We didn’t get many strangers in White Oak them days—not since the mine closed.

“What can you do?” Chet asked, and his whiskey tipped in the glass as he leaned back in his chair.

The man had a derby hat and a fine collared shirt as white as January, with a garter on each sleeve. “I can play piano,” the man said.

And he played it right pretty too—sat down and played Clementine and Father’s a Drunkard, and one so pretty, sad and sweet I’d a given a week’s wage just to hear it again.

I don’t know why Chet did what he did.

—

This has been an edition of Friday Fictioneers, hosted by the amazing Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This week’s photo courtesy JohnNixon. To read more or to submit your own, click the blue froggy button: