In my house lies an old bass guitar with its frets knocked off. My friend Liby left it at my place a week before he died.
He was soft-spoken, did not smoke or drink -- not even coffee. He never came to anyone's house without a gift -- a packet of chips, some nice bread, a fruit juice pack, some cake. He was never without a smile.
That day he just came with the bass.
He could not carry the guitar. He had the auto driver bring it up. I was rather surprised. I did not know.
I first met Liby a couple of years ago. We were both music-starved. We had both given up playing to earn an easier life -- he as a freelance graphic designer, me as a word worker. We were both desperate to play music; what kind did not matter. We were both crazy about jazz-rock, and we both loved Jaco Pastorius, the man who had first knocked off the frets of his Fender Jazz to revolutionize the bass guitar -- and music -- with his sound.
And Liby was a Raelian -- part of a cult that believes extraterrestrial beings created life on earth and that cloning is a way to live forever.
That was the only thing out of the ordinary about Liby. Apart from his soulful bass playing.
I was meeting him that day after about two months. He looked scary. I asked him what was wrong. He said he was ill. I asked him if he had seen a doctor, if he had got some tests done. They don't know, he said. He was recovering, he said.
I wasn't convinced. I wanted to know what had happened. It was evident something had.
I did not know Liby very well. All I knew was that he gave guitar lessons and freelanced for some small advertising agencies. All I knew was that he lived alone and his father and brother lived somewhere in the city. All I knew was that I loved his bass playing.
We would play together on most weekends. My stuttering computer, me and him. Sometimes, we would record. And name the tunes. I called one of mine Rusty Strings, he wrote Lament for the Third World. We would talk about finding a drummer and recording the tunes properly in a studio. How we could go about making people listen to them. I put up a couple of the poorly home-recorded tunes on the Internet. Some people even liked them, thanks to shameless self-promotion.
That day, Liby was not himself. He was impatient, almost aggressive. He even found something wrong with the food. He usually loved my wife's cooking, and ate heartily every time he came to our house.
He was just talking a lot. He wanted to play a concert, fast. I told him I was going to New York on work. He almost chided me for wasting time.
I was more worried about his health. I was worried he was not earning enough money and that he could not afford to see a doctor. I wondered how to offer to take him to one. I did not know him too well; we did not speak too much about anything but music.
He left the guitar behind, despite me telling him again that I would be away for three months. I patted his shoulder and told him to take care.
In New York, I saw a great Jaco Pastorius t-shirt. I wanted to buy one for Liby. I didn't, I don't know why.
When I got back last week, I called him. I wanted him to come over and check out the dream guitar I had bought in New York. But his phone said 'out of service.'
Then I got a call from a mutual friend Atin, who told me Liby had died. He had been living with HIV since 1999.
"Oh AIDS." I can hear underlines in people's voices when I hear the words now.
If only they knew Liby. If only they had heard him play.
In my house lies his bass, with the frets knocked off. I think I need to get it restrung.
