Piano Man
November 22, 2008
Alfred had never really enjoyed playing the piano as a kid and as a teenager, since it was always something his mother forced him to do. However, now that he wasn't living with her and her baby grand in the living room, he found that he missed it, and therefore whenever he found an open one in a hotel lobby, a classier bar, or anywhere else, he'd feel compelled to sit down at it for at least a few songs and remember that he was good at this.
Lucky for him, the bar next door to their hotel in Brussels had a dusty upright tucked away in a corner.
He'd been awkward about asking the owner if it still worked the first evening, but he seemed delighted to have someone interested in using it, talking too fast in Dutch for Alfred to puzzle out the words from his reading of his Dutch dictionary at night while Arthur was writing. Most of his experiences in the Benelux region had been in French or English, anyway; it had only been this older man that didn't seem to know either, or care if Alfred knew Dutch at all. Either way, he nodded at his clumsy question and gave him a folding chair to sit on.
Soon, the other patrons started giving requests. Surprisingly, Billy Joel didn't come up until Saturday, when a sad-looking man in a suit called out for 'Piano Man' after singing along to the Beatles ballads that had been the theme of the evening so far. He smiled and called out to joke if anyone had a harmonica. The customers laughed, but of course no one took it seriously, and he started the beginning riff.
A verse in, the sad businessman was singing along loudly, and Alfred couldn't help but join him louder than his usual low tone. By the first big piano solo, everyone was singing along, even the bartender who hadn't spoken a word of English to him in the four days he'd been playing his piano for.
Arthur stood from the booth next to the piano to lean on the top of it, and Alfred smiled at him through the lyrics. This had been one of the first songs that he had sat down and taught himself because he wanted to learn it versus it being part of a lesson, so he'd had it memorized for years and could probably play it blindfolded. Arthur was humming the harmonica parts, buzzed enough to smile softly without care for who could see him but not enough to be Welsh-drunk. (Alfred was rather surprised he hadn't picked up some Welsh in all of the times he had been Welsh-drunk in the past months, but maybe it was because he always slurred and mumbled his speech when that inebriated – and it probably didn't make any logical sense, anyway.)
The whole bar was singing along – some better than others – and Alfred felt his heart soar as he focused on hitting the right keys and not fucking up the moment.
He hit the final crescendo, and the bar yelled the last verse in a single bawdy voice before he trailed off into the last frills of notes and they raised hell in applause. He stood and took an extravagant bow, earning more cheers before their attention slowly turned back to their friends, and the moment they had shared was lost. Alfred decided he was done for the night and sat back down in their booth. Arthur slid in behind him and slid a little too far, pressing the side of their legs together through their jeans.
"Well that was fun," he said with a grin, a little out of breath and rushed on endorphins and a little adrenaline. They laughed with him and immediately started teasing him about how he could get a job as Billy Joel before his fame, or maybe a church organist, the list getting more and more extravagant until he couldn't contain himself from laughter.
At the bar, the sad-looking businessman who had made the initial request paid his tab and left the bar quietly to go home to an empty apartment and a sleeping dog.
{A/N: Surprise cameo of Luxembourg as the old man sitting next to me, making love to his tonic and gin
The instant he came up in the event, I gave him this song as his, and nothing you can say will tell me otherwise}