Sometimes it was as if time were standing still. When the Les Paul came alive, and he was no longer playing the instrument, no longer coaxing sound from it, but he had the sense of the music emanating from the atmosphere, somehow flowing instantaneously through his body and the guitar. It was magic and transcendence, religion and sex, an exploration of his soul and a joining with those around him. At those times he would feel tears roll down his cheeks, feel his heart swell in his chest as the music carried him forward toward some aching realization. The room resonated with the tones, the figures around him quivered like dream-shapes shimmering in waves of heat, his fingers moved in unconscious elegance. The guitar would sing, or roar like a wind, or hang like the cry of a bird on a cushion of silence, decaying to perfect quiet when he could hear the clicking of the tumblers of some lock that promised the opening of a door that concealed ultimate revelation.

And, with blinking eyes and perspiration beaded on his forehead, he would awaken from this spell to the clamor of applause, the odor of cigarette smoke and beer. He would look down at the Les Paul in wonder, and with mingled disappointment and fear, and it was another long night, in another bar, and the feeling of sanctity and salvation was as lost to him as ever it had been. The girl, the singer, would turn to him and seem to understand, and lay a hand gently on his arm, looking into his eyes. "I know," she said, "it's beauty and pain." She turned from him and looked out at the crowd, laughing in shouted conversations, oblivious. She held a glass to her lips, drank deeply, and a smile illuminated her face, a smile that couldn't touch the despair in her eyes.