Piano Dick

Piano Dick

Noel Laflin

6-29-14

I have only known one man in my life who claimed to have personally met Billy the Kid. He was my sister's godfather - a close friend of the family. We affectionately referred to him as Piano Dick.  I suppose he got that name because he was the only man that we knew who owned a piano - and entertained us with it on a regular basis whenever we visited. 

Aside from once having helped hide Billy the Kid from a pursing posse, Dick could also cook. His specialty was chili con carne.  He must have perfected the dish while living the life of a real cowboy in the New Mexico territory back in the late 1800's and well into the turn of the new century. The chili was pretty exotic food to children of Midwestern folk. But I can still savor the aroma every time we arrived at his old Spanish bungalow in Long Beach.  I have been longing for that lost recipe for over fifty years now. 

Those visits to the home of Piano Dick were all day affairs, back in the time when Eisenhower was still president. The old man would cook and regale the family with tales from a long lost era. He might then sit down to play us a tune while we savored homemade donuts for desert. 

If the weather was fine we would all head down to the beach and go for a swim and picnic - or head over to Long Beach's notorious Pike and mingle with the sailors and riffraff.  Although too young myself to ride the ancient and very scary Cyclone Racer roller coaster out over the waves, my brother did so. I remember asking him once what it was like. 

"It scared the crap out of me," he replied nonchalantly.  But his eyes betrayed his calm demeanor as they were the size of saucers. 

I had to be content with dart throwing at balloons, a carousel ride, the barking of come-ons from carnies and a bumpy, jarring ride through an ever twisting house of horrors. 

The memory of that maiden ride has actually stayed with me all my life. The mechanical gorilla got stuck for sometime directly in front of the car in which we rode. He had swung out of nowhere and just stayed there overly long. I freaked and buried my face in the bosom of my mom.  I used to dream of the giant hairy creature with bloodshot eyes, bared fangs and hands pounding on a massive chest well into adolescence. 

Trips to Dick’s home became more infrequent over the succeeding years.  With mounting health issues, his home was sold and the old man moved in with his relations.  Several years were to pass before we all met up for one last get-together when I was seventeen.  This was the evening that Piano Dick told us about his brief encounter with the Kid back in 1881- shortly before Pat Garrett took him down and laid him in the ground.

“Now, I was just a kid,” the scary old man with neither hair nor nose began.  “I must have been five or six at the time,” he bellowed.  He had gone quite deaf and had no idea of how loudly he now spoke.

I would not have recognized Piano Dick at this gathering, as ninety years of sun had taken away his entire nose due to advanced skin cancer.  It was literally gone now.  We all found ourselves trying our best not to stare directly into his nasal cavity.  It was a tall order.

“We’re going to say grace now, Dick,” our hostess shouted at the old cowboy.  “We’ll hear the rest of your story during dinner – okay?”

Dick must have caught the gist of her request as he grew silent, closed his eyes and immediately dozed off in the wheelchair which had been pushed in close to the patio table.

“Heavenly Father,” the husband of the hostess began – “we want to take this moment to thank…”

“God!” Piano Dick roared, coming to from his short nap. 

“That boy was in a goddamn hurry racing up to our home,” he continued, totally unaware of any interruption on his part.  “He jumped off of that pony of his and pounded on the door with the butt of his pistol.  Mama and I were staring out the window in disbelief. But, there he was, Billy the Kid himself, freshly escaped from a jail break - all hot and sweaty and standing on our very porch, looking as if the devil himself was on his tail!”

Someone patted Dick’s old spotted hand and yelled into his good ear that the host was trying to say grace.

“Oh, oh, yes,” Dick nodded.  “That’s right; we were going to say a table prayer.”  He closed his eyes once more and his chin immediately dropped to his chest.  His breathing was steady and regular.

“We want to take this moment to thank you, Father,” our host continued,  “for allowing us this blessed opportunity to …”

“ ‘Hide me woman!’  the Kid said to my mother, as he burst into our tiny kitchen.  ‘Me and the horse both,’ ” Dick yelled, staring at us all, one after another.  I tried to return the stare, but the missing nose was somewhat deterring in that regard.

