Billy stood his duffel bag on end and lay his guitar case to the right side of it. He opened the battered case and withdrew an equally battered guitar, an old Yamaki 12 string his brother had bought in Japan on R&R from Vietnam and had carried back to give to Billy ten years earlier. Jimmy had left an arm behind in Que Sanh. Jimmy, 15 years older than Billy was was doing okay, Billy thought as he picked up the instrument to which he'd had to add a metal tailpiece because the medium strings he'd put on and tuned up to standard tuning had buckled the face at the peghead, but now the instrument played surprisingly well. Not a whole lot of volume, but good action. A couple of the bass strings buzzed when he moved up beyond the ninth fret, so he played mostly on the treble strings when he moved up the neck.

Taking a seat on the upended duffel bag, Billy stood the guitar on his toes and held it with his knees while he folded up the harmonica holder around his neck and stuck an A harp into the spring grip. He picked up the guitar, positioned it, and blew on the Hohner, then with a flat pick played an A chord on the guitar. After a couple of adjustments, he sucked in on the first four holes and listened, playing an E chord on the guitar. Satisfied he was in tune, he began strumming a 12-bar blues in E and after a couple of times through the pattern, added the harp, first a low riff, then another 12 bars starting on the fifth hole and working up.

He tried to remember the blues he'd made up for the truck driver, using the story the driver had told him.

"Been sitting behind this wheel for fifteen years," he sang.
"Been drivin' this old truck for fifteen years, But sometimes I cain't see the white line through my tears," and finished the verse with a descending trio of diminished chords.

--seed