"Hi."

"Hi."

"Hey guys." The sales guy had a ponytail. Now, I'm not sure why this concerned me. I'm sure it probably had something to do with the recent loss of my own. It's weird. Sometimes I'll forget that it's gone. I'll reach back to run my hand through it and suddenly it just stops. Your hand hits air. I've heard that people who loose limbs in car accidents go through the same thing. They wake up and still feel it attached to them. Freaky. I had long hair for a really long time.

He shook hands with Taylor first. I could almost see him look at me and immediately realize the mistake.

"Oh. Hi." He smiled and gripped my hand a little too hard. "You'd be the one looking for the guitar, right?"

"Right."

"Right. Well we have plenty." He was youngish, no older than 30 probably. His clothes were bad. Too tight scary black jeans. A white button down shirt. The pony tail almost hit his waist. Seriously. All of a sudden I got a flash, a picture of me in 20 years. I said a prayer as we followed him into another room.

"Wow." Taylor spun around, absorbing the sheer number of instruments that surrounded us. They were everywhere. The dark paneling of the room made everything seem brighter. Some of them were just hanging on the walls, suspended by enough wiring to keep the insurance company happy. Others were in locked Plexiglas cases, resting nicely against blue velvet. Still others were on stands on the floor, in cases in the corner, in the back room. I had reached guitar heaven.

"I have no idea where to start." It was an honest statement, if nothing else.

"Well, that's why I'm here." He smiled and folded his arms. "Is there anything in particular that you were looking for?"

I didn't hesitate. Much. "Something that looks cool." Taylor bit his lip quickly in an attempt to stifle a giggle.

My salesman, whose nametag read "Jay," thought for a moment. "Well, were you thinking about a Gibson? We have this one over here… I mean, I'm not sure of your ability level so…" Another sound reminiscent of mild strangulation from Taylor.

"Gibson's are cool. I mean, I already have like, six of them, but that's OK. You can never have too many right?"

"No way. Never too many Gibson's," he said quietly, pulling one off a stand by its neck. "This one has an excellent sound. Well, they all have an excellent sound. But this one has this really interesting inlay. See? If you want a guitar that looks cool, this would be it."

It was beautiful: a warmish yellow body that glowed just enough. The neck, however, was where all of the amazing stuff started to happen. In something that must have been either mother of pearl of abalone, was an intricately carved Chinese dragon that snaked its way up toward the tuning pegs. Of course, no one beyond the third row would see it, and even if they did, they probably wouldn't care, but the thing was 200 percent rock star. I had to have it.

"Woah. That's ugly." Taylor's eyes were riveted to the neck. Jay laughed.

"What do you mean? That's like, gorgeous. Do you know how much work goes into that? I mean, someone had to sit there and turn the insides of a seashell into that."

"Actually, it's mother of pearl," said Jay, handing it to me. Figured. If I had chosen that one, it would have been abalone, I'm sure.

"Well whatever. I would think that you, of all people, would think it was cool."

"Well, it is cool, I guess. It's just not cool for you. If I played the guitar, it would probably be cool for me. But you know, they have yet to invent a keyboard with zillion dollar Chinese dragon mother of pearl inlay. I might ask Kurzweil about that though…"

"Oh stop it."

"No. But really. Look at it." He ran his fingers over the dragon's body. I watched as Jay nearly made a move to stop him, and then didn't, maybe remembering that we were actual musician types. "I mean, maybe the work is really intricate. But it's just so… Steely Dan.

"Hey. There's nothing wrong with Steely Dan." Jay seemed genuinely offended for a second. Taylor ignored him.

"Well I think it's cool."

"Well fine then. Buy it. It's just that… Oh my God. That's it." Something had caught Taylor's eye across the room. "Now that is cool."

Taylor rushed to the other side of the room and gently lifted the source of his distraction off a peg on the wall. It was green. It was a flying V.

"What are you nuts?"

"Ike. You can't even deny the coolness of this." He pulled the strap over his head. Taylor with a guitar. The effect wasn't as completely awkward as I had expected. Still, it threw my equilibrium a little.

"What band do you think you're in? Poison?"

"Again. There is nothing wrong with Poison." Jay raised a defensive finger from his corner, in an attempt to perhaps better control the anarchy that had suddenly erupted in front of him.

