Note: Lyrics at the end are taken from "Daddy Played the Banjo" by Steve Martin (an excellent modern bluegrass song). It is possible that the referenced episode takes place before this song would have been out, but let's just call it a deliberate anachronism if so.
Chapter 7
Scranton, PA: April 2009
As Andy drove home from Dunder-Mifflin, memories of his uncle swirled through his head. Despite having the address, Andy never tracked Dave down after that one week. As years went on, he would feel a felt a pang of sadness when he realized he had all but forgotten his uncle's face. But memories were bound to fade after seeing someone for only five days when you were ten years old.
Well, maybe not fade, but be traded for something else. Andy liked to think what he memorized about the banjo replaced what little he could remember about his uncle. Starting that Saturday back in July, Andy had worked hard to learn to play the banjo proficiently. Ultimately he'd had to do it alone. Mr. and Mrs. Bernard were always financially supportive of their sons, but they refused to pay for banjo lessons. It was hard enough for Andy to convince his father to let him keep the instrument. So Andy did what his uncle had told him. He learned the chords. He mastered the rolls. He figured out the key. Then he played what felt right.
In time, it all came together.
Through the car window's reflection, Andy caught a glimpse of himself and wondered what his uncle would say now. Short hair, shaved face, expensive tie, button down shirt, sweater vest. Loud pants. And hands that still lacked any real calluses.
From that perspective, it was obvious. Andy was definitely a Bernard on the outside, just as he was when he was ten. Sometimes he wondered if he should feel guilty about it. Dave was right: there were two parts of him, and here he was, a grown man, who still only knew half. And that was the part he had embraced. But maybe that's what you had to do sometimes.
Walking into his house, Andy immediately loosened his tie and pulled out the banjo. "Baines," he had named it in secret, because he never found out his grandfather's name and the surname seemed like a close enough homage. Maybe that was why his mother gave it to him as a middle name.
His mother. After Dave disappeared, Andy had waited for Mrs. Bernard to tell him something else, anything else, about her family. But she never did. It was as if any knowledge of the past had disappeared along with her brother. Sometimes Andy argued with himself whether or not he should have asked her straight out. But wasn't it her place, as his mother, to initiate that conversation?
Ultimately he realized his uncle was right. Mrs. Bernard had buried that part of her life and embraced something else. Which was fine, Andy thought. Because even though he didn't know those people, the Baineses, they were still with him. Every time he placed his hands on the banjo, they were with him. At least he knew it.
Andy took the instrument outside and sat in a chair, as he often did in the evenings. He started out the same as always, strumming G, C, G, C, G, C. Like a mantra or an offering. Better and faster than when he was a kid, but he felt the same excitement as the banjo resonated against his stomach. Just like that first night.
He ran a few rolls as warm-up before finally picking out a song. Today, as the sun went down and the early spring chill filled the air, he sang along. Maybe it was for himself, or maybe for his uncle, who could be anywhere or nowhere by now. His uncle, whom Andy tried to remember often, but had never seen again after those five summer days in 1983.
But I'm just telling lies about the things I did,
See I'm that banjo player who never had a kid.
Now I sit beneath that yellow tree,
Hopin' that a kid somewhere is listening to me.
Andy let the rolls and the chords take over, circling from his fingers to the strings and through the banjo and into the air before filtering out into a space that he himself could not fill. Maybe traveling far enough to where, like the song said, a child could hear him playing.
Maybe even as far as Harlan, Kentucky, to the other half of his family tree.
Now the banjo takes me back through the foggy haze,
Where memories of what never was become the good ol' days.
