Morning Music

I woke to something I almost recognized from my piano lessons, Mozart, I thought or maybe Beethoven. It was several minutes before I realized I was listening to a violin, the sound coming through the open window by my bed clearly and sweetly. Pushing the curtains aside and leaning out, I saw Willie Foot sitting cross legged atop Aunt Lizzie's ancient and rusted tractor, a violin tucked under his chin, and a calico cat in his lap. This is a dream, I remember thinking then heard my grandmother's voice and smelled biscuits and honey, a sure sign of Sunday.

The music was fainter downstairs and Nana didn't seem to be paying much attention to it. When I asked why Willie was playing and where had the violin come from, she shrugged and put a second pan of biscuits into the old oven, wiping her hands on her apron and gesturing me toward the dining room. Eat while they're hot, she advised briskly, and don't give any to those dogs! My daddy, already up and dressed and church-worthy, was standing by the window and smoking, watching Willie with a sad, sweet smile. Wonder where he got the cat, he mused idly and laughed at the silliness of the question.

What's all that racket? my mother demanded as she descended the stairs and my daddy sighed. Nothing, Jan, he told her neutrally, Just a madman next door on tractor with a violin. Playing Beethoven. She gave him a scowl, her unmade-up face pale and showing signs of lack of sleep, her voice coarse with contempt. It's enough to wake the dead, she snapped and reached for her cigarettes, Is there coffee?

The serenade continued through breakfast, a mostly silent affair with my mother gulping coffee and aspirin while my grandmother serenely sailed through clean up. My brothers were rounded up and we all - except for my mother who begged off, claiming the music had given her a migraine - piled into the old Lincoln and made the trip to church. Willie had moved on by the time we got back although we could still the violin somewhere in the distance.

In a small village where odd is often the rule rather than the exception, a madman on a tractor with a violin and a calico cat is not at all that remarkable.