When I was in my twenties, I lived in a small rental house in Hollywood.
I was an agent trainee in the mailroom at a Hollywood talent agency.
The pay was terrible by design. Their philosophy was that if you couldn’t survive, you didn’t want it bad enough.
Somehow, I was doing fine.
From the outside, my life looked charmed.
That little house on Sierra Bonita became a kind of clubhouse.
Assistants, actors, musicians, wanderers. People drifted in and out all weekend.
The center of it all was the living room.Guitars on the walls. A drum kit that grew piece by donated piece.
No rules.
If you could play, great. If you couldn’t, even better.
Some of the most electric moments of my twenties happened in that room.
At one point during a long, wandering jam, I looked up. Twenty people. Some I knew. Some I didn’t. One guy banging a pot with a wooden spoon. A girl shaking a peanut can.
No one performing. No one watching.
Just… in it.
For a few minutes, the line between band and audience disappeared.
Time dropped out.
Something real was happening, and everyone could feel it.
I didn’t realize it then, but I liked creating spaces like that.
Places where people could just be.
One afternoon I was in the front yard when a homeless man slowly limped up the sidewalk toward me, dragging his lame left leg behind him.
He was an older black man, maybe late fifties. Hard to tell.
His clothes were worn but clean. He carried a tattered grocery bag with spray paint cans in it.
“Paint your address on your trash cans for you?”
The city had recently sent a notice to residents that numbers had to be on cans.
Not a bad hustle, I thought.
“How much?”
“Three cans five bucks.”
“Each?”
“Total.”
“Shit. You’ve got a deal.”
I didn’t expect much.
For the next thirty minutes, I watched this man work with the precision of a neurosurgeon.
In spite of his pronounced handicaps.
He carefully laid the stencils in a laser-straight line then meticulously taped around them.
He feathered the spray paint lightly.
One coat. Then another. Then another.
Then he pulled the tape and stencils off.
Flawless.
The numbers looked like they were printed on the cans at the factory.
He smiled proudly. I handed him twenty dollars.
He tried to refuse but I insisted.
As he pocketed the money, he glanced past me through the open front door to my house.
“That a drum kit you got yourself in there?”
“Sure is. You play?”
“Ooooooh,” he said, stretching the word out. “I used to play a little bit,” a twinkle in his eye.
“Come on in. Let’s play.”
He held up his hands. Gnarled and curled tight with arthritis.
“Don’t know if I still can.”
“Only one way to find out.”
He hesitated politely before stepping inside.
As he sat down, I handed him a pair of drumsticks. He had trouble gripping them at first but finally found a hold he could work with.
I didn’t expect much.
What happened next changed me.
He warmed up like a seasoned jazz musician. Not with loud show-off rolls. Not with the pounding chaos most people jump into when they sit at a drum kit.
Loose wrists. Light touches.
Control. Precision. Timing.
Soul.
My heart started racing. I grabbed a guitar.
For the next two and a half hours we played.
Whatever I threw at him, he met effortlessly.
Rock. Blues. Half-formed ideas.
He wasn’t keeping up. He was elevating. Everything.
His name was Tony.
And he was a master.
When he finally stood to leave, I told him he was welcome back anytime he was in the neighborhood.
He paused at the door and looked around the room nodding.
“You ain’t got a keyboard.”
“No, I don’t. Sadly.”
“You need a keyboard.”
Yeah. I said. I know.
And with that, the master left.
A couple of weeks later, Tony returned.
That second session was pure magic.
Now that we knew each other, Tony unleashed his full ability and for me and time disappeared.
As evening settled, I offered him a ride downtown where he had told me he lived.
He asked for a ride just four blocks west instead.
He told me that the day he had painted my cans, he did the same for one of the sprawling mansions on North Orange Grove .
Only difference was the guy in the mansion told him to come back another time to collect his five dollars.
We drove the short distance to the massive house.
I stayed in the car as Tony slowly limped up the winding walkway to the front door. He knocked softly. The door opened.
He stood there for a moment then nodded a few times and slowly shuffled back.
“We good?”
“Oooooooh, he said come back again in a few weeks. He ain’t got it right now.”
Something in me snapped.
Five dollars.
Tony had already done the work. Every step cost him something.
And a man in a multimillion-dollar home still wouldn’t hand him five dollars.
‘Wait here.’
When I knocked on the door, a nebbish little turd with round wire spectacles opened it.
“Can I help you?”
“I want to let you know that I’m buying your debt to that man. Which means you now owe me money. Except it’s gone from five to twenty. I’ll be back in thirty minutes to collect my money.”
I returned to the car, handed Tony twenty bucks and drove him to the bus station - he wouldn’t let me take him all the way downtown.
When I got back to the house on North Orange Grove, I found an envelope taped to the front door with the words “Mr. Man” written on it.
Inside were two crisp twenties.
I felt something different inside of me as I walked away.
It wasn’t pride. It was something else.
Quieter. Cleaner.
For the first time, I understood what strength was for.
Not status. Not dominance. Not ego.
For me, in that moment, I realized strength exists to correct injustices.
However small. However big.
Especially when the person on the receiving end can’t.
Strength exists so a man like Tony doesn’t have to fight battles he can’t win.
You step in.
Not loudly. Not performatively.
Just. . . decisively.
A few days later I opened my front door to leave for work.
Sitting on my stoop was a full-sized 88-key keyboard.
Used, but perfect.
Heavy enough that carrying it across Los Angeles must have been brutal.
Tony had managed it anyway.
I never saw him again.
But he taught me more than I realized at the time.
He taught me that life destroys a lot of talented men.
Heartbreak. Addiction. Trauma. Bad luck. Illness. War.
But skill and soul do not always die with their circumstances.
He taught me that strength isn’t something you build for yourself.
You build it so that you can protect others.
A man should build strength everywhere he can.
Physical strength so he can protect.
Financial strength so he can stabilize.
Emotional strength so others feel safe around him.
Different forms. Same purpose.
Protection.
