Have your cake and eat it, too! -- a short story by Derek Odom

It took us nearly two weeks to eat my piano teacher. Well, entirely. Most of him was gone by the first week, but things slowed down after that. Even though he was so sweet and so good, the stomach can only withstand so much abuse. And abuse, friend, is exactly what it was.

The guy said his name was Jeff, but it was probably Malakai, or Mortimer, or Damien. Anyway, he was my piano teacher when I was in the sixth grade. Mom said she found him through the school, but I had my doubts. He was too old and too tall and too thin, and the black suits he wore hadn’t been in style for a hundred years. He smelled like mouthwash and mildew, and his laugh made my insides crawl, the way he’d throw his head back and cross his spindly arms over his midsection. But he had a music degree from somewhere fancy and he taught locally, so there I was.

I practiced at his house, a big two-story Victorian, Mondays and Thursdays after school. The piano itself was old and creepy, but it was also on the second story. There were fifteen steps. I counted each time so I wouldn’t concentrate on Jeff the funeral director following behind. I always want you to lead going up, Brian, he told me once. That way, if you fall, I’m right here to catch you! He led on the way down for the same reason. And for those exact reasons, I held that banister railing as hard as my twelve-year-old hand would grip, every time.

The weather had been brutal that day. I tried to get out of going, but my mother insisted. On the car ride over, with the windshield wipers going ninety miles a minute, sloshing water to the sides of the glass almost as fast as it was hitting the glass, I folded my arms and pouted. When the scolding came, as we pulled onto Jeff’s street, I didn’t react. She hated when I didn’t react.

She parked in front of the house and Jeff came out with an over-sized umbrella and a smile that screamed maniac. I couldn’t believe I was being forced to practice in those conditions. She leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Be good and remember, we’re having your favorite tonight.” She always cooked something good for after lessons. It was cheap manipulation, but I suppose it worked well enough, because I smiled and thanked her and got out of the car and into the chaotic wet of a raging storm.

I groaned under my breath as Jeff followed me up the staircase. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the piano, necessarily, but what kid wanted to be on the second story of an old man’s crazy, out-of-style Victorian home, learning an instrument he never planned to use in actual life? Not this one, I promise you.

Once we got into the piano room and I was seated on the bench, Jeff reminded me of the homework task he’d given me the previous session, which was to see if I could create my own chord—something not found in the basic books I had. I wasn’t very good at learning the real chords, he’d said, so maybe I should make one up and we’ll see where that goes.

I told him I had, in fact, come up with a chord, although I didn’t know if it was real or not. He held out a bony, white finger and said not to worry, that playing by the rules wasn’t always the course in the arts, and especially in music. I shrugged and said okay, and placed my hands gently on the keys, home position.

He nodded and smiled, and I found the keys in my mind, not with my fingers, which was something Jeff demanded of his students. Once I found them, I took a breath and hammered down four, three white and one black. I liked the sound it made. Kind of like a gong under water. Jeff, on the other hand, did not like the chord at all.

He began shaking violently and saying something about it not being right, that chords had three keys and not four and what had I done and then something else about not again, and then he stopped moving entirely. He simply didn’t move again. And I mean for a long time.

Eventually, I stood up and shuffled over to where he stood. Or, where what used to be him stood. Even from a few feet away, it was blatantly obvious he had turned into a giant cake, frosting and all. My head shot in all directions as I scanned the room with a vigilant eye, but nothing had changed. Except Jeff turning to cake.

My mind raced. Was it the chord I played? Some ancient sound that served as a catalyst to a dark spell cast by another, centuries earlier? Was he not human, as I had always suspected? Had he just reached full maturity for whatever he was and that was cake form? I was quite sure I wasn’t dreaming; that never entered my mind. This might have been some Rod Serling kinda crap, but it was most definitely real.

I looked at my watch. Twenty-five minutes had passed since Mom dropped me off. I had a couple hours to figure out what to do. The first thing that popped into my head was that I had to at least try him, just to see. What would be the harm? The crime scene was going to be strange, anyhow, if there was one, so a bite or two out of the newly caked surely wouldn’t be the most obscene thing about the goings on, should things fly that way. So I headed downstairs to the kitchen, grabbed utensils, and ran back up, skipping three steps with each stride.

It took me another twenty minutes to decide where to start. The head seemed the most logical, but also the most unnerving. And if I started any lower, would he not simply collapse once I’d eaten into him a certain distance? Almost without thinking, I put a fork to the same bony white finger he’d held up to me earlier, and scraped off a two-inch chunk. On the way to my mouth, I held it under my nose. Satisfied that it smelled just exactly like birthday cake, I put Jeff’s finger into my mouth and chewed.

He was absolutely divine tasting. The bites got bigger and bigger and before long, I’d dug deep into his hip and decided I needed another plan. Or, as it were, another mouth. I remembered my fat friend Louis, and how he’d devoured most the birthday cake at his party last year. I rang him up and he was available. He told his mom he wanted to see what the piano was like and she agreed, smiling down at his chubby and red cheeks. Fifteen minutes later, we were both devouring birthday cake of the finest variety.

Not quite two hours after that, we were sped off in our family cars, our stomachs feeling more than a little achy. By the time our parents came for us, a good third of Jeff was gone. We figured another two, three sessions, max, and we’d have consumed his entirety. The next two were fruitful, and by the third only his shins and feet remained.

Once we’d finished eating Jeff and had done the dishes for the last time, we discussed what we should do about it all. It seemed super creepy to keep returning when Jeff was no longer at the party, so we decided to tell our parents he felt he was getting too old, too frail, to continue on teaching. And so that’s what we did.

Things were fine for a good stretch, although each of us had put on a noticeable amount of weight from the Jeff cake, so our parents had us on boring diets. Then Louis’ birthday rolled round again, and cake, among other goodies, was served. We exchanged playful glances before we stabbed into it with our forks.

With each new bite, a new piano note that neither of us heard due to the din of the birthday crowd, who were laughing and singing and clapping and blowing whistle-things. And with each new bite, a new, miniature tiny Jeff was born and tumbled down, down, down, where the cake was supposed to go. And with each new Jeff, came a new mouth. And Jeff liked to talk.

It took us days to finally pass all the Jeffs, who asked us constantly why we ate him and what were we thinking. Sleep was tough and toilet trips were a bear for a while, but eventually, all went back to normal.

Whatever that is.