Then one day Mom did something incredibly daring. She went out somewhere, or called
someone out of the classifieds, or something, and bought an old upright player piano. I
remember she’d spent twenty-five dollars on it (a lot of money in the early fifties), because
Dad was upset and Mom said he had no right to be, because she’d scrimped on the grocery
money for months and saved up for it. She said she hadn’t hurt the family budget at all.
She must have had it delivered by the seller, because one day
I came home from school and there it was. I was out of my mind with happiness and
immediately sat down to play. It didn’t take long for that piano to become my best friend. I
had to be the only ten-year-old on the South Side who didn’t have to be browbeaten into
practicing the piano. You couldn’t get me away from the thing. Not only was I picking out
familiar melodies right and left, I was making them up!
The exhilaration of finding songs inside my soul and splashing them across the keyboard was
electrifying to me. The most exciting part of my day was when I came home from school or
back from the playground and flew to the piano.
My father was not nearly as enthusiastic. “Stop pounding on that damned piano was the way I
believe he put it. But I was falling in love with music and my ability to make it. My fantasies of
one day becoming a great pianist shifted into high gear.
Then I awoke one summer day to a terrible racket. Jumping into my clothes, I scampered
downstairs to see what in the heck was going on.
Dad was taking the piano apart.
Not taking it apart, tea ring it apart. Banging on it from the inside with a sledge hammer, then
ripping it with a crowbar until the wood heaved and split with a terrible screech.
I stood transfixed, utterly shocked. Tears streamed down my cheeks. My brother saw me
shaking with silent sobs and couldn’t resist, “Neale is a cry baby.” Dad turned from what he
was doing. “Don’t be an eepsie-peepsie,” he said. “It was taking up too much room in here. It
was time to get rid of it.”
I turned on my heels and ran to my room, slammed the door (avery dangerous thing for a
child to do in my house), and threw myself on the bed. I remember wailing—literally,
wailing— “No, n0000... as if my wretched pleas could save my best friend. But the pounding
and ripping continued, and I buried my head in my pillow, heaving with bitterness.
I feel the pain of that experience to this day.
To this very moment.
When I refused to come out of my room for the rest of the day, my father ignored me. But
when I would not leave my bed for three days more, he grew increasingly aggravated. I could
hear him arguing with Mom about her bringing me food. If I wanted to eat, I could come down
to the table like everyone else. And if I did come down, I was not to sulk. There was no
sulking or pouting allowed in our house, at least not over a decision Dad had made. He
considered such a display an open repudiation, and he would not put up with that. In our
house, you not only accepted my father’s domination, you accepted it with a smile.
“You keep up that crying and I’ll come up there and give you something to cry about, “he’d
bellow from the bottom floor, and he meant it.