Judge was true to his word. Within a few days, a piano appeared in the Gray Area accompanied by neither fanfare nor explanation. The only indication that it had come from Judge was a Post-It note stuck to the front with the directive: Call Phoenix written on it. The piano itself had seen better days. She was a battered, blonde upright with a scarred case, yellowing keys, and a statistically significant amount of sophomoric graffiti that made me think she had probably been acquired from the Chicago public school system during a recent round of budget cuts. Because f**k the arts.
I called her ‘the Oddkat.’ As in Strange p***y. As in something you banged around with on the side—good for practice but not something you were ever going to get serious with. I felt certain that Mungo would tear
