By David Osgood
The grass has turned yellow under the crabapple tree. From as far back as I can remember, it leaned toward death. My brother Johnny broke his leg climbing its chimeric body: the trunk, a walrus neck; the branches, a school of black dragonfish. They put rods in his leg. We would hold his knee up in a storm to see if lightning would strike. Our German Shepherd ate the fallen apples and got cyanide poisoning from the seeds and stems. He had this little bell attached to his collar that would make a faint sound when he moved.
“Mr. Barrister?” the child asks quizzically, playing the wrong notes of a mediocre dead composer on the wilting piano in my sitting room.
“Yes, I’m sorry. Start over again. I’m listening.”
“You haven’t been listening all practice,” she retorts. “You’ve been looking out the window while I play the wrong notes.”
“Not a very good piano teacher, am I?” I reply, flipping the sheet music. “Let’s try this one. ‘To a Wild Rose,’ it’s called. Sounds nice, right?”
She plays, slow and searching. But it’s beautiful.
“See! That’s it. You’re getting it.”
She leaves smiling, asking me to pay attention more next time. I wait for her mother to pull out of the driveway before I reach for the vodka. I return to the piano, raise the housing like a sarcophagus lid, and run my fingers along the hammers.
The gig downtown isn’t much, but it pays. The inside looks like a slam poetry house. The stage is a set of double-faced warehouse pallets hiding under a polyester flat wrap, barely holding the weight of a petit grand piano and a nineteenth century gilded cane bench.
Deep into the night a man approaches the piano.
“Do you remember me?” he says.
“I’m afraid I do not,” I answer.
“I remember you,” he replies softly.
“Look, man, you got a request?”
“Yes, sir. Can you play La Campanella?”
I look up. His face is chubbier than I remember, his eyes hold less depth. My fingers miss easy keys and I mumble something into the microphone about a break.
“They say that La Campanella is one of the hardest piano pieces in the world,” he continues. “I’ve only heard two people in my lifetime play it perfectly, and one of those people is you.”
“And the other is…”
“Me,” he answers.
“Hannold Bacon,” I reply.
“Dennis Barrister. It’s good to see you.”
“Hannold, you don’t belong here. Shouldn’t you be in Japan eating Yubari melons?”
“I lost everything. Now I’m in Brooklyn eating ramen. Even sold my piano.”
“Hey, Brooklyn’s not what it used to be.”
“I’m where it used to be.” He sits next to me on the piano bench, trolling his fingers above the flats. “Here we are. Just a couple of drunks who could have been the best piano players in the world.”
“You are,” I reply, “you were.”
“So were you. I remember you in college, hogging all the practice room times. They only had two pianos, and we both know the Pearl River was a piece of shit.”
“You made that Pearl River sound like a waterfall.”
He plays the right hand, and I the left. The right hand is the pain, the left the anchor. Somehow, we know when to go under and over each other’s fingers like a secret handshake. No one in the club understands what’s happening, but there’s no question it’s hard. The bar goes silent, and people watch in confused delight. When we are done, Hannold hops to the bar to get us medicine, but I duck out without a word.
I stare out at the crabapple tree, wondering if it ever made sweet music. Perhaps it was once fruitful but lost its way over time. Perhaps it got fed up with us–with how the world treats the beautiful things–and began to wither. If it really wanted to, it could grow again, but the seeds will always remain poisonous. It takes a lot of work to grow to what you used to be, especially knowing you can’t shake the dark parts. You have to play the right notes, perfectly, over and over again, and hope that someone will listen.
David Osgood’s work has previously appeared in X-RAY, NiftyLit, and Moot Point, among others. He received third place in the 2023 Flash Fiction Letter Review Prize for “Dislocation,” and an Honorable Mention in the 48th New Millennium Writing Awards in 2020 for his published work, “Downriver Guitar,” originally published in the tiny journal. Visit him at https://davidsosgood.com.
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