I was helping the guys move out when Alex asked if I wanted the piano. Having always been a collector of free wooden furnishings, it was a hard offer to resist. “Sure,” I said, “why not?” Well, I’ll tell you why: because pianos are fucking heavy. And as college students spending all of our money on rent, cigarettes, 40s, and Jimmy John's, we were the movers that day--and ill equipped at that.

Somehow, the three of us--myself, Alex, and his roommate Dan--managed to get the piano rolled onto the front porch and down three or four stairs to street level. From there, the plan was to push the antique upright the quarter mile or so from the guys' place on Hickory Street to where I lived over on West Chestnut. The problem was that it was Texas, it was summer, and it was hot, and halfway across the street, the piano's four tiny wheels sank about half an inch into the softened asphalt, stopping the bohemoth dead in its tracks.

As drivers honked, cursed, and maneuvered around the mahogany barricade, we discussed potential next steps. It seemed our best option was to leave the piano there on the street, go inside, and lock the door behind us. However, just as I was mentally rehearsing my plausible deniability, that became unnecessary; it seemed someone was looking down from above and decided to throw a couple college kids a bone.

That bone pulled up in a busted El Camino and, sticking his head out the driver's side window, said it looked like we could use some help. We obliged, he pulled around, hopped out and introduced himself. Yarrow, a man appearing to be in his early 60s, sporting a long and unkempt white beard, baggy dark jeans, BIRKENSTOCKⓇ sandals, and a brightly colored tie-dye tank top. In Yarrow’s passenger seat rode a woman wearing black leather biking gear who sat silently in the vehicle while the four of us hoisted the piano onto the truck bed.

Once loaded up, we didn’t have anything to secure the former roadblock in place, so I volunteered to ride along on the piano's lid so as to make sure nothing went awry during transit. It was a short trip and when we arrived I hopped off and helped Yarrow back the Camino up to the front porch, making easy work of rolling the piano into the house. Happy to have that part of their lives behind them, Alex and Dan walked home to finish packing as I chatted with our new hippie friend for a bit. I learned that in spotting us Yarrow saw an opportunity to perform one last good deed before turning himself in to the cops and, from what it sounded like, spending a not insignificant amount of time in prison. I nodded, gave a knowing "mmm" and thanked him for his generosity. We then shook hands and he was off on the next leg of his journey.

The piano stayed a fixture of the home for the remaining years I lived there and fit in perfectly with the rest of the proverbial dumpster me and my two roommates were cohabitating in. As a musical instrument, the old Baldwin was irreparably out of tune and completely unplayable. However, we felt it still tied the room together as a classic piece of home decor, ashtray, resting place of countless red SOLO cups, and even a urinal that one time what's his face woke up drunk in the middle of the night and let it rip thinking he was in the bathroom.

To be continued... 

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