“’Now, I’m going to take refuge in your barn, if it’s all the same to you,’ the Kid declared.  ‘I expect that posse to be coming across your land any time soon.  If you or this child of yours let on that I was here, let alone holed up in yonder barn, you’re both dead, do you hear me!’” Dick paused for both breath and effect and was soon fast asleep once more.

“For allowing us this blessed opportunity to come together!” our determined host rapidly chimed in, taking advantage of his own break in which to finish the prayer. 

“And to give thanks not only for the bountiful food which lay before us, but for thy peace, which passes All understanding,” he concluded quickly.

I believe he had planned on saying more, but decided not to press his luck.

“And, oh,” he said as an afterthought, “Amen.”

“Amen, Amen, Amen!” Dick shouted, having roared to life once more. 

“That’s just what mother and I said when the posse turned and headed north, once we had them convinced that Billy the Kid had NOT come our way.  And we threw in a few more Amen’s  once the Kid had come out from hiding, thanked us for our hospitality and rode off due south.  It was a hell of a day!”

And with that, Piano Dick closed his eyes and smiled at the memory.

Just as I am doing so now.

Bad Things Happen

 Bad Things Happen

Noel Laflin

Fourth Thursday in June, 2014

Third Wednesday in September, 1963.

The youngster took the new shirt off the coat hanger and tried it on.  Yellow looked good on him, he decided, as he preened before the mirror hanging on the back of the closet door.  His mother had bought the shirt for him at the end of summer and today was the first time he’d actually worn it.  He had saved it for a special occasion.

“Maybe it will bring me luck,” he hoped.   Fifth grade at Lincoln Elementary was well under way and he was struggling with math – as usual.  Spelling was not his strong suit either lately.  There were tests in both subjects today.

“OK,” the boy whispered to the mirror.  “Bring me luck.”

  

With that, he found his mother in the kitchen placing an apple in his lunch sack.  As he pecked her on the cheek and said good bye, she noticed the new shirt and mentioned how nice it looked on him.

“Thanks,” he called out absently and bolted out the door.

Seconds later he ran back in again to retrieve his nearly-forgotten sack lunch.

“Bye again!” he shouted as he sped out the back door, hurriedly walking his bike out the gate and down the driveway.  He quickly mounted and sped off down the street.

He failed both tests that day.

“So much for luck,” the boy thought as he undressed later that night and tossed the shirt unceremoniously into the laundry basket. 

Second Monday in October, 1963.

His mother found him crying in his closet late that afternoon.  She had been preparing supper and had gone back to give her son the heads-up that she needed his assistance setting the table.  His father would be home soon.

The boy was sprawled upon the old wooden floor - lying atop a variety of shoes and miss-matched socks.  There was an upright cardboard box wedged in among the footwear.  The lid had been cast aside. The interior of the box was lined with an old soft towel and recently cut grass.  The scent of the grass helped mask the smell of old sneakers.  There was a small plastic water bowl in one corner of the box.  Another plastic bowl filled with dried grains, seeds and tiny bits of apple was seated beside it.

Upon seeing his mother, the boy slowly pulled himself upward and extended his cupped hands out to her – as in supplication.  He was cradling a small dead bird in his ten-year-old palms.  Tears streamed down his cheeks.

“She died, mom,” the boy whispered, between the gasping of a child’s sobs.

“Oh, honey,” his mother lamented, gently stroking the soft brown feathers of the gift being offered – like a precious diamond, she thought, through which light no longer shines.

“God knows every sparrow which falls,” she said more to herself than to her distraught child.

“You tried your best to keep this little one alive, son.  I don’t think anyone could have tried harder than you,” she said.  “She was hurt and you took her in and gave her substance and shelter.  But, it just wasn't in your power to heal that broken wing.  She is out of pain now.  I hope you understand that.”

“I know,” the boy began.  It was as much as he could say for the moment.

They heard a car pull into the driveway.

“That’ll be your dad.  Why don’t you place her back in the box and wash up a bit.  We’ll bury her in the garden after dinner.  Go ahead and say your goodbyes while I set the table.”

The boy watched her leave his room as she slowly walked down the hall and into the dining room.  He heard soft whispers from afar.  His parents were talking quietly.

There would be a subdued dinner – followed by an impromptu funeral in the far corner of the back yard. 

When the boy undressed for bed later that evening, he looked in the mirror hanging on the back of the closet door and recognized the yellow shirt that he had worn several weeks before - the shirt that he had hoped would bring him luck.  He’d shied away from wearing it after the defeat of two poor test scores.

