The No-Guitar Blues

“The No-Guitar Blues” by Mexican American poet and author Gary Soto is a short story that uses one boy’s experiences during a single day to explore the themes of Following One’s Conscience, Effects of Socioeconomic Disparities, and Longing for the Unattainable. First published as part of the collection Baseball in April and Other Stories in 1990, the story follows Fausto, a young Mexican American boy living in California who struggles to earn money to buy a guitar. The story was adapted into a short film in 1991.

Soto has written both poetry and fiction for juvenile and adult audiences. He is best known for his fiction for younger readers, such as the novels Buried Onions, Taking Sides, Living Up the Street, and Baseball in April. Baseball in April won the California Library Association’s Beatty Award and was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Its 11 short stories revolve around Mexican American characters undergoing the trials posed by youth and limited means in Fresno, California. Soto’s writing is characterized by his ability to communicate larger ideas through the “small moments” of everyday living, often illuminating the obstacles faced by Latino youth in the process.

This guide refers to “The No-Guitar Blues” as published in the 1990 Clarion Books edition of Baseball in April and Other Stories.

“The No-Guitar Blues” uses third-person limited point of view and follows Fausto, the young protagonist. The story opens with Fausto’s dilemma: He desperately wants a guitar so that he can become a professional musician like the rock group Los Lobos, who just played a spectacular set on American Bandstand. Fausto knows that he faces two hurdles: His parents cannot afford a guitar, and they dislike rock music.

Fausto asks his mom outright for a guitar, and she replies as he predicted, saying that guitars cost a lot of money and “we’ll see.” Undaunted, he decides to earn the money on his own by mowing lawns but soon realizes that no one will hire him during the winter. He then pursues his next idea, taking a rake and his sister’s bike to rake leaves for money. After three hours of job hunting, he ends up with only a soiled quarter as payment for running one errand.

Fausto sits on a curb, eating an orange and thinking about his next move. A small terrier approaches and gulps down the piece of orange peel that Fausto offers. As Fausto continues feeding the dog pieces of orange, he hatches a new plan: He will return this “fancy dog” (named Roger) to its owners and tell them that he found it near the freeway. Fausto hopes that the dog’s owners, whom he assumes are wealthy, will offer him a reward. Though Fausto feels a twinge of guilt about lying, he justifies it to himself, thinking, “[T]he dog was loose” and “[I]t might even really be lost, because the address was six blocks away” (Paragraph 18).

Fausto lures Roger with pieces of orange peel and leads him home. When a man in a silk robe answers the door, Fausto tells the story he has concocted. The man looks at Fausto for a long time and then invites him in, playfully scolding the dog. Fausto steps inside and is awed by the sights and smells of the couple’s home, “with its shiny furniture and a television as large as the front window at home,” as well as “warm bread smells” and “music full of soft tinkling” (Paragraph 24).

The man introduces Faust to Helen, his wife, who has “one of the softest voices Fausto ha[s] ever heard” (Paragraph 25). Fausto shares his story and tells the couple that he lives near a vacant lot. The couple shares a look, and then Helen offers Fausto a warm turnover, which Fausto compares to an empanada. Fausto then claims that he needs to get home, and as he walks to the door, the man offers Fausto a $20 bill for returning Roger. Though Fausto initially refuses it, the man and his wife insist that he take it. He immediately feels guilty about his lie, although he does momentarily consider spending the money on a secondhand guitar.

The next morning, Fausto rises early, gets dressed, and goes to church. In the pew, his guilt eats away at him, to the point that he believes Father Jerry knows what he did and is preaching directly to him. He drops the $20 bill into the collection basket, which earns looks of surprise from nearby adults. Fausto even puts the dirty quarter he earned raking leaves into the second collection basket.

Fausto’s conscience is clear after church. He plays an excellent game of basketball, tearing his “good pants” in the process and musing that he could have bought a new pair of jeans with the money he gave away. After this moment of doubt about his actions, Fausto decides to forget about the guitar. He plays soccer the next day and then sits down to dinner with his family. His mom suddenly remembers seeing an old bass guitarrón in her father’s basement and suggests that Fausto should have it.

Ecstatic, Fausto receives the guitarrón from his grandpa, Lupe, who teaches him where to place his fingers on the strings. Though the instrument seems fairly complicated, Fausto is “confident that after a few more lessons he c[an] start a band that w[ill] someday play on ‘American Bandstand’ for the dancing crowds” (Paragraph 63). With the instrument in hand, he reflects that this is the best day of his life, a “pumpkin smile widen[ing] on his face” (Paragraph 61).