"I can't play it anymore," Silas said, his fingers gnarled like oak roots. "And it’s a loud bird. It doesn’t like sitting still."

Leo found the ad on a Tuesday:

He met the seller, an old man named Silas, in a garage that smelled of vacuum tubes and sawdust. When Silas opened the battered tweed case, Leo didn't see a pristine instrument. He saw a roadmap of every dive bar and basement show the bass had survived. It was covered in faded neon stars and "Support Your Local Scene" stickers, the finish worn down to the bare wood where a forearm had rested for decades.