The Best Elevator Music

by Franco Bertucci

I was standing in an elevator at the hospital. I happened to be holding a guitar. A man in a wheelchair came into the elevator, along with some other folks. He had tatoos shaped like big teardrops that ran, from the corner of one eye, down his cheek. Those tatoos reflected the kind of day it was. He looked at my guitar. He looked at me. Then he said, "Well, can you play it?"

There was a slight pause. Then I played and sang (with a bit of a swagger) one verse of "The Hokey Pokey." I ended with, "You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around, until the elevator opens up." And then it did. Everyone chuckled and someone said it was the best elevator music he'd ever heard.

And I felt a little better.

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Poems and other embarrassing things. 2012 Franco Bertucci