John Harper's Insight

They thought he was insane. And with good reason. Here was a man who'd spent his life in a machine shop coming down one morning to say in all apparent sincerity, "I've decided to be a concert pianist."

Jan Grabowski, on the turret lathe grinned and said, "Sure, John. They'll bring in a grand piano and you can practice between cuts."

"They laughed when I sat down to the piano," someone bellowed and there was general laughter and the thing was forgotten.

But later, when he told the boss he was quitting, they looked at each other in amazement. He'd evidently gone mad and that was no laughing matter because they liked John.

Sam Paine, harassed plant manager still found time to be human. When he discovered John was serious, he sat down and gave him half an hour, figuring he could find the quirk and straighten the man out. As they went to his office, he swiftly classified his employee: John Harper—33 years old—introverted—intelligent over and above his job. Harper seemed to be without ambition, though and Sam wondered about this but had never had time to talk with him much.

After the half hour was up, Paine sighed and let him go. Obviously the concert pianist gag was a coverup for something else—some fancied wrong—perhaps plain restlessness.

Alone, Paine went back over the conversation, intrigued by John Harper's strange determination.

"This talk about being a concert pianist is a gag of course, isn't it, John?"

"No, Mr. Paine."

"But man—you're too old to start a thing like that. You never in your life studied music did you?"

"No, sir."

"Then let me tell you—first, in a thing like that, you've got to have talent. Have you got talent?"

"I don't know."

It had seemed ridiculous, seriously pinpointing things that should have been obvious. "Well let's say you have—just for argument's sake. All right—talent has to be caught early and nourished—like a seed—get what I mean? A man can't start at your age and get any place in a game the experts started in at eight or nine—as children."

"You may be right, Mr. Paine, but maybe that doesn't apply to me. Maybe it does, of course, but I've got to find out."

Sam Paine gave up. He told John Harper his job would be waiting when he wanted it again—even gave him an extra week's pay, but that was to salve his conscience because he felt he should bring in a psychiatrist at company expense to see what had gone wrong with Harper. Then he shrugged and put the thing out of his mind. Funny things happen in this day and age, he thought.

The trouble was he didn't really know John Harper. No one did. A bachelor, Harper lived alone, thought alone—and suffered alone. He hated the futility of his life, the work he was doing, the passing of unfulfilled days and nights. He felt a strong pull of destiny he could neither explain nor deny; an unreasoning certainty that he, John Harper was meant for better things; or perhaps a single better thing.

He lived with this certainty while the unfulfilled days and nights piled up. Until the misery became a pain and possibly demanded some sort of recognition by its very existence.

At any rate, the morning of the day he quit his job, he had just awakened to the old familiar dread of the day ahead; a dread almost akin to a physical sickness. He was sure he did not go back to sleep, but he clearly saw, on the floor within range of his eyes, a television set. The picture was bright and clear—a famous newscaster with the smile known from coast to coast and the rat-tat-tat voice that was his trademark.

He was beginning his broadcast with the standard opening line: "And now, folks—what's been going on in the world? John Harper, the great concert pianist—the man who brought long-hair music into the home—the man loved by millions, will—"

The voice and the image vanished. Then the set faded, and John Harper lay tense in the bed in his shoddy little room. But a different John Harper now. In an instant he became a dedicated man knowing he had been building up to this moment for years.

This was the incident Sam Paine did not know of; nor did anyone except John Harper himself. He had a little money saved up—a few hundred dollars—and he went straight to a music school. His difficulty was that he could not camouflage his ambition—or rather his intent—and after stating exactly what he proposed to do, he was turned down by five reputable maestros in a row.

So he gave up seeking instruction and rented a piano. He was fortunately situated in that his room lay at the back of the resident hotel where he lived and the walls were as thick as the building was old and shoddy looking.

He bought some instruction books at a second hand store and went to work. He practiced, plowing doggedly through the intricacies of the notes and scales until his money ran out. Then he got a job washing dishes and practiced all night.

Until he was able to present himself again at a music school where the maestro was, fortunately, both honest and possessed of a conscience. His honesty said, send this man away. But John Harper had just enough pathetic skill and foggy talent that the instructor's conscience dictated the final policy.

"I will teach you," he said. Adding to himself, It will be an act of charity. Nothing more. He would have been astounded, however, had he known that four short months before John Harper had not known even the scale.

John told no one this. He told no one anything. But he applied himself to the piano with a single-mindedness that made a fanatic seem changeable as the wind by comparison.

And soon, Professor Heinrich, he of the conscience, was confronted with something he could not understand. Genius was blooming and functioning before his eyes.

The rest is history. It is told in hushed tones how this sad-faced, middle-aged man with no background—he was called "The Man From Nowhere," by certain romantically inclined critics—gave his first recital in New York City. It was given exactly seven years from the day he told Sam Paine, "I'm quitting to become a concert pianist."

The television networks found him quickly and he rocketed to fame by giving classical music an interpretation that made it understood and loved by millions.

It was said that John Harper gave more musical pleasure to the world in his brief two-year career than had any other genius in a natural span.

But of course, the seven years had taken their toll. The punishment of learning would have killed a far younger and stronger man than John Harper. So, after a tragically brief time at the top of his ladder, John Harper was the subject of a newscast.

By a famous newscaster with the smile famous from coast-to-coast and a rat-tat-tat voice that was his trademark.

But not smiling as he finished his first item. "—be buried tomorrow in New York City."