by Andrea Cheng
“Playing the piano.”
“Quit? No, I never quit. I’d sit down right now and play if we had a piano. I didn’t quit anything. Just life got in the way, Jerome, like this dirt here’s in the way, making it hard to get this marble sculpture out of the ground.”
People dying gets in the way too. If Mama was here we could play our duets and with the money we earned we could buy a baby grand the way we planned. I said Then maybe Daddy will come back, and Mama said No, Jerome, don’t think like that, he’s not interested. In music? I asked. In us, she said.
Our shirts are drenched and clinging to our skin, and we’re working fast. It’s a white marble head with wavy hair and two eyes. I stop, scared for a second that there’s some dead man I’m digging up. Mr. Willie laughs. “You know what a sculpture is, Jerome? This here is called a bust.”
“Whose head is it?”
“One of the three B’s.”
“You mean Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms?”
Mr. Willie sits back on his heels. “You know your music, don’t you?”
Finally he gets his long fingers underneath and lifts that bust up out of the ground, gentle like a baby. He rubs the chin to get the mud off.
“Well, I’ll be … I almost forgot all about you, Mr. Beethoven.” He carries the head over to the hose poking out from between bushes and turns the nozzle, and we let the cold water run all over the hair, the eyes, the chipped nose, the thin lips. The marble shines in the afternoon sun. “See these darker lines in the marble? They’re called veins.”
“Just like our veins,” I say, looking at the back of Mr. Willie’s knobby hands. “Except without the blood.” Mama had those popping out veins too, only hers were bruised from nurses sticking needles in. Slippery veins, one nurse said, like it was Mama’s fault.
“Ludwig van Beethoven,” Willie whispers.
“That’s really what he looked like?” I ask. The hair is what I like best, big waves that look soft though it’s solid marble.
Mr. Willie shuts his eyes. “Miss Myrtle had these sitting on the piano. Said they’d inspire us while we played.” Mr. Willie moves his long fingers over the cheeks, the jaw, the strong neck. “Mr. Beethoven was deaf, but the music was inside,” he says.
“I like the Ninth Symphony,” I say.
Mr. Willie hums the first few measures. “And how he could write that kind of music and never hear it, now that’s a wonder.”
The sun’s just going down and that sculpture is shining like it is brand-new. “How’d Mr. Beethoven get buried in all this dirt?” I ask.
“That I don’t know.”
Aunt Geneva’s calling.
Mr. Willie is trying to get the dirt out from in between the curls with his fingernails. “You better get on home, Jerome. I got a feeling Miss Geneva’s not one to wait.”
“Do you think Bach and Brahms are buried here too?” I’m thinking when I get my own piano someday, I’ll set those busts on top.
“Could be. Or not.”
“How did you know to dig right here?” I ask.
“I was just digging to plant some seeds,” Mr. Willie says. “And I know marble when I see it.”
“But what—”
Aunt Geneva calls again.
Mr. Willie’s eyes meet mine. “Go on home now, Jerome.”
I stand up. Mr. Willie said home, but Aunt Geneva’s house is not my home. My home is over on the other side of town in the small house with purple and white petunias and an upright soon as you walk in, then the dining room and the kitchen opening out to the back where we dug our garden. Mama said We’ll plant the tomatoes along the fence, Jerome. No need for stakes if we’ve got a fence to tie them to. We’ll put the cucumbers in front. Aunt Geneva has a clump of wilting black-eyed Susans near the gate. Your mother got the green thumb, she says. She got the piano hands and the brains. She got it all, Jerome.
My mother got cancer too.
“Better hurry up,” Mr. Willie says, looking straight at me.
I run down the hill.
6
There are two beds for the three of us. After the funeral I slept in Damon’s bed, but he said it wasn’t fair, him being older, so I moved over to Monte’s. He said I took up too much room. I am big compared to their skinny bald-headed selves.
I make a bed for myself in the corner on some blankets. Aunt Geneva comes in and starts hollering. “Who taught you boys that kind of meanness, I’d like to know? I know it wasn’t me.”
Damon’s hiding under the blankets.
“I never said he couldn’t sleep with me,” Monte says.
