He loved to play.Â
Most weekends, you could find him downtown with his old, beat up guitar, surrounded by a group of onlookers. He may not have been one of the greats, but he always had a following. They call it busking, he called it art.
His most important follower was a young girl, around eight years old, who looked up to him immensely. She loved her father. She would beg him to come along so she quickly became a regular as well. He would strum and sing, she would create majestic works of chalk art throughout the district. It was rare that they weren’t seen together.
That is, until it wasn’t rare.Â
One day, they vanished from the downtown landscape. They just stopped showing up. After several weekends, he finally makes his appearance, but he was alone. His entire demeanor had changed. No longer was the music upbeat. Angry verses were followed by sad, haunting melodies.Â
He no longer attracted a crowd, nor did he seek them out. The music seemed as empty as his stare. Old friends would find him and he would turn them away, providing one excuse or another for why he didn’t want company.Â
The person that admired him most no longer joined him downtown. In fact, she could no longer join him anywhere.
She was a good girl. Happy, full of life, and spunky, just as any typical eight-year-old should be. She loved her parents and would do anything to make them happy. They loved her too, especially her father. She was truly a daddy’s girl. When they weren’t playing downtown they were always doing something. They would go to festivals and visit parks and museums. He would do anything for her and always did his best to raise her well.
They struggled financially, as many families do. One day, he was working one of those odd-jobs that don’t pay very well to get by. He brought his daughter with him. They couldn’t afford to pay someone to watch her so since he was working for a friend, he figured she could tag along. She was interested in what he was doing at first but that interest waned with time. So, he did what any parent would do in the modern age and handed her his phone. Kids YouTube is a wonderful thing.
The following day he went to pick up his daughter from school only to be met by a police officer. He couldn’t pick her up, mom was on her way. Further, by emergency court order, he could no longer have access to his daughter. This also meant that his home was now off-limits as long as she lived there. They told him not to leave town as formal charges would soon be following once the District Attorney compiles and files the evidence.
He was speechless. More, he was angry, confused, and hurt.
His wife called him later. When he handed his daughter his phone to watch kids YouTube, she didn’t tell him when the app crashed. Instead, she spent some time looking around on the phone for other games to play. While she was looking, she came across a folder that contained pictures and videos of an adult nature. His wife said that she watched some of them before turning off the phone.
Not understanding, and knowing she would get in trouble for turning off YouTube, his daughter innocently asked her teacher about the video. Her teacher told the principal, who called the police.Â
It was an innocent mistake but one that would cost him his daughter, his home, and very likely his freedom for many years.
They miss each other profoundly. He made a mistake in securing private photos. Still, it was a mistake that he and his wife should have handled. Instead, in an effort to protect our youth, the laws that exist only served to destroy an innocent family.
She asks her mother to see him daily but for reasons beyond her understanding, she can not, and may not for many, many years to come. So now, as he waits, he thinks of her and plays his sad, somber music, remembering.Â
