The Piano Player

Phin shook the few coins from the tin can and shoved them into his pocket. He wrapped his saxophone in some ratty cloth and carefully placed it into his knapsack before shouldering the bag and heading toward Max’s. Now that the evening dinner rush was over, Phin knew that Max would supply him with some of the leftover special, whatever that was. All Max asked in return was for Phin to play a few numbers on the old piano in the corner to entertain the late-night theater crowd. Phin didn’t mind playing if it meant a hot meal. And, once in a while, he earned a few bucks in tips, too.

Phin finished his plate of lasagna and headed toward the piano. There were only a few patrons in the restaurant at this time of the evening, a few couples scattered around the restaurant, whispering in low voices with their heads close together. He listened to the sounds coming from the kitchen. Water hissed on the grill as Marco scrubbed and scrapped. From the corner, clanking pots and silver joined the symphony as Carlos tried hard not to break any more plates or stemware. And over it all, Max’s baritone humming tunes from his youth to which the words were long forgotten. Phin smiled and lightly fingered the keys. He hadn’t noticed the young woman who had seen her date to the door and then returned to listen to the young piano player.

She was tall but soft in the middle with long dark hair that swept across her face and fell over her shoulders. She slipped into the booth just behind the piano and signaled the waiter for a drink. She sat staring at Phin’s back, willing him to turn around. But Phin was lost in his own thoughts. He usually was. She smiled at him and her eyes roved over his broad shoulders and lean back.

After a few soft ditties to warm up, Phin looked around the restaurant again. A few more tables were occupied by people fresh from the magic of the theater district with stars in their eyes. As he turned back to the piano ready to begin his repertoire, he caught the eye of the lady in the booth behind him. She smiled brightly at him and demurely lowered her lashes. Phin nodded a greeting in her direction and slowly turned back to the keys awaiting him. There was something about her that pricked at his mind, yet he couldn’t place her. Phin closed his eyes and allowed the music to transport him to another time and place.

“Phineas! Phineas!” yelled Mable from the back porch. “Where has the fool boy run off to now?” she said to no one in particular.

Phin heard his mother calling, and he knew why she was calling. He looked across the treehouse to his best friend Maggie. Silently he stood up and shuffled toward the ladder. Maggie gave him a dejected stare but motioned him to go. Phin sobbed twice as he descended the ladder. At the bottom, he straightened his shoulders and turned in the direction of his mother’s voice.

Mable wasn’t a bad mother, in fact, she was a very good mother, but she also wanted more for her son and herself than the little, dirt-floor house which stood at the end of a back street. So, when the music teacher told her that her son was a musical genius, she saw her little boy as her ticket out of destitution and into affluence. Mable required that Phineas practice several hours a day on the old piano that was his father’s. It was out of tune and several of the keys stuck, but that didn’t matter to Mable. When he was old enough to hold his father’s old saxophone, she scraped together enough money for lessons. And she promised two pies a week to the church choir director in exchange for his giving voice lessons to Phineas.

Phineas was something of a celebrity in town because his mother entered him in every contest, talent show, and special program in the county. And, he was good. Mable told everyone and anyone who would listen about her boy and how he had inherited his father’s “musical genes.” And, While Phin was anxious to please his mother, the only thing he really wanted was to spend time with Maggie in the treehouse they had built together at the edge of the woods behind his house.

The memory faded and a new one took its place as Phin began a new song. Maggie was the one sobbing now while Phin held her hand and tried to tell her things would be okay. But inside, he knew they would never be okay again. He could barely hold back his own tears, and as one escaped his eye, it fell on their clasped hands. Maggie gasped and threw her arms around Phin. Before he realized what was happening, she bolted from the treehouse, sprinting through the back yard toward the sidewalk that ran from Phin’s house to the center of town. That was the blackest day of Phin’s life, the last time he had seen Maggie.

The fog in Phin’s memory shifted again, and a myriad of state homes, foster homes, and orphanages spread out before him. But no matter where he landed, he always held closely to two possessions: his father’s saxophone and a picture of Maggie. When he aged out of the system, he still had those two possessions— the saxophone without a case, the picture faded and bent, and both a little worse for the wear. But, then again, so was he.

The song ended and Phin opened his eyes. He was shocked to find that his vision was blurred by tears that had pooled under his lids and were now rolling down his cheeks. When he looked up, he saw Max standing in the doorway to the kitchen keenly watching him. Phin looked over his shoulder and realized that the restaurant was empty, and Max had dimmed the lights.

From the silence, a voice whispered, “I’ve only ever known one person who can play with that much feeling.”

Phin trembled at the sound of the voice in the broken stillness. “Maggie? No, it couldn’t be, could it? Pull yourself together, Phin,” he murmured, wiping the moisture from his cheeks with the back of his hand.

“Phineas, I—”

“Sorry, Miss, the show’s over,” Phin said as he scooted from the piano bench and raced toward the kitchen. He grabbed his bag and bolted toward the door.

Max called after him, “You’re gonna have to talk to her, kid. She’s been asking around about you!”

Phin avoided Max’s for the next few days. When in full retreat mode, Phin took refuge in a back alley, between an apartment building and a dumpster, in the part of town that even locals avoided. But, as usual, Max sent Marco out to look for him; and, as usual, it didn’t take Marco long to locate him.

