As a guitar, well, I wasn't all that great. Too much hard living and rough handling leaves it's mark on an axe, but there is one night in particular that I can tell you about.

My current life is with Dean. He's bounced me around this city on a strap that's made out of some neon rainbow shoelaces. The glittery kind. I can't remember the last time I was in tune, and I can't remember a time when I was ever so loved.

Dean's a good man. We work the night desk at the Stop-n-Go Motel. Most of the time I'm outta tune because he keeps me under the desk, and there's been more than once I was kind of 'thrown' there when the boss-man showed up.

Anyway, that night...
Me and DeanO was hanging out in the lobby behind the bulletproof plexiglass, and he was working out the chords to another one of his 'done somebody wrong' songs when they walked in.
Seven cent cotton and forty cent meat, How in the world can a poor man eat? Mules in the barn, no crops laid by, Corn crib empty and the cow's gone dry. Well water low, nearly out of sight, Can't take a bath on Saturday night. No use talking, any man is beat With seven cent cotton and forty cent meat.
That's what old DeanO was playing. I can remember it like it was yesterday. Him fingerpicking all to hell.

He saw that couple, and the look in that gal's eye when he told her she couldn't take a bath on a Saturday night. Hell, that's why most of the girls hook around this motel. They can get a man to take them here for a roll, and then they can use all the hot water in the joint.

It wasn't that long before 'Missus Smith' made her way back to the front desk.
"Whatcha playing DeanO?" with her chewed fingernails tapping on the glass
An old Dean replies with a tickle down my neck and:
On her back she has tattooed a map of Ireland And when she takes her bath on Saturday, She rubs the Sunlight Soap around by Claddagh Just to watch the suds go down by Galway Bay. (cheeky bastard...I do love him)

"Very funny, wiseass" says the gal, and she reaches over the dutchdoor to let herself into the office. "Whatcha got to drink in here?"

DeanO got up and real casual-like handed me to her so he could get her a soda from the fridge. She tensed up and held me at arm's length like I was full of termites or something, and DeanO got to laughing just to look at her.
"Sit down" he says "Here, put your fingers like this..."

Those chewed little fingers held me in the grip of death. It was the most gawd-awful chord I think I've ever strangled out of my strings. As soon as the notes left me though, I felt her relax. I could swear she laughed too.