Peter Remani - piano player

  Peter Remani (use variant spelling of "Peter"?)  was one of the top concert pianists in Europe.  He was also a composer of some repute and a sought-after instructor.  He had managed to make himself fairly wealthy (or "comfortably well-off"?) by the time he was 30 years old and was considered to be quite a 'catch' by the ladies.

  Peter's career only faltered once, briefly, before the lady of his heart caught him and steadied him.  He had developed a problem with gambling, encouraged by the people who sought out his company.  They invited him to their social gatherings and insisted he join their little visits to the local casinos.  Between their backslapping encouragement, aided by too much alcohol, Peter developed a habit for gambling. His skill with music, however, did not translate over into skill at the tables, but neither he nor his 'friends' took notice.  After all, Peter was rich, wasn't he?

  Luckily, Peter had better luck in picking a bride and the lovely Leonora, third daughter of a minor nobility, realized what was happening and managed to pull Peter back from the edge on which he was tetering.  She did not completely take him away from his friends; she merely guided him and saw to it that he stayed sober enough to know when to quit.  Together they kept Peter's fortune, if not skyrocketing, at least on a safe and secure upward slope.

  The happy couple continued this way for about 10 years, before Leonora was stricken with a deadly disease and died in Peter's arms.  Peter did not take Leonora's death well and settled, gradually, into a depression.  He both gambled and drank and, with no one to provide guidance, began the long slide towards oblivion.

  One day, while lying in bed completely sober after an illness, Peter had an epiphany.  He was no longer rich!  And his 'friends' had faded away shortly after his money.  He still had enough to live on, but no longer could he afford to keep up with the others of his social set.

  Early on a Sunday, late in December, Peter walked through the cold to church.  There he turned aside from the welcoming doorway. He went instead to the grave of his beloved Leonora and sat on the ground next to her.  With music from the church organ and the choir for background accompaniment, Peter talked to Leonora all through the service and told her of his plans to save himself.  He apologized for leaving her, but hoped to return to her...eventually.

  Within a month Peter had sold, or given away, everything not important to him.  After that, it was just a matter of a long, slow boat ride, to America.  There Peter played in some large, but not top-name concert halls, and was even offered a teaching position at a major university; but, it quickly became obvious to him that they were not interested in hiring him.  Some made half-hearted offers out of pity, and the rest out of a desire to hold up his name before potential donors and philanthropists.

  With no desire to live off of pity, the once-great Peter Remani disappeared from the face of the Earth.

  Ten years later Peter Remani was a reasonably happy man, playing piano in a sometimes boistrous little saloon in a modest little town near the southern U.S. border with Mexico.  No one knew who he had been in Europe.  They just knew he showed up on the train one day, took a room at the better of the two boarding houses in town, and was a heck of a piano player.  He played for a modest salary and decent tips in the saloon at night, taught music at the local school in the daytime, and the occasional farmer or rancher's daughter in between.

  Peter had been lucky in sobering up while he was sick in Europe.  He'd managed to hold onto a small piece of his faltering fortune and was careful about what he spent of it.

  Leonora never left Peter's heart, and he'd never married again.  He did not spurn the company of other ladies but, pleasant and happy as he seemed to be, there also seemed to be a feeling of melancholy too him that eventually kept them to a certain distance.

  One night this melancholy came over Peter while he was playing in the saloon.  Happy cowboys, train passengers and others had kept buying him drinks, and he'd kept accepting them.  The alcohol and the melancholy got him to brooding over his missing Leonora until he became morose and his playing suffered.  Peter's song selections and the violence of his playing annoyed both himself and his audience to the point that he gave up, slammed the cover down on the keyboard and stalked off.

  Wandering the saloon for a while, with half a drink in his hand, Peter went from table to table, mumbling about Bach and Tchaikovsky, and Leonora.  Eventally he wandered out the door and wove his way down the dark street.  Sometime in the night the night hostler in a stable went out to check the animals and found Peter leaning on a stall and talking to a jack (jackass, or male donkey) who actually seemed to be enjoying the company.  He listened for a while, then shook his head and went back to his bunk in the office.

  The hostler's lantern had caught Peter's attention and he took his polite leave of the donkey and wandered back to the saloon.  There he rattled his fingers on the piano top for a while, but didn't return to playing.  Finally, with a sigh, he took another tour of the tables, with another drink in his hand.  When one of the other regulars invited him to play, Peter sat down.  He watch briefly, then pulled money out of his pocket and started to play, but not well.

  Peter was very lucky in his friends.  He rarely drank but a little, and was always open and friendly in general.  He played what his audience wanted to hear, and he played it willingly and well.  He would chat, pleasantly, with almost anyone and was well-liked by almost everyone.  In this instance, the bartender had noticed Peter seemed different.  He'd been watching Peter off and on all evening and had hoped, when Peter went out the door, that he'd go home and sleep.  Now that he was back and had taken to gambling instead of the piano, Bear ducked back to the office and told _________(saloon owner) what was going on.

  _________ listened, asked a few questions, then told the bartender to try to, gently, send Peter to her office.  When Peter arrived, he was polite as usual and had apparently made an attempt to at least make himself presentable.  He did seem to have some trouble standing still, but was obviously not falling-down-drunk.  ________ talked quietly to Peter and petted him a little until he'd calmed and settled into himself.  Then she eased him into the cot she kept in the corner, pulled his shoes off and left him to sleep it off.  Outside she told Bear what she'd done and told him to try and ward anyone off from knocking on the door.  The saloon was loud enough without that.

  ________ kept herself visible in the saloon until closing.  Seeing that Peter was still sound asleep, she left him there and had Bear escort her to the hotel where she took a room for that night.

  From then on things went back to normal for Peter, except that now he had friends looking out for him.  He was allowed the occasional drink or time at the tables, but never to excess at either.  If things started looking "iffy," someone would gently suggest he call it a night, and Peter would smile, nod his head, and go.  Often he stopped by the stable on his way home, and eventually, somehow, the donkey became his.