Gigantic.25
The Vertone
I was still playing my thrift store acoustic when I moved in with Dawn on E. 32nd Street. She had a couple of parakeets, they’d chirp in the background when I tried to record.
It was a sunny tenement apartment. The shower was in the kitchen, but we had our own water closet so didn’t have to go out in the hall.
I was walking around the neighborhood one afternoon when I saw it, there among the bric-a-brac in a thrift store window: a Silvertone. Black-and-white with silver flecks, foil pick-ups, looked to be from the 60s, or maybe even older.
It was nickel knowledge that Silvertone was a Sears brand but, since they didn’t manufacture their own guitars, it was probably made by Harmony or Danelectro. I couldn’t believe I was the first one to find it.
Inside the store, I sorta knew the guy at the register, by sight anyway. I bought books and clothes here somewhat regularly.
“That guitar in the window, how much?”
“I think it’s 100 dollars,” he said.
“I’ll take it.”
The guy shook his head.
“Come back the first of the month, that’s when we take apart the window display.”
That was, like, two weeks away. By then half of New York would be competing for it.
“You can just reach in there and take it out. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Store policy,” he said.
What could I do. I went back to the apartment and marked the calendar.
First of the month came, I walked back over. Amazingly, it was still in the window, waiting for me.
“Can I buy that guitar now?”
“It’s still part of the window display.”
“You said you took the display apart the first of the month.”
“First Saturday of the month,” he clarified.
I was pretty sure he hadn’t said Saturday, but there was no arguing with him.
Come Saturday, Dawn was out of town, headed down south somewhere to acquire antique photographs, which was part of what she did for a living. I set the alarm, but it didn’t go off for some reason.
It was 8:55. The store opened at 9am.
I flew out of the apartment, ran three blocks to the thrift store. There were already ten people waiting on line out front ahead of me. The display window was in disarray. I couldn’t tell if the guitar was still in there or not.
Customers were being admitted into the store one at a time. I watched as each emerged individually with their treasure. A brass candelabra. A teapot. A Mexican blanket.
When they finally let me in I was still breathless from the run over and the anticipation.
“You still have that guitar?” I strained to see if maybe I’d missed it.
“You mean…this one?”
He was smiling when he handed it to me, not a smart-ass smile, it actually seemed to give him pleasure because he knew how much I wanted it.
It was lightweight in my hands, floating. I turned it over once or twice, not so much inspecting as beholding.
“You still want it?” he asked.
“Yeah I want it!”
I handed him exactly $100 cash.
“It’s $106,” he said.
I’d forgotten about the tax, the hundred was all I had in my pocket. There was another near heart attack leaving the guitar for five minutes while I ran to the ATM, but he kept it for me, then there I was, walking back along Third Avenue with my Silvertone.
I didn’t really examine it properly until I got home. It was missing its bridge so was unplayable for the time being, the strings flat against the silver pick-ups.
On the headstock, the cursive letters S-I-L had been chipped off. When Dawn got home the next day, she was the one who dubbed it, “The Vertone.”
There was a guitar shop called Mojo on St. Marks Place, infamous because this was where Sonic Youth took their guitars to be set up. Maybe this was why the guy who ran it, Chris, had extra attitude.
On a previous venture to Mojo, in my ignorance, I’d pointed to a beat-up Tele, thinking it’s battered condition might mean it was some kind of bargain.
“How much?” I’d asked.
“Fifteen,” he said.
“Fifteen hundred?” I said, a lot in 1990.
“No, fifteen dollars, what planet are you on?”
It was obvious he didn’t care if I ever came back into his store or not, but when I walked in clutching the Silvertone that morning he struck a much different tone.
I had the guitar up against my chest, he held up a single finger, indicating I was supposed to wait a moment for him to identify it before the reveal.
“Is that a Harmony?” he asked.
I flipped it over and handed it to him.
“Something like that,” I said.
He began to examine it somewhat lovingly on the counter, then paused suddenly.
“Wait…is this the one that was in a thrift store up in the 20s somewhere?”
“This is the one.”
“So, you’re the one who got it…”
He nodded his head approvingly.
Apparently, this Silvertone had been discussed in NYC guitar circles. There’d been some speculation who would score it.
I left it with him that day and it took him a little while to source the various parts needed to fix it. When it was finally ready, he’d found a floating bridge from the same decade, and had replaced the toggle switch with one that didn’t match exactly but had character.
I bought a little practice amp on 48th Street. There was an airshaft window in our kitchen and all the neighbors could hear everything, I didn’t play too loud. The parakeets seemed to like it.
For the first time, I had a guitar that sort-of helped define my identity as a guitar player. Plucky, modest but respectable, and with a story behind it.
Equally important, the guy at Mojo no longer thought of me as the idiot who didn’t know how much a 64 Tele was worth.
In some small way, I was back in the game.
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