign: PFC Charlie Goodkind. 82nd Airborne Division. Afghanistan 2001-2002, 2007-2008. Iraq 2004-2005. He spread a blanket on the bench and sat down, put the guitar on his lap and unwedged the guitar pick from his strings and started to play.

He began with Jolene, Ray Lamontagne. He upturned his face to the sun.

Cocaine, flame in my bloodstream, he started.

He felt the fire in his hip. He remembered waking up in the field hospital at Bagram Air Base, his skin still black and scored from the shrapnel embedded there, morphine being pumped into his veins.

I held you in my arms one time, lost you just the same, he sang to his wife. He saw her in front of him. The shape of her eyes just before their first kiss. The feel of her belly as she arched into him as he entered her the first time. The smell of her skin on their wedding day. How tightly she held on to him when he learned he'd be deployed for the first time. The slope of her back when she walked away from him for the last time.

It's been so long since I've seen your face, or felt a part of this human race, he sang to Amber and Noah.

He could feel Amber's tiny body in his arms, her little hand reach out to touch his face. He could see her smile, hear her giggle, how she danced for him when he played his guitar, twirling around in circles and falling to the floor. He could see Noah, his tiny body under the lamps after being rushed to the hospital with bilirubin levels so high the machine at the pediatrician's office couldn't read them, his eyes covered in a mask, holding onto Debbie's hand so tight and being such a strong man already, Debbie stroking his tiny head.

A picture of you holding a picture of me in the pocket of my blue jeans. I still don't know what love means. Jolene. Jolene. His voice a promise as he ended.

No one stopped.

He looked down at his grandfather's guitar, stroked the finish. He felt its decades on the road strapped to his grandfather's back as he hiked through northern California on his way to the Pacific Northwest in the grains of the neck. He strummed an open chord and let it ring. Listened. It was all he had left, all of himself inside the rosewood, the ebony fretboard. His father and grandfather existed there too, the particles of their souls leaked out from their fingertips. He bent over, reached into the guitar case, and fished out the business card stuck to the wall. He looked at the name: Edward Washburn, Vintage Acoustics. He looked down at the guitar, saw the scratch Amber put on it when she fell and her tea set went flying. He played an open chord and remembered his grandfather teaching him his first three chords. These are the only three chords you'll ever need to know," his grandfather told him. "Everything else is just for show."

Goodkind turned the card over and over in his hand. “You gonna play something?” A boy of about 12 asked him. Goodkind looked up. “Of course,” he said.

Originally published in Green Briar Review 3.1, 2015

Kevin Lichty was born and raised in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. He received an MFA in Fiction from Arizona State University where he currently teaches composition. His work has appeared in Pithead Chapel, Broad River Review, Hawaii Pacific Review and elsewhere. His debut novella The Circle That Fits was published by Driftwood Press in 2022.