Sing us a song, you’re the piano man

It’s the second week of quarantine. We hide indoors, away from the coronavirus, Covid-19. Well, kind of. Mostly, I’ve just got a week’s paid stay-cation from work. I’ve been playing with the idea of learning the piano for a few months now. I drive my car back home from College Station. I met up with my ex-husband to get him to sign over the warranty deed to the house we once owned together. The marriage didn’t work out, and he moved away to College Station, where he met his now-wife and had a cute little baby girl with her. I don’t mind. I just care about the house. Our meeting was easy and comfortable. That’s probably why I had married him 13 years ago. But comfort isn’t something I’m comfortable with for long. So, we split, and I kept the house. 

            At last, the time had come to sell the house. Or so I had hoped. This whole Covid-19 thing got the housing market in shambles now. But either way, my realtor informed me, I needed that warranty deed because the quit claim deed he had signed for me more than a decade ago wasn’t good enough for the title company. So, I made the drive to the little UPS Store near him, and he signed. “I guess I should ask,” he said right before signing, his pen hovering over the dotted line. “What am I signing again?” 

            “Oh,” I said. “It’s basically the same form you signed years ago, but an updated version.” 

            “Ah.” He says. He signs. He never did like too much complication. 

            I drive home the hour and a half with nothing but road and music and my thoughts. I think again about the piano, and decide, why not. It’s time. I tell google maps to find a pawn shop for me. 

            After a bit of hunting, I finally find an old grey Yamaha in a little pawn shop in Acres Homes, the ghetto of Houston. The shop girl allows me to test it to make sure it’s working. It’s $230. 

            “And how much would you like to place on layaway?” She asks. But I have the money. 

Long ago, when I was a girl of 18, I joined the Marine Corps. When I departed, they gave me an ID. It’s long since been expired, and shows a youth in its picture, looking tough and sure, with smooth skin in black and white. I pull it out and ask for a discount. The shop owner, a large man used to hagglers laughs and says, “I can give you a better discount than any military ID can.” He turns to the girl. “It’s better to just get this thing out of here. Give it to her for $200.”

            I now own a Yamaha keyboard. At last, my training can begin. 

            I drive my baby home, and immediately make space on my little writing desk. My apartment is small, but cozy, and set in a great location on a shady street in Montrose. I love it. Well, most of the time. Sometimes, I don’t have enough room for all the things I’ve collected in my life. It’s okay. I needed to get rid of some stuff anyways. Hoarding, I think, is in my blood. My mother is a hoarder, and my father as well. You never realize how much stuff you collect until you move. I’ve actually done a great job of downsizing, having moved three times in the last year. With each move, I assess what I still need, and what has undergone enough ravages of time that it can at last be set free to deteriorate in the landfills. I think about the landfills and the secrets they hold. I wonder, if I were to visit one, how far back would the garbage go? Could I find things from ten years back? I once had a home movie thrown out by an ex. Was it in a landfill now? Was it sitting there, waiting for its turn to slowly break down? 

            I look up piano songs. There are a couple that I want to learn. They are my motivation. One is La Valse d’Amelie by Yann Tiersen. The other is Sonata in E Flat Major, by Joseph Haydn, specifically, the adagio cantabile section. Lestat plays it in Interview with the Vampire, and I always loved his speech, and that movie. I dream of being able to play it while reciting his words to an imaginary Louis and Claudia. 

            I begin with the waltz. I peck out the keys and manage a slow, shambling tune. This is much trickier than I thought. I send it to my mom. “My little pianist,” she replies. I send it to my adopted father Daddy Rabbit. “Wow.” He says. “You suck!” 

            “I know.” I reply. “I’ve only been playing for a total of three hours in my whole life.” 

            I do have a good musical background. That’s why I can read the notes on the treble clef. But I’m less familiar with the bass clef. I post my little video of the intro to the waltz on Instagram, and get some words of encouragement from my friends. 

“I’ve always wanted to learn the piano!” says one. 

“Looking good!” says another.  

I think of my friend Lizeth. I recall that she too is learning the piano. Perhaps she has a book I can borrow? She does! She brings it over and we have an illegal party of two. We gossip and catch up during these times of quarantine. We have missed each other. But I have grown accustomed to the solitude, and around midnight, I tell her I am sleepy and send her on her way. She leaves contentedly and I doze off, with four glasses of merlot warming my belly. 

The days pass happily. I am in love with not worrying about a job or having to leave early. I spend hours walking my dog, riding my bike, painting, knitting, making strange creatures out of leftover cloth, and of course, playing the piano. I begin to familiarize myself with the bass clef. She tricks me sometimes and I play her like the treble clef, realizing my errors quickly with the discordant cacophony my Yamaha produces as a result.

Week three. I play a slow but smooth two handed rendition of A Friend Like You, and a slightly faster play of The Windmill. I do not sing the words. My friends applaud me from the digital stands. Some consider picking up their old discarded instruments now that time is in abundance. They do not see the hours of practice behind the sixty second videos. 

I tell my mom of my plans to sell my house and buy one closer to my Houston job. She is also selling her house. Currently, she lives with my sister Jannie, her husband Victor, and their two children Lain and Archer. Jannie, wanting to improve her life, and have a job where she doesn’t come home crying in the car every day, finally decided to pursue her dream of becoming a physical therapist. After exploring every avenue, she finally found a route that would allow her to follow this path. The Army would make all things possible. She enlisted and went off to training, with the MOS of preventative diseases. Perhaps not physical therapy, but close enough. Dreams are flexible things. She is the happiest I have seen her in years. The decision, I believe, was a good one. She no longer cries in secret, and I can hear her shouts of silliness as she plays with her children upstairs when I go to visit. 

