Metti, with that thick-headedness only he could possess, figured Reajh was as good a place as any for him to play for the evening. It had not occured to him that he, dripping with magic, would be an obvious target for any locals. Walking the street, steel resonator slung over his back, pedestrians gave him a wide derth. He pretended not to notice. A lit, hand-wrapped cigarette hung from one lip as he searched, like a dog sniffing out cooking meat, for the sound of music that floated through the street. He saw another bard, with him an angel-faced child. The man's playing wasn't bad, in fact it was technically flawless, with a graceful legato. But to Metti's own ear it stunk of flavor-of-the-month stylings. He's just playin' through the motions now. Time to give the people a show.
In the sense of competition, Metti sat down directly across from his fellow guitarist on a barrel, placed the glass slide on his pinkie finger, the cigarette in one of the string-trees and started his way into a 12-bar pentatonic run, putting the guitar through its paces. He stopped for a moment, checking the intonation as several pedestrians stopped seemingly dumbstruck by his flamboyant dress and esoteric playing. He began now to play a shuffle, adding plentiful slide licks between smokey lines of vocal melody,
"If you see me comin' open up your door
If you see me comin' open up your door
I'll give you more lovin' than any man before,"
His thumb continued hitting the shuffle melody while his remaining fingers soloed over it, in stuttering bursts and slow slide wails...
"When I hit your door, better treat me right
When I hit your door, better treat me right
Oh, I need you baby, got no time to-
Got no time to fight,"
Another interlude as the playing became more frenzied. Metti let himself play slightly ahead of the beat, and hit strange atonal notes with the spank of hard-plucking.
"I'll do for you, I'm gonna do for you
If you do for me, I'm gonna do for you
I'll be your man
If you ask me to,"
Metti started challenging himself, and now he began to grit his teeth as he wrung from the guitar note after note, jerking the neck as he seemed almost to be throttling it, bending it to his will for the final run along the neck.
The whole song took about three minutes, and in that time he had been swarmed by people, tossing coins into a small tin bucket he had placed at his feet. Metti exhaled as if exhausted, smiled at this other bard, then turned and thanked his newfound fans for their generous patronage.