Saddled

Instruments: Consecutive Substack Story 1132

Photo by Paul Arky on Unsplash

There’s a copy of a copy of an autographed picture of John Wayne hanging above the sofa our parents left us.

Pretty sure they would want us to have a new sofa by now, especially since Ellis smokes in the house.

Pretty sure my mom would be sad the piano is gone, but…

Ellis was 23 when our always mad, always in a hurry father tried to beat a train and got our never mad mother and himself killed.

Ellis got custody of us, Emily and me, and acted like it was a victory for about a week.

He ripped down all of mom and dad’s paintings and decorated the house in cowboy crap like it was a ranch or something.

Bitch, we live a block south of the tank plant and two blocks west of Milborn Factory outlets where they sell discount purses and perfume and shit. They might sell horse meat at that shady little Scottish butcher shop on Austin, but that’s about as close as we’re gonna come to a farm.

Ellis wanted to “man me up,” whatever that was supposed to mean.

I don’t think he fucked with Emily, but she packed her shit the day before her 18th birthday and left to be a backup dancer for some guy who thinks he’s the Italian Lionel Ritchie.

Ellis knocked my tooth out Tuesday night.

I heard him say on the phone that Carter was a pussy and all the hostages were gonna get killed. I don’t know if Ellis thought him and a bunch of cowboys were gonna go rescue ‘em, but he was pissed and I left a dish in the sink with a little bit of mustard on it, so he hit me.

I swung back, but Ellis connected good and one of my lower teeth came out.

My mom would be really sad the piano is gone.

She’d probably be pissed at Ellis for…but whatever.

Greg Rysser noticed at lunch. Greg knew it was Ellis. I thought about lying but Greg knew knew knew it was Ellis. By 6th hour Mike Aaron and Xavier Bellian had me cornered.

They were gonna come over and beat up Ellis.

They had a whole plan they made up before they even told me.

I loved it but I hated it.

Ellis had a bunch of fake cowboy bullshit in his head, but he was pretty tough, but he was also dumb and mean enough to say something to Xavier like Ellis was wearing a white hood and carrying a flaming cross and then we’d all end up killing him and going to jail.

Plus Ellis bought groceries. If he was dead and we didn’t go to jail the money would run out or they’d make me go to my aunt’s in Louisiana and be Jehovah’s Witness or something.

I told Greg and Mike and Xavier to give me one day to think about it.

Mike looked disappointed, even pissed.

I mean, it wasn’t the first time they knew Ellis hit me, but…

When I got home from school Ellis was on the phone in the kitchen, sitting on the counter with his hand on his dick over his old Tower High School gym shorts.

That meant he was talking to Liz Harrald. Ellis talked to Liz Harrald differently than he talked to other people. His voice was lower, smoother, and when he was on the phone with her his hand was always on his dick.

I was only in the house for a minute when I heard him say “playing the piano relaxes me. It’s like…a whole other trip. That’s why I write songs about you.”

There was a long pause and then Ellis said “Come over after I get off work on Friday.”

There was another pause and I heard Ellis say “awwwwwright…” like he had just hit the best joint Bob Marley ever rolled.

If playing piano relaxes Ellis, I’ll suck Casey Kasem’s dick. Nothing relaxes Ellis. Not even weed.

I hadn’t even heard him play the piano more than twice since our parents died, and one of those times was at the funeral.

If he promised Liz Harrald he was gonna play piano for her, there wasn’t gonna be a piano here when she got here.

The piano had been there my whole life. But I knew Greg and Mike and Xavier and me could carry it out and ramp it up on Greg’s Dodge D truck before Ellis got home from work.

My three best friends loved the idea of making Ellis look stupid in front of Liz Harrald, but didn’t love the idea of moving a piano until Greg decided we could drive it over to the parking lot of Korvettes and he could drive 30 in reverse and brake real hard and the piano would roll off and smash in a million pieces.

It was way harder to get the piano on the truck than we thought it would be, even using the ramp Greg’s dad uses to move bags of cement.

But we got it up there, even though Mike probably got a hernia.

When we were doing rock, paper, scissors for who got to ride in the cab of the truck, Xavier blurted “Let’s not smash it.”

Greg laughed and said “We don’t need your help getting it off. I’m just gonna lock em up and let that thing go flying.”

“We could sell it,” Mike said.

“Just drive it around and knock on doors?” I asked, getting nervous that Ellis would get off work early to get ready for Liz Harrald.

