to mess with me. The notes scream out, but I don’t stop. They’re crying now, begging for mercy, but I’m not through yet.
By the time I’m done, my hand stings, my bones hurt, and I’m actually panting. I step back, take a few calming breaths. My chest rises and falls. Then I look at the piano and I gasp because I swear the middle E is just a hair’s breadth shorter than the keys next to it. I cover my mouth with my hand, astonished, embarrassed, ashamed at what I’ve done. I maimed the piano.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I say, my voice breaking, my throat burning. I sink down to my knees and I touch the damaged key, barely brushing it. It’s tender and I don’t want to hurt it any more.
I pull on my jacket, noticing there’s now a dull throb starting in the back of my neck. I’m getting another headache. I don’t know if Carter is giving me headaches or if I’m giving them to myself. But I deserve this one for what I did. I won’t take an aspirin. I won’t take a Tylenol. I will let this headache hurt me.
I leave the music hall and Martin’s there, as he said he would be. He shuts his French book, puts his paper away, and stands up. I don’t say anything at first. He doesn’t either. He heard me, he must have heard me. He doesn’t mention it.
“What happened to the freshmen last semester?” I ask as we walk.
“What happened?” he repeats.
“Yes. You heard their case, right?”
“It didn’t go to trial,” he says.
“So what happened?”
“They confessed. They took their punishment.”
“I take it I won’t be seeing these freshmen in the production of
Merry Wives of Windsor
this semester, then.”
“You are correct in that assumption. Not
Merry Wives,
not anything.”
“Good,” I say. “They deserved it.”
But I don’t know if I’m talking about them or Carter or myself right now. Everything inside me is like a mangled mass of cars on the highway, and I’m waiting for the paramedics to come untangle them.
PIANO INJUSTICE
“We need more scientists,” Mr. Christie declares from the front of the classroom.
He’s standing, but he places a foot on the seat of a chair. He kind of leans into the chair, placing his right hand on his right knee, in emphasis or something, as if this position makes him a more passionate lecturer. It can only mean he’s about to dispense a new assignment, especially since it’s the start of a new week—our second full week of classes.
He strokes his reddish beard, pushes his wire-rimmed glasses back up on his nose. He wears corduroy slacks, a button-down shirt, a shabby jacket. I wonder if he wishes he were at Williamson instead, if he’d rather be a college professor, but then I’m sure like all the others he thinks Themis is its own sort of heaven. Tenure awarded after justa few years, the wildest assignments you can dream up, and a whole army of students to sing and dance for you.
“Thomas Friedman says we need more scientists,” Mr. Christie says, elaborating in his deep baritone. He pauses. He pauses a lot in his lectures. I bet when he writes his lectures he puts
pause here
in his notes. “Do we need more scientists?” he asks. “Is that what our world needs? As the world gets flatter and we run in place faster just to keep up, do you”—he pauses again, this time to point at all of us in the room—“agree?”
We don’t know. We haven’t read the book. But he’s about to assign it to us.
Still rocking back and forth against his right leg, he says, “Tonight, I want you to begin reading
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
. And I want you to think about what we need most. You can agree or disagree with Mr. Friedman.”
Of course. It’s encouraged, in fact. We’re not expected to agree with teachers or texts or the conventional wisdom. We are expected, however, to back up our dissent with facts and arguments and logic. Mr. Christie teaches history, but not the pilgrims and tea
By the time I’m done, my hand stings, my bones hurt, and I’m actually panting. I step back, take a few calming breaths. My chest rises and falls. Then I look at the piano and I gasp because I swear the middle E is just a hair’s breadth shorter than the keys next to it. I cover my mouth with my hand, astonished, embarrassed, ashamed at what I’ve done. I maimed the piano.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I say, my voice breaking, my throat burning. I sink down to my knees and I touch the damaged key, barely brushing it. It’s tender and I don’t want to hurt it any more.
I pull on my jacket, noticing there’s now a dull throb starting in the back of my neck. I’m getting another headache. I don’t know if Carter is giving me headaches or if I’m giving them to myself. But I deserve this one for what I did. I won’t take an aspirin. I won’t take a Tylenol. I will let this headache hurt me.
I leave the music hall and Martin’s there, as he said he would be. He shuts his French book, puts his paper away, and stands up. I don’t say anything at first. He doesn’t either. He heard me, he must have heard me. He doesn’t mention it.
“What happened to the freshmen last semester?” I ask as we walk.
“What happened?” he repeats.
“Yes. You heard their case, right?”
“It didn’t go to trial,” he says.
“So what happened?”
“They confessed. They took their punishment.”
“I take it I won’t be seeing these freshmen in the production of
Merry Wives of Windsor
this semester, then.”
“You are correct in that assumption. Not
Merry Wives,
not anything.”
“Good,” I say. “They deserved it.”
But I don’t know if I’m talking about them or Carter or myself right now. Everything inside me is like a mangled mass of cars on the highway, and I’m waiting for the paramedics to come untangle them.
PIANO INJUSTICE
“We need more scientists,” Mr. Christie declares from the front of the classroom.
He’s standing, but he places a foot on the seat of a chair. He kind of leans into the chair, placing his right hand on his right knee, in emphasis or something, as if this position makes him a more passionate lecturer. It can only mean he’s about to dispense a new assignment, especially since it’s the start of a new week—our second full week of classes.
He strokes his reddish beard, pushes his wire-rimmed glasses back up on his nose. He wears corduroy slacks, a button-down shirt, a shabby jacket. I wonder if he wishes he were at Williamson instead, if he’d rather be a college professor, but then I’m sure like all the others he thinks Themis is its own sort of heaven. Tenure awarded after justa few years, the wildest assignments you can dream up, and a whole army of students to sing and dance for you.
“Thomas Friedman says we need more scientists,” Mr. Christie says, elaborating in his deep baritone. He pauses. He pauses a lot in his lectures. I bet when he writes his lectures he puts
pause here
in his notes. “Do we need more scientists?” he asks. “Is that what our world needs? As the world gets flatter and we run in place faster just to keep up, do you”—he pauses again, this time to point at all of us in the room—“agree?”
We don’t know. We haven’t read the book. But he’s about to assign it to us.
Still rocking back and forth against his right leg, he says, “Tonight, I want you to begin reading
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
. And I want you to think about what we need most. You can agree or disagree with Mr. Friedman.”
Of course. It’s encouraged, in fact. We’re not expected to agree with teachers or texts or the conventional wisdom. We are expected, however, to back up our dissent with facts and arguments and logic. Mr. Christie teaches history, but not the pilgrims and tea
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