My Ng

You asked, I answered!

 

It was a hasty decision. I was bored and knew very little about what I was getting myself into. I hadn’t played anything in four years and before that it had been five.  I only knew of one band that even included it into their repertoire—and I was completely obsessed with them. And that pretty much was the reason.

            Boredom and irrationality. It seemed the perfect make for disaster, but with my eyes as glossy as they were with the coolness of becoming an accordion player I wouldn’t know that. I’m so devious.

            I began by looking for every source, tidbit, fact book, encyclopedia on accordions and quickly disregarded the naysayers. I saved money like mad and searched Amazon.com for shiny Chinese accordions, cheap and pretty. I joined clubs, Facebook groups, message boards, and won a book on Frankie Yankovic and some stickers. Vowing to stick them on my accordion case, I cracked down harder on searching for the One.

            An article really opened my eyes, I gotta say.

            Apparently Chinese accordions were cheap.

            Because they liked to fall apart.

            Alright then, so new plan. I had never once used Ebay or Craigslist before. I thought that the results could be horrendous. I feared a beautiful old Hohner being shipped in a suitcase, wrapped in a comforter. (A Hohner because I thought that I knew everything about accordions.) Ebay…turned out to be blocked on the school computer so I jumped to Craigslist and searched the Pittsburgh area with a wary eye.

            I expected nothing. Who else played accordion? And lived in western Pennsylvania? And wanted to sell their accordion? For cheap?

            Actually, seven people did. But only two people had pictures to offer. Strangely, that’s what mattered to me—which admittedly was ridiculous. As I am wiser in the ways of music making now, I can tell you that it sure is the sound that makes a difference, not the color.

            Though I still dream about that marble white Marotta. Guy wanted way more than I was willing to spend though.

            As I scrolled through the short list of secondhand accordions available in my area, something grabbed me by the throat.

            “Italo-American.”

            I had never heard Italo before. I mean, it was obvious, really, but I had never heard that version of Italy. Italian, yes, but Italo… What? It was interesting. Thought-provoking. I sent an email to the owner.

            I received an email back in no more than twenty minutes.

            And that was awesome.

            The pictures were great too. New bass straps, pearlescent keys, a picture of a little woman between the grills that seemed to stare out like bug eyes. It was a beautiful thing. And I sooo wanted it.

            The price listed was $475. With a casual look at my passbook savings account I decided that I’d have enough left over for college if I went and bought an accordion. The woman, Jeanne, called me to talk about meeting up so I could take a look at the Italo-American and we ended up talking for an hour about They Might Be Giants and the Comeback of the Accordion. Turns out that she doesn’t like polka either and has about a billion accordions. The best part? She thought it was awesome that I was only seventeen.

            We agreed to meet before I had to go to work one Saturday.

            As I don’t have my license yet, my guardians agreed to go with me. This would be the farthest I had driven so far—about twenty minutes away or so. I was pumped. I allowed enough time for me to check out the accordion and maybe learn to actually play it. But beforehand, I drew $475 exactly out of my account. I was determined, y’see. But I, of course, got lost, freaked out and was about fifteen minutes late. Work was creeping closer and closer.

            Jeanne and I met outside a fire hall in Harmar; she was helping to set up an artist’s exhibit. I was in my hostess uniform prepared to purchase that something I had ever had a careful six foot difference away from at concerts. The fire hall was locked and she, her mother, and her friends had been spending the past fifteen minutes trying to get inside.

            The situation had all the elements of a perfectly surreal moment.

            There was an empty stairwell and we dragged her accordion and the one for sale down to the bottom. I knocked on a wall. Awesome acoustics.

            Jeanne laid the For Sale accordion’s case on its side and opened it up. It was just as shiny as any of those tinny Chinese ones on Amazon.com, but bigger. I think. It had to be bigger.

            What if it was too big for me?

            Jeanne pulled it up, demonstrating the correct way of holding an accordion.

Not too bad… It didn’t look too heavy. Carrying the weight on her shoulders, she managed to close the accordion case, clasping it shut and sat on it. It looked perfect on her, but I couldn’t help thinking that I would be dwarfed or look stupid. Stupid kid.

She held it out for me, telling me to support my left hand underneath it and my right to hold the straps. Like a newborn… I let my fingers run up and down the keys, afraid to press anything. I read that accordions were delicate. Ugh, why was I getting one again? I couldn’t play it. I had piano lessons for maybe two months when I was a kid! How was I supposed to play an accordion?

Not wanting to look stupid, I looked down at the keys and cleared my head. The keys looked familiar. It’d been so long since I sat in front of a keyboard, and here was one. Strapped to my chest.

“Jingle Bells” thrummed from my fingertips, my other hand pulling and pushing the bellows like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Christ,” I said. “I haven’t done that in forever.”

“It’s refreshing to hear that someone so young is interested in the accordion. No one has ambition anymore.”

Jeanne sat back down on the case.

“I’ll give it to you. For four hundred dollars. No problem.”

“Deal,” I grinned, forgetting all about work. I ran my hands up and down the bass key, the keyboard, the grill that took on the impression of the eyes of an insect. Swiftly, I played the opening notes to, quite possibly, my favorite song and I whispered.

“Ana Ng and I are getting old…”

 

Author's Note

And hell yep, that's an actual picture.