VI (Piano Lessons in Melancholy)

“Well, I might as well finish telling you the basics of riding the rails,” Nick said the next morning.  “But, geeze, does it take you so long to dress?  How much longer do I have to sit here facing this wall?” he asked testily.

“Yes, it takes me this long,” Carla replied in a low voice from somewhere behind him, “and I waited just as long while you changed.  That took way more time than it had to.”

“Hey, I gotta dress to impress today if I’m gonna go scouting out some gigs for us.  Anyway, hurry up.  I can smell Mrs. R’s trademark pancakes from here, and this yellow wallpaper only stays interesting for so long, you know.”

“Weren’t you going to finish telling me something?” Carla reminded him.

“Oh yeah, right.  Just two more things about hitching for now—tunnels and the Feds.  Aside from bulls, those are the main things you’ve got to watch out for, except that you run into these while you’re actually riding the train, not while you’re pulling into the station.”  She said something that he didn’t catch.  “What was that?” Nick asked.  “Speak up, will you?”

There was a footstep that sounded like Carla had taken a step closer. “If I speak up any louder, Mrs. Randal will hear a mute boy talking.  What I said was—did you just say the Feds?”

“Oh.  Yeah, that’s what I said," he nodded.  "President Hoover’s got his men checking out trains for stowaways, or at least that’s what they say.  But don’t worry, I’ve personally never seen one and I’m a seasoned rider.  Hard to imagine a bunch of suits running along the catwalk chasing down hobos, isn’t it?” he laughed.  “And besides, they probably don’t have the guts to climb up on top of a train anyway.  So the Fed’s are something that it helps to know about, but you’ll probably never have to deal with on of them.  Tunnels on the other hand, those are dangerous.  Picture this, you’re riding the train and then everything goes pitch black.  Suddenly, you can’t breath.”

“Why not?”

“Because in a tunnel, the smoke from the engine’s got nowhere to go but backwards—right at you.  You come out on the other side black as night, all covered in soot; it’s a nightmare getting it all off.  Short tunnels are no trouble, but the long ones—don’t even think about risking it, you’ll suffocate to death.  Some guys try to brave it out by climbing down from the catwalk and riding it out in a boxcar, but they’re still breathing in a lungful of coal dust and come out coughing and gagging on the other side.  In those situations, I say play it safe and get off the damn train if possible.  Hey, are you done yet?!”

“Yes, I’ve been done.”

Nick turned around, “Well why didn’t you tell me sooner?  Pancakes, here I co—” He stared at Carla.  "You got your suspenders on wrong again.”

“I do?” she looked at them, trying to figure out what the problem was.

“Yeah.”

“Again?”

“Yes, again,” he nodded.

“You mean, you couldn’t tell me yesterday?”

“I thought it was funny.  Come here...  I’ll fix ‘em for you.”  Nick waved her over to where he was sitting on the cot.  “Now, you’ve got them on in the right direction, if that makes any sense.  ‘Cause the part where they cross does go in the back, and the part where the straps are separate does go in the front, but,” he undid her suspenders and flipped them over, “the part of the clasp that opens and shuts goes outside the pants, and the flat part of the clasp goes in your pants against your body so it doesn’t poke at you.  Plus, it makes them easier to put on and take off.  No wonder you took so long getting ready.”  Once Nick finished adjusting Carla’s suspenders, he gave her the once over and pronounced her good to go.  “All set?”  She nodded and picked up something off the desk.  “What’s that?” Nick asked.

“Pen and notepad.  I figured that I can at least communicate with Mrs. Randal in some way if not verbally.”  Carla turned to head for the door.  Rather than getting up from the cot to follow, Nick grabbed her by the arm to stop her.

“Hold on.  Turn around again.  Something’s not right.”

Carla scrawled something on the notepad and held it in his face.  It said, “I’m waiting...”

