Matthew Martin

1 December 2012

The Black Page 

Author’s Introduction (Learning Commentary)

This story has a rather interesting history. Over this past summer, I found a copy of Brian Wilson’s autobiography, Wouldn’t It Be Nice. I have always been fascinated with his story and his eccentric and perfectionist way of approaching music (which has earned him the worthy title of “Rock n’ Roll’s Beethoven”).  I had known of his tumultuous relationship with his father, but after reading his book, I gained a new respect for the man for having to endure the kind of childhood (or life, rather) that he had. He was blessed with a natural talent for music, and it seemed his father was jealous of his son and his gift. Sadly, he would be physically violent with Brian and one of his father’s beatings cost him the hearing in one of his ears. I kept that situation in my mind because I’m also fascinated by people who can play an instrument naturally, like Mozart or Chopin. Those kinds of happenings make for a good story.

            In case it’s not apparent from the story, I love music. I do play the piano, but I cannot play like any of the above mentioned names, but I love learning how great musicians imagine music. I once read an interview done with a famous rock musician, Dave Grohl (of Foo Fighters fame), and the interviewer asked him how he wrote songs. He said that he thought of songwriting as building something out of Legos, and each colored block went a certain way. I had never thought of music as being a visual sensation, aside from reading written music on a page. I also saw a 20/20 special one night that focused on a musical prodigy who also had particular type of savantism. Not only could he play a song perfectly after hearing it only once, but he could also play it in different styles (jazz, blues, ragtime, etc). I also saw a different interview many years ago about a musician who, while not a savant, was certainly an incredible player. He said that each sound was its own color and when he sat down to play, he pictured the colors coming from the keyboard.

            All of those experiences came together when I decided on a topic. Early in the semester, I noticed a great amount of music present in the texts, most notably in the slave narratives and Song of Solomon. Music is not something exclusive to a certain minority culture, but it certainly played a large role in those texts. It has the mysterious power to bring people together and unite them. In the case of the slave narratives and Solomon, it united the blacks as their own culture. The dominant culture may hear the music and enjoy, but there is always “more to the story,” so to speak. The dominant culture may never truly understand the pain and strife that hides in the words or even the melody of those songs.

            When I started writing The Black Page, I had no idea where it would end up, and I still do not know. I had a seedling idea for it, but little else. I wanted it to be about a boy who is born with an incredible gift to play music while his father struggles to play even the simplest of chords. I also knew that the boy would see the music he played as a scheme of colors. From there, though, I was completely in the dark. I have taken one “true” creative writing class when I was in junior college, and I learned one valuable lesson: let your characters lead you where they want to lead you. So, I did just that. After a few pages, it was easy to follow the people I created and learn their stories and what makes them tick. I like Sammy as a character because he loves Ray Charles and classical music at the same time. Murray, his father, is also an interesting man because he desperately wants to be able to play, but it’s a constant struggle for him. I thought the relationship between the two people has paired well in what I have written so far.

            Before I began I knew that I wanted to make the characters African American, but not to make it their defining characteristic or to even be a fact that I would have to mention frequently. I used Toni Morrison and Louise Erdrich as examples. In Solomon, I knew the characters were black, but Morrison wrote the novel in such a way that it was not something that made me mentally classify it as a “black” novel. It was a wonderful story, and that’s what mattered. Louise Erdrich was the same way. A point that came up in our class discussion of Love Medicine was that you wouldn’t be able to tell that it was a Native American themed novel. Even someone from the dominant culture could pick up the novel and read it and relate to many of the struggles found in its pages. In my story, Murray struggled and had a life altering moment because of two white people, so his hatred and resentment towards the dominant culture was deep rooted from his childhood. He has grown up in a predominantly white world, so there is a sense of choicelessness apparent in his character. Sammy, though, is a bit out of the loop when it comes to the racial problems that are happening in his town. He is aware of them, but they have not hit close to home yet to affect him. He cares about music.

            There was one of our class objectives that I felt fit this story, which is the notion of assimilation/resistance. Murray is especially fond of old negro spirituals and plays his son an old spiritual song, I’ll Fly Away, when he was young. Murray resents white because of what they do to his father and his piano playing friend when he was younger, so the music is his way of resisting the psychological damage they inadvertently inflicted on him, and as his neighbor is assembling the resistance rally because of the increased number of violent acts that have been occurring to African Americans in their town, Murray also believes the music will be an assimilator of the people in his town. In agreeing to let his son play the piano at the rally, Murray wants to garner as many people as he can to think and feel the same way he does about whites. I set this particular passage in 1963 because of Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech that occurred in August of that year. With such a historic moment about to occur, I felt that having Sammy’s neighbors organize their own rally would be a suitable method of peaceful resistance to the dominant culture.

