“You the owner?” she asked.
When she returned, she watched him from the doorway. “You play?” she asked, nodding at the dusty poster of Thelonious Monk taped to the wall.
“I’m not a tuner.”
The name sat on him like a borrowed tuxedo—stiff, formal, and a little too big. Prince Richardson wasn't a prince. He was a mechanic from East Cleveland who smelled of grease and spoke in grunts. His father, a man with a cruel sense of humor, had named him after a racehorse he'd lost a fortune on the night Prince was born.
She raised an eyebrow. “Of course you are.” prince richardson
“I know who you are,” she said. “I have a piano. A Steinway. It’s been in a basement for fifteen years. Needs someone who remembers how to touch keys.”
One Tuesday, a burgundy Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow floated into the lot like a ghost. It idled with a cough. The woman who stepped out wore heels that cost more than Prince’s toolbox. “You the owner
Prince drove to her address after work. The house was a Victorian in disrepair—peeling paint, a sagging porch. In the basement, under a single bulb, sat the piano. He sat on the bench, dust rising like ghosts. He pressed middle C. The note was flat, tired, but alive.