Post 27: The Dream: Piano Lessons

Hey John. The kind woman with the drawl just turned me over and gave me my meds, which usually results in a cascade of memories. You know. The movies, the dreams. I’ve grown to like this part of the program. It’s just that when I try to speak or move or let you or Kit in on the dream, especially the funny parts, nothing happens. I’ve said before, it’s lonely here, and then the feeling passes. When I was in graduate school to become a therapist, we studied dreams. There were and probably still are any number of competing theories on why we dream and what our dreams mean. What I took away was this: we tend to dream about things we hoped would happen or are afraid will happen. Or maybe it’s not either of those things at all.

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 I was four years old when I received a Philco transistor radio at Christmas. It was red and white with a circular gold-tone speaker embedded in the front. It came with an earphone that kept me from driving my parents crazy with yet another source of auditory interruption. I was in heaven.

It was like magic that fit in the palm of my four-year-old hand. Radio introduced me to music: jazz, sacred songs, ballads, spirituals, show tunes, and, my favorite, classical. I soon learned that, on Saturday afternoons, there was this miraculous outpouring of a thing called opera, a broadcast of the New York Metropolitan Opera called “Texaco at the Met.” I later learned that, by manipulating the tuner on my Philco, I could access any number of other performances, including orchestral performances and piano solo concerts by the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. While my cousins David and Denton were glued to ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,” I was listening to Callas and a newcomer called Van Cliburn.

Shortly after my fifth birthday, I asked Mama and Daddy for a piano.

I’m not sure if I grasped the fact that a piano (at least the kind I wanted) would not actually play itself. There would have to be lessons. Taken by me. And a piano and lessons cost money. From what I gathered, a lot of money. Even at five years old, I clearly understood that our family was not the kind that had much money, never mind a lot.

Nevertheless, I persisted. I begged. I promised to practice after every lesson. I would give up my meager fifty-cent weekly allowance and still do my chores. I repeatedly asked GranMag to talk to Mama; I pestered Aunt Cam, Aunt Virginia, and anyone who would listen to please advocate on my behalf. I think what finally convinced Mama that I was serious was my dedication to the classical performances on my transistor radio. After hearing a piece once, I could hum along, reproducing not only the intricate melodies of Rachmaninoff but also the tricky tempos of Bach and Mozart.

Daddy developed a specific glare that he shot my way at the dinner table when he detected the cord to my radio earphone dangling behind my ear. For her part, Mama battled my protests of, “But it’s almost finished” as her lovely dinners cooled at my empty place at table.

The decision to buy a piano came with specific conditions, not the least of which was this, from Mama: “The first time we have to ask you to practice will be the last time. We will sell the piano.” Mama had heard horror stories from her bridge group about the begging, cajoling, and even bribing that her fellow mothers had resorted to in order to get their children to play. The difference between myself and the other children was this: I loved music and I wanted to learn to play. I was doing it for me.

I have two early memories of the piano on which I would play, almost daily, for the next ten years. The first was its delivery.

My piano was an English-made upright of indeterminate age but with intricate Victorian woodwork that suggested a turn-of-the-century (nineteenth-to-twentieth) vintage. Mama was horrified to discover that a previous owner had pain obscured a beautiful natural rosewood case with a serviceable coat of ebony paint. Visuals were not top of mind for me as two very large men brought my piano through the garage and into our basement.

Daddy and I had cleared a special place for my piano among the shelves of preserved jams and canned goods, heavy metal tool boxes containing massive wrenches and hammers, cardboard boxes of important papers, and summer porch furniture stored under its canvas covers. I could not have been happier if the two sweating deliverymen had deposited a Steinway.

I immediately began to inspect, prod, open and close, and generally invade every part of the piano. I eventually got to the keys, which were real ivory, a surprise to us all. I had actually played the rehearsal piano in the choir room at our church and, in anticipation of my upright’s arrival, had prepared my own version of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” At last, I put my fingers on the keyboard and struck a note, and then another.

I struck the keys, and the sound struck back.

My well-rehearsed arrival song was a sour version of what I’d expected. I looked at Mama with tears of disappointment. I’m not sure if any of us had anticipated that my piano would not arrive fully tuned, but a few notes from me and it was clear that the family, insisting on daily practice, could never endure what would surely be daily torture coming from my efforts in the basement.

Tuning cost money. We would wait until the following month for yet another expenditure on a venture that was wholly untested at this point. Mama pored through the Yellow Pages in search of a piano tuner who was “reasonable” and finally landed on “Roger Jamison, Piano Technician.” Mostly to stop my daily pestering, Mama scheduled Mr. Jamison for the following week, a whole two weeks ahead of our agreed-upon schedule.

The afternoon of his arrival, I paced, watched the clock, looked out the window, even walked to the end of the driveway and back, only to return and ask a clearly annoyed Mama, again, what time it was.

At four on the dot, a light-blue older model Chevy van pulled into our driveway. I was surprised to see a black woman exit the driver’s side and walk around the back of the van to the passenger side. In my mind, Mr. Jamison was, first, a mister, and, second, he worked alone. Curious and a little concerned, I watched as the woman driver assisted a middle-aged, nicely dressed black man out of the van. Just for the record, the Mr. Jamison in my head had not been black.

Nor had he been blind.