            My favorite part has been the types of descriptions that each character gives to music. Sammy sees music as a series of colors and each song he plays has its own pallet. Beethoven is fire, and Chopin is grey and dreary like a rain shower. Ray Charles can be any kind of color, because he mixed so many genres together. Murray feels music. He scolds his son for playing something that he said felt “cold.” I cannot take credit for that description. I watched an interview with Billy Joel where he was asked what his favorite and least favorite keys were. He said that he didn’t like A Major. “It’s too cold,” he said.” The Chopin “Prelude in A Major” song that Sammy plays is my nod to Billy. For the record, it does have a cold air to it, even though it’s generally considered a “happy” sounding song.

            Most of all I wanted the music to play a large role because in every text we have read so far, there is some mention of music and its importance. To a minority group, it’s a defining characteristic. Whether it was the negro spirituals in the slave narratives and Solomon,  the religious dances of Black Elk Speaks or any of the other texts, music has been a crucial thread in the fabric of minority cultures. I enjoyed writing something that (attempted) to keep true to the goals and objectives of our class, but was also creative and allowed me to explore a topic that is very interesting to me. It actually grew from being an idea to something that I feel may constitute a longer work in the future. The two main male characters had a great amount of potential to be developed further. Most of all, they were members of a minority culture that was experiencing a great amount of strife, even though almost a century had passed since the end of the Civil War. What I find fascinating is how the old spirituals from the slave days survived and are still important to the minority culture today. It shows the true power that music holds and how it has the power to bring people together; not drive them apart.

                                                                                                -M.M

The Black Page

It was black. Its skin was smooth, bright and shining, almost like a mirror. Only it didn’t show you for how you really looked—you were tinged with color. A color that, according to the close-minded people in town was bad. Worthless. I didn’t see things that way. I never have, nor will I ever. My way of thinking is the exception, though – not the rule.

~ 1951 ~

            He was just a child when he heard it. He was begging his mother for some milk when a  sweet, simple song came from the next room, his father’s voice mixing with the melody. It sent the boy’s thoughts flying, soaring. The milk no longer mattered as he stepped into the room where the sounds were coming from. It sounded like the voice of a spirit he had never seen but heard in long distanced dreams of his heart.

            The sound was being created by his father, sitting at a brown box against the wall – a Baldwin upright piano. It was weathered and had seen its share of battles: its keys were yellow with age and several stuck due to the humidity, its tuning was several tones flat, but none of that mattered to the boy. He stood in the doorway watching his father’s fingers press the keys to make different noises. The farther to the left his hands played, the lower and deeper the sounds were. As he reached more to the right, the sounds grew higher and higher. It was the sweetest sound the boy had ever heard.

            The father did not notice his son standing there until he was finished playing the song. When he looked over, he grinned and beckoned him to come closer. The boy walked timidly, almost afraid of the giant music box. He wasn’t sure how so many sweet sounds could come from something that seemed so simple.

            “Do you like that song?” the father asked. They boy nodded quickly and smiled. He asked what the brown box was.

            “This is our new piano,” the father said. “I guess you like it, huh? I bought it from a man who is moving. He let me have it for very cheap. It needs some varnish and it has to be tuned, but those are some pretty easy fixes.”

The boy stretched his hands out to touch some of the keys. They were smooth and warm to the touch.

“Hold on. Here,” the father said, lifting his son into his lap. “Sit up here with me. We’ll play a song together.” He hit a low note while the boy played two high pitched notes.

“Lightning!” the boy cried. Then he hit the lowest note on the keyboard. “Thunder!”

He hit the combination several times. The low notes started sounding dark, like nighttime. The high notes were the stars in the sky. They were bright, like the sunshine. The middle notes were mixed colors, like his box of crayons that he used. Every note was a color. The father smiled and lifted him down.

“Want to hear me play another song?” he asked. The boy nodded and waited patiently.

He went into a simple melody, humming a tune gently under it. His son watched in awe and closed his eyes. The colors were dancing around and he picked out the bright ones that  mixed with the dark ones. They began stacking on top of each other and were reaching to heaven. The hairs on his neck and arms started to stand up. He opened his eyes and started watching what color matched the spot on the keyboard his father was pressing his fingers. Each color he thought of went to a different white or black key. He had never experienced anything like it. Some keys were all white, and some needed a black key to make them sound right. His father kept playing and the boy watched. Every so often he would hit a note that would sound wrong, but would quickly correct himself. After a few minutes, his father started singing in his deep tenor voice:

Some bright morning when this life is over

I’ll fly away.

To a land where joys will never end

I’ll fly away, fly away.

I’ll fly away, fly away, oh glory

I’ll fly away.

When I die, Hallelujah by and by

I’ll fly away.

He sang the entire song and when he finished, he closed the top to the keys and looked down at his son, smiling once again. They boy hadn’t moved since he started singing his song.

“Maybe someday you can learn to play it too, son. It’s such a beautiful instrument.”

