* * *
As dinner wound to an end, leaving their bellies full and much of the food uneaten, Debbie unassumingly got up and began stacking, then carrying, their plates to the sink. Russell and Pete offered to help, but she wouldn’t hear of it, shooing them away with a pair of sudsy mitts.
So to the spare bedroom they went, where the old Steinway baby grand piano resigned in lonely splendor. In Russell’s opinion, it was the most gorgeous thing in the house. The graceful, almost feminine curves of the mahogany frame blared in stark contrast to the room’s faded lime-green carpet and drab floral wall paper. Intricate ornamental fleur-de-lis carvings on the side of the casing added to the pre-war feel of the instrument. Russell sat down on the bench in reverence.
"So, what do you wanna hear?"
"Play ‘Godfather’," Pete said.
Behind them, O’Brien edged stealthily around the door jam.
Beyond O’Brien, the back door slammed: Hector letting Lola out.
Russell lifted the fallboard and slid it inside the instrument. He wiggled his fingers in the air for effect, then placed them on the keys.
"Ready, kids?"
Then he was off. While Russell played, Pete and Mike stood in rapt attention at opposite ends of the piano. Pete studied the inner workings of the instrument, taking in the mechanics of it, while Mike eyed Russell’s fingers gliding up, down, and across the ivory keys. Occasionally Mike would glance up at Russell’s face and notice his expression darkening as the song grew more dramatic—a drop of the eyebrows here, a purse of the lips there—until the song became suddenly lighthearted and Russell’s scowl turned to a smile. When the musician began bouncing his shoulders with the beat, Mike laughed.
"Hey, what’s so funny?" Hector said, leaning against the doorframe, staring at the patch of sweat-soaked cotton pasted to Russell’s lower back.
When the song ended, everybody clapped. In the kitchen, Debbie added to the noise: her light, soft claps all but indistinguishable among the staccato clamor. But Russell heard them—those dainty claps—even if no one else did.
Pete pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and said, "Man, that was pretty sweet. I love that movie, by the way."
O’Brien tickled a few of the bass keys.
"Rusty," Hector pleaded, "you gotta play it."
O’Brien jumped up and down in anticipation. Pete just shook his head silently.
Russell rolled his shoulders and arched his back, making it pop.
Before they had a chance to brace for it, Russell was punching out the intro to "Sweet Home Alabama."
Hector raised his beer can into the air. "WOOOO-HOOOO!! This one’s for you, Ronnie! SWEET HOME ALABAMA. WHERE THE SKIES ARE SO BLUUUE!"
Russell and O’Brien joined Hector at the chorus, while Pete continued to shake his head, trying not to smile.
"C’mon, Pete!" Russell said over the circular progression of D, C, and G chords. "You sing back up."
"I don’t think so…"
"You got to, Pete! All right, your part is coming up…NOW!"
"Yes they dooo," Pete sang in his best falsetto.
The group burst into laughter and Hector shouted, "Hell yeah!! Go Pete!!"
During the honky tonk solo, O’Brien twirled around the tiny room like a banshee on crack. Hector retreated to the hallway, muttering something about Mike having a screw loose. Pete went to a corner like a boxer between rounds. Eventually, and inevitably, the knuckles of Mike’s right hand struck the back of Russell’s head.
The music died.
"Goddammit, Mike!"
O’Brien stopped spinning and attempted to stand still. He staggered, and upon realizing that balance upon two legs was no longer within his grasp, leaned against a wall. His chopped blonde hair, disheveled and damp with sweat, hung in clumps over his forehead. Pale blue eyes and angelic face contorted in pain. He panted heavily, either in exhaustion or emotional distress.
Please don’t cry, Russell thought. Not here.
From the corner, next to the window where he had fled a wild O’Brien, Pete came in with the save. "Hey, Mike. Where’d you get that shirt?"
Mike broke eye contact away from Russell and looked over to Pete. He sniffled a few times before allowing a grin to creep over his face. "I grabbed it outta the bin at Keller’s."
"It’s a pretty sweet find," Pete commented. "Funny as hell, too."