Aunt Geneva goes over and whips those covers off Damon’s head. Then she tells both her boys to get up off the beds and sleep on the floor, and she tells me I can have my pick of beds or I can sleep across both of them if I’d like. She says she’ll get a third bed, soon as Uncle James brings his next paycheck. “Things happened faster than I anticipated,” she says.
But I don’t want to sleep in beds that smell like Damon and Monte, so when Aunt Geneva goes downstairs, I go back to my corner. They are afraid their mother will come back, so they take some blankets and curl up in two other corners and the beds are left empty. It occurs to me that Mr. Willie might like to sleep in one, him being so old and everything, but he has a place all to himself in the carriage house. And now he’s got Mr. Beethoven to keep him company.
I move my fingers under the sheet, right hand going up, left hand going down and I start humming that song, that last one Mama taught me, a duet for four hands by Grieg, and before you know it, I’m sniffling and I can’t stop.
Aunt Geneva comes up again. “You tell me, Jerome, what’d they do this time? You can tell me the truth.” She’s holding me in her arms that are much fatter than Mama’s skinny stick arms. “Your mama raised you better than I can raise these two that I have.”
“They didn’t do anything,” I say finally.
“You wouldn’t be crying for nothing.” Then she says, “Jerome, you come over here and sleep on this bed like I told you.” She smoothes the sheet out and I lie down real stiff in the middle of Monte’s bed. She lets the sheet fall gently on my sweaty skin.
I feel Aunt Geneva’s hand rubbing my back. “Now think about your mama in heaven. She’s in a better place now, Jerome, a better place for sure.” I don’t want Aunt Geneva talking about heaven when Mama never did. I’m sniffling and she’s sniffling and Damon and Monte too. Her hand is rubbing my shoulders, my neck, smoothing out the pajama shirt. “Your mama made plans for you, you know that.”
Me and Mama were sitting on the couch, watching the morning sun. She said Jerome, you won’t ever be alone, and I said Long as I have a piano, I’m okay, and she said No, Little Man, you aren’t grown up yet. You’re going to stay with Aunt Geneva and Uncle James and their boys. And I said For how long? Mama said We can’t plan that far ahead.
Aunt Geneva is breathing hard, trying not to cry. “Your mama wouldn’t want us sitting here and bawling our eyes out. You know what she’d say, don’t you?”
Mama said lots of things. Enough, she’d say, now that’s enough, Jerome. Pity only goes so far. Or Get busy, Jerome. Busy hands heal a heart. Mama said all that.
Aunt Geneva sighs. “When I was a little girl and your mother was just a year older, we found a baby rabbit. We tried to feed it all kinds of things, but it wouldn’t eat. Just too little, I think. Or maybe it was sick. I held it in my hands and felt its tiny heart fluttering. And then it stopped. We buried that rabbit in the backyard under a rock. I cried for days. Just couldn’t stop thinking about that last breath. Finally your mother had enough of my sniffling, and she said, ‘Geneva, you see all these trees and flowers growing out of this dirt? This dirt comes from all the living things that died over the years. So if they didn’t die, there’d be nothing alive.’ ‘Even me?’ I asked. ‘Even you,’ she said. And I stopped crying.”
Aunt Geneva tells Monte and Damon to say sorry to me, so they mumble something. Then she goes downsta
irs to make soup for when Uncle James gets home from working a double shift.
Mama’s under all that dirt and turning into dirt. The worms are helping. Earthworms are the best thing a garden can have, Mama said. I know they put her in a coffin, but that coffin’s wood, and wood will turn into dirt eventually. Just give it time. Good thing they finally took that plastic wig off Mama’s head before they shut the coffin. Ms. Simmons said This wig looks better even than her real hair. And it is real hair, imported from China. But Mama said the wig was itchy and tight so soon as it was just me and her, she yanked that wig off her bald head and we sat on the sofa together. She said Jerome, play me that Grieg we’ve been working on, and I said It’s for four hands, and she said I know but I’m tired, so you just play the one part and then the other and we’ll put the parts together in our heads.
