Grady

Grady

Prompt: Write a story about an unconventional teacher

Landon Harding leaned against his locker after closing it and spinning the combination lock. In the crowded, chaotic hallway of Grand Isle High School, he searched to see if Callie was at hers, depositing her books from the afternoon classes. He motioned as she weaved a path in his direction.

          “Hey! Some of us are heading to the State Park beach for an uncrowded volleyball game before the hordes of summer vacationers invade us next month. Are you coming?”

          “Can’t today.”

          “Why?”

       “You know why.” He scrunched his eyes, peering at her with puffed up cheeks as though she should have known the answer. “It’s Thursday,” he whined with a dejected pronouncement in his tone.

          “Ah, right. Your private lesson.” Charlotte Abel taught music to the upper classes on Mondays and Tuesdays as well as individual piano lessons at her home the remaining weekdays.

        Landon swirled his head, tossed his eyes up along with flapping his hands, palms up. “My predetermined, scheduled hour of torture. I’ll catch you guys later.”

     “I thought you were going to tell your mom that you did not want to do them, now that we will be seniors next year. Didn’t you inform her that you want to join the yearbook staff? They meet on Thursdays.”

      Classmates thought the two were an item. They were not. Never were. They were neighbors who had cultivated an endearing friendship since they were in pre-school. Despite being opposite genders, there was never a boy/girl spark, but more a close sibling-like relationship. They shared everything from silly jokes to frustrations with parents to problems of the heart with their own individual infatuations at this age.

     One constant topic in particular the past two years was his great dislike for taking the aforesaid music lessons. His mom, Evelyn, had been a concert pianist up in New York in her post graduate days. Her budding career was abruptly cut short when her right hand was badly burned in a kitchen fire. The several skin grafts caused a severe lack of dexterity.

However, in the process of rehabilitation, the main physical therapist later became her fiancé. After the wedding, she and Hollister moved as far south as possible to be distant from the painful memories of Carnegie Hall. With Landon being their only child, her heart’s desire was for him to at least enjoy the classical style for his educational development whether his future choices bent that way or not.

     He had no intentions of ever pursuing the piano after leaving home.

     The fine arts culture of the Big Apple was foreign to him. Landon was a southern born kid through and through, starting with his name; and raised on the Louisiana barrier island within an hour and a half of the sights and sounds of New Orleans, the world’s center of jazz. His highlight each year was roaming Bourbon Street at Mardi Gras with Callie and their friends, listening to one ensemble after another. When the two of them talked serious topics on some evenings, she became his sounding board for his exasperation with the Thursday ritual. He was enthralled with a genre that sat on the opposite spectrum of his mom’s dream profession.

      But he loved his Yankee mother to the hilt.

      He took the lessons for her sake.

      Besides, Mrs. Abel was kind, gentle and made the most delicious muffins, two of which with melted butter and strawberry jam on top, he enjoyed at the end of many a session.

     “Save me a hot dog or two if the guys are grilling. I’ll get there.”

    The house on Santiny Lane seemed extra quiet as he entered the side door where his teacher had the tiny room dedicated to her musical business. Neither Mr. Abel nor the two little ones, Carter and Colton, the four-year-olds, were anywhere outside in the yard to be seen.

   He sat waiting when Mae swished into the makeshift studio. “Oh, sorry, Landon. Things are hectic around here today. I just drove the twins to my mom’s place to babysit them and now I’m waiting for Grady. They’ll be here in five or ten minutes, I hope.”

   “Grady?”

  “Our younger brother. My dad’s dropping him off. He will be giving you your next couple lessons, filling in for her.”

   “Why?”

  “There were major complications with the new baby coming too soon. They rushed her in an ambulance to the Terrebonne General Hospital at midnight. She had a caesarian section. Another little boy, but only three pounds and quite a preemie. He may be there for a couple weeks; she will be back later this weekend but will need time to recover.” Mae explained further. “Grady also plays.” She gave an adoring look, and you might say, swooned, adding the following comment, “Does he ever! My sister asked him to take over until she is well and strong enough to resume teaching.”

   The switch only contributed to his not wanting to be there. The twenty-minute wait was agonizing. He daydreamed about who had all made it to the beach party. Would the lesson be its regular length and make him even later to the fun? If he left, would his mom find out that he bailed on the lesson for which she was paying good money? Twirling his thumbs, he tapped his toes, perturbed and upset. Yet, not knowing the shocking twist that was about to transpire that would rotate his boredom upside down and stomp on it.

   Landon stood as he heard the two male voices coming toward the room. He wiped the sweat from his right palm and prepared to extend it out of courtesy despite his annoyance.

  Grady was the same height as the junior; ash brown hair and a well-tanned face as most on the Isle were by this time of May each year. Thirty-something, he dressed for the spring season, a colorful tropical style shirt, white Bermuda shorts and sandals. Holding a long pole in his right hand, he swung it back and forth, scraping the wooden floor as he entered and walked within three feet of the adolescent.

    A white cane!

    The dude was waving and scraping a white cane!

     The younger brother was blind!

   Landon stared; his mouth wide open as though getting a full dental exam. He withdrew his outstretched hand and was befuddled as to how to greet the unseeing surrogate. “How in the hell could he teach piano?” screamed his internal thoughts.

