“Un Chose, Jean”

After work, Jean plays the piano. He’s terrible at it.

As a child, Jean begged his parents for lessons, but to no avail. They couldn’t afford them- it was nobody’s fault. At the school he was on scholarship to, Jean listened to his privileged private school classmates complain about the arduous, boring piano lessons their parents had forced them into. Something about playing an instrument to “get them smarter.” Clearly, they weren’t working yet.

“Even the piano can’t save them,” Jean thought, “because if they had any brains at all, they’d see those lessons as a gift from God.” 

Many years later, as Jean was shaving in the mirror before work, he realized somehow, inexplicably, he had grown up. A few days later, upon receiving a job offer he’d never thought possible, Jean realized that somehow, inexplicably, he was making money. Piano money.

Jean no longer had to beg his parents, or God for that matter, for piano lessons. He only had to ask himself, whom he knew would be ever so obliging. 

After many nights and idle hours at work spent searching “Best piano teacher in Brooklyn,” Jean finally decided on Merna, an eighty-one-year-old woman, mobile, only by electric scooter. This a detail made explicitly clear by Margret, her niece, and her ipso-facto caretaker/talent manager.

Over email, Jean received a series of questions and commands:

“Do you have stairs?” Jean did.

“If you do, you’ll need to get a ramp.” Jean would.

“Merna doesn’t go anywhere without her scooter.” 

‘I wouldn’t either,’ thought Jean as he typed and sent, “Got the ramp covered. How soon can we start?” to mernasmusic@gmail.com.

Two weeks later, on a cold Tuesday evening, Merna, accompanied by Margret, made the impossible journey up Jean’s brownstone steps. Jean stood anxiously on the sidelines, prepared to attend Merna as though she were the queen and he, her footman. Merna wasn’t accustomed to footmen and had gotten very far on her own, “Thank you very much.”

Wheeling through the door without introductions or pleasantries, Merna looked up from her scooter at a standing Jean and asked curtly, “Where’s the piano?”

Suddenly mute, Jean could only point inside the living room where the piano sat, taking the place of a couch, table, or anything else for that matter. 

Jean watched Merna as she crossed his threshold like some brave explorer cutting through a twisted jungle or, otherwise, a man’s mind. Jean was scared now- he hadn’t been before. Merna wasn’t exactly what he’d expected. He’d hoped for some kindly old lady, whereas Merna was more of a battle-ax.

Jean wondered if it was better to want than to have. 

After positioning Merna at the piano, Jean followed as Margret walked him to his door. 

“I’m leaving her with you for the next hour.” She dug through her purse, pulling out a business card. “I’ll just be a few blocks down, so be sure to call me if she needs anything,” she said distractedly, still digging through her purse, now for her phone. Before Jean could respond, Margret had turned on her heel and trotted down his steps. “Bye!” she called, never turning back around. 

Jean often watched people walk away from him. ‘How do they do it?’ he’d think to himself, ‘I never see them coming, yet they somehow manage to walk away all the same.’

“Bye,” he mouthed as he watched her ponytail swing down the street. Something about the whole setup felt wrong, but what did he expect- fanfare? I guess he’d just assumed they’d know today was the day he would finally accomplish the one thing he’d dreamed of since he was a boy.

It’s a shame we don’t just know things like that. 

Merna coughed. It was one of those coughs old people just seem to have when they get, well, old. That, or she was just impatient. 

“Are you married?” Merna asked as Jean approached the bench. 

“Um… no,” Jean replied, scratching his neck. 

“I didn’t think so,” said Merna, eyebrow raised as she appraised the room. “No woman would allow a living room with only a piano,” she said, shaking her head. “Where do you sit? Where do you eat?” 

“Here,” Jean replied as though this was perfectly normal, even expected. ‘How does she not get it?’ He thought to himself. ‘I thought she would get it.’ Merna didn’t understand that the piano was his couch, table, and pew at the altar of some divine and magical power.

It’s a shame people don’t just know things like that. 

When Jean found that Baby Grand Steinway on Craigslist, he’d hauled it 36 blocks on a dolly back to his apartment all by himself; it’d even made the news. “The Piano Man,” they’d called him. He’d taped the column to his fridge.

Jean’s first lesson with Merna passed with little indication as to whether he had the capacity or, rather, ability to become the prodigy he’d always just assumed he was. Jean believed that love made a person capable. His love was great.

After their hour together was up, Merna promptly shut the fallboard and stated, “The interview is over.”

At first, Jean thought this comment was Merna’s attempt at a joke, but when he looked in her eyes for any trace of humor and found that there was none, Jean was horrified to realize that an interview had passed and, worst of all, he’d been totally unaware. 

As Jean rose to leave, he remembered that this was, in fact, his house and that it was Merna who ought to be leaving. Closing the door behind Merna and a swiftly returned Margret, Jean wondered how many interviews he’d gone through throughout his life without realizing and which of those he’d passed or failed. 

The next day, Jean’s phone rang at approximately 11:11 a.m. Though he typically never answered the phone and dreaded speaking to anyone at any time, he felt this was a good sign because 11:11 was an angel number, or so he’d been told by a particularly spiritual ex-girlfriend. 

“Hello?”

“Jean? This is Merna.” 

“Oh, hi, Merna. How are you?” said Jean excitedly. 

“I’m well, thank you, but I’m afraid I have bad news.” 

Jean imagined Merna falling and injuring her hip or being invited on a Carnival Cruise by some young lothario. 

Merna continued, breaking his daydreams. “Jean, I’m not able to teach you anymore.”

‘Definitely a cruise or some permanent gig at a retirement home,’ Jean thought before replying, “Is it too hard for you to get here because I can…”

“No.” Merna stopped him. “Jean, to put it simply, you can’t do two things at once.” 

“What?” Jean asked, confused.

There was quiet on the other line. Then, “You can’t do two different things at once. You’ll never play the piano. It’s just not possible.”

“I don’t understand,” replied Jean quietly.

“Jean,” she paused, “I’m a very old woman. I’ve taught people to play the piano longer than you’ve been alive. These are things I just know.” She continued, “There are no chords for you, only flitting notes. I can’t, in good faith, teach you. I’d be wasting both of our time.”

“But,” Jean tried to get words out.

“Goodbye.” said Merna.

And that was that. 

Jean set the phone down slowly.

Hope had pulled Jean through the entirety of his life up until that moment. Looking at the piano, which hope had helped him drag all those blocks back to his apartment, Jean felt a sense of failure so overwhelming it was as though a part of himself had died.

Jean never understood that it wasn’t the piano he’d been pulling. And can we fault him? How easy it is to transfer our devotion to ourselves into something else.

Jean would not reconsider Merna’s proclamation, nor Merna herself. A silly, rather pretentious old woman was his Pythia at Delphi. Instead, singularly minded and fixated, Jean could only believe that what Merna had told him was the truth. 

Resentment writhing within him, Jean addressed the piano, his highest power, and asked, 

“Everything wasted on you?”