He thought of the poor sparrow with the broken wing.  He had found the bird on Saturday and taken it into the house.  He wanted to save it.  His father spoke gently about the folly of trying to do so.  But, his mother understood the need in her boy’s plea.  She had provided the box, towel and plastic containers with food.  The boy kept watch over the injured creature all weekend.  He kept the box in his closet, away from the curious family dog.

The bird had still been alive this morning, he thought.

But I put on this shirt today and the bird then died, he reasoned, as only a ten-year-old could.

“I don’t think this is a lucky shirt after all,” he said to his reflection on the closet door. 

And with that, he grabbed the garment and threw it against the wall, far from the laundry basket.

Fourth Friday in November, 1963.

The boy in the pretty yellow shirt was daydreaming when the principal quietly stepped into their fifth grade class room and whispered in the ear of their teacher.  The man then departed and went into the class across the hall for another urgent whispering with another adult.  The clock on the wall read close to twelve noon.

The boy’s teacher removed a white handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his glasses absently.  He then wiped at the corners of both eyes and gently blew his nose.

“Boys and girls,” he began.  “President Kennedy has been shot.  In Dallas, I’m told. He is dead.  Class,” he stuttered, “class is dismissed.”

With that, the man turned and left the classroom, tears tumbling down his face.

The children sat in silence for a moment and then gathered up their things.  A bell sounded for lunch.

The boy who had been daydreaming was fully awake now.  He stared out the window as his classmates scattered.  A bird in an ancient pepper tree was chirping to an unseen mate.  The sound carried in through the open window.

The lone student lifted the lid of the old desk and put away his math test.  He had just scored an eighty on the pop quiz.  He thought it was going to be his lucky day.  Past resentment and superstition toward the shirt he was wearing had eroded over the past month.  He was too old, he reminded himself, to be thinking that kind of stuff.  But, all the same…

When he undressed for bed that night – reflecting on a day of stunning sadness – he stared at the boy in the mirror, the one in the pretty yellow shirt. 

“It can’t be,” he wondered in disbelief.

He removed the offensive clothing, wadded it tightly and hid it out of sight beneath the bed.

The last Monday in November, 1963.

The boy was amazed that the family’s old television set had not burned itself out over the past three days.  He was equally amazed how he and the rest of the world had also not burned themselves out during the same time frame while glued to their collective television sets and radios.

The images shifted from Dallas to Air Force One sitting on a warm Texas tarmac to Washington and back to Dallas again as a man stepped out of a crowd and fired point blank into the belly of another man in hand cuffs.

Familiar, father-like commentators wept openly on Friday and were wearing the same clothes come Saturday.  Crowds swelled in lines for forty blocks in order to pay their last respects to a young president lying in state.

And then there was the funeral on Monday. 

The black and white images pouring forth from the old family television were relentless.

And yet, life went on somehow.

Meals were prepared and consumed in silence or tears.

Chores around the house were attended to.

A mother cleaned her son’s bedroom and came across a discarded shirt on the floor of his room, beneath the bed.  Odd, she thought, for the boy to be so careless.  But, it was washed and ironed and hung once more in his closet by the close of Monday evening.

The boy spotted it while changing into his pajamas later that night.

He carried the shirt out to his mother.  She was sitting in front of the old television set, sewing.  It was turned off. 

“I can’t wear this anymore, mom,” the boy began.

“Bad things happen, when I do,” he concluded.

He tried his best to explain failed exams, a hurt sparrow and now the death of a president. 

His mother listened.

She then tried to reassure her son that he was not responsible for the death of anything or anybody.

The boy shook his head all the same.

“Please don’t be mad – but I just can’t take a chance on anything else happening, mom.”  He held the shirt with outstretched hands.  “Make it go away please,” he pleaded softly.

“All right,” she said.  “Leave it here now.  I will take care of it.  You have plenty of other shirts in the closet.  Now, go to bed.”

The boy set the shirt on the edge of her chair.  He leaned over and kissed her cheek.

“Night, mom – thanks.”  He shuffled off to bed.

“Good night,” she replied.  “Sweet dreams.”

The mother set down her sewing and picked up the pretty yellow shirt.