   The person who was to guide his session literally could not observe his stupid, confused look.

    The gentleman who greeted him could not see his contorted face.

  The replacement teacher could not behold the bewildered continence on the dazed pupil.

    Proficient with the stick, Grady positioned himself, standing near the Steinway.

  “Come. Landon, is it? Play something for me. Let me hear what you’ve been learning. My sister tells me you are one of her promising students.”

    The compliment softened the weirdness of the scene.

  The teen played several bars from Johannes Brahms, Piano Concert #1 in D Minor, the piece he and Charlotte had been working on the past few weeks.

    Grady hesitated several seconds in silence, laid the cane on the floor near the left piano leg, rubbed his chin as though he had a goatee, which he did not. “You don’t like that, do you?”

    “Like what?”

    “That kind of music.”

    Landon was dumbstruck with the whole situation: a substitute, a handicapped one at that and now within minutes quite aware of his distaste for this weekly event.

     “Umm …”

     “You don’t want to be here, do you?”

     “My mom was a classical pianist.”

     Grady sighed as he held his head to the ceiling. “That’s not what I ask you.”

   “Umm, it’s okay.” He squirmed on the bench. He didn’t want to offend in any way.

      “Do you want to play this beautiful instrument?”

      “I do,” he answered with little conviction.

      “Or is it your mom who wants you to play?”

    The guy was uncanny in sizing up the family story with such speed.

     Landon was embarrassed although Grady could only mentally visualize his crimson face and neck. “Let me feel your hands.” He reached. “Long fingers. Strong hands. Do you play sports?”

      “Basketball.”

      “Can you palm the ball?”

      “I can.”

     “Of course, you can with those fingers,” he laughed. “May I sit beside you?”

      Landon scooted to the right side of the seat.

      “You don’t enjoy playing, do you?”

     “Well …  umm … well if you're asking my honest answer, it is not exactly my fondest thing to do on a nice sunny afternoon. How do you know that?”

      “Your posture.”

      “Say, what?” Landon groused.

     “I know what you are thinking. I can’t see how you are sitting.” He smiled. “But I sense it. I hear it in your playing. You are slumped, therefore cramping your shoulders and arms and it is all contributing to the stiffness in your hands on the keys. They are not dancing, or as people often say,” he commented with a hint of total frivolity, “tickling the ivories but rather they’re only plodding along.” He raised his arms and waved them, wiggling his fingers as he spoke. “Relax. If you must play, enjoy it and not simply fulfill the hour. Follow my lead and let’s have fun.”

       Landon imitated his every move, raised his palms and skipped from his thumb to his pinky like he was playing the beginner’s scale in the air.

       “Second basic tip.” However, before Grady said it, he placed his own hands on the keyboard and played several minutes of pop melodies with the greatest of ease, the lightness of touch, the gentleness of movement; no sheet music, no prompts, nothing before him. Ending one tune, he would glide and crossfade into another with sheer artistic skill.

       “How can you do that being, umm…?”

      “Blind.” Grady grinned like he was quite proud of it. “You can say it. I’ve been without sight since birth. But I’ve also been blessed with some rare gifts to offset it. My deep love of music and the ability to learn by ear. Charlotte can tell you how we fought over whose turn it was on my family’s Spinet growing up in our house. You know they say that when a door is closed, a window is opened. I may not see, but I hear with superb preciseness and a powerful memory to match. That has created my passion for this fabulous stringed instrument before us. Do you believe that?”

      Landon forgot to look at the old fashion ship clock on the wall that he always did every five minutes.

       “What music do you like? I am positive by your lack of intimacy with this keyboard that Brahms is not really your thing.”

       “But my mom insists.”

       Lowering his voice, he spit out each of the following words, not in anger but in boyish devilment. “Well, she and my sister aren’t here, are they?” He cocked his head and gave a impish look as one of her twins would give when getting away with something. “So, what music do you like, young man: pop or rock?” He pointed his index digit straight up. “Second rule in this parlor game. Play what you like.”

     “I’m a tried-and-true product of the area. I love jazz and it’s delightful stepbrother, the blues.”

     Grady improvised more as Landon watched his fingers move with ease. “Do you know with just these simple seven notes and three basic chords you can play any blues number you choose within a half hour? Name something.”

        “Umm … umm … Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel.” He watched as Grady stretched his arm to the far left key and ran his fingers down to locate the middle C, the starting point to know where his hands would be positioned for the necessary chords.

       The tutor played.

       The tutor sang full throttle.

       The tutor celebrated, tossing his head like Stevie Wonder.

        Landon forgot all his grievances for the moment.

        “Now you. I felt you observing intently.”

        The student played.

        The student hummed, not familiar with the words.

        The student celebrated.

         It grew dark as the pair spent hours together.

        Grady extended a hand. “That was super fun, man. You sure are talented. Whatever you do, do not stop playing. You will forever be able to entertain yourself in life’s stressful moments.” Brandishing the cane, he edged toward the door. “I’ll see you at your high school next week.”

     Callie set her soda in the sand and jumped up from the fire ring on the beach to greet him. “You missed a great game. What took so long? Did Charlotte punish you and make you play the entire 1812 Overture?”

    He flashed the widest grin. “Just the opposite. You’ll never believe what I have to tell you. Get psyched for a mind-blowing surprise in the seventh period on Monday.”