When Mama was asleep, I tiptoed over and picked that wig up off the floor. The hair might have been real, but it was glued onto something stiff and itchy and plastic. And plastic doesn’t turn into dirt very fast, I know that.
In the morning, Mama wasn’t breathing. All the neighbors were there. Ms. Simmons put that wig on Mama’s head and I said No, she doesn’t like it, take it off. Ms. Simmons said Shhh, Jerome, shhhhh, but I wouldn’t give up because I was the only one who really knew what Mama wanted.
I’m playing the piano on the mattress and humming a tune at the same time. Damon whispers something to Monte, asking if I’m staying for the whole summer, and Monte says I’m staying forever. Damon turns to me. “Are you?” he whispers.
I say, “I sure hope not because you all don’t even have a piano.”
Damon covers his head with the sheet.
Maybe I’ll move in with Mr. Willie because nobody would bother me there even if I was humming and moving my fingers around. He wouldn’t have a problem with that. We’ll go into that mansion and find the piano that must be there. One at a time we’ll fix up those rooms with fresh plaster walls and new pipes until it’s good as new. And when it’s done, we’ll have a concert and invite everyone we know.
7
Mr. Willie’s frying fish that smells so good. His fishing pole is leaning against the stone wall, and he’s holding the skillet over a small fire.
“What kind of fish is that?” I ask.
“Catfish,” he says. “A nice big one.”
Damon and Monte come with me because they can smell that fish all the way down the hill. “Where’d you catch it?” Monte asks.
“Mill Creek.”
Monte looks at his brother. “That water’s nasty,” Damon says. “Full of chemicals and stuff.”
“I’ve been eating fish out of the Mill Creek for sixty years,” Mr. Willie says. He takes the skillet off the fire, kicks some dirt onto the burning log, and turns the fish out onto a plate. Then he hands us each a fork.
“Maybe we shouldn’t eat this Mill Creek fish,” Monte says.
Mr. Willie says, “Suit yourself, but if you eat it, watch for the bones.”
Monte takes a nibble, and Damon and me too. That is the best fish I ever tasted. Mr. Willie says when he used to work on the loading dock, he caught bigger fish, Ohio River bass, catfish, you name it.
When we’re done, Mr. Willie rinses the bones off the plate in the hose. Monte says, “You live in this old carriage house?”
Mr. Willie doesn’t answer.
“Who pays for that water coming out of the hose?” Damon asks.
“That’s Ms. Jackson’s hose and Ms. Jackson’s water,” Mr. Willie says. He stands up straight. “I cut her grass, she gives me water.”
“You have a bathroom in there?” Monte asks.
“You boys have a lot of questions today,” Mr. Willie says.
“Is there one?” Monte asks.
“There’s a toilet and a shower in Ms. Jackson’s basement, if you have to know.”
“They’re going to tear this whole place down,” Damon says.
Mr. Willie stiffens. “Who told you that?”
“Everybody knows. There’s the sign.” He points over to the mansion, and sure enough, there’s a small black-and-white For Sale sign stuck into the ground right in front.
“Selling it doesn’t mean tearing it down,” I say. Damon laughs. “So, what do you think they’ll do?”
“Fix it up,” I say.
“Nothing left to fix,” Damon says. He kicks at a rock. “Mama says whoever buys it will level it for sure.”
“What’s ‘level it’ mean?” Monte asks.
Damon sweeps his arm to show us. “They’ll bring in a bulldozer, knock all this down, and haul it away.”
“You mean the big house too?” Monte asks.
Damon shrugs. “Probably.”
“I didn’t hear Aunt Geneva say that,” I say.
He crosses his arms on his chest. “If you didn’t spend all your time up here digging in this dirt, maybe you’d hear something.”
I look at over at Mr. Willie and his chin is quivering. “If the church is selling Miss Myrtle’s house,” he says softly, “somebody ought to at least let Sharon know.”
“Who’s Sharon?” Monte asks.
“She used to live here,” I say. “A long time ago.”
Damon kicks at the wall and a stone falls off the side. “Everyone knows this place is an eyesore,” he says. He drags that word out. Eyesore, makes your eyes sore. Nothing ever makes my eyes sore, but Damon makes my head ache. “And it’s haunted too,” he says.
