He asks for a guitar. We look at several. Whatever, he says. I
point one out while he studies a harmonica that he’ll get with
his own money. Picks it out like an expert. Checks it out,
makes it dance in his left hand, brings it to his lips
to make it vibrate.
.................................................................

Thirty years after the fact I hear London Calling
for the first time. He teaches me as we listen together
and already there is something lost and gained. At his sixteen I find
what I was not able to know at my eighteen.
.................................................................

The argument is over the meaning of the materials: if CDs
or MP3, if original or 180-gram vinyl.
I get lost in this system of suspicions. We are
amateurs but speak like specialists. I’ll
be quiet already, I’ll stop listening already, I think.
.................................................................

Corbijn’s Control helps me get Joy Division, the monotonic
and thick about-to-crack singing by Ian Curtis. We see him
one Christmas eve lying hypnotized on the bed although
I am overcome with a certain unrest, why show one’s son
the existence of suicide?
.................................................................

He’s been studying harmonica for over two years and I’ve never
heard him play. There are so many enigmas in the mystery
of his silence, the loss of not seeing his expression as
he takes the instrument, places it lightly on his lips
and blows.
.................................................................

Should we thank Morrisey?
From low to falsetto his voice invades our house
day by day while his solitary adolescence,
his taste in movies, literature, music
are an authentic sentimental education.