In this creative non-fiction series, staff writer Dean DiLuzio takes you on his journey to Florida, where a chance meeting turned an otherwise ordinary night into a symphony of music and friendship.

He was smoking a cigarette, and he wasn’t fusing his lips to some metal contraption of nicotine emission. He was smoking an actual cigarette. The ones bad for your health. So I asked him for one, and then we started talking.

A month later I had found my words musically, but I had not found the sounds. I could sing karaoke, I could sing the songs of others. Him and I would have fun doing this. He did his own thing often, hell he even makes a living doing it to this day with record deals, and frequent bookings at independent scene type venues up North these days.

What impressed me the most was the wide array of instruments he had, the creativity. His car was packed with every instrument, ranging from keyboard to tambourine. I couldn’t name you most of the things in that car, again I’m just a karaoke enthusiast not a musician. I was fortunate to know one, however.

Our friendship continued and developed, the karaoke was done just for shits and giggles because I would get bored sitting in the crowd doing nothing. There were a few times I got to meet the bands he was headlining with.

One night he told me, “It’s alright, you’re a writer, not a musician.” No one knew me any better. While I enjoyed semi decently singing Mrs. Robinson while he jammed out on his instruments at places with psychedelic carpet backdrops, I didn’t enjoy it as a means of expression. I only saw it as a way of having a little fun with one of my buddies. What I enjoyed more in our friendship was our talks. What I deeply enjoyed was the musicality to our exchange of words, the verbal symphony often was applauded with our own laughter.

For a good deal of time, I was on the borders of his world. He knew I wrote but I never went into further detail, remaining vague was key in evading having to open my words up to critique. I was always working on something, or there was always some little thing I didn’t want to jinx; or so the story went.