"Hey. What would you rather be? Steely Dan?" He pointed to the shining dragon, still in my hands, "or Poison?!" He raised a hand in the air and made the obligatory sign language "I love you," a symbol so incredibly corrupted by rock and roll history. He stuck his tongue out as he did it.

"Tay. First of all, Poison is bad." Jay grimaced in the corner. "Second of all, the tongue thing was KISS."

"Aw. KISS rocks," smiled Jay. Apparently our very awareness of this sort of thing had redeemed us.

"See. KISS rocks Ike. This guitar is cool. I like this one. You should buy it." He smiled triumphantly and give me a double thumbs up.

"No way. I'm going with the dragon. This is art. That is decadence."

"Oh Jeez. OK. Fine. Do what you want."

"OK. I think I will."

"You're only gonna look at two?" Jay was pretty shocked, to say the least. I'm not sure what he was shocked at, a) the fact that I had just decided to buy a pretty out of my league guitar without so much as touching a string, b) the fact that a member of Hanson had just bought a pretty powerful, decidedly legit instrument or c) the fact that Taylor wanted a flying V. Probably a combination of all three.

"Well, um, are you sure you don't want to look at anything else? Or, do you want to play it maybe? Or play a similar model?" I'm sure he hadn't made a sale that easily in his whole career, poor guy. The "similar model" comment worried me, and angered me a little bit too. He said similar model. What he meant was an inferior model, something more "playable" for someone at my level.

"No thanks. I'm all set."

"Um. OK. I'll get the case. You want to see the case right?"

"I'll see it soon enough."

"OK. You know we don't take them back right?"

"Yup."

"Kim will take it at the front counter. I'll get this all set for you." He took it out of my hands and walked toward a Staff Only door. He gestured out into the front room from where we had entered. Tay and I headed out of guitar heaven.

"Did you find everything you were looking for?" An even female voice came from behind the counter. She hadn't been there before. Her hair was dyed a shiny jet black. It matched her too dark, too pronounced eyeliner and the simple long sleeved dress she wore. What caught my eye first though, was the single silver ring that looped through the center of her bottom lip. Watching her talk was incredible.

"OK, if you guys are all set, I'll start the paper work for you. That's Gibson LesPaul model GS 607, one-of-a-kind… " My eyes stayed on the ring. "That's four-thousand, six hundred and seven dollars and thirty-three cents." Taylor's eyebrows went up, just a little. He was watching the ring too. "We can ship it for free. Or, you can take it now. Which ever you like. It's one-of-a- kind, so you need to sign here and we can't take it back unless it's defective. Will that be credit?"

Payment. Time to pay now. "Um. Oh. Yeah. Of course." I pulled out my wallet and fished for the silver piece of plastic. Three and a half, four inches of amazing power. It felt good. I slid it across the counter.

"Are we shipping it to you?" Her voice had the same muted gloss as her hair. If she recognized us, it didn't show.

"Well, is there any benefit in that?"

"If we ship it, we usually take a couple of days to make sure it's in the best possible condition. Plus, we pack it so that it won't get damaged on the car ride home. It's free, if you want to do it." Nothing. Not a single hint that she knew. I wondered how many other musicians she'd dealt with in the same manner. Suddenly it occurred to me that they probably hired her for that very reason.

Taylor's eyes refused to budge any higher than her bottom lip. "You might as well. I mean, come on Ike, it's free."

"OK. You can ship it. How long will it take?"

"Three to four days."

There was more to do. Paperwork to fill out, the matter of a warranty, a service agreement, replacement parts should something break. In ten minutes, I signed my name six times. She slid the card back across the counter. It was mine.

I handed Kim back her pen. "Thank you very much."

"Thank you. Have a nice day." She smiled for the first time since we'd seen her. It was a weak one at best, rehearsed, but a smile. I started to turn away from the counter as she scooped up the remnants of our agreement, carbon copies, pen caps, clipboards.

Taylor though, stayed put. "Did that hurt?" He nodded toward her, his eyes still glued to the same spot on her face.

She stopped moving completely and looked him square in the face for a moment. Then her eyes went slightly to the left. "Did that hurt?" She gently raised a finger toward his ear.

I bit my lip. Stupid Taylor. He sputtered for a second, his eyes breaking away from the ring for the first time. He met her eyes. "I. Oh. No. I guess it didn't. Not really."

She smiled the same smooth, empty smile and backed into the other room without a word.