The Piano Lesson

The next morning, Doaker is singing and making breakfast while ironing his uniform pants. The rhythm of the song, which is about traveling from city to city, shapes his actions with the effortlessness earned through nearly three decades as a railroad cook. Wining Boy enters carrying a silk suit, which he tried to pawn, but the pawnshop’s lowball offer wasn’t enough. Berniece is at work, and Boy Willie and Lymon have fixed the truck and been out selling watermelons all day. Maretha is too terrified to sleep upstairs. Doaker admits that he didn’t tell Berniece that he also saw Sutter’s ghost, but it was three weeks ago, only a few days after Sutter died. Sutter sat silently at the piano, and like Berniece described, his hand was on top of his head as if his neck broke when he fell. Doaker doesn’t believe that Boy Willie killed Sutter and thinks that Sutter is there for the piano. Once, he heard someone playing and came out to see the keys moving but no one there. Doaker concludes that Berniece should sell the haunted piano.