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Brian Henry
The Woman on a Piano
"Have you seen her perform before?" asked Ratigan. The rows were filling with vigorous menand well-fed women, each of them reviewing the postcards they'd purchased in the lobby."She was quite good in October at the Eureka Pier."Hoban put down his opera glasses. His orange beard stopped at his pasty, drooping face justin time, just before melding with the fabric of his pale salmon shirt. His eyebrows, a shade of rotted tangerine, drooped with a lack of enthusiasm. "I don't go to concerts in the autumn.""She's played in various seasons," observed Ratigan. He'd forgotten to pick up the programpostcards, and had to look over the shoulder of the brisk brunette in front of him. She held acard at distance, squinting at caterpillars arranged in the shape of a spoon. "She performed inthe summer at the Magic Tunnel, I believe, doing the 'Appliance Songs' of Farragut.""Farragut." Hoban frowned, his brown lips burrowing into his face with the alacrity of fatworms singed by live cigarette ash. "He's an Upholsterer, a Neo-Sequentialist. I thrashed oneof his admirers with rubber tubing last year at the Vancouver Piano Thunk."Ratigan glanced at Hoban's lap, where a coil of white tubing lay in wait to demonstrate hispotential displeasure at the evening's works. For his part, Ratigan had brought his usual eggbeaters, the oversize iron ones he'd bought at the Morrocan bazaar for the express purpose of concert altercations. The Woman on a Piano's vigorous and multi-pronged program wasbringing out the more aggressive concertgoers in the Silverfoot District. The audience hadalready begun practicing for the outbursts that were sure to erupt after the 'Variation on aGargle' by Tinderby and the 'Czech Ransom Note' by Spolitov III. Two narrow men wereslapping each other with large plastic eggplants under the Founder's Balcony, a robust womanin a traditional silver poetry wig was tossing dried sea urchins against a wall and a corpulent,fuzzy-haired concertgoer was buttoning and unbuttoning his jacket to reveal an offensivephotorealist portrait of an amputated composer on his T-shirt."He does indulge in melodic figurations that persistently reoccur at sickeningly frequentintervals," conceded Ratigan. "But his works are not nearly as offensive as Folsom-Sickle's,with their sickening sweet pianissimos and persisting cooing.""Cooing is highly underrated," sniffed Hoban. "I once heard St. Poincard's 'Interregnum inFour Jolts' and was quite impressed with his use of a repeated semi-coo in the thirdmovement. I used my tubing just twice that night."Ratigan took out his yellow memo pad and made three large hash marks with a green crayon."That is three points added to your reactionary score, Hoban. A fondness for coos is no proudclaim for a proponent of Future Music.""That's repulsive coming from you," snorted Hoban. He paused briefly to whip his rubbertubing about and snap it at the face of a matron who'd just given vent to an unacceptably loudsneeze. If she'd unloosed such a sneeze after the concert had actually begun, Hoban would
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Brian Henry
no doubt have whipped her wig right off her shrunken head. "I seem to recall that you're aproud owner of Diego Diego Bautista Ramirez's cross-over album of motivational businessragas.""Please," Ratigan sighed, popping open his can of pre-concert minestrone. "That was a giftfrom my accountant."Just then, there was an altercation near the stage, as an overexcited Woman On a Piano fanvomited onto the postcards of an elderly matriarch and was vengefully bludgeoned with a bagof basmati rice by her husband. The dispute was soon resolved, as the vomiter was led outwith his head wrapped in a plastic bag by a security officer."What about that time in your car. You were listening to those nostalgic quartets by BadenHattenburg? The ones quoting barbershop quartet tunes? Did your accountant make apresent of that disc as well?"Ratigan was distracted by unmistakable 'woofs' from the front of the theater, indicating thatThe Woman on a Piano was about to make her entrance. Indeed, her plastic cage was alreadybeing wheeled towards her trademark magenta piano, as Horst, her beady-eyed accompanist,strapped on his black helmet and posed near the bench, lifting a victory fist.Ratigan quickly chugged the remainder of his minestrone and tossed the empty can towardthe Left Orchestra. "Woman on a Piano!" he yelled with the other enthusiasts.Hoban sat on his hands, letting a small rivulet of disdainful drool collect on his chin.The Woman on a Piano stepped out of her cage. She was dressed in a painfully garish seriesof ribbons and feathers that wound around her body, ending near her waist, where a burlapsack took over to cover her lower body. Horst lifted her onto the piano with a practicedmotion and a grunt and The Woman, with her inimitable Swiss accident, condescended tospeak to the house."I open with the 'Hypodermic Cascade', by Lemon Plaster."This announcement brought a mixed response of woofs and catcalls. Ratigan and Hoban wereequally disappointed. "She deviates from the program already!" cried Hoban, slapping a redpostcard."A song with verses," sneered Ratigan. He stealthily removed an ice pick from his pants,ready to jab at any patron nearby who cheered."But," the Woman on a Piano continued, after the response had died down, "I will sing itsimultaneously with the Peruvian national anthem."A unanimous cheer went up."Now that's the spirit of neo-music," said Hoban.
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Phantomimic

LOL! I hope this is not the future of music. Nice story!

reply11 / 17 / 2009
Brian K. Henry

Thanks! Glad you liked it.

11 / 18 / 2009
Rayanda

Wonderfully rich, serio-comic use of metaphor.

reply10 / 26 / 2009
Brian K. Henry

Thanks for the comment, Rayanda!

10 / 26 / 2009
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