I was driving through Westlake and on my way to visit when Nathaniel Anthony Ayers attacked me at his nursing home.
my god. Has 20 years been gone?
It’s hard to believe, but yes.
The year was 2005. As I recall, it was about noon on a drizzling winter day. I listened to music on Pershing Square, followed the sounds and found him next to a shopping cart piled up with his belongings.
Steve Lopez
Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a columnist for the Los Angeles Times since 2001. He has won over 12 National Journalism Awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.
And that began: Mr. Ayers had a violin that had missed two strings. With his notebook, he tried to navigate the mental health system where thousands of people nibble for themselves on the streets of Los Angeles, knowing this Cleveland-born genius.
Neither of us could know where we were heading together for the next few years. Go to Disney Hall. In the Hollywood bowl. Go to Dodger Stadium. To the beach. To the White House. With his shoulders bulging, his cymbals crashing down, riding the waves of what Mr. Ires calls God’s music, into a start and stop opera series.
“Can you believe we’ve been friends for 20 years?” I told him during my visit a week ago.
He was locked in a hip injury and looked up eccentrically from the bed. He wasn’t math, but it couldn’t be fought – we took the breaking news train in the 50s and 70s. He smiled and when we met he said, “On the street, homeless, playing a violin with two strings.”
Former President Barack Obama will shake hands with Nathaniel Ayers at an event commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Law Act in 2010.
(White House)
That was the heading of the first column. “The violinist has a world in two strings,” refers to his unwavering love for music despite his plight. He said he performed near the Beethoven statue in Persing Square for inspiration. And the sign on his shopping cart said “Little Walt Disney Concert Hall.”
Mr. Ayers was what I call him, and he called me Mr. Lopez – reminding me of my reaction to the first column I wrote about him. Soon afterwards, six readers sent him the violin, two others gave him a cello, one donated the piano we put his name at the door and at the homeless service agency now known as people’s concerns, and we donated the piano we carried to the music room of the Skid’s queue.
It took him a year to persuade him to move indoors. He taught me a lot during that time. It is mainly about how every individual in his shoes has a set of needs and fear, and a complex history of trauma and stigmatization. Such people often suffer from disjointed multiple care systems.
Through Mr. Ayers, I met countless dedicated civil servants in the field of mental health. They do difficult and noble jobs every day, provide comfort and change their lives. But the need is extremely complicated by the street drugs that some people use for self-medication, and despite investments in solutions worth billions of dollars, progress is often hampered by multiple forces.
John Shelin, former chief of the LA County Mental Health Department, said that good work is done because many bureaucracy often thwarts and erodes the morale of frontline workers.
“We live in a world where people are paid to serve, whether or not it affects them, and claims become the main agenda for the bureaucrats and all of them,” said Sherin, a psychiatrist who endured similar frustration when he was in the veterans administration. “We are looking after the process and not taking care of the outcome.”
According to Shelin, the goal should be to create a safe living environment that provides what he calls three PS (people, location, purpose): a proper resource for housing and support.
Over the past 20 years, many have stepped up to provide those things to Mr. Ayers, with varying degrees of success and lacking either heartbreak or hope. His sister Jennifer is his guardian and longtime family friend Bobby Whitbeck checks him in, as is his long Aggie classmate Joe Russo. Gary Foster, who produced the film “The Soloist,” based on my book of the same name, has served Ayers and many others for years as an executive of people’s concerns.
In 2005, Peter Snyder, then a Raphil Harmony Cello player, offered to give Mr. Ayers a lesson. They took place in the apartment where he ultimately lived.
After the first column on Nathaniel Ayers, six readers sent him the violin, two others gave him a cello, and one donated the piano.
(Rick Loomis/Los Angeles Times)
Adam Crane, who was in communication at Rafil at the time, opened the Disney Hall door to Mr. Ayers and reintroduced it into the musicians’ community. Pianist Joan Pierce Martin, cellist Benjon and violinist Vijay Gupta have become friends with Mr. Ayers and played music with him.
One night, at Disney Hall, Crane and Hon took us behind the scenes after a concert, so Mr. Ayers was reunited with a former Gilliard classmate under the name Yo-Yoma.
“Nathaniel… had an incredible, life-changing impact on me,” said Crane, who is now at the New York Philharmonic.
“I often talked about the power of life-changing music, but I have never experienced it as deeply and passionately as the time I spent with Nathaniel. From the first time I met him in 2005, when he played my cello (his joy, and his past training, sparkling) in my office – until the year he followed, I saw him prevailed. Pure love – music for his happiness and survival.”
I knew there was an immediate bond between Crane and Ayers, but I didn’t know the complete story until later.
“There was an immediate connection,” Crane explained. “As well as sharing our love for music, each of us has appeared in the fight against mental illness. Nathaniel helped shape our understanding of mental illness and the human condition, and he deepened my perspective on what music means to people.”
I visited Mr. Ayers a few weeks ago with one of his former social workers, Anthony Ruffin. Ayers has always been not Ruffin’s easiest client. At one point, Ayers “dismissed” Ruffin, just as he “dismissed” Ruffin’s leader, Molly Rory. However, Ruffin is a skilled observer who saw the true nature of a man through a mask, inspired by the resilience he witnessed.
“There’s a lot going on in the world. Meet and talk to Nathaniel and it makes the world look perfect,” Ruffin said. “When he tells me, he always gives me a little insight into life in general. And I am humbled by his presence. I am very humbled.”
Mr. Ayers has a lot of things he can complain about. Being homeless for many years has hit his body, and for the past few years, hip and hand injuries have prevented him from playing his violin, cello, keyboards, double bass and trumpet.
Nathaniel Ayers plays the cello during a brief mission in the hospital.
(Steve Lopez/Los Angeles Times)
However, when I asked on my last visit how he would describe the last 20 years, he didn’t hesitate.
“It’s fine,” he said hilariously.
We talked about our visit to the White House. He appeared on the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, met then-president Obama, and sported the white suits and top hats he bought from a suit outlet in Hollywood. And we talked about his reunion with Yo-Yo Ma.
Mr. Ayers remembers refusing to get out of my car one night until the last note of Sibelius Symphony No. 2 was played on my radio. I remember in my New York apartment, where he said he practiced Tchaikovsky’s serenade for his upright bass strings, watching him snow fall outside his window. I remember the night of Skidrow when he grabbed two sticks with Beethoven and Brahms’ names on it before falling asleep. He said the stick taps would be scattered as mice emerge from the sewer.
Ever since I happened to meet him 20 years ago, he has given me a deeper understanding of patience, patience, humility, loyalty and love. He reminds us that humanity and grace are shared in opening ourselves to that abundance beyond the first impressions, stereotypes, and boundaries we build.
To Mr. Ayers, even through all the difficulties and disappointments he faced, he pointed to the radio next to his bed, which was constantly adjusted to 91.5 on the FM dial.
“Listen to the music,” he said.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
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