The shirt Mike wore was bright orange. On the front, a cartoon orange slice with googly eyes, a huge grin, and stick legs strolled down a sidewalk. Above, on the roof of a building, a female orange slice had thrown an iron anvil with the words "TWO TONS" etched on the side. The title written below the picture was ORANGE CRUSH.
There had always been an unspoken competition between the four of them as to who could find the craziest shirt, or the craziest anything, in Keller’s discount bin. Hansel Keller ran a mom and pop type of drugstore in Greenville, a town about ten miles to the north, and at the end of each month he would load the junk that nobody would ever think to buy—useless items like board games with missing pieces and broken baby toys—into a wire chicken cage at the front of the store. Rummaging through that bin was a pastime Hector, Pete, Russell, and Mike reveled in, an activity that bonded them and made them, momentarily, equals.
O’Brien looked down at his shirt and then back up at Pete and Russell. "Sorry for clonkin’ your head, Rusty. Guess I got carried away again."
Russell smiled as if to child, shrugged, and said, "Hey, it happens. What can you do?"
Mike combed his hair into place with his fingers. "If it makes ya feel any better, your head kinda hurt my hand."
Hector stuck his own head into the doorway. "Is it safe to come in now? Has he stopped actin’ a fool?"
Russell sighed heavily and slumped. He turned to the keyboard and began rendering a plaintive melody of his own creation.
Russell Whitford, like all musicians who compose, was unknowingly writing a soundtrack to his life. This magnum opus served as an escape route when the only means of one lay in a nearby musical instrument. Perhaps he would find himself alone on some starry Saturday night, sitting before a piano in a quiet house with only a loud ticking clock for accompaniment. How he pulled the melodies from the ether, transfiguring them into weak electrical impulses that triggered his fingertips into creating acts of beauty, was a mystery science, philosophy, and religion couldn’t fully explain, or come close to partially explaining. What’s even weirder is that, if asked, he could tell you the exact date he wrote the song he was currently playing, the clothes he had worn during its composition, even the random thoughts that had coursed through his head while writing it. But what he couldn’t do is explain why he had chosen to play that particular song at that particular moment on Hector’s mom’s piano. That, he could not do.
Sitting on the painfully hard bench, making something out of nothing, Russell listened to the voices of his friends around him.
"Hey, you guys want ice cream?" Hector asked.
"I do!!" O’Brien shouted.
"No, thanks." Pete replied. "Actually, I should get going."
"Please, Pete," Hector said, his voice oozing sarcasm. "Please don’t go. You’re the life of the party."
O’Brien now: "Hey Rusty, play ‘Sweet Home’ again."
Russell pretending to be lost in his music.
Hector to Mike: "Oh, no, man. You almost knocked him out last time."
Pete: "He didn’t even come close to knocking him out."
O’Brien: "Do you guys think it’s still hot outside?
Hector: "It’s August, what the fuck do you think? Hey, Rusty. RUSTY. Open your goddamn ears. Oh, he’s doin’ his Mozart impression again."
Pete: "You mean Beethoven. Mozart wasn’t deaf."
Hector: "Whatever. Hey, RUSTY. Next time bring your guitar."
O’Brien: "How old is Lola?"
Hector: "Seventeen. Just like you. Ya hear me, Rusty? Guitar. Next time."
Pe
te: "He came here straight from work. What do you think, that he’s going to bring his guitar in to work with him?"
Hector: "You think you’re so fuckin’ smart, don’tcha?
Pete (stuttering): "I—I—I’m just going by what he told me when he called this morning. Today was supposed to be his day off, but Lucas called in sick."
Hector: "That’s right. He called me, too. Shit, I’m sorry, Pete."
Pete: "Wait, Lola can’t be seventeen. That’s impossible."
Hector: "Jesus, Pete. Whenever I go and be nice to you, you have to spring that kind of shit on me. You don’t know how old Lola is. She’s my dog. My mom bought her for me when I was a baby. I’m seventeen now, so that goes to figure my dog is seventeen, too.
Pete: "I—I—I…"
Hector (mocking): "I—I—I…"
O’Brien: "Is it weird to see a raccoon in the daytime?"
Pete: "Yes. They’re nocturnal."
O’Brien: "I thought so, because this morning I saw one walking down Cuthbert Road like it didn’t have a care in the world."
Russell stopped playing.