Bryce's Piano

On his 5th birthday, his precious piano lying outdoors at the bottom of the staircase in three smashed
pieces, pink and red blood bubbles still hanging in the air, Bryce was sent to bed early, crying his heart
out.

* * * * *

Bryce was four when he had his first all-day visit with his grandma, and he had never before played the
piano. Sitting by himself on the enormous white sofa in the living room, not yet tall enough for his feet
to reach the floor, he was swinging his legs absently, his attention engaged by Pebbles the parrot who
stood on her perch a few feet away, peering at him with rapt curiosity, chewing on a bit of seed casing
she had found under her tongue.

"It's awful quiet out there!" called his grandma from the kitchen. The swinging door pushed open and
she glanced in at him. Bryce had left the sofa to stand close to the perch where Pebbles was conducting
a nervous march in place as she eyed him with her beak open.

"Pebbles is sure looking you over good," said his grandma. "Once she knows you, she sits on your
shoulder and she lets you rub her crown, but only sometimes, and don't poke your fingers at her, Bryce,
she has a sharp nip."

"I think she likes me!"

"I think she does too!"

Awhile later, she peered in again.

"Do you smell those cookies yet?"

He smiled and nodded. "I like that smell."

"My first batch still needs a few minutes to cool, then I'll bring you one and I think I'll have one with you!"

"Can we play outside after our cookies?"

"No, I still have half a dozen batches left."

"How many is 'half dozen?'"

"That's 6. A dozen is 12, and half a dozen is 6."

"Does 'half dozen' batches take a long time?"

"No, just an hour."

"After that, can we go outside?"

"Maybe later, dear. After dinner, when it cools. It's awfully hot and rainy out there for grandma right now."

She brought Bryce a warm chocolate chip cookie and he sat with her on the sofa, watching Pebbles groom
herself as they ate quietly. His grandma finished in the kitchen and went to her favorite chair in the sitting
room. "Remember, you're thinking of a game we can play indoors, okay, Bryce?"

"Okay."

"I just have a letter from my sister I've been waiting to read and then I'll be all yours."

His grandma drifted asleep while reading her letter, snoring away. Bryce waited patiently on the sofa. Her
snoring stopped and she coughed loudly three times, then, half asleep, she called: "Are you thinking of a
game, honey?" Before he could answer, she muttered: "-I'm almost done reading-" and the snoring began
again. When she awoke, she suggested: "Maybe I can teach you something fun?"

"What will you teach me?"

"How about knitting? I taught your mom to knit when she was a kid. Knitting is relaxing and you can
make anything you want. My two joys have always been playing my piano and knitting--wait! The piano!
That's a wonderful idea, Bryce! How about I teach you-"

She lost his attention as a blue butterfly fluttered past the window. He saw the clear sky and exclaimed,
"Look, grandma, it stopped raining! Now we can play outside!"

"I have a better idea, Bryce. You know what is really fun? The piano! Do you wanna learn the piano?"

He shook his head.

"But Bryce, playing piano is such a joy, honey, I'd just love to teach you, it's really easy to learn-"

"No piano, no piano, let's-go-outside-grandma, let's-go-outside-grandma; No piano-"

"Can we try just a little bit? For me?"

Bryce uttered a moan of frustration and danced in place for a moment, but finally he hugged himself around her
thigh and using his happy monster voice he growled, "Alright!"

"You good kid! You make me so happy!"

* * * * *

He had a wonderful time. As soon as they sat on the bench, he began banging down on the keyboard,
creating an abominable racket. His grandma resolved to wait paitently, expecting he would settle down
on his own, but moments passed and his enthusiasm had clearly increased, his smiling face bobbing from
side to side in joy as he slammed down on the keys.

"Stop doing that!" she screeched, part of her wanting to snatch up the piano and hurl it against the wall.
They began a lesson but Bryce instantly ran loose and began clanging the keys, his face and eyes estatic.
They struggled like this for an hour, each lesson becoming derailed as soon as she allowed him to touch
the keyboard.

"I have things to do," his grandma mumbled. Her words did not reach him. He pounded on the keyboard
at random, his head bouncing from side to side, his eyes closed, his face wearing an estatic smile. His
grandma looked at him in foul wonderment for a moment and then she glared at him. He did not notice.

Every visit following that afternoon, he wanted to do nothing but sit at her piano, making his cacophany
and driving her out of her mind. "He doesn't even get better at it," she marveled to herself one evening,
as Bryce pounded away, joy glowing in his eyes, his face smiling with bliss, bouncing his head from side
to side, oblivious to everything around him.

She came to hate the piano. One night while drifting asleep, she said to herself: "I think I won't ever play
again. Never, ever, ever."

Two weeks before his 5th birthday, his grandmother called and told his parents to take the piano for his
birthday gift.

**********

Bryce danced with delight inside the door of the apartment as he watched his parents and their neighbor
Jerry approach the staircase with the piano. His father carried one end, walking backwards, and his mother
and Jerry carried the other end.

His father cautiously climbed the first of the fifteen steps leading to the second floor. They paused for a
moment while he stabilized himself, and then he grunted "Okay" and took the second step.

Jerry and Bryce's mother, their thin bodies wavering under the weight, mounted the first step on rubbery
legs, Jerry's face a purple-red and Bryce's mother squinting in concentration and scowling.

