The Piano Lesson

“DOAKER: You got all them watermelons stacked up there no wonder the truck broke down. I’m surprised you made it this far with a load like that. Where you break down at?

“BOY WILLIE: We broke down three times! It took us two and a half days to get here. It’s a good thing we picked them watermelons fresh.”

The truck overloaded with watermelons represents Boy Willie’s lofty dreams of owning the land where his ancestors were enslaved. Logically, it’s unlikely that Sutter’s brother has waited rather than taking other offers, and a lot of pins have to fall in place to procure the money, but Boy Willie is pushing his dreams past the limits of what is logical and counting on something miraculous.

“You know she won’t touch that piano. I ain’t never known her to touch it since Mama Ola died. That’s over seven years now. She say it got blood on it. She got Maretha playing on it though. Say Maretha can go on and do everything she can’t do. Got her in an extra school down at the Irene Kaufman Settlement House. She want Maretha to grow up and be a schoolteacher.”

Doaker describes how Berniece is raising Maretha to have the opportunities that she never had herself. For Berniece, the piano is haunted because she knows its history. But Maretha has a fresh start without the knowledge of her grandfather’s brutal death and her grandmother’s 17 years of mourning and communing with his ghost, so to Maretha, the piano is just an instrument. The Irene Kaufman Settlement House was a real place run by volunteers that offered enrichment classes to primarily Jewish immigrants, but also non-Jewish immigrants and Black Americans.

“That’s why I come up here. Sell them watermelons. Get Berniece to sell that piano. Put them two parts with the part I done saved. Walk in there. Tip my hat. Lay my money down on the table. Get my deed and walk on out. This time I get to keep all the cotton. Hire me some men to work it for me. Gin my cotton. Get my seed. And I’ll see you again next year.”

Boy Willie makes his plan sound simple and straightforward, despite the many variables that are likely to interfere even before he walks out with a deed. But his dream is especially articulated in the last three sentences.