            He walked out of the room and started talking to his wife in the kitchen. The boy walked over to the piano and climbed onto the bench and lifted the cover of the keys. He hit one note with his index finger. He remembered his father had his pinky and thumb at two notes in the dark sounding part of the keys, so he stretched his fingers as best as he could, but couldn’t hit the two notes. They were too far apart, so he settled for one that sounded right but was closer. They sounded dark but happy. He did the same with the other hand and found the notes he thought he saw his father use. They were bright sounding and were also happy. He played both together and it sounded almost like his father’s song. It sounded bright though, and the boy was happy. His parents walked in to see him hitting the keys, and looked at each other in disbelief.

            “Did you show him how to play that?” the mother asked, almost breathlessly.

            “He just watched me play that song,” the father said. “I didn’t show him how to make any chords. Hell, he just hit them and was saying ‘thunder and lightning.’”

He was just as breathless as his wife. He stepped closer and looked at the keys his son was hitting. He hadn’t played those notes. The song he played just used three chords, and they were all simple. His son was hitting a combination of black and white notes. He was baffled as to what the chord actually was. The boy stopped, thinking he was in trouble.

            “No, no! Keep playing!” the mother said.

            The boy grinned at his mother as she watched him hit the same chord as before, finding it with no hesitation. This time he attempted to sing while she smiled and chuckled. “Look at our little Mozart!”

            The father was not laughing or grinning this time. He watched his son’s fingers hit the chord that he could not identify, his brow furrowing deep—almost frowning at his son. The chord echoed out of the room, through the open window and into the street. The boy’s music would reach many ears that night. The chord sent the boy soaring and he did not want to stop playing it because it made him feel so good. Every time he hit the notes the colors would flash and disappear, bright and vibrant. His arms grew tired though and so did his fingers, so he stopped. His mother clapped enthusiastically for him. The father grunted softly and forced a slow clap and unwilling smile as he reached over and closed the keys’ cover.

            “Alright, maestro,” the father said, scooping his son into his arms. “Time for bed.” He turned off the light and walked out of the room, leaving the piano in darkness.

~  1963 ~

            From the same house, sounds would flood the street when the boy came home from school and would continue until his father got home from work at six p.m. That left him a three hour window to play what he really wanted before his father came home and made him either stop playing those songs made by dead white men who never knew what struggle meant, or he would make him play some old spiritual that meant nothing to the boy but meant everything to his father. His mother tried not to get involved much these days, but when it came down to choosing sides, she always went with his father and made him play the spirituals. The time between three and six, though, she let her son play what he wanted. It frustrated the boy that he could not play longer, but he did not have access to any other piano. His color made sure of that. His school did not have one and there wasn’t a music store that had one on display. Not a store that let black kids in, anyways. He was stuck playing an old broken down Baldwin with splotchy varnish, uneven keys and a sound that was never quite in tune.

            His fingers glided smoothly and quickly across the keys, but never hit a green note. Green notes were bad. They sounded off when they were by themselves. He closed his eyes and the warmth of the music put a smile on his face. He heard clapping from his front porch that was behind him and looking over his shoulder he saw his neighbors. Frank and Shera Tutt were sitting on the porch chairs while their daughter, Mira and her husband Jack leaned against the wooden railing. The boy got up and gave an impromptu bow once he finished playing the song.

            “Boy, you tickle them ivories better than ol’ Ray Charles himself!” said Jack. “Can you play some of his stuff? Come on, Sammy! Do ‘Georgia on My Mind!’”

            He remembered that song—he loved Ray Charles. The first time he heard that record, it was so sweet sounding and heartfelt. Ray must have experienced music he did because of his blindness. Sammy closed his eyes to remember its melody. It was bluesy, but not depressing. He hummed it until he found the notes. It just needed one black key—G major. It was bright, but could be dark also. It was blue.

Sammy closed his eyes as his fingers met the keys. The sound that met his ears was sharp, but it quickly faded and became a mix of colors. Each note was a separate glob of color, like oil on an artist’s pallet. As he played, they mixed and swirled and morphed into new colors. With a tiny movement of a finger, he could change the swirl from bright and vibrant to dark and melancholy. Music was not just auditory, but visual. Sammy knew what colors mixed and what colors could not go together. When he played pieces by Beethoven, the colors never clashed. They were fiery, heartfelt and even chaotic, but they never clashed. Chopin’s music was lighter. It moved smooth like a white cloud dotted over blue skies. Sometimes the clouds had rain in them, but the notes still moved smoothly. There was a painting Sammy saw once. It showed the sun setting over the water where a boat was sailing. That’s what Sammy thought of when he played Chopin. The gentle grayish-blue water and the smooth skies.

Raindrop Prelude. My favorite. That was smooth, like summer rain. A swirl of grey. Smooth and dreary, but never too dreary. Let the grey raindrops hit the ground lightly. It’s not a hurricane. A smooth shower.

Ray Charles, though…he could mix the colors that shouldn’t have worked. He made them work. He didn’t have to see the keys to know his notes. That’s why Sammy loved Ray so much. He could be fiery like Beethoven and smooth like Chopin. Sometimes all at once. The songs Ray made…the country/western album Sammy heard at his friend’s house…no matter what he sang there was soul and pain, but there were the colors. And they were beautiful. It wasn’t just a beauty you could see with your eyes. You could feel it and hear it.

