8
JOE’S THEME
The days and weeks passed and life at Bullies’ Delight grew crazier and more dangerous. I never thought I would say it, but that piano became for me what Dad sometimes referred to when he talked about his writing, as ‘an island of peace on the dark and seething ocean those around me called real life.’
Todd was turning up with a split lip one day, a bruised cheek the next, and always with a tale to tell. And he could tell them. Far-fetched fantasies about fights to the death with local gangs, or full-contact martial contests for advanced psychos.
I was still checking him out through the piano, and glimpsing the truth about a frightened boy spending his evenings and weekends sitting alone and unhappy at the keyboard, threatened and abused by his aunt. It was not a pretty pi
