The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship

It takes Ayers a month to get to Lamp to play his instruments. Lopez goes to see Ayers play in the courtyard. After Ayers finishes playing, Lopez calls Ayers’s sister, Jennifer, and the two speak for the first time in years. Ayers speaks with a fellow Lamp inmate, Carol, who also struggles with mental health issues. She reveals some of her paranoid tendencies, such as thinking “I was getting message from the TV” (44).

Lopez also gives background on Mollie Lowery, the founder of Lamp. She retires around the time Lopez meets Ayers. She began Lamp in 1985 when she “noticed a sudden explosion of mentally ill people wandering the streets” (45). She decides to create Lamp, “a welcoming place without judgment, a place where clients could be themselves in a setting without expectation or rigid rules” (46). Ayers admires her work as well as her encouragement surrounding Ayers.

Ayers finishes playing and does not return to Lamp for another three days. He plays again, but this time he takes his instruments with him when he is done.