“No such thing,” I say. Don’t believe that kind of talk, Jerome, Mama said. That’s just people trying to scare you.
Damon laughs. “I dare you to come up here on Halloween,” he says, narrowing his eyes.
Mr. Willie stands up straight so he’s even taller than Damon. “Whoever says that house is an eyesore has never been inside. The f loor is inlaid with different colored pieces of wood, some teak, some cherry. You know what a mosaic is? That’s what’s on that floor. And the windows are stained glass with leaded panes.” Mr. Willie has his eyes shut, remembering.
“There’s not a single window pane in that whole building,” Damon says.
“And the steps of white marble, so cool on my skin.” Mr. Willie drops his head, goes over to the hose, and splashes water onto his face. He comes back to where the fishing pole is leaning against the carriage house. “It does need some work,” he says, picking up the stone that Damon knocked loose and setting it back where it belongs.
“Come on,” Damon says to his brother. I know he’s thinking Let’s leave those two alone, they’re so crazy. Some of the other neighborhood kids are hanging around by the basketball net.
Monte looks like he wants to stay.
“Come on,” Damon says again. He grabs his brother by the shirt and drags him down the hill.
8
Mr. Willie puts some water into a bucket, adds a little cement, and mixes it with a small trowel.
“We better hurry and fix this place up,” he says.
“What if they really do tear it down?” I ask.
“That’s why we better get fixing,” Mr. Willie says. “So they can see the beauty in the stone work.” He drops a glob of cement onto the top of the wall, sets a stone in it, and smoothes off the extra.
I watch for a minute, then pick up a stone and set it into the next glob of cement. We work like that until we finish the row.
“When the wall is done, we’ll work on the vegetable garden,” Mr. Willie says.
“My mother said I have a green thumb,” I say. “We had a nice garden alongside our fence with tomatoes and cucumbers and carrots.”
“A green thumb goes with the music,” Mr. Willie says.
“It does?”
“Piano fingers and a green thumb.” Mr. Willie scrapes the last bit of cement out of the bucket. “Go hand in hand.”
Suddenly there’s a question I have to ask. “Mr. Willie?”
“What is it?”
“Where are you going to stay if they really do tear this plac
e down?”
Mr. Willie walks over to the hose and rinses out the bucket. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
“But what if you’re inside when they come with the bulldozer?”
Mr. Willie sets the bucket upside down to dry. “A bulldozer makes plenty of noise. And my ears are plenty good.”
“But where would you stay after that?” My eyes are burning again and I don’t even really know why. Too much mulling, thinking about Mama and our garden and how Mr. Willie could have stayed with us on our foldout cot in the living room with the piano right close by.
“I’ll figure something out,” Mr. Willie says.
I wanted to keep on living in my old house. I could have gotten up and fixed myself oatmeal for breakfast, then walked to school with David. I’d need some kind of job to buy my clothes, but I could grow carrots and beans and cucumbers to eat. David’s mother wouldn’t care if I came for dinner now and then. And if I got good enough, I could play the piano for celebrations like weddings to earn a little money. But Mama said No, Jerome, you’re not grown yet. Aunt Geneva said I’d be going to a new school anyway for the sixth grade because my old school stopped at fifth. You’re our boy now, Jerome, she said, without even asking my permission.
Mr. Willie rinses the bucket under the hose. Then we stretch a piece of string to mark the edges of the vegetable garden. Mr. Willie turns over the dirt with the shovel and I break up the clods with the railroad spike.
“We could fix up the mansion,” I say suddenly. Mr. Willie puts his weight on the shovel and turns over the soil, but I can tell he’s listening. “We could both stay there.”
Mr. Willie’s eyes meet mine. “It’s not ours to fix,” he says.
“It’s not doing anybody much good just sitting empty,” I say.
Mr. Willie places the shovel again. “You’re staying with your Aunt Geneva,” he says.
A lump is growing in my throat. “Nobody asked me what I wanted.”
“Your Aunt Geneva is one of the kindest people I know,” Mr. Willie says. “She’s helped me out on more than one occasion.”