Friday October 2nd was just one of those days. I quit my job about a month ago, resolving to abandon the life of the worker bee and scrape together some sort of living—albeit impoverished—out of my own talents and inspiration. Which, in the end, means that I’m totally fucking broke.

So when I sat at a long light on Beacon street in Boston, with a cop car right on my ass, I sat there silently humming Bruce Springsteen’s State Trooper to myself. The light took forever, and when it turned, I started moving. In less than ten seconds I was pulled over against the curb.

I’m a disorganized person. I lose things. My room is a mess. I don’t use a calendar. I don’t balance my checkbook. I don’t pay parking tickets till I get the boot. I don’t know what it is, but it’s in my nature. I’ve been the same way since I was a little creep running around Fifth Avenue Elementary school. And the sick thing is that I recognize it. I recognize it but I’m still powerless to do anything about it. It’s caused me some fairly serious problems in my life, but I’ve also come to accept it in some strange way, which at least motivates me to make some sort of attempt at keeping it from completely fucking me up.

Well, this obviously wasn’t one of those times. The copper took my license and registration, and went back to his car to do his business. The reason for the stop is that my registration sticker was not on my rear plate. I had another one on my front plate. The rear one either fell off or was stolen. Which apparently happens, I’m told. The cop approached my car with his hand on his gun and a serious look on his face. I knew I was fucked.

“Step out of the car sir.”

Within the space of that statement I put it all together. An unpaid speeding ticket from the great state of New Hampshire last December caused a suspension of my driving privileges in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which, according to the officer, was two weeks before we met one another while he searched my pockets on Beacon street. I never got the notice, but didn’t really bother pleading my case with the officer. The reason I hadn’t gotten the notice is because I’m too fucking disorganized to update my mail forwarding when I move—and have moved twice in the space of that time.

I asked if I was being arrested, and he said that No, I wasn’t. We sat around talking for about thirty minutes, waiting for a tow truck to come and repossess my rig for the space of a few hours until I could have one of my friends come down with me and retrieve it.

He’s asking me questions. Mother’s name. Mother’s maiden name. Father’s name. Place of residence. Social Security Number. Phone Number. Landlord’s name and address. Finally he pops the question: Place of employment?

I steeled my lips and stared directly into his eyes. This is the moment of truth.

“Self-employed.”

He eyed me suspiciously: “What work do you do?”

“I’m a musician.”

And suddenly there I am, under the eyes of this officer something of a bum, some delusional freeloader probably under the influence of drugs, not to be trusted. But I had to say it, if only to prove to myself that I was able to take this new life of mine seriously, though it felt somewhat akin to saying I was an unemployed high-school dropout. An education worth $200,000 and three generations of uptight American upbringing had somehow amounted to this.

Flash forward to Monday. I took the 86 bus out to Sullivan Square, and hopped the T to State street. I climbed six flights of stairs and presented myself before the Court, and scheduled a hearing before the Clerk Magistrate to try to avoid a misdemeanor charge, which, after the cop softened after feeling bad for me (or more likely, my parents) was very possible provided I took the initiative to satisfy the State of New Hampshire, which I did immediately. As I left the courthouse into the open expanse of government center I wondered whether I should hang it all up and punch my ticket to law school. I rode back to Sullivan Square, tired, head in my hands.

I started walking to our rehearsal studio, out on the Charlestown docks. As I walked a wind whipped in off the water, and the sun set over the water with no particular great show of colors. There were no cars for a moment, just the wind and my feet pounding the pavement, the metronome to a slow, bluesy melody that began ruminating in my brain. Soon it overtook my tongue and I began humming out loud, patting syncopated beats on my thighs.

The pains of the past days faded as I realized that this life—be it happy or hard or dismal or sad or lonely or euphoric or lovely or any other of the myriad fleeting emotions we call consciousness—is only mere inspiration for the chase after that sound, that music that has been ringing through my head for the whole of my life. And, regardless of whether or not life is brutal or content at any given moment, if that lonely melody is all I have to show for it, I’ll sing it raw until the notes are cemented in my marrow.

A smile crept across my face: I’m a musician, I said aloud, for the first time believing myself. It has nothing to do with you. These notes my fingers find are only points of interest in the timeline of my life, and these intervals, be they up or down, are slowly forming the harmony that will make that life somewhat more livable.

That doesn’t mean I don’t want you to join me. Please come along.

Especially if you can loan me $250.

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