“Hey, kid! Max is looking for you. He’s been holding a plate for you every night. The late-night crowd’s been asking ‘bout you, too,” Marco said, sitting on the ground beside Phin. He tossed a waxed paper bag into Phin’s lap and said, “Here, Max made you a sandwich. Carlos even cut it in four squares, just how you like, eh?” Marco looked around the alley and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I love what you do with the place!” he said with a chuckle as he jabbed his elbow against Phin.

Phin nodded his head as he stuffed a square of the sandwich into his mouth.

“Slow down or you choke! Look, Max, he’s worried ‘bout you. Come ‘round tonight, eh? Besides, that pretty dame has been there every night this week. She sure looks disappointed when Max blows out the candles and dims the lights to close for the night.”

Phin stopped chewing and looked at Marco. He swallowed what was in his mouth and wrapped the other half back up. “Thanks for the sandwich,” he said as he tucked the package into his knapsack.

“You know, if you show up at the restaurant tonight, Max will feed you even if you don’t play,” Marco said with a wink. He waited for Phin to say something, and when he didn’t, continued, “What’s the story with you and the broad, anyway? Old girlfriend?”

“Something like that,” whispered Phin.

“Well, spill it, I don’t got all day to sit around here. Linguini and clams don’t make itself, you know,” Marco said with a soft punch to Phin’s arm.

“I don’t even know if it really was Maggie. I mean she looked familiar, but last time I saw Maggie, we were twelve. Anyway, if it is Maggie, I don’t want her to see me like this.” Phin pulled his knees to his chest and leaned his head against the brick wall of the apartment building.

“Maybe you’ll just come to the restaurant and find out if it is this Maggie. Maybe it’s not. Maybe she just likes your music. Maybe she likes you. You’re not such a bad looking kid when Max is feeding you regularly. What do you say? It couldn’t hurt anyway?”

As much as Phin didn’t want to return to Max’s, his stomach made the decision for him. And, his fingers were itching to play again. He finally nodded, agreeing to show up at Max’s later.  

“And, I tell you what I’m goin’ do. I’ll stop by my mama’s house and pick up some new clothes for you, eh? You eat, you look nice, you feel better, yes?”

“Okay, Marco. Thanks, and tell Max thanks, too.”

Marco patted Phin on the shoulder and started to rise, “Good. I see you later!”

Later that evening, when Phin knocked on the back door of the restaurant, Max greeted him with a big smile and a hug.

“Come, come! I feed you! Skin and bones,” Max said, looking at Phin and shaking his head.

After finishing his meal, Max took him upstairs to his living quarters. Frannie, Max’s wife, forced him into a chair for a haircut, showed him to the bathroom, told him to shower and put on the suit of clothes that Marco had brought up earlier. When he looked in the mirror, Phin hardly recognized himself. How had he gotten to this point, living on the street and the charity of others? Frannie knocked on the door and Phin let her in. She tried to take the rags that had passed for his clothes, muttering something about a rag bag and a big fire, but Phin snatched his trousers and pulled out the folded picture of Maggie before Frannie could dispose of them. She looked at him and then at the picture. She smiled and nodded.

“She’s pretty. Your love?”

Phin sighed, “Always.”

Frannie patted his cheek and left him to his thoughts.

Behind the piano, Phin stroked the keys, relaxed his shoulders, and closed his eyes. The music seemed to flow from his soul through his arms and fingers and into the keys and strings of the instrument. When he finished, the lights were once again dim, and the sounds floating from the kitchen told him that his friends were cleaning up for the night.

From behind him, a soft voice said, “Please don’t run away tonight.”

Phin sat still, but he couldn’t turn around. He could face her. He didn’t want Maggie to know that he was a failure, at music, at life.

“Phineas, dear Phin! Have you forgotten me?”

At the accusation, Phin spun around on the bench, “Never! I could never forget you! The memory of you got me through some of the hardest times in my life.”

Phin looked into the eyes of the woman standing before him. They were wet with tears but full of devotion. Maggie! It really was Maggie, and she was there before him within touching distance. She reached out and touched his cheek. Phin was suddenly aware that his face was wet with tears. Maggie moved closer to him, and Phin hesitantly reached for her. She came to him willingly and embraced him. Still seated but shaking, he buried his head in her middle, wrapping his arms around her. She stroked his back and waited. After a few minutes, the tension left his body and his breathing slowed. Maggie took his face in her hands and tilted it upward so she could look at him.

“Oh, Phin! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. When I was able to track you down at the last place you lived, they told me that you had left just a few weeks before I got there. I was so worried because I knew you were on your own. I was desperate to find you! But I knew you would never stop playing. Music has always been your passion, and I knew you would never stop playing. So, I hired a private investigator, and we’ve been to every club, bar, concert, open-talent night, you name it, in the city. Phin, I almost gave up hope. But here you are. Phineas and Maggie, together at last,” she said with a tearful smile.

“You’re right, I could never stop playing because the music always brought you back to me. The music was just the road back to you and the treehouse.” Phin stood up and pulled the folded photograph from his pocket. He pressed it into her hand. Leaning in close to her, he whispered against her ear, “Maggie, dearest Maggie, you only have always been my passion! Always!”