He felt the music like a warm embrace on a cold winter’s night—a blanket or a crackling fire in the hearth. Ray’s voice was so warm and inviting. The door was open to anyone who wanted to come in. It was reassuring and comforting even during the songs of pain and loss. Songs like I Can’t Stop Loving You made the hair on Sammy’s neck stand on end while a warm feeling washed over him. All it took was one note on the piano, or one tortured cry from Brother Ray for Sammy to get wrapped in the warm embrace of the music.

He still remembered the first time he walked in on his father playing the piano all those years ago. His father couldn’t have been farther from Ray but the sounds he made had sent chills up his back for the first time. It had been true love ever since. The only problem was that he did not know how to explain the feeling to anyone. He recalled one moment from his childhood when he heard Ray Charles sing You Are My Sunshine. When the singing started, he grabbed his friends arm and gripped tight.

“Do you see that??” Sammy asked, breathlessly.

“No…” his friend answered, clearly frightened.

“You don’t see the colors when you close your eyes while this is playing?” Sammy said.

“Sammy, you’re crazy, man,” his friend chuckled. “I don’t close my eyes when I listen to this stuff. These are the blues. That must be the colors you’re talking about.”

It wasn’t just the blues, though. It was so many other colors, too—dark, light, vibrant, subtle. They all mixed and swirled. It was so beautiful.

Sammy tried to let everyone else hear what he saw he closed his eyes, but not everyone could experience the colors the way he did. Sammy’s father could never understand why his son closed his eyes while he played, or why he played music that wasn’t strictly spiritual.

“All music is spiritual, dad,” Sammy once told him. “It doesn’t all have to be something slaves used to sing. Something Beethoven or Chopin wrote can be just as heartfelt as those.”

His father still didn’t understand. Even though he was a musician himself, he never understood Sammy’s way of thinking. Music was black and white, warm and cold. It was almost like his father was trying to segregate music. Black and white did not go together. It did not matter if it sounded right. Blacks had their music and whites had theirs. Every time he sat down to play, though, Sammy erased those lines. He brought them together and they sounded good.

The power was in his hands.

His neighbors started clapping once he arrived at the chords to Ray’s song. Jack and Mira started singing:

Georgia, Georgia

The whole day through

Just an old sweet song

Keeps Georgia on my mind…

            He played the song with as much love and caress as he could muster, pausing a few times to remember the song’s next melody. It amazed him that Ray could play such beautiful music and did not need to see anything to create it. The sounds were his eyes. Maybe Sammy didn’t experience it the same way Ray did, but the sounds and the colors became one when Sammy started playing. The notes were his canvas.

His fans were clapping once he finished and his mother peeked in and smiled. She had the radio on and it was playing a news report. The voice buzzed in with a special bulletin. This had been common lately. More negroes arrested, some beaten for causing a stir at a public market. They wanted equal treatment from the whites. The cops just came in a started arresting them and beating them without question. They never stopped to wonder that they might have had a point in protesting. Was there any reason to stop a peace march with violence?

            The radio’s words quickly reached his neighbors on the porch. The joy from hearing the music quickly faded when they heard what was happening to people just like them in the city. Their faces were now chipped with despair and hopelessness.

            “It just won’t stop,” Shera said. “They just keep cutting us down.” The rest on the porch murmured in agreement.

            “You know…” Jack began. “We should do our own organization. We just won’t be in the streets for the cops to beat us and throw us in jail. Let’s have it in an assembly hall. Sammy, you could play piano for it. Play some songs to really get the community together.”

            “Don’t mix that poor boy up in your crazy ideas,” Shera cut in. “He’s just a boy. His daddy wouldn’t want him involved in that kind of thing. Plus, what would us organizing solve anyway? Ain’t no one gonna listen to a bunch of angry black folks shouting about equal treatment.”

            “Hell, his daddy’d probably organize the whole damn thing! You know how he’s always preaching about us being oppressed and living in these run down houses while the white folks are sitting pretty off in the rich end of town. Sammy, you play them ol’ spirituals he loves and I guaran-damn-tee you he’d love to have you involved. He thinks them tunes speak to the true negro,” Jack said.

            Frank spoke for the first time since sitting on the porch. He snorted before he began. “Hmph…Jack, honey, you’re living in a damn dream world. We’d have better luck growing wings on our shoulders and feathers on our ass and flying away before we ever get a white man to listen to what we got to say. Ain’t nothin’ in this world that can make us equal with them. We’re two different species. We could cure diseases, end war and poverty and we still wouldn’t be equal with them. They won’t let us have the same. We cook their food, but they don’t let us eat it. We serve the food and clean their houses, but they won’t pay us enough to let our houses look half as good as theirs do. We write the music, but they won’t let us sing it. We’re never equal. They won’t let us.”

