My dad came home with an upright piano. It was covered in clear plastic sheets and strapped tight to the sides of the truck bed, like the dead deer he brought home from hunting trips. He jumped out of the truck, unfastened the ropes, and peeled away the sheets. "Can you believe this was going to the dump?" he said. "Look at all that scrap." He was referring to the wood. My dad was an electrician and maintenance worker - I.B.E.W. Local 405 - but on the weekends, he liked to get drunk and play with his bandsaw.
Several days later, the piano was jammed against the living room wall, half its keys hidden behind the armrest of the couch. My sister wanted lessons. I was too busy practicing tricks on my bike, playing basketball, and walking the railroad tracks to the trestle, where I wrote poems and stories in my notebooks, listening for the trains. There was no way I would sit for long hours and practice chords. I wanted to see the old upright bashed to pieces, its keys scattered like knocked-out teeth on the garage floor; strings as curled and knotted as the twisted metal in an accident scene. I could pretend I was detonating the dynamite inside a condemned building, or blowing up an enemy hideout. There was a strange allure to destroying a revered musical instrument, and I wanted to know what it felt like.
My sister never got her lessons. My dad hated the sound of piano music, and we were both warned never to touch it. Once, when I lifted the cover from the keys, Dad grabbed my wrist and twisted it so hard it almost sprained. He was capable of a lot worse.
Last month, my mother gave the piano away. It was the last thing to go before selling the house and moving out on her own. I'm probably supposed to hope someone is playing it, but I don't. I want to rip the pedals from the base and beat the keys - the loudest music they ever made - before ripping the strings from the frame. I want to slice it in half with a saw. I want to show Dad what he was missing, for him to see what it means to love silence. What it means that I love it, too.
That he has passed this on.