Usually I don't crank out stories this fast, just an FYI. Can't let your expectations get too high.
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I never used to be good at the piano. After a few minutes of playing the keys would start to blur out of focus and I lost control of my own hands. They'd stumble across the keys making acrid noises, and sometimes Dad would enter the room and say, "Alright, Pepsi-Cola, let's give it a rest." and I'd have to stand up, the piano bench scraping behind me, and walk away. It was like a walk of shame. Darry'd always be watching in all of his high-school glory, smirking and mouthing words at me that I could never decipher. Thinking back on it, it was probably better that I couldn't.
But boy, could Ponyboy play the piano. Ponyboy had had the patience to sit on that bench for hours, belting out song after song. I had thought that it was beautiful. I'd always wanted to tell him that, too. But whenever I did, he'd look at me disbelievingly with that cocked eyebrow and say, "Sure, Soda." Then he'd either turn back to the piano and play another song, or stand up and head for the kitchen to scavenge for Oreos.
It was Darry who had never touched the piano once. I think he thought he was too cool to. Mom had asked him to play for her once, and I recall him mumbling - "If any of the guys on the team found out I played piano…" Mom had been disappointed, hurt even, because she loved that piano, but she let it go. I wonder if he remembers that and feels bad about it. I wonder now, if he had the chance, if he would sit down and play a song on the piano with mom. I think that he would. I know I would.
But now nobody touches the piano at all. It's still in the corner of the living room, collecting dust, like a thin film of snow. Occasionally one of the guys will stub their toe on one of the legs. But no one plays. There are pictures of mom and dad placed on top of it like it's a shrine. Those too are collecting dust as the date of the car accident fades slowly into the past.
I hate to think that we're getting used to their being gone, but we are. I'm afraid someday we'll forget them, that their names will no longer be brought up in conversation. I really do wonder why nobody plays the piano, because somebody really should. I think that we're scared. But of what?
The past, maybe. It's been more than a year. Before, it had hurt to talk about mom and dad because we always associated their names with death. So I guess we stopped talking about them altogether, but they didn't fade away, not at all. They're always on our minds, but nobody is willing to rehash old memories, afraid they'll be the one to cause someone pain.
I gulp. I say to myself - "If no one plays that piano, mom and dad are going to just fade away exactly like everything else."
So I stand up and drag my hand along the top of the piano, afraid to play it, so I touch it. I make a dark trail where the pale dust had been. I swerve around the picture frames that hold precious wedding pictures, birthday pictures, Christmas pictures… I lift my finger from the wood and examine it . The tip is painted gray with dirt. I smile to myself, remembering when me and Ponyboy would drag our hands along the same surface, me writing the occasional swear word in the dust then wiping it away before anyone could see.
I pull the bench out from under the piano. It makes a screeching sound across the floor, a sound I haven't heard in years. The sound that I would hear every night when Ponyboy sat at the piano to play a song. The sound I would hear when I myself tried to belt out a song, but found I didn't have quite the same charm as Pony. I had become so accustomed to the sound I hadn't even noticed when I stopped hearing it.
I sit on the bench, feeling suddenly strange. Older. It's only been a year since I last sat at the piano, but I don't remember my legs feeling so cramped or the keys seeming so far below me.
I press down on one of the dust-coated keys. A low one. The dull thud takes a minute to swirl in and out of my head, and suddenly I remember all of it. When Steve would tease Ponyboy for playing so often, call him a sissy, and my brother would try to defend himself only to be knocked down again by Steve's insults. I used to stand and watch and wonder why they couldn't just get along - my brother and my best friend.
I roll my finger down every one of the keys, something I used to do often just in passing. Walking by the piano? What a perfect opportunity to drag my hand along it, feel each key rise and fall beneath my finger. Listen to the perfect sound that it made. Ponyboy had told me once that it was called a glissando.
In a panic I find that I have forgotten how to do anything else. All of mom's lessons that I had dazed through have been blown from my mind, replaced with how to fix a motor and how to reattach a tire. I raid my thoughts, trying to recall something, anything, but the piano lessons are all gone. I'm sure Ponyboy will remember them, though. He's good at remembering things like that. Recalling how many keys are played for this measure and how long to hold out this note. Then he'll teach me, and I make a mental promise to myself that no matter how many hours I'm sitting at this bench pressing on incorrect notes, I'll keep on playing.
I won't stop like I did before.
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