            The others looked down at the wooden slats of the old front porch. Frank’s gritty voice had hints of sadness and anger, but also of fear and acceptance. Compared to everyone else that sat on the porch, he was old. To Sammy, though, he was wise. If Frank believed nothing could be done, then nothing could be done.

            “We should still try…” Jack said softly. “What do we have to lose?”

            Sammy looked at the piano keys. By pressing the right ones, he could make them produce a noise that sounded sweet, or one that brought sadness to someone’s eyes, and even anger. He never saw the world in terms of black and white, but his father did. His neighbors did. Sammy just cared about the music. The only black and white he cared about were the piano keys. He wished everyone else felt the same way.

            His neighbors left not long after. Sammy waved them goodbye and continued to play, losing track of time. He didn’t notice the old, rusty Chevrolet pull up in his driveway or his father’s work boots crunching the gravel. The window was open and the sound poured into the driveway. Sammy’s father, Murray, stood for a moment and listened. He hadn’t smiled at his son’s playing in many years. He felt his son did not deserve the ability to play anything he wanted without even trying while Murray struggled to play even the simplest of chords. He stepped into the room and watched his son. He wasn’t looking at the keys. He wasn’t even looking at anything. His eyes were closed.

            Sammy stopped and looked at his father who stood expressionless in the doorway. In the back of his mind, he harbored a desire for his father to smile again and give him an ovation. He never understood why he was in such a bad mood when he played the piano.

            “Told you I didn’t like you playing that stuff, Sam,” Murray said, clearly annoyed. “What was that?”

            “Prelude in A Major by Chopin,” Sammy answered. “Wasn’t it beautiful? It’s so short, but it has such a…”

            Murray cut him short. “Don’t play it again. A Major sounds too cold. Play something with a little warmth to it if you’re gonna play at all. I didn’t come home just to hear some dead white guy’s music.”

            Sammy didn’t answer but just nodded and closed the keys’ cover.

~1928~

Murray had tried for years to be a musician. In his younger teenage days, an “accidental” walk into the forbidden back room at his father’s well-disguised watering hole during the peak of the Prohibition days found him staring at a beaten brown upright piano with a massive man sweating profusely and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth pounding the keys. The whole room was loud with the clanking of glasses and jovial laughing and conversation. From the moment he walked it, Murray wasn’t paying attention to anything but that piano player. He had never heard anything like it. His fingers were each doing something different, but they never hit a wrong note. The smile never left his face.

Murray was hypnotized the entire night. He recognized most of the tunes. Lots of blues and jazzy numbers. Then ragtime. Murray loved Scott Joplin and when the piano player broke into “The Entertainer” then “The Easy Winners” his foot started tapping and a warm feeling washed over him. The music made him overwhelmed with an unexplainable warmth and joy.

He had never felt anything like it before. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and a warm feeling went over his body, almost like climbing into a bathtub. The notes the piano player was hitting sent the feeling over him every time he played a new passage. Before he knew it, his foot was tapping while the music pounded on and on. The room was hot and Murray was sweating, but he knew that the temperature had nothing to do with the warmth enveloping him. It was the music.

When the song was over, the piano player got up from his bench and began to speak:

“I wanna slow things down a bit. This one’s for the ladies in the crowd tonight.”

A few scattered claps answered him as he sat back down to begin his next tune. Murray braced himself for the warm feeling again, but to his disappointment, it didn’t come. Instead, a chill came to his body. It felt like ice wrapped around him and he winced, almost in pain. He was confused. Why did he feel so good with the other songs but so cold with this one? The piano player wasn’t doing anything different—he was still hitting the same spots on the keyboard, only what came out was cold and painful.

The song did not last as long as the other tunes. People slow danced to it, so Murray realized that not everyone felt the chill that he did. It was unique to him. How could he explain it to anyone?

After he finished the tune, the piano player finally got up from his bench and took a seat at the bar. By this time, the crowd had thinned as it was pretty early in the morning. A few stragglers sat at some tables next to the bar. The bartender, Murray’s father, slid a tall mug his way and he downed it in one gulp.

“Hoo! Helluva night, Jimmy!” he panted. “Aint’ never seen so many folks get down.”

The two chatted for a few moments while Murray did his best to stay out of the sight of his father’s watchful eye. He was only fifteen, and he had known what happened in the back room at night but only recently had the choppy sounds from a piano wafted through the night to meet Murray’s ears. Tonight was the first time he had come to investigate the strange sounds. He was never happier about going against his father’s orders.

As Piano Man was about to order another mug, a couple of white men, one tall and one short, came in and sat next to him. They turned a few heads, being the only whites in the bar, but Jimmy didn’t make a fuss. He welcomed everyone who wanted to have a good time.

“Another brew, my man!”  Piano Man said.  He caught the beer that was slid from the other end of the bar. Again, he downed it in a gulp.

The taller one next to Piano Man raised his hand and called out for a whiskey sour. Jimmy poured the drink with liquor that rested in glazed pottery jugs. “Dollar and a half,” he said once he finished pouring.