When he finally placed a shaky foot on the top step, Bryce's father called, "Ok! I'm on the last-"

"My hands are slipping!" gasped Bryce's mother.

As her cramped, sweaty hands went in desperate search of a purchase, the weight of the piano tilted
towards Jerry, turning his arms into jelly. His strength vanished and he lost his grip. The piano slid half
a step towards him, pushing its weight against him and knocking him hard in the chest.

Jerry shrieked. He began toppling backwards down the steps. Bryce's father grabbed the piano in a
bearhug but the piano ripped away from him, the whole weight of it falling onto Bryce's mom, pushing her
off her feet and sending her tumbling backwards down the steps. The piano banged after her, crushing her
and then summersaulting past her and into the air. It landed with a boom! on the legs of Jerry, who lay
sprawled and twisted in an unconscious heap at the bottom of the steps.

"My back is broken!" screamed Bryce's mother.

"Bryce," wailed his father, "honey, honey, call an ambulence--push the red button on the phone!"

Two ambulences arrived, drawing a crowd of neighbors and strangers. Four young men cheerfully carried
the piano to the second floor apartment, with Bryce's father, dizzy and confused from shock, telling them
"Thank you, thank you," in a whispery voice.

* * * * *

Bryce and his parents returned home from the hospital in the afternoon. His mother wore a neck brace
and she winced each time she tried to turn her head. Her face, puffed and swollen to an enormous size,
scowled at the world. Jerry remained in the hospital, unconscious and with a broken neck.

The piano sat against the wall in the dim corner of their small living room. The lower left side of the console
was smashed and the legs had broken off, leaving the piano standing two feet lower than on its right side.

Emitting a happy cry, Bryce rushed to his piano and began banging in ecstacy on the slanted keyboard.

His father looked in surprise. His mom, on her way to the bathroom, abruptly leaned against the wall for
support as a jolt of pain seized her neck.

She pleaded, "Bryce, not so loud."

While his mother examined her bruised appearance in the bathroom mirror with horror, Bryce's father
stood beside him and looked over the damage. One by one, his father tried each key. "They all play,"
he said to Bryce. "I'm not sure if they make the right sounds, though. Do you know, Bryce?"

"They sound perfect!" sang Bryce and he began pounding on the keyboard.

"Hey, stop that," snapped his father, boiling in irritation.

Bryce stopped.

"I'm going shopping for your mom. How about coming with me?"

Bryce shook his head. "I'm staying here with my piano," he said in a happy voice. Then he began
banging the keyboard, his smiling face soon bobbing from side to side, his eyes glowing with joy.

His mom wobbled out of the bathroom. Standing in the storm of dischordant noise, she had her
hands on her hips and a frown on her enormous, swollen face as she examined the living room.

"Now this whole room look like a junkyard," she complained over Bryce's playing. "We can't leave
it like this."

The piano drowned out her voice.

"I didn't hear you," said Bryce's father, but the piano drown out his voice as well.

Exhausted, her eyes tearing, overpowered by a crackling headache, his mother begged: "Bryce, honey,
please, quiet!"

They sent Bryce outside to play.

* * * * *

"La, la, la, la!" Bryce started singing in a high, soft voice and then he slammed down at random on
the keyboard, glad that he had remained home instead of walking to the store with his father. He
banged and clanged, louder and happier.

"Stop that?!" yowled his mom.

Bryce fell silent.

She stood in the room for a moment examining him, her eyebrows furrowed and her face sour and cross.

She returned to the kitchen. After awhile she began working at the sink. The apartment filled with the steady
groan of the old plumbing.

Bryce thought to himself: "She won't hear me because the pipe is making noise."

In full spirit he banged the keys at random.

"Bryce!?!"

His mom rushed in from the kitchen, forcing herself forward despite the jolts of pain that seized her neck.

"You know what, kid?" asked his mom after she silenced his playing. "Grandma gave this for your birthday."
She lowered the keyboard cover. "You can't have a birthday gift two weeks early. No way."

A look of defiance flashed over his face and he tried to raise the keyboard cover.

"You get to bed this instant!" she roared.

He ran to his bedroom, crying all the way.

* * * * *

And he fell asleep crying. When his mom entered his bedroom an hour later he was sleeping deeply and
peacefully.

"Wake up, Bryce," said his mom with a soft voice.

He opened his eyes and then blinked a few times. Bryce looked at her to see if he was still in trouble.

"Sweetheart, that piano is really irritating to listen to if you aren't the one playing it."

She sat down on his bed and sighed. "You don't have to wait for your birthday for the piano."

Bryce hugged his mom.

"But," she said, her eyes and voice severe, "you have ten minutes a day on it. No more. And I don't mean
ten minutes a day until your birthday. I mean for as long as that piano is in this little apartment, you have ten
minutes a day, max." She brushed the hair out of his eyes. "Okay? Is that fair?"

Bryce nodded.

"Come on," she said with happiness and cheer, and, daring her injury, she tried to lift him up out of bed. She
almost had him cradled in her arms like when he was a couple years younger, but they fell over onto his bed,
giggling.

I'm sorry I was yelling at you," his mother said as she pressed her face against his. "I love you."