Spring

Dear Lonely Animal [Last night I wanted nachos again]

49 Dear Lonely Animal, Last night I wanted nachos again, a big plate of nachos covered in cheese and black beans and salsa, sour cream, guacamole— did I mention cheese? Animal, sometimes I want nachos so much that it distracts me from what I should be doing, I mean, pursuing, I mean, my career. How can one person’s stomach be so hungry for snacks? It was Easter today and the local café hid adhesive eggs under some people’s plates. I found an egg, but it belonged to somebody else. People were putting their plates in the dirty bin without so much as a glance underneath! Hel-lo!, I wanted to say, There’s an egg hunt in progress here, People! Later at a buffet, different people put their drinks on top of a grand piano—on the body of a grand piano!—and their paper plates too of crummy, half-eaten hors d’oeuvres! Hel-LO!! Don’t they know 50 how amazing a piano is? What if somebody built that piano with his bare hands and lined up every hammer and every key and every damper and stretched every single wire and tethered each one in place? Somebody made that piano, Lonely Animal, and its beautiful wood-encased body, all arched and elegant, a whole piece of wood swooned into shape like that, persuaded to the curve. And anyway, I’m so stupid and scared. I didn’t say a word. I just let those people put their soggy old plates right on the instrument and their sodas too, condensing right on the wood, everybody laughing and carrying on, not even seeing it there, what it once was. Like a coward, I came back at ten o’clock at night, when the whole house was empty except for me and the piano, and I apologized to it. I opened up its keyboard cover and the keys were chipped and dirty, and the strings were out of tune. I opened up the lid and its body was Ālled with dust and even a gum wrapper. Lonely Animal, I played then 51 the most beautiful piece of music that I know, right there with all those sour notes. The most beautiful piece I know is the third movement of Chopin’s 3rd sonata. That’s a lot of 3’s, but on repeating numbers, you sometimes get to make a wish. I didn’t know what to wish for, but anyway, I hope somebody somewhere made a wish. ...