Day 63.

Quest Story
We had to pull four things out of a bag: two characters, an object, and a setting, and make it into a quest with yknow traditional dramatic structure. And stuff!

Characters: Younger brother; Retail manager
Object: A beat up guitar
Setting: Rural community
It took Jimi Hendrix twenty years to reach the stereo in the bedroom of a small house in Middleton, Tennessee. Sam Jones did not care about how many years; he was playing wild air guitar and singing like a banshee, howling until he forgot the words and had to adlib shrieks.
His brother was trying to sleep on that particular Saturday morning, so he couldn't appreciate Sam's efforts to be more unpredictable in movement than anyone had ever been. Sam gyrated. Sam headbanged. Sam laid back and pretended he was stoned, though he didn't quite know what that meant, because he was seven.
" Hendrix didn't get famous without his Fender Strat. Go get a real guitar," his brother mumbled. "And then play it somewhere else."
"A Flender Trat?" Sam was breathless with wonder. His brother said something muffled that could have been "you freak." Sam crept around, excavating all the change from the crannies of his room, then his parent's room, then the living room couch, which was especially fruitful. As he was gathering the coins into his shirt, his mom stood behind him looking—well, looking like a mom.
"Hi mom," Sam quavered. "Just being an archeologist." She smiled.
"Find any bones?" He held up a wishbone he'd found under one of the sofa cushions.
"Ewww! Go throw that out!"
Sam figured it was time to go before she got up the energy to clean. He put all his pennies and all his nickels and all his dimes and all his quarters in a big jar (dumping out the oil and vegetables that had been in there before) and started walking the long, dusty path to town and the town's only music store.
"Flender Trat," he repeated to himself, "flender trap, flendner trap, slender trap, slender trap." He was pretty sure he had it right. Almost.
He reached up to open the door of the music store. It tinkled as he walked in, drawing the attention of the store manager.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
"I would like Jimi Hendrix's slender trap," Sam said, practiced from rehearsing on the way over.
"Excuse me?" The retail manager, Albert, had not been trained on dealing with children. His general policy was to lean over and smile at them until they spoke coherently. In fact, it was partly why his wife had divorced him. Albert leaned and smiled.
"I would like Jimi Hendrix's slender trap, please." Sam held up his heavy, still oily jar of money. Albert's smile became painful. Sam tried again.
"Please, do you have the slender trap guitar? The one that Jimi Hendrix used? Thank you." It was as polite as he could manage. Albert's smile reminded him of the cat in Alice in Wonderland. Then Albert's face lit up.
"A Fender Strat? You mean a Strat" He felt like a miracle worker.
"Yes. A slender trap."
"Young man, I'm guessing you don't have a thousand dollars?"
"I have a billion pennies."
"I'm not sure that's quite true."
"It is."
Albert looked around. The store was completely empty, aside from the one guy who permanently sat at the in-store drum set, staring woefully at the cymbals and the toms.
"How can you not have a Fender Trap?"
"We do, bu—" Albert stopped himself. He was having a moment. Inside his head, it was 1969 and he was sitting in his dark bedroom, hearing his crappy radio blast Hendrix at full volume.
Sam Jones was staring around the store. Drumset Guy was so pleased to have someone watch him he tried a cymbal crash. Albert turned.
"Drumset G—I mean Fred?"
"Yeah man, what's up?"
"Do you have a guitar you don't want anymore?"
"I mean sure, I guess. It's at Debbie's house though." Drumset Guy shuddered but put down the sticks. "Debbie is my violent ex-wife. Alright, let's bail." He swung his backpack in a giant arc, landing on his shoulder. "Albert, come on, man!"
Albert checked the store again. No one. "O-okay, I guess. Where's your car?"
"Don't have one. Girl dropped me off here."
"Well what are we going to do with--." Albert gestured to Sam.
"Bring him!"
"Is that even vaguely lega—"
Sam realized they were talking about him. "I'm coming with you guys!" He ran out to the parking lot. "SHOTGUN!" he yelled, and jumped in the back. Albert and Drumset guy stared at each other.
"Uh kid that's not really how shotgun works…"
"Hey does he have his seatbelt on?" Drumset Guy asked.
"Do you have your seatbelt on?" Albert had to ask back.
"Maybe."
Albert started driving.
"Okay right now left. You missed it. That's okay. Make a left up here—oh you missed that one too. Uhhhh just turn around."
"I can't turn around, there's no U-turns on roads this small."
"Dude, it's just grass on the sides. You're in a car."
"Yeah well."
Sam piped up. "Will Debbie have a Fender Strat?"
"If she doesn't eat me first kid, I will give you the Fender Strat I inherited from my grandpa. I'm a drummer anyway."
Albert fell silent and then tried a heroic wheel wrenching that put the car diagonal on the bumpy dirt road. Ten minutes later, they were at Debbie's house, ringing the doorbell triumphantly. Debbie answered the door, surveyed all three of them, and punched Drumset Guy in the gut.
"And just what do you think you're doing here at my house at ten in the morning? You think you can just show up for a fucking tea party, hmmmmm?"
Drumset Guy winced. "Debbie, please, there's children!"
Debbie whacked him across the arm this time. "Oh, you and this deadbeat clerk? Yeah, children all right. No consideration, no manners, both of you raised in a barn and conceived on a tractor I'm sure—"
Drumset Guy interrupted, somehow, over the deluge of punches and kicks Debbie was aiming at him. "Debbie I just need the guitar. Can I please, please go get it. Your MAJESTY."
Debbie stared him down, and finally looked at Sam.
"I sold it." A look that might almost be regretful creeps over her face. 'Times were rough."
Drumset Guy swayed. This was below the belt.
"But… then I felt guilty and bought a cheap one."
Drumset Guy opened his mouth and closed it, and opened it again. It was clear he was trying to articulate something, rage or confusion or hurt. But then he closed it, and nodded, and went in to get it. He came out with a guitar scratched, gouged, marked up, but loved, and handed it to Sam.
Debbie watched from the doorway, looking abashed, and Albert felt like a forty-year old male Mother Teresa, miracle worker.
Sam took it as a priest takes a relic, a holy shroud, and then remembered. "Here are my moneys, Drumset Guy."
"My name is Fred," he said, and smiled.