From where he sat facing the bar Jeremy could see reflections in the long cracked mirror. He watched the people sitting behind him as Thorpe rose from his seat and began to sing the way he did some days.

Some other days Thorpe just recited the lyrics like one of those long-gone North Beach poets from the Beat Generation whose words now collect dust in the bookstore across the street from where Jack Kerouac used to drink.

Thorpe sang in a low growl.

“Jamie rounds the corner in his red Stingray Chevrolet, racing to another gig the guitar ghost must play. Ripping down the highway where forever music stays, Jamie rounds the corner in his red Stingray Chevrolet.”

Now in a voice deep yet soft, Thorpe took the octaves up and down with the ease of a trolley car riding the bubbled slope of a steep San Francisco hill. For the next verse he switched from singing to reciting the words.

“No one saw the sadness build behind that toothy smile,” he said. “Tearing up the coastline singing music Jamie style. No one saw the heartfelt pain he carried for a while. Cruising by the ocean making music by the mile.”

Nobody paid Thorpe any mind. Regulars figured he was just mildly mentally ill from too much acid blended with depression mixed with one or another personality disorder.

This was maybe the 20th time Jeremy saw Thorpe perform as the bartender kept going about his business washing glasses, drawing draft beers, lighting cigarettes. Some people still smoked in Dank’s whether the law banned smoking or not. Even nonsmokers put up with the thick gray poison that hung in the air. Customers considered themselves outlaws. Hang out somewhere else if you didn’t like the vibe. That’s why Thorpe felt at ease and comfortable enough to sing whether his audience liked it or not.

Now he slid back into singing the tune he wrote a few years back.

“Jamie rounds the corner in his red Stingray Chevrolet, racing to another gig the guitar ghost must play. Tearing down the highway where forever music stays, Jamie rounds the corner in his red Stingray Chevrolet.”

The song felt like a stable ballad, a melody Jeremy imagined would go best electric with a driving lead guitar, a hard rain riff good for any Bay Area day. Sometimes at night when he lay awake in bed he imagined Thorpe singing in a softer, sweeter delivery.

Thorpe eased into the next verse, picking up the pace for a solid finish.

“In Pee-Ayy and in Nashville and in Cali-for-NI-a, our guitar ghost sings rock and roll for yet another day. Paid his dues and now he’s free, he’ll always stay that way. Jamie rounds the corner in his red Stingray Chevrolet.”

By now Jeremy was nodding his head.

Thorpe wrapped it up.

“Tearing down the highway where forever music plays. In his red Stingray Chevrolet. For yet another day. Yeah, yet another day.”

Thorpe went back to quietly finish his beer, lighting a smoke and twirling large, cheap, tarnished silver rings he wore like brass knuckles on eight fingers somebody once said packed a powerful punch in the ring back when Thorpe fought as an amateur boxer. When Thorpe stood to leave, he pulled the black cape he wore around his shoulders and moved silently out the door into the shadows.

No obituary appeared when Thorpe died. Most people in Dank’s didn’t even miss him. Jeremy did. Word on the street was Thorpe shot himself in the room he rented near the beach.

Jeremy wondered if Jamie was a real person and if he was how Thorpe knew him.

The next time Jeremy stopped by Dank’s for his beer he took the seat where Thorpe always sat alone by the jukebox. He lit a cigarette from the pack he bought that morning even though he didn’t smoke. The words to the song came easily because he had practiced them at home.

Jeremy sang for Thorpe and Jamie riding in that Stingray Chevrolet.

Mostly, though, he sang for himself.