The Piano Tuner With The Lazy Eye

The Piano Tuner With The Lazy Eye
© 2016 Bill Berry

I found her in the phone book
Between physicians and picture frames
She showed up wearin’ parachute pants
Her hair was gray and pixie cut
And had a cowlick sticking up
Her t-shirt said “Vive Le France!”

The one eye on the left was lookin’ straight at me
But the other one didn’t even try
Let’s take a peek at that old upright and see what we can see
Said the piano tuner with the lazy eye

It was an old Draper and Sons, from 1917
With original strings and ivory keys
And she opened up a leather wrap
And laid the tools out on her lap
And said, I love to work on these

I asked her could I watch her,
In fact that’s what she preferred
Most people leave, she said, I don’t know why
So I made some coffee for me
And a cup of jasmine tea
For the piano tuner with the lazy eye

And Oh! When she started to play
It sounded like a rusty horn on an old Chevrolet
And oh, she said, if I don’t break a string
I’m gonna teach this piano to sing

I asked her what she did when the piano tuning’s done
I go to jail, she said. That’s what I do
My husband’s in there for killin’ a man
That’s why the visits to jail began… He did it, too



He’s the most honest man that I’ve ever known
And murder is the most honest crime
Jails are full of honest murderers and lying thieves
Said the piano tuner with the lazy eye

Then she talked about her years in the county mental ward
She said, my family put me in that mess
I wasn’t crazy that’s the thing, it’s just I always liked to sing
Too happy for my own good, I guess
You had to act real cool or they’d send you off to “state”
That’s one ticket I didn’t want to buy
They finally let me out, though I never did escape
Said the piano tuner with the lazy eye

Then she told me more adventures
‘Cause they’d happen every day
And she worked those tools while she talked
Then she’d take another sip of tea and fix another broken key
And the strings would stretch but they never popped
When she finished with the tuning she looked right at me
And said this old girl’s gonna be just fine
I couldn’t tell if she was talking ‘bout the piano
Or the piano tuner with the lazy eye

And Oh! The music she played
Was like sunrise and fireflies and lemonade
And oh, with hardly doing a thing
She taught that piano to sing

Well I paid her in cash and I waved her goodbye
And I think about her now and then
She’s out in the world somewhere, finding pianos to repair
So they can sing again
Some people spend their lives searching for a miracle
Some let the miracles pass them by
I found mine in the yellow pages
The piano tuner with the lazy eye