The Pianist

By: Cal Kain

September 28, 1914

Dear Irving,

Thanks for the gig. Business has been low for me and I need to get back on top of things or else I’ll be evicted from my apartment. If that happens, Martha will leave me for sure. And we haven’t even been married for five months. This offer means a lot to me. As much as I hate negotiating money matters with my friends, we need to get some arrangement together when I get there. As soon as I send this letter, I’m boarding a train to San Francisco. Once I’ve finished business there I’m heading straight to you in Portland. Thanks again for this opportunity.

Warm Regards,

Earl C. Rustlers

I folded the letter and placed it in an envelope. I yawned while reclining in my chair when it tipped over and I toppled downwards onto the shag rug. Martha dashed onto the scene as I scampered up in bewilderment.

“Earl, what in Gods name is going on,” she exclaimed in her normally loud tone of voice. “You should be out the door and on your way to the train station by now, but no. Your hunched at the table writing letters about this and that to people who probably don‘t even care. How are we going to make any money with you lounging about?”

There was an awkward silence that occupied a short interval of the conversation. Then, Martha huffed in fury and exited, thus, ending the conversation and ending our failure of a marriage.

Our lives together weren’t always unpleasant. In fact, when we first met we were almost inseparable. I’d say we met each other about three years ago. Back then, I was the clerk at a general store in Minnesota. I only played the piano as a hobby, for means of making change in my spare time. Martha worked at a clothing store down the block and we began to see each other often when she came in for fabrics.

She realized my talent for the piano and told me that I should make it a full-time career. I considered it for a month and decided that it might be a good choice. And I can honestly say that it was one of the most dimwitted decisions in my whole life.

I did well at first, playing at night clubs in Seattle and Detroit. We moved around a lot back then. But my career plummeted when I acquired Arthritis in my wrist, it was probably hereditary. The only thing that the doctors could do was give me a wrist brace and some painkillers.

Even though my career was at a halt, Martha had tremendous business at her clothing store. After two years, my wrist was feeling better and I started back up in my piano career. But I was rusty. I needed to go back to the basics to refresh my memory. It was here that Martha and I were married, which marked the beginning of our end.

I was a wreck. But I managed to make it to San Francisco. I was supposed to play at a small bar named Stan’s Ale House. I walked through the doors and sat down to play. I was booed away and was soaked with beer poured on me. Stan never paid me in the end. I guess I ran out before he even could.

Portland was a little better. My friend Irving ran his own pub there and offered some assistance to jumpstart my career again. Some of the drunkards interrupted half way through a song or made irritating sounds, but I stayed the whole time. Irving was generous with his money and even lent me a room in the spare bedroom in the back of the pub. I graciously accepted and left in the morning after sharing a last drink with him. He slipped me a train ticket to Boise and said he got me a job in a local bar named the Broken Bones.

The train left at noon and I missed it. I waited for the next train to Boise and made it to the Broken Bones two hours late. The owner refused to give me another chance and he chased me out of his bar. Now I was destitute and without another job opportunity.