Michael’s not quite a friend of mine but more like an acquaintance, an extended member of the group I sometimes go around with, and he made a big to-do last year about putting on a solo music show at a dive bar in Wynwood, just him and his guitar and a few new songs he’d written over the course of a year. He bought Facebook ads and made flyers to promote the show. He was eager for a crowd but, at the same time, so convinced of his talents that he implemented a door charge. Ten dollars.

            About twenty people showed up. Mostly his family. Five or six friends. He’d rented the place out at exorbitant cost so it was already off to a bad start.

            The show was awful. He flubbed his lyrics, couldn’t carry a tune, played the guitar horribly.

            Friends conferred by the bar during intermission.

            “Do we tell him?”

            Murmurs, nervous chuckles, touching of brows.

            A group convo on Instagram the next day seemed primed to really sit him down, intervention-style, and say something to discourage the myriad sacrifices he was planning to make in pursuit of a music career.

            We never did confront him though.

            A year went by.

            Yesterday I ran into him for the first time since that show. He’s gained maybe twenty pounds and he hasn’t dropped outta school, as he’d been saying he would. He high-fived me and popped his brow and told me he was in love.

            We talked for ten minutes and he never mentioned the music.

            Made me wonder if it would ever really have been my place to discourage him, or to even be honest with him about his talent or lack thereof. Kinda glad we never moved in on him like we’d planned.