Bob can play a number of instruments, none of them well.

He likes his guitar, an Ovation with a sensual, curving back. The guitar is useful because he can play it anywhere, in his room, in the living room if his father isn’t around, on the front step. Its sound can be quiet, non-confrontational. He finds it adequate most of the time, particularly since he’s expanded his repertoire of chords, but depressingly predictable. Everyone plays acoustic guitar, and its sound is nearly always the same. Only a few, very talented people can coax a new and interesting sound out of an acoustic guitar, and Bob knows he is not one of them.

Every Tuesday at 2:30, Bob rents a dingy rehearsal room at the conservatory where he plays, violently and incongruously, an elegant grand piano. At 3:30, he stops, stretches his fingers, runs his hand, lingeringly, along the top and down the side of the piano. He closes his fingers around the strong delicate legs of the piano, thanks it silently for its stoic performance under his coarse and amateur hands.

Once in awhile, he even drags out his father’s old accordion and attempts a puffy, mournful polka. The accordion is supposed to be a cheerful instrument, the catalyst of parties and dances. But in Bob’s thin, inexpert arms, the squeezebox emits only aged wheezing, doleful burps and farts. He ends by pulling it off his chest, shoving it back in its case in disgust.

Recently, Bob has been learning to play the clarinet, and thinks he may have found his instrument. He picked one up, cheap, from a guy he knows. The guy, named Archie because of his bright orange flattop, needed the money, had to unload the clarinet, an Artley 58S with a few standard accessories. Archie wanted $300.00; Bob dickered him down to $150.00. Bob had the advantage. He didn’t yet know that he needed a clarinet. He handled the instrument carefully, pressed the keys, and squinted into its bell, as though he knew what he was doing. Archie was pissed off, but desperate.

“One-fifty, Bob? You know what this thing costs new?”

Bob continued to examine the instrument under Archie’s nervous gaze.

“Eight-fifty, easy,” Archie told him, with emphasis.

Bob answered him calmly. “It’s not new.”

Archie shook his head, in pain. “You don’t know shit, Bob. That’s seasoned grenadilla, buddy, not that that means anything to you. And the case and shoulder strap are included.”

Archie took the clarinet back from Bob, and put it lovingly in its hard case. He insisted on carrying it to the bank machine where Bob withdrew cash from his carefully hoarded stock, gave some to Archie. As Archie folded the bills into his wallet, Bob had a sudden, intense pang of remorse, a sense of great folly. But before Bob could articulate his resistance, Archie put the clarinet gently into his arms, urged Bob to take good care of it. Bob found himself hugging his new charge closely, promising careful stewardship.

Bob tells himself now that he had good instincts, that he recognized a quality instrument when he saw one. But, really, he knows that for once in his life he got lucky. With the clarinet safely stowed under his bed, he started his research. He asked around, used the Internet at the library, checked his sources. He tracked down the necessary information about his new instrument, a B flat soprano, with wooden upper and lower joints and composition bell and barrel. Archie had been gentle with the clarinet. Its pads were and remain clean and whole; the instrument’s body is uncracked. It has a stock mouthpiece, which is okay but not great. Bob plans, eventually, to replace it with a Vandoren or a Gigliotti. He knows now he should have checked the sound, asked Archie to play it for him right there in the street. He’s slightly ashamed of this omission, but cuts himself some slack. He’s learned a lot since then.

Satisfied with this knowledge and pleased with the deal, Bob set about learning to play. He took some CDs of clarinet music out of the library, made himself a couple of tapes, Mozart’s Concerto K622, played by Karl Leister, Jonathan Cohler’s “Moonflowers, Baby!” just because he liked the name. At the conservatory’s store, he bought two books of sheet music for beginners, one classical and folk, the other a selection of Cole Porter songs. He ordered an instructional video, throwing away $9.95 American, plus shipping, on its extravagant and unjustified claims. The waste of money sickens him still.