Xavier looked at the ground, spit, kinda walked in a circle and said, real quick, like he was trying to say it before he changed his mind, “My little sister takes piano lessons at church. My parents will probably take it.”

Mike shook his head at Xavier. “No way your mom takes it if she knows it's stolen. No way. Let’s just smash–”

“No,” I said. “It’s not stolen. It was just in the house when our parents died. It doesn’t belong to Ellis.It belongs to all of us…I’m just kinda giving it away without permission.”

“I wanna smash it,” Greg said.

“Let’s get it out of here before Ellis gets home.”

Xavier said “Fuck rock, paper, scissors, Emory, the piano came out of your house, you ride in back with it.”

I agreed, and without any more discussion we drove the piano to Xavier’s house.

My brother would freak, but he wouldn’t call the cops because he had weed in the house, and he couldn’t exactly blame me because he knew I couldn’t carry the piano all by myself.

It would be like In Search of, with Leonard Nimoy. Where is Ellis Engle’s Piano That He Never Plays But Told Liz Harrald He Did?

Mrs. Bellian thought it was weird that we would just show up to give the Bellians a piano without discussing it first.

I did my best to tell her that Xavier said they needed it for Zoeey, but that only made Mrs. Bellian look at Xavier and raise her eyebrows like she was trying to break ‘em off.

“You’re sure this is okay with Elvis?” Mrs. Bellian asked.

I don’t know how I didn’t bust out laughing, but I said “yes, ma’am” feeling like my head was gonna pop off and all my other teeth were gonna fall out.

Mrs. Bellian went into the house and brought out a Polaroid camera.

She took pictures of the piano with me standing next to it.

Then she handed the camera to Xavier and asked him to take a picture of her standing next to it on the truck.

Then she said “I’ll be right back,” and went into the house.

Standing there, all I could think of was Ellis getting home and freaking and losing his mind and what kind of dumb excuse he would make to Liz.

I looked at Xavier standing there with the camera in his hand. I climbed on top of the piano like it was a horse and told Xavier to take a picture. He did, and I climbed off it just as Mrs. Bellian walked out with a tape measure.

She had Xavier measure the length and width of the piano.

“I’m going to ask Mr. Bellian what he thinks about this arrangement.”

“Ok,” Greg said, smiling like Mrs. Bellian said ‘I’ll take it”, we’ll just get it off the back of the truck and–”

Mrs. Bellian said “But I’m going to call Emory’s brother first and make sure.”

I swear Greg panicked first.

If Ellis was gonna hit me over dumb shit like a C in math and mustard on a plate in the sink, it didn’t really matter if he hit me over a piano I borrowed to ruin his hookup with Liz Harrald.

Xavier stayed at his house, leaving room for me in the cab holding a Polaroid picture of me straddling the piano as Greg sped down 10 Mile Road.

I told him we should just wait to see if the Bellians were gonna take the piano but he said “She’s got a picture of my truck! Your brother could press charges!”

I didn’t think to remind him that my brother could have pressed charges if we beat him up, and those charges would have been worse than borrowing a piano that kind of sort of belonged to me anyway.

Greg pulled down a dead end by MacNeeson Spindle, got out of the truck, lowered the tailgate, got back in the truck and gunned it before I could say words that made sense.

The piano slid off the back of the truck and smashed.

Greg dropped Mike off and then drove to his house, where he asked his dad if he could park the truck in the garage.

I could walk home from Greg’s house, but I couldn’t. My brother was gonna be furious because if Mrs. Bellian had gotten ahold of him he would know I was responsible for the piano being gone.

The beating wouldn’t be as bad if he had some time.

I thought maybe Liz didn’t care about the damn piano and fucked Ellis anyway.

The only thing I really knew wandering the neighborhood is that Ellis would forever be Elvis in my head, and not the cool Elvis either.

It was about 10 pm when I left Price’s Donuts and got up the guts to go home.

Ellis’s Maverick wasn’t in the driveway.

The house was dark.

***

I’m sitting on the sofa now, next to my aunt. She moved up from Baton Rouge so I can finish school in Michigan.

Ellis is in Jackson Prison for telling Mrs. Bellian that no, they couldn’t have the piano, and he would blow up their fucking house, and hang both their kids and all the most fucked up shit you could say to anyone. When the cops got here the half pound of weed didn’t help either.

Xavier and I are still friends, even though I’m not welcome over at their house, no offense, and all the cowboy pictures are off the walls, except in my bedroom is the Polaroid of me riding the damn piano like a horse to remind myself that the most relaxing thing I could have done with it would have been to smash it in the Korvette’s parking lot.

***