Empty Chairs

 

Empty Chairs

 

As she lifted the keyboard cover on the grand piano, she glanced at the small crowd of elderly people gathered to hear her usual renditions of old classics and some ragtime. Each Friday night she would put on a light show. Gentle music, nothing earth shaking. Just something to go with the blue hair crowd that would mix well with drinks after dinner. 

 

She stared at the keys. Since she was five years old the keys spoke to her.  Tonight they stared at her. A week before, sitting on the back porch of the now empty mansion on the tenth green she’d taken notice of all the empty chairs where children had once been. High chairs, sitting chairs, lawn chairs, all empty. The only sound being the birds and the tap, tap, tap of the golf course water system. 

 

Now the words came back to her. Gently she placed her fingers on the keys. A couple people raised cell phones for a picture, but she shook her head and said, “No, please. Not tonight.”  Confused, they lowered their phones. 

 

Her fingers gently caressed the keys. G – C- back to G. Then C again, A minor and return. In an angelic voice she began to sing. She never sang! She was just a piano player. 

 

Things that folks are made of

Like faith and hope and sometimes love . . . 

 

A simple beginning to a simple song. This sat well with this crowd. Not challenging. But how could they know. Beyond the walls of the country club was the world. A world of life, death, gain and loss. A world billions of years old that burned out the dinosaurs and Romans and now her. 

 

Things that make us act the way we do

 

She had life all figured out. From Detroit to Austin, from victory to defeat and now empty chairs. As she played she closed her eyes and could see her children in her mind. Still laughing. In the end she had nothing figured out. Only the finality of the empty chairs. 

 

I’ve got a theory in my head

It’ll be there until I’m dead

 

Dead! So that’s the answer. You are stuck with mad ideas, good or bad until they rot in your head. What do you do with this fertilizer?

 

And I’d like to pass my theory on to you. 

 

As her fingers played the haunting melody the small group began to sit up and listen. There was more here than ragtime. More than just clever rhymes. This was life! She was reaching inside and desperately trying to share a part of herself. A part that was slipping away, never to be seen again.  And she was giving it to them. Her captive audience, stuck in life with nowhere to go. 

 

Doing fine and then one day

They came and took my kids away 

 

There! She’d said it. They’re gone! They’d been taken. The world had breached the mansion walls and took the most important part of her life as if it had never been there at all. It happened at Bergstrom Airport. She flew in from L.A. and got in the Limo alone. All by herself. And for her the world stopped turning that day. 

 

And I knew I’d never see their smiles again. 

 

Power, loss of power, mistakes being made. Sins paid for. And nobody cares. The family doesn’t care. The world doesn’t care. The state doesn’t even care. It’s just a big impersonal machine. Another case closed. 

 

The state of Texas stole my life

‘Cause I was just a drunk man’s wife

And when you’re down it’s hard to find a friend

 

But what had she learned? Where was the message? What could she impart to these people that they didn’t already know? What could she tell them that they could place in all their years? Maybe just confirm something in some new way. Maybe sooth some pain. Of renew a reminder of forgotten love . . . or hate. Something awful, or splendid but uncommon. Anything. Something to fill the empty chairs. 

 

Life’s a circle we all know

There ain’t no new way to go

If you stay home you’ll probably be just fine

 

Broken dreams and empty chairs

We’ll all face the fire down there

And I hope yours burns cooler than mine 

 

At the last line she ended precisely on the final chord. The last verse was actually the chorus but she didn’t want to reveal it until the very end. She didn’t want to soften the blow by conditioning her small audience. They had to know. They had to know this was the end. She had put on her Traveling Shoes once in Detroit and came to Austin. Now she’d put them on again. But to where! She closed the keyboard cover and slowly bowed her head, touching the teak of the piano. Then she abruptly rose and went to the freeway. And oblivion.