"A Diamond Guitar"

“A Diamond Guitar”

--Truman Capote

                               It was strange, for he must have known he would never play again.

 I liked this story until the ending.  I didn’t feel an all around moral seizing my thoughts like other stories have done in the past.  I felt like it ended in a free falling way; gradually and then all at once leaving me uneasy and unsettled.  Truthfully, I didn’t understand the meaning of the character Tico Feo until I reread Capote's reading again.  With the way Mr. Schaffer and him got along and their immediate connection between one another, I had assumed some type of life changing event would have happened but instead all there was, was the escape of the young Feo who had yet to become “a grown man”. 

But nothing had really come of Schaffer, except the lingering thoughts Feo had left him in the end, which in return I took as a form of hope in Schaffer’s life that just because he was sentenced ninety-nine years and a day in prison doesn’t mean that life is over. 

It was that his friend had revived the brown rivers where the fish run, and the ladies with sunlight in their hair.

            Schaffer had mentioned this statement in the pages prior to meeting Tico, except the context I noticed had changed between the pages.  It was now, that instead of saying  he could no longer see, feel or imagine the way things used to be outside of the prison, because of this young prisoner, because of Tico and his boyish ways, life was revived back into him.  A small amount of thirst for living melted inside of him and Tico showed hope for the days left on Schaffer’s life.  It was something to look forward to, something to keep the spirits alive.  I don’t think Tico realized what a significant impact he had made on Schaffer, especially at the end when he watched him as he struggled in the ground, but it was although Tico had abandoned Schaffer, he left something behind that was much greater than the escape itself.  That is the guitar and the music strummed on it. 

            I have always been fascinated in the way music is able to manipulate a mood or feeling in the room by the simple change from one song to another.  Play a song on the Hip Hop Top 40 and everyone’s in a cheerful mood swaying their hips back and forth to the uplifting beat.  But switch it to a slow song, say, Adele, Someone Like You, for example and the entire vibe has been altered.  The memory of a past love, relationship or some failed experience heightens inside your mind and your'e no longer shaking to the catchy beat, but reminiscing about what's already done in the past.  Your steps get softer, slower, and you get softer and slower.  And I think that is what Tico’s guitar music had done, maybe not substantially but in some aspect for Schaffer.  He altered not only the vibe to music, but also the vibe to life.