A strange afternoon

About 8 months ago, the guy who was training me in Dueling Pianos asked me to call another potential trainee in Texas who had approached him about learning the gig. His name was John, and from our first conversation it was obvious that we had a good chemistry. John was in his fifties and hadn’t played professionally since the late 80’s but wanted to get back to doing music fulltime. He was particularly intrigued by the dueling piano format, and wanted to know what he needed to know and do to get into it. I wrote up a songlist of about 70 core songs that he should know, and we spoke for many hours about the gig. Over the months, we maintained contact via telephone and developed a nice friendship. When I scheduled my trip to Texas, I suggested we get together for some facetime.

We agreed to meet at his place on Sunday at 1:30pm. I arrived and he offered me a beer, which I declined. He suggested taking a walk on a nearby nature trail, which sounded fun. As we walked, he told me he had suffered a stroke several years ago that had left him paralyzed. Now he was fully recovered and had gotten his first music gig in 20 years, as a pianist on a major cruise line. He was very excited about this 6 month contract that would begin shortly, and felt that this was his big chance to get back into music, and redeem his life. Apparently back in the day he had been quite a hell raiser on the cruise ships and had made a reputation for himself. He stopped to piss 4 times during our hour-long walk.

When we returned to the house, he popped a beer and uncorked a red wine and took a swig from the bottle. We went to the piano, and we both showed off for each other while his very classy 50-something lady roommate enthusiastically watched on. As the afternoon wore on, John got steadily drunk on beer and wine. The three of us went out to dinner and watched a 9 piece salsa band. I had my second beer of the day and John began ordering double vodka and OJ. He turned to me and said, Eddie, tonight I’m gonna get hosed!” After an hour and 3 fish tacos later, John was so drunk that he could bearly sit up. He was eating like an animal and barking at the help. I was getting ready to make my exit when he said that he wanted to leave as he now felt sick. I left them in the parking lot and made a quick retreat to my car.

The next morning John called to ask if he had said anything to piss his roommate off, because she wasn't telling him exactly what he did, but she was upset and had written him a letter. I told him that I suspected the problem wasn’t so much what he had said, as the fact that he got blind drunk for no apparent reason. He said he hoped it wouldn’t ruin our friendship, and I told him that I didn’t know. He called me two days later and apologized again, saying he hoped that whatever he said or did in the elevator, please disregard, because it wasn't him. I explained to him again, that he really was apologizing for the wrong thing. "John, put the focus squarely on the issue, which is not precisely what you may have said or done, but the fact that you took a perfectly nice social occassion and went on a solo mission to get shit-faced and as a result ruined everyone's night." I'm pretty sure he wasn't really ready to hear what I was saying.