“Hold on there,” the shorter man said. “How come he ain’t paid?” He motioned to Piano Man who promptly looked over when he saw the man motion toward him.

“He works for me. Plays the piano,” Jimmy said. “Not that it’s any concern of yours.”

“It is my concern,” the tall man said, annoyed. “Figured I could come in here and get drink without getting robbed blind.” He got up slowly from his barstool.

“Dollar and a half for the drink, gents,” Jimmy said, as calmly as possible. “If you don’t want to pay, there’s the door.”

Murray watched as the men gripped the bar and leaned in closer towards his father. His eyes met his son’s. Murray knew he was busted for being in the forbidden room, but right now it didn’t matter.

“Ain’t no negro gonna tell me what to do!” The tall man slammed a glass down and it shattered, sending shards towards Piano Man. He fell off the stool and landed on the ground with a loud thud. The crowd in the sitting area of the bar grew sickeningly quiet and watched, before a group of black men walked over to where the skuffle was happening. The tall man grabbed Jimmy by the collar and pulled him over the bar, socking his face and throwing him on top of Piano Man.

            Murray ran over to help, but the shorter man grabbed and held him before he could reach his father. Seeing the group rush over to where the fight was happening, both men pulled guns from their pockets and flashed them toward the group of men coming to break it up. They stepped back, frightened of what the men may do next.

“Lookey here Abe, we got another one! A youngin’!” Murray tried to squirm out of the hold he had him in, but it was no use.

“Haha!” Abe laughed. “Let him see who’s really in charge around here.” He reared back and kicked Piano Man in the side, then kicked Jimmy in the stomach. Murray felt the hot tears roll down his cheeks as he struggled helplessly against the man’s grip, unable to help his father. The man kept kicking and kicking. This would have continued until Piano Man and Jimmy were dead if it hadn’t been for Murray’s mother.

She rushed in with a rifle and pointed it at the tall man’s chest. He looked at her and stopped kicking. She was shaking with anger, but her aim could not have been clearer.

“You two men need to leave. Let my son go and leave my husband alone. He ain’t done nothing to either of you. Believe you me, I ain’t never missed with this gun and I’ve shot stuff ‘lot smaller’n both of you.” Her voice was calm. Much more calm than her grip on the gun.

The short man released Murray, who promptly helped his father off the ground. He was spitting blood and doubled over in pain, but he could walk. Piano Man lay there clutching his side, his eyes watering with pain. Eventually he grabbed the edge of the bar and pulled himself up. The two men walked slowly away from the bar with their hands up and walked out of the door.

“Daddy, you okay?” Murray asked.

 His father looked up at him and smiled. “You know you ain’t supposed to be back here…” was all he said. The rest of the crowd at the tables started grabbing their coats and heading toward the door also.

Murray thought about the music Piano Man had played and how it made him feel warm. He wished he could always feel that good. Before those white men ruined it.

From that moment on, Murray would go to the back room as often as he could and tried to play the piano. He did not understand how Piano Man had made it sound so beautiful. Whenever Murray tried to play it, it sounded harsh, and angry. Nothing sounded right. He even tried hitting the same notes he saw Piano Man play that night, but it still did not sound right. Every once in a while he’d find a chord. When this happened, he would smile and commit it to memory for a while, but he’d soon forget it after a few hours of being away from the piano. As much as he loved it, music was not being kind to him.           

One night Piano Man came in and Murray gathered up as much courage as he could and pulled a barstool next to the piano. The robust man looked at Murray and grinned.

“You Jimmy’s boy huh?”

Murray nodded.

“I saw you next to me the night them two white men came in and caused all that trouble. You like the piano huh?”

“Yessir,” Murray said. “I never heard anything like it.”

“Yeah, it’s a real crowd pleaser. You ever played one?”

Murray explained how he had been trying to learn, but hadn’t had any luck with it.

“Well here,” Piano Man said. “I’ll show you a few things to get you started.” He put his fingers in the middle of the keys. “This here is middle C,” he said, hitting a white note in the center of the keys. “That’s your home. Always keep that one in sight. You ain’t always gonna start playing on that one or even use it, but you always wanna keep that one in sight. Like folding the page of a book to keep your place.”

Murray hit the note several times.

“There you go! These things I’m hitting is called keys. Remember how you learned your A-B-C’s? Well, this ain’t too much different from that. Each white note has name, A through G, then it goes back to A. The black keys also have letters, but they’re called flats and sharps. But, I’ll get to that part later. Now, I’ll show you things called chords. That’s where your fingers play a buncha different notes at the same time. Here’s one using that middle C I showed you, but we’re gonna play an E and a G too. Those sound real good together.”

Piano Man hit the C, E, and G notes. Murray saw that his fingers skipped over the letters D and F. “You try,” he said, helping Murray’s fingers find the right notes.

He hit the chord a few times. It sounded nice and warm. Murray smiled.

