First off, let’s document a little more of the endlessly fascinating ongoing saga of How People Find the Marquis’ Diary. Here are some hits from people’s recent search strings:
Right then. Nuff o’ that, then.
Today’s thingy-pooh is entitled “Death By Piano” but will not (you’ll be relieved to hear) be another tortured-artist rehash about how playing piano drives me insane, but in a good way.
This story is quite literally about death and pianos.
A while ago I wrote about my near death experience in a rainstorm.
Today I should like to finally document the other episode.
First off, I should mention that since I was about 12 years old, I have been absolutely convinced that the way I will die will be as I'm strolling about a mustard-dotted meadow with cows and sheep in the distance. Sunny day. Blue skies. Warm. A tree atop a far-off hill. I will stoop to pick a daisy or something, and suddenly, from out of nowhere, a Steinway concert grand will come whizzing through the air and land on me, leaving a resounding 88 key chord until the last beat of my squashed heart ends, decrescendo.
THAT said…
1993, San Francisco. Patrick asks if I’d like to pop by St. Vincent de Paul’s thrift shoppe. I’m always in the market for a cheap, dreadful, polyester printed shirt, so I said yes.
While I was browsing the shirt racks, I hear a well-toned E-flat come from somewhere in another room. I leave the shirts to find the source of this note. I find Patrick standing over a beautiful upright piano that looked old as dirt. He’s hitting notes and smiling at me.
“Nice,” I said wistfully. “How much?”
“$300.”
I could manage it. I skipped buying a shirt, and bought a piano.
“You can deliver it, I assume?” I asked shop-keep-lady.
“To street only. No stairs.”
“Fine. I have a freight elevator.”
The next day I took off the morning from work to attend the Arrival of my new 1923 Wurlizter with lovely chipped pre-embargoed ivory keys.
The scraggly delivery men struggled with this 600 lb. beast down the ramp of the truck and left it by the freight lift and made to leave.
There is a 3 foot lip to the lift entrance. I was bereft. No one else was home. It looked like rain. I did not want to leave this beautiful monster in this scrungy alley for any amount of time.
“Hey, there’s a $20 in it if you’ll help me for five minutes and get this thing into the lift.”
Delivery men were scrungy enough where $20 was all the coaxing they needed.
First try: One man on either side of piano. Me at the middle. “One! Two! Hurrrrnnnngghhhhhhhh!” We lift the thing about a foot in the air. It becomes apparent that we’re not going to make it.
“We’re not going to make it!” cries the man on the left, mimicking my thoughts.
Man on right drops his end. There is a dreadful crunch as the underside of the keyboard smashes his kneecap. As the piano lands and resonates that lovely, terrifying 88 key chord, the man on the right sings along with these lyrics: “OWWWWWWWW!” He collapses to the ground, clutching his wounded knee.
I am stunned. “Oh my god. Oh my god. Are you all right?” I want to curl up and die. Am I liable? Am I going to hell? Will he walk? And most importantly, is this thing never going to make it into the lift?
He has a slight limp, but is otherwise functional. I dare to hope he never had any post-trauma physical maladies due to this morning.
I was going to send them away now, sufficiently scared of the power of 600+ lbs. of dead, off-centred weight. Surprisingly, Kneecap Man suggested we give it another go after a bit.
Hey! I’ve got a brilliant idea! I run to my car and get the car jack out. Slide it under the piano and begin cranking the — crank-thing while the blokes balance the beast.
Car jacks aren’t meant to lift concentrated, non-leveraged weight up two and half feet, however.
I am under the piano. That is, my arm, and part of my head, cranking the little crank-thing. Getting scared with all this weight looming over me.
When suddenly, I hear a quiet *SNAP*, a bit of metal goes whizzing past my eye, and the whole thing comes down again.
If I did not have such quick reflexes, I would have certainly lost my arm, or taken off the top half of my head, or probably both.
In that brief, eternal moment between the snap of metal and the crash of the piano to the ground (again), I quite saw my life flash before my eyes. Cliché, yes, but clichés often spring from truth.
I saw family, childhood, friends, college, then everything that had happened in San Francisco. It was actually a beautiful moment. Then I ended up in a mustard-dotted meadow. Along the horizon were quadrupeds that could have been sheep or cows. I see a particularly lovely wildflower and stoop to pick it up. Suddenly, through the air comes this massive object displacing the atmosphere. I look up briefly and see…
…an ancient Wurlitzer piano coming crashing down upon me.
I moved that damn piano around with me for seven years, into seven or eight different apartments, houses and warehouses. And every time it came time to move the piano, this sunny morning in San Francisco would creep back to the forefront of my mind. And so emotionally scarred by the event have I become that I cannot bear to watch, much less take part in moving that beast.
Most frequently, I asked helpful friends to take care of the problem for me while I went to another room, another town, another planet, where I might not hear the crashing 88 key chord of a piano hitting the ground and the crunching of bones.
I’ve since “downsized,” inheriting Grandmother’s smaller, 350 lb. Baldwin, selling my old Wurlitzer to a dear co-worker in Philly for a very fair sum. I really just wanted it out of my life once and for all.
But even the Baldwin scares the shit outta me. I’m never moving again.
Ever!
Musical Instrument, or Accessory to Murder?
Visit the Marquis’ Crush o’ the Week. Nice penmanship, nice ass, what more could a person want?
“DJ, SAVE my life!” TODAY: Are they big-band, or simply a cheesey barbershop quartet? Your call. The Hi-Lo’s: “Jeepers Creepers” (1.9 MB) Hey, does anyone actually download these? Is it even worth my time to continue this li’l feature? Feedback, please. Ta very much, ducks.
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