Good enough. I just wanted to make sure your assessment of head-explodey goodness hadn't changed.

I'm not sure where to go with that, don't have as many choices as Deb, but a fair amount.

Yay, Tep! Glad you liked the suggestion.

Challenge #29: Music

By day, the piano was silent. Beneath it, my brother and I imagined other worlds, caves, cottages, airplanes. We sat cross-legged, me with my books or my Barbies, Charlie with his pilled stuffed dog, sheltered by the gleaming bulk of cherry, its fat legs marking our territory.

But by evening, it sang. When my father came home, we lay underneath it as he played away each small frustration and worry, and I hummed along to songs I never heard anywhere else, my cheek against the floor as it throbbed with each note, inside the beating heart of my father’s music.

Sorry Amy, not to taint your memory, but the "fat piano leg" conjured up this:

Music

The image lingers from an old movie on tv, a dark-haired child lost in a world of unimaginable hurt and betrayal, with no one to appeal to, no knowledge that appeal was possible. Her short, brutal existence had taught her that life was just this.

The image is of a little girl's arms tied around the fat piano leg while her mother bangs at the keys and holds an implacable foot on the reverb pedal. "Hold your water, young lady! Hold on. You hold on to the very!last!note!" while a puddle seeps out from the edge of the child's skirt.

No problem, Bev! That book/movie freaked me out for years, and I clearly remember those scenes/that particular form of torture. Shudder. It's a wonder Sybil survived at all.

I'll be doing my own piano drabbles, I think you can bet safely on that one.

This one's not, though. A memory from early July 1969:

Flamenco Variations On Top of the World

The apartment's a two-room bubble on a Riverside Drive rooftop. My father called in a favour from his trumpet-player friend. My mother and I are trying to kill each other, 24/7. I need sanctuary.

That first night, I wander over to the Village, eat, see my sister. I'm revelling in my freedom; I'm fifteen, I'm in my own separate universe, high in the sky for summer. I'm free.

Three in the morning, finally asleep, something drifts up through the plumbing: beautiful, mournful trumpet, hitting a frenetic note, spiralling up and down. I pound on the pipes.

"Miles! I need sleep!"

Deb, you told me that story when I visited at Halloween last year, and I absolutely loved it then, and I still do now.

Tep, there was no room in the drabble for his reply, right back up through the pipes at me: "Shut up, bitch, it's MY HOUSE."

Another, from 1973 or thereabouts:

Don't Bother Me With Numbers

Frustration, thy name is Student.

It's not his fault. I have zero patience, and his way of teaching is explanation. He's a friend, lead guitar for a rock band and killer acoustic player. He's been trying to show me how to play this particular song for hours.

"Full scale, up the octave." He does it, too fast for me to see. "Basic math."

"Fuck math!" I'm on the edge of tears. "Show me, and slowly. Just show me!"

He smiles suddenly, and does. I watch, absorb, and move. Suddenly, we're singing.

"Another man done gone, down on the country farm...."

More. I did warn you, you must admit.

Cowardice

"Do you want to jam?"

I look up at him, startled. He's at the Steinway, regarding me over the ten feet of piano lid.

"Why?" Jam? With him? "Um -"

"You were humming." He plays a few bars of one of my songs, effortless, river water. "So, get your guitar - we'll work on it."

"No!" He's lost his mind. I'm a decent musician, but - play with him? He's kidding.

"Oh, come on." He plays the riff again, nearly eviscerating me. "You've seen my scars. Come share your music."

I swallow hard, gather my courage, and get my guitar.

A Session at SIR, 1977

The blond with the ponytail is running the studio single-handed today. He's asked if he can sit in with me; seems he's a bassplayer when he isn't handling this place.

Everyone's signed out; I'm the only paying customer left. It's just past six.

He plugs in his bass, a battered cherrytop Guild long-scale. "You're in D modal, right? Let me tune up."

I wait, idly run a riff on my guitar. The bass, mellow thunder, replies.

Oh my god, his music? Tastes just like mine.

Six hours later, we finally stop playing and I realise I may be in love.