“Just give me a moment, will you?”  Nick stared at her a minute longer and then realization dawned on him.  He pointed at her chest.  “I know what it is.  You’re flat, and yesterday you were, too.  That’s why you pass so well for a boy.  ...But what happened to your girl bits?—if you don’t mind me asking.  ‘Cause I know you had ‘em before; I mean, they were kind of hard to miss.  Where’d they go?”  He made a face as the possible reasons for her missing bust crossed his mind.  “Or maybe I don’t want to know...”

“Well I really ‘don’t want to know’ where your head is right now,” Carla told him.  “But if you must know, my chest is bound incredibly tightly like a sprained ankle.  It’s all wrapped up in a cloth bandage, except on a much larger scale.”  Nick tried to picture it for a moment as she continued.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my notepad and I have some pancakes to attend to.”

...

As Carla finished warming up at the piano, Mrs. Randal walked in the front door with a stack of mail, which she set on the coffee table, and then took a seat beside Carla on the piano bench.  “Well,” the woman began, “Since Nick’s out to town, he asked me to start in on your lesson.  I s’pose, though, that today’ll be more of a memory jogger than a real lesson ‘cause he says you’ve had lessons before and just need some refreshin’, that right?”  Carla nodded, and Mrs. Randal reached into a nearby desk drawer and pulled out a sheaf of music, handing it to her.  “Well, here is some o’ my older sheet music.  Recognize any of it?”

Carla shuffled through the songs, separating the ones she knew.  Mrs. Randal nodded approvingly, “Good taste, Carl, excellent taste!  So, let’s get started then, shall we?”  The woman opened a piece and set it on the piano’s music stand.  “Be a good boy, and play this one for me.  It was always one of my favorites.”  Mrs. Randal counted out the time, and then Carla began the opening bars of the song.

Music filled the parlor and she felt the sound swell beneath her hands.  The last time I played this song, Carla smiled sadly, my father was still alive…  And I could barely reach the floor pedals!  The humorous afterthought dispelled her melancholy and she played her heart out, observing the dynamics and continuing through the mistakes.  All the while, Mrs. Randal sat beside her, beaming and turning the sheet music’s pages.

As the day wore on, Carla played through many old pieces, and her skill was assessed by the old woman, who decided what would need to be taught over the course of their time together.  They’d just finished going through a handful of contemporary songs that Carla had never played before when Mrs. Randal declared, “A right modest one you are!  Nick said you only play ‘a bit,’ when it looks to me like you’re a well-schooled musician.  And you got a good natural talent in ya  to go with all that excellent instructin’ you got.  Now, now... boys needn’t blush.  We’ll leave that to the bashful brides, haha!  But I’ll just get one more word in before I quit embarrassing you, Carl.”

Mrs. Randal took Carla’s hands, turning over first one then the other.  “You have very nice hands, lad.  Refined, slender, like an artisan’s if you don’t mind me sayin’.  Even nicer than plenty o’ delicate young ladies’ hands,” the woman complimented with a wink.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll whip up something for us to drink.  You just play whatever it is so pleases you and then your lesson’ll be done for today.  And don’t get careless, y’hear?  ‘Cause I’ll be listening from the kitchen!"

With that, Mrs. Randal bustled off, leaving Carla to herself.  Making music had put the girl in a thoughtful, reminiscent mood and without the chatty old woman there to divert her, Carla’s mind began to wander.  It was so wonderful to play the piano again.  Before performing with Nick, opportunities to play had been few and far between, but now she would get to play all the time.  The thought of it delighted her.  

For a while when growing up, it had seemed like she’d never be able to play music regularly again: after Carla’s father had passed away, her lessons had been discontinued and their family piano sold.  Occasionally, Carla would go to one of her cousins’ houses to play, but none of them lived particularly close by—not to mention that there’d been enough family gossip after her father’s “accident” that relations with the rest of the Miner family had grown rather strained and awkward.  As the economy got rougher, those relatives had moved away one-by-one and virtually cut off all contact with her family.  Carla hadn’t minded the snub so much at the time because she had her mother and a new step-father and a handful of siblings in her life, and that had been all the family she needed—besides her father, of course, whom she missed terribly.

