43 pages • 1 hour read
The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship
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Part 2: Chapters 13-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Chapter 13 Summary
This chapter examines the harsh conditions and “human wreckage” (127) of Skid Row that Lopez continues to write about. Lopez goes on a ride along with paramedics late one night to Skid Row, where they have been called to take care of a 25-year-old woman who overdosed. Lopez stops in to see Ayers, who is sleeping in the Lamp courtyard. Lopez rides back with the paramedics, and they take the woman into the emergency room, but she does not survive.
A few nights later, Lopez notices a woman named T.J., a sex worker, crying because one of her clients has just died in an outhouse where she works. The outhouses are used for sex work and sometimes for housing.
Lopez receives a call from the mayor, Anthony Villaraigosa, in response to the articles he has been writing about Skid Row. The mayor comes to meet Lopez on Skid Row and speaks to many of the people there. By the end of the next week, the mayor “adds Skid Row to his fix-it list” (132). He plans to add funding to housing and services for the area.
Part 2, Chapter 14 Summary
Lopez reflects on his continued frustration with Ayers’s situation. He is still un-medicated and sleeping on the streets. One day, Lopez rides a bus with Casey Horan and Shannon Murray, executives at Lamp. They are with members of the state commission and attempting to figure out how to spend $1 billion on mental health services. Lopez is of the opinion that forcible treatment might be the only option for Ayers. Murray and Horan disagree, arguing that Ayers once refused to come to Lamp and is now spending almost every day there. They believe more money should be given to fund projects like Lamp and the Village.
Lamp has reserved an apartment for Ayers in the Ballington, a building where other people in recovery reside. However, Ayers refuses to take up residence in the apartment. Lopez grows frustrated with their relationship and believes that something has to change. On another night, Lopez and Ayers walk back from Disney Hall together. Ayers stops in a garden to urinate.
Part 2, Chapter 15 Summary
Lopez tries to “seduce” (140) Ayers into using the apartment in the Ballington reserved for him by Lamp. Peter Snyder of the L.A.Philharmonic offers to gives Ayers free cello lessons. The deal is that Snyder will give Ayers lessons in the apartment, and Lopez hopes this will bring Ayers closer to actually moving in.
Lopez takes Ayers to the apartment to get used to it before his lesson. Lopez goes into the room while Ayers plays in the courtyard. Other residents stop to listen to him play. Finally, Lopez cajoles Ayers into entering the apartment, and Ayers insists on taking his shopping cart. The room is “small and modest” (146), and has some cigarette burns in the carpet. Ayers continues to express his reluctance to live here, saying her prefers to live outside. Eventually he sits on the bed and plays his cello.
Part 2, Chapter 16 Summary
This chapter traces Ayers’s childhood and adolescence in Cleveland, Ohio. As a young boy, he witnesses “signs of trouble” from his father, such as his father smashing the phone and taking along a “lady friend” (149) in the car. In 1962, Ayers’s father leaves for California on a plane when Ayers is 11. Ayers wants to go live with his father and is confused as to why he left. Soon after, his mother remarries, and the family moves. The new husband, Alexander Mangrum, has four children, and Ayers must adjust to them. Ayers tries to convince his two sisters to run away with him, but they refuse.
Ayers grows more confident as a teenager, and Lopez notes: “He was cute and smart and the personality was coming back” (153). He takes weekly piano lessons. In high school, he encounters William Moon, a trombone player and head of the high school band. Moon sees promise in Ayers and encourages him. When Ayers sees Moon’s daughter play the cello, he decides he wishes to do so as well. Ayers excels and soon begins taking lessons at the Music School Settlement. He is taught by Harry Barnoff.
Part 2, Chapters 13-16 Analysis
These chapters continue to focus on the theme of socio-economic and racial inequality. Lopez devotes page space to descriptions of Skid Row, which he dubs a “rock bottom depository” (123). It is a locus of homelessness, drug use, and sex work. Lopez notes of the prostitution: “First, there’s a police station one block away. Second, the prostitutes do their business in outhouses” (123). To Lopez, it seems as if very few people, aside from those at Lamp and the Village, are doing anything about the poverty that exists in this area of Los Angeles.
Lopez’s character continues to develop in relation to these issues. He still feels as if he is not helping Ayers sufficiently since he continues to make his home on Skid Row. He decides to use his art and his craft to make a difference and wants to “tell people what Nathaniel is up against” (124).To this end, he writes a series of articles depicting the state of life on Skid Row. These articles have an impact, and the mayor of Los Angeles takes note. The mayor comes down to Skid Row and promises to add cleaning up the area to his initiatives. Lopez questions whether the mayor will follow through but considers his ability to raise consciousness positive.
Lopez also continues to question his involvement with Ayers on a personal level: “I wonder if I’m the one, not Nathaniel, who needs to have his head examined” (125). Here, he is aware of the fact that his continued involvement with Ayers could be problematic. Lopez is disrupting his life to attend to Ayers’s needs, and much of his efforts go unappreciated or thwarted. He expresses his frustration by saying, “I’m beginning to feel as though something’s got to give. And I know it can’t be my job or my time with family” (136). In this way, Lopez recognizes that his current state of life is not sustainable.
These chapters also continue their exploration of mental illness. Lopez continues to struggle with which recovery model to adopt—forced treatment or a more passive approach. Ayers continues to thwart Lopez’s and Lamp’s efforts. However, there is a breakthrough when Ayers consents to visit the apartment in the Ballington. Lopez hopes that the lessons he has there with Snyder will encourage him to take up residence there, marking a significant change in Ayers’s life.
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