One stipulation of the Army is that as an enlisted officer, she must move away. Victor and the children will join her, but my mom must stay behind. My mom and I decide that we will live together. 

The house my mom is selling is one that she had built. It is a fine house with two stories and an acre and a half of land in a nice shady neighborhood in Pearland. The house will bring with it a $400,000 profit. We plan to use that money to buy land in a decent up and coming neighborhood, and build a house of our own. I spend the day with my boyfriend scoping out properties as he helps me film the neighborhoods. He gets a lot of the sky and the trees, but not so much the houses. Mayhap he is distracted. It is a good day with him. The video makes my mom and me nauseous later on. 

My mom and I go and visit some of the plots of land that she liked, and we settle upon a well-kept plot in a well-kept neighborhood that is only a 15 minute drive from her job and from mine. The only thing in our way now is the sale of her house. The quarantine continues to make things difficult for the housing market. However, a family has fallen in love with the house and the paperwork is in progress. 

I attempt the waltz again. It goes a little faster this time, but still is not up to par. My virtual friends cheer me on. 

My plants begin to flower. The aloe vera plant has given birth to a little green pod. It eventually falls and is lost before I can investigate it further. The basil flowers and attracts big bumbling black bees who hover around, and clumsily attach to the drooping stems to gather the pollen hidden within. They forget which flowers they have visited and stay for half an hour until they are satisfied that every spec has been collected. Then, laden with their victorious findings, they make their way back to the hive to share their bounty with their sisters. 

My birthday comes. I spend it with my mom and boyfriend instead of a house full of friends and booze. We make empanadas and eat our fill until we are bursting. Then, as night descends, my boyfriend and I make our way back to my home to cuddle and eat mushrooms and talk about life and dreams and our favorite movies. His is Endgame. He appreciates Thor’s journey. I feel he sees himself in the darker days of Thor. Mine is The Royal Tenenbaums. I see myself as Margot Tenenbaum. I, like her, often feel mysterious and misunderstood. My favorite scene is when she gets off the bus, and Luke Wilson stands to meet her. Time slows for him as she makes her way over, and he watches in wonder her graceful movements and the light shining in her hair. She is the most beautiful woman in the world in that moment. I love that. 

Alas, a hitch! The man who sold the land to my mom upon which she built her house had naught but a quitclaim to his name, and the uncle who gave him the land had passed away without a will and with several children. Having been signed in 1992, this presented a problem, as several of the children had had children of their own, and some had since died themselves. My mom calls me repeatedly to help her with this conundrum. I am a biologist and know nothing of law. I try my best. I call the county clerk and wait on hold for hours. I find tidbits of information and pass them along to her. I contact lawyers and find at last that all roads seem to point to the need of a lawyer. She insists it is fixable without one. She talks over me and does not listen. At last, enraged and frustrated, she hangs up the phone and then messages me to find another mother, she is done. 

It is week four. I have graduated to book two. I play On Top of Old Smokey for my cybernetic audience. It is the same tune as On Top of Spaghetti and I sing that to myself instead. But it is not for my fans to hear, only for me. Lizeth encourages me with cheerful words. I discard the 30 video attempts to play it that have been deemed not good enough for my viewer’s ears before posting the final copy. 

The days continue. Pooka, I find, loves riding in the basket of my bike. She sniffs the air curiously as we ride, and lazily watches the other bikers and runners and dogs on the road. “Does she ever jump out?” Someone asks as we wait for the crosswalk man to appear. “Not yet,” I reply. 

I had worried about her riding in the basket at first. When she was a dog of perhaps two years old, I had biked with her in a basket. She did all right on the hilly roads of Huntsville, until one day, she jumped out while we were going down a particularly steep hill. She had a leash on, and my back brakes didn’t work, and we were going down pretty fast. If I slammed the brakes, my bike would do a front flip. But she was choking, and I had to do something. So, I slammed the brakes and we tumbled down. She ran across the street, screaming in pain and terror as I lay in the road, unable to run after her. My boyfriend at the time chased her down and brought her back to me. She was okay, but she refused to get anywhere near a bike for a long time after that. It seems; however, time is benevolent for some things, and that day is lost to her little puppy memory. Now, she only remembers the smooth feel of the road, and the cool breeze on her fur as she happily rides in my basket. 

Week five. I now play smoother and faster. I have moved up to eight notes, playing with both hands simultaneously. My cousins in Colombia ask me who my teacher is. Just myself and this book I bought, I tell them. 

Week six. I have worked hard on this song. Every day from thirty minutes to an hour, I have tried to get it right. It is two pages long and, as learning from piano books tend to go, more complex than any of the other songs I have attempted so far. I take video after video, deleting and re-recording it. At last, I have a version that I deem acceptable. It gets two likes. I love the tale of my progress engraved forever on Instagram. 

Today, I got in a fight with a dear friend of mine. I told him I wanted to begin to write stories, and he accused me of wanting to write him as the bad guy. He yelled at me for behaviors he had done years past, saying that they were my fault. I thought of my mom who disowned me, and of my father for whom nothing I ever do is good enough. Throwing my phone, that vile connection to the world that doesn’t want me, that doesn’t care for me, I run to my piano and lose myself in the notes. I play through Guantanamera, the song that had long eluded me and now plays easily and freely from my fingers. I play scales and tackle new songs until the sun descends and hunger reminds me that there are other things in the world deserving of my attention. So, I leave my piano. For now. She’ll be there in the morning.