She went out the back door and into the garage, looking for the bag of used clothing intended for the Salvation Army.

She found the bag and carefully folded the shirt. She laid it atop items destined for others.

The boy’s mother closed the bag and headed for the house.

Halfway there she stopped – struck by a memory of a boy in a pretty yellow shirt crying in the closet.  She returned to the garage and the bag of clothing.

She removed the garment on top, held it aloft as it unfolded itself and then gave it a mighty tear right down the center.  Buttons fell to the floor.

She walked over to the trash can, lifted the old metal lid and tossed the once pretty shirt inside. 

It landed on a pile of newspapers with headlines proclaiming some very bad things.

The mother walked back into the house to check on her son.  She just wanted to tuck him in for the night and reassure him that everything would be all right.

 

Short Circuit

Short Circuit

Noel Laflin

6-22-14

My old father had seen better days.

He was now a fellow with only a clear memory of decades prior.  Chasing Rommel across the sands of North Africa, for example, could be recounted with perfect clarity.   Recent events were kind of iffy, however, – sometimes downright goofy. It was to stay this way for the remainder of his life.  But, he did not seem to mind as much as the rest of us.  To dad, time just became a perpetual loop of pleasant forgetfulness.

   

“Hello, son!!” my father exclaimed with great surprise as I crossed his living room floor, flashlight and screwdriver in hand.  “When did you get here?”

“Just a little while ago, dad,” I smiled, walking into the dining room and flipping off a circuit breaker in the wall box behind the kitchen table.  The old wooden piece was all set for dinner.  I had brought over a homemade casserole, which was cooking away in the oven.

“What are you doing in there?” dad asked.  “Not that I’m unhappy to see you,” he added, shifting his weight in the wheel chair which I had recently liberated from the hospital – along with the old man himself just a month prior.

“Fixing the ceiling fan in your bathroom,” I replied, as I retraced my steps past him once again, heading down the hall to his bedroom.  “I had to turn off the circuit breaker to your bathroom so I don’t electrocute myself as I try to replace the light and fan switch.”

“Oh,” he said, frowning slightly.  “I did not know it was broken.”  He brightened with his follow-up question:  “Are you staying for dinner?”

“Sure, dad – soon as I get this sucker working,” I answered absently as I struggled to hold the flashlight under my armpit and shine it onto the inner wires beneath the wall plate of the two bathroom switches.  I unscrewed the old piece and popped in the newly acquired double switch from Ace Hardware.  I walked back down the hallway, re-crossing the living room once more on my way to the circuit breaker box.  My father looked up from the wheelchair as I passed.

“Hello, son!” my father exclaimed with genuine surprise – “When did you get here?”

“Just a little while ago, dad.  I’m fixing the fan in your bathroom.

“Oh, I did not know it was broken.  Are you staying for dinner?”

“Sure, why not?”

“That’s great,” he said.  “But, why exactly are you here?” he added, frowning ever so slightly, wondering no doubt as to why the question seemed familiar.

“Not that I’m unhappy to see you of course,” he amended, smiling sheepishly.

“I’m fixing the fan in your bathroom,” I replied.  The switch is out.  I brought over a new one.

“Oh,” he said.  I knew what was coming next.

“I did not know it was broken.”

“I’ll have it fixed in no time, dad.

“OK,” he said.  “Say, are you staying for dinner?”

“Sure – that would be nice.  Well, back to the light switch.  Ought to be working fine now.”

As I sauntered back down the hall I could hear the faint success of a bathroom ceiling fan – well, fanning away.  But, it looked awfully dark where the bathroom light should have been pouring into my father’s bedroom.

“Damn it!” I muttered, realizing that although the fan was now indeed operational – the overhead light was not.  

I trudged down the hall on my way back to the circuit breaker once more.

“Hello, son!” my father said excitedly – as I emerged from the hallway.  “When did you get here?”

I told my father about the broken fan in the bathroom.

He seemed genuinely concerned about not knowing it was broken.

I wanted to put his tired mind at ease just a bit - as well as beat him to the punch.

“So, dad,” I began, “maybe I’ll stay for dinner after I’m done.  How’s that?”

“I was just going to suggest that,” he said happily.  “Say, you must be a mind reader!”

“Well, great minds think alike, you know.”  And, with that I flipped a switch and hoped for the best.