“There you go! Here, lemme show you something I learned when I wasn’t much older’n you.”

Piano Man started playing a warm melody, that made Murray’s hair stand on end. It was slow and sweet and reminded him of something from church, an old hymn. This was a far cry from the jangling, rolling piano from the other night. It was the sweetest sound his ears had ever known. Once he finished playing, he got up and let Murray sit down and try.

“See? Ain’t nothin’ to it!” Piano Man said. “You get good with that chord, and I’ll show you a new one next time I’m here. Keep practicing it!”

Murray did. Every day that he got a free moment he was at the piano practicing the chord. He even started moving his fingers over to rest on the next set of white keys. It sounded good, but it was a sad sound. He didn’t care for it much, so he moved back to the familiar notes Piano Man showed him. He pictured himself one day being as good as he was on piano and playing to a room full of people, making them dance and have a good time. Every time that thought crossed his mind, he smiled.

Good to his word, Piano Man showed up every few days and showed Murray a new chord. He called them the major chords, and he learned all the way to the letter A. When Piano Man played the A major chord, Murray winced a little. The feeling was back.

“What, you don’t like that one?” Piano Man asked.

“No, it sounds…I don’t know… like it’s cold.”

Piano Man frowned a bit. “I don’t think so. It sounds as warm as the others. Depends on what you play after it. Remember Murr, music depends on others. Not just other notes, but other people. You can play the greatest music in the world but if no one hears it, then that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s meant to be heard and felt and enjoyed. Never forget that.”

He understood that, but he still did not enjoy the feeling he had while Piano Man played that A chord. If he could just avoid that one and play another one instead, that would be okay with him.

Murray practiced his chords every day (even the A chord, but not very long) until he reached the point where he didn’t pause between playing each one. He could find the next chord without having to search his brain for where to put his fingers. He even practiced them out of order just so he could mix things up. He felt like he accomplished something impossible. It wasn’t enough, though. He wanted to play like Piano Man, not just hit some chords. Once he felt that he mastered the chords, he waited for Piano Man to return to show him something else.

Days passed after the last lesson, and Piano Man didn’t return. Murray got worried, so one day at the dinner table, he brought his concern up to his parents.

“Dad, where’s Piano Man been? He’s supposed to show me a new lesson.”

His father paused and looked at his mother.  She nodded slowly and both his parents turned to look at their son.

“Murray, Piano Man…he died a few days ago. I was waiting to try to find the right time to tell you,” his father said quietly.

Murray dropped his fork and his face turned pale. Dead? How could the Piano Man be dead?

“But…how?” he stammered.

“Franklin down at the grocer told me. Said they found him on the street, face down with a bullet in his back. Remember them two who came in the bar a few weeks ago and caused all that trouble? Well, Piano Man was playing at another bar across town. I told that damn fool to be careful, but he never thought anyone would do anything to him…”

“What happened to him??” Murray said, fighting back the tears.

“Well,” he said, “those two came into the bar where he was playing. Franklin told me they waited till he stepped outside for some air and pushed him behind the building and beat him senseless. He tried crawling away but the short one put a bullet between his shoulders. They didn’t have the decency to face him forward. They had to do it when he wasn’t looking at them. Cowards.”

Murray stopped listening and ran to the piano in the building that stood in front of their house. After all of these weeks, the piano would be silent. He had grown to love Piano Man and what he taught him.

He ran his fingers lightly over the keys but couldn’t bring himself to play. He didn’t want the pain of loss to be connected with music. It was meant to be enjoyed. He closed the key cover and sat on the bench and cried.

Afterward (Learning Commentary)

            This text has gone through several changes. Each time I read through it, I think of a new scene to add or I attempt to strengthen an existing scene. I often find myself wondering what some of our text’s authors would do (especially Toni Morrison and Louise Erdrich, because they have been my two favorite authors). They make story telling seem like such an easy task. My hope is to become as natural with it as they are. I’m in no rush to reach that goal because I imagine it will take years to reach that kind of professional quality of writing.

            What helped this story come together most were revising and the reworking of some of the scenes. While in communication with Dr. White over the course of this project, he pointed out a few instances where I began a promising scene or passage, but did not develop it. He was very helpful in allowing me to see the promise of such scenes as Sammy’s experiences with the colors of music, and his father’s experience with the hot/cold feeling of music. I did not think to develop those passages in my initial draft, but as I kept revising them I noticed their promise also.

            As the characters became more familiar to me, I was able to think of new scenes that would work with them. For example, during a later draft I wanted to develop Murray’s past and explain why he is so bitter towards the dominant culture and why the spiritual songs from the days of slavery mean so much to him. From there the scene took on a life of its own. Dr. White suggested expanding on some sections during the 1928 passage, especially Murray’s hot/cold experience with the music. While drafting that expansion I noticed I made Sammy’s and Murray’s physical experience with music very similar, which I enjoyed. This way the two characters are not so different—Sammy was just blessed with the gift of being able to play the music with little effort and gets the added experience of seeing the music as colors. He can also feel it just like his father. The characters’ deep histories made those passages work and help the entire piece grow to something much more detailed than I had anticipated.

