Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Telly Halkias, an award-winning freelance journalist. It originally appeared in the Bennington Banner.
On a recent August Sunday, I sat on the patio of a Portland, Maine, beer tavern, and the gray afternoon was no different than any other misty day. My only concern while sipping a pilsner was reading the paper before me as the rain spotted it.
Then came the melody: An echo bounced off the Old Port’s red brick buildings like my boyhood Super Ball. Surging vocals and an acoustic guitar made me forget the drizzle altogether.
A troubadour sang on Exchange Street. His music distracted me while tourists and locals filled the downtown. The voice searched for something deeper than an occasional gratuity, and in the bottom of my glass I drowned memories of failed love. Beer will do that to you.
So while sipping up the hops, I began to hum Simon and Garfunkel’s “Kathy’s Song,” a favorite refuge of my youth.
Then, like the hand of Aphrodite rising from the Atlantic, the boy began to play its first chords, and belt out lyrics that have tortured decades of star-crossed lovers:
“And a song I was writing is left undone/ I don’t know why I spend my time/ Writing songs I can’t believe/ With words that tear and strain to rhyme.”
Wallet in hand, I headed for the music, my beer and youth abandoned for good. Those tunes haunted the street as passers-by dropped coins and a few dollar bills into the open guitar case on the sidewalk.
When my song finished, I added $5 to the till. The boy’s eyes pierced me, and he smiled through a thick, dark beard, exclaiming: “Thank you so, so much!”
We chatted for a while. As a journalist, I couldn’t help but start asking questions.
Chris revealed to me that he was originally from Connecticut and had just arrived in Maine by way of Vermont, where he had worked in a Montpelier pub. He was staying temporarily on Peaks Island, just across the harbor, and commuted on the early and late ferries. Chris plays street music in Portland during the day to earn ferry fare and meal money.
He continued: “I dropped everything where I was to pursue a love interest of mine that came here. I loved Vermont, but heard Maine was a really good place to live, and Portland has a big-city feel to it without being big. I’m just trying to make some money and hopefully catch on doing organic farming while still playing for the folks. I really love this. I’d do it for free if I could. Right now it’s the only way I can eat.”
As the drizzle returned, I realized the day was getting late.
Reluctantly, I left Chris to the street audience, wishing the object of his love pays more attention to how he sings than what the words are. His voice came straight from the heart, and his refrain blended with the urban landscape:
“And as I watch the drops of rain/ Weave their weary paths and die/ I know that I am like the rain/ There but for the grace of you go I.”
Every evening, after playing on Exchange, Chris will take the ferry back to Peaks Island, if he can afford it. If not, he might bunk down in a building stoop, grateful it’s August and not November.
There, he must hope that uprooting to Maine was worth the risk. Otherwise, he may fall to the troubadour’s curse of love and fate, which means he’ll never forgive himself.
And as Chris sleeps, the Portland sky will blanket him, crooning a lullaby for the hopeless romantic, in a melody he has yet to sing.