But, you know, now they’re all gone too, said the queer little voice of melancholy inside her head, and you’re completely alone.  Once again, Carla was seized by a wave of sadness, this time even more intense as Mrs. Randal was not there to distract her from it.  It was true: her family didn’t want her anymore; there was no one in her life besides a couple of strangers.  Though just a moment ago the world had seemed like an exciting new adventure, all of a sudden it had become an incredibly lonely place.  What was she doing in this unfamiliar city trusting people she barely knew?  Dismayed by her train of thought, Carla’s hands dropped away from the piano and she stared at it forlornly.

At the abrupt silence, Mrs. Randal’s voice piped up from the kitchen.  “Why don’t I hear you playing, Carl?  You’ll not get any lemonade if you shirk on your lesson!” the old woman teased.

Her playful banter brought a tiny smile to Carla’s face.  You’re not alone, the girl firmly reminded herself.  You have Nick, who’s definitely not a stranger; he’s your friend!  And now you have Mrs. Randal, who’s going to help you play piano better and then you and Nick are going to go all over the country and play music for all sorts of people and never be alone.  Comforted by the idea, Carla’s foul mood was banished and she wondered what to play next.  She thought back to her old family piano, which had set her off on her negative tangent in the first place, and tried to recall the last song she’d ever played on it.  How did it go?  That one Daddy liked to hear...  She remembered it somewhere in the back of her mind.  That song, one the aspiring young pianist Carla had been trying to compose herself, was incomplete still but now it worked around in her brain, pushing itself to the surface.

Carla reached out and tested a chord.  Yes, that sounds right.  And she played.  She wasn’t sure how much later it was when she looked up to see Nick standing in the doorframe of the kitchen with a glass of lemonade.

...

Nick was looking at Carla intently—more intently than he ever had before—but when she stopped playing and looked up at him, his expression shifted and he was the same friendly Nick again.  “That was good,” was all he said.

Nick saw a question cross her face and, before Carla could reach for her notepad, he guessed what it was, answering, “Yeah, I found us some possible gigs.  You on that piano and me on my guitar, we’ll knock ‘em out, kid.  There’s enough small shows to keep us busy for almost a month—if Mrs. Randal won’t mind us staying that long, that is.”  He glanced over his shoulder into the kitchen.  “If you refuse to let me pay you, you old bird,” Nick teased affectionately, “at least let me give the outside of your house a new coat of paint or something.”

Once Carla had closed the piano and joined them in the kitchen, Nick went over his plan for the next few weeks.  “Carl, Mrs. Randal is going to brush you up on your techniques and such, and then we’ll start jamming together.  She’s a real master with musical improvisation.” They heard the woman make a humble sound of denial as she cooked away at the stove behind them.  “Oh, don’t deny it, Mrs. R.  After all, you’re the one who taught me all about making a song my own.”

Nick turned back to Carla and continued, “You’ve already proved that you can play, so it shouldn’t be long before she’s got you banging out the latest numbers and showed you the best way to learn new songs by ear.  That way, you can pick up hits on the road even without the sheet music.  There’s gonna be a string of venues we can play right through March, and by April we’ll have earned enough to hit the road.”  He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.  The two of them playing together, someday they would bring crowds to their knees.

Later that night as they were getting ready for bed after dinner, Nick sat on his cot, puzzling thoughtfully.  “Something the matter?” he heard Carla whisper.

He reached for his pajamas.  “Yeah, I was just wondering, what’s that song you were playing earlier?  The one when I walked into the room?  I’ve been trying to figure out if I ever heard it before, but I don’t think so.  You make that up yourself?”

“Oh, that.  I guess so.  It’s just something that’s been floating around in my head for forever, I guess.”  She went quiet for a moment and then added hesitantly, “I think I wrote it right before my father died.”

Over the next few weeks, while they practiced, performed, earned money—even while they painted Mrs. Randal’s house—it still lingered in Nick’s memory, that song and the way Carla had looked when she played it.  Like she was baring a bit of her soul.