            Originally I expected this to be a short story of fifteen to twenty pages. As I kept working with the material, I realized that it could easily become a novel if I continue my pace. Sometimes I finish a story and am glad to see it finished because it has in the works for so long and the characters and plot have grown stale to me. The Black Page is something different. I want to keep working on this and send it in to a literary magazine such as Glimmer Train to see if others enjoy it as much as I have. For the sake of our class though, I had to pause long enough to submit it as my final paper. I knew early on that I would be submitting a work-in-progress and not a finished, polished piece. I have planned for the future in the story and have started drafting the next scene, which involves Sammy’s neighbors organizing the community rally and they talk Sammy into playing the piano for it. He wants to learn something fiery and difficult, so he chooses Beethoven’s Sonata in C# Minor, the 3^rd movement (which is incredibly difficult). When he looks at the music for the first time it looks like someone spilled ink on it because of the amount of notes printed on the page. It’s a black page. On the following page is an early working draft of that new scene. I hope to keep Sammy, Murray and their neighbors close because I can see promise with this story.

            Our class helped me realize the communicative power that music can have on a culture. No matter what race, gender or even sexual orientation, there will always be struggle; some must endure more than others. Music can help ease the pain as I learned from the slave narratives. It can help someone learn their history, as with Song of Solomon. It can be very religious like in Black Elk Speaks. Its power is truly endless and I wanted to show its importance in an original story.

In Progress (12/7/12)

~1963~

Jack had been serious about the community organization. One night while Sammy and his family were sitting down to dinner, he started knocking at the front door. Murray got up to answer it.

“Murray! Sorry to bother you, but I was wanting to get your OK on something.”

Murray liked Jack, so he wasn’t too upset about him interrupting the dinner. “What is it Jack?” he said.

“Well, a few days ago when we were listening to your boy play, we heard the radio report of another beating happening on the other end of town.”

Murray looked angry at this, his chest puffing up and the breathing through his nostrils getting louder with each breath.

“Anyway,” Jack continued, “I had the idea about us putting together a community organization. Get everyone rallied together so maybe one day we can do something about all these beatings that are happening. It’s no bus boycott or Rosa Parks stuff but I think it’ll be a good thing to get everyone involved in the cause. Have you heard what Dr. King has been doing? He spoke in Detroit not too long ago. A whole bunch of folks rallied together to support him and bring awareness to the wrongdoing the whites been putting on us. They say he’s gonna be speaking in D.C. in a few weeks.”

“That’s all well and good Jack,” Murray said. “I’d love to help out any way I can. But what do you need my OK for?”

“Well, I think your boy could play some music for it. You know, make it an event. He could play a song for us to get everyone in the mood.”

Murray looked over his shoulder at Sammy. He sat at the table watching the two men discuss the event. Now he waited to see what his father said.

“Sammy,” Murray called. “Do you want to play for a bigger audience than our next door neighbors?”

“Yes!” Sammy yelled, happy as could be.

“There’s your answer Jack.” Murray said. “He’ll play for you.”

“All right! Ray Charles junior gonna play our event! ‘Preciate it, Murray. Hope to see you there. It’ll really get everyone together.” Jack walked off the front porch and headed back to his house next door.

Murray came and sat back down at the table. “What are you gonna play, son?” he asked.

Sammy hadn’t really thought of it. It had to be something that expressed struggle and strife. Musically, it had to fiery and angry, but soft and subdued at parts. Sammy knew just the song.

“I have an idea,” he said, smiling.

            While Jack was preparing the inside details for the rally, Sammy was busy with other matters: his song. He heard on an old phonograph record at his library. It was a three movement piece by Beethoven: Sonata in C# Minor, or Moonlight Sonata as it was popularly know. The first movement, the most famous, was smooth and to Sammy it lived up to its name. When he heard it, it reminded him of moonlight on the ocean. It was smooth, dark and slow. He loved it, but he did not want to play that movement.

            The second movement, the Trio, wasn’t as beautiful as the first but Sammy knew it was a stepping stone to something greater. It held build tension and anticipation. The third movement, Presto Agitato, was what Sammy was interested in. When he heard it, all he could think of was a wildfire. Flashes of red, orange and yellow filled his head when it played over the speakers. Then, almost without warning, it would slow down significantly and you’d hear a haunting, blue melody. Then back to the fire. It was back and forth. Sammy loved it and he knew it fit the negroes struggle well.

            Finding the music was not an easy task, but he was able to order it through his local music store for a dollar. He walked home with the music tucked under his arm, practically sprinting to get back to the piano so he could sit down and look at it. The moment finally came and he took it out of its plastic cover and flipped through its pages. They were so covered with notes that it was almost liked someone had spilled ink and decided to fill in some musical notes. Sammy wasn’t frightened of it. He accepted the challenge and was looking forward to learning it.