Trombones Can Laugh

by Lorraine Ray

  What happened next was way-out, man. His white hand reached over to a pile of sheet music. That pile held all his music that he was assigning for pupils. He grabbed the top sheet.

  Wham. Right on the stand in front of me. The first piece of music from him. Oh, man, it was weird.

  “This first assignment is a duet, James,” said Gluey.

  Shit man, I have to tell you I was freaked out by what he had picked for me. In a world full of great music, he had chosen to give me some damn nutty circus music.

  A screamer, they call them. I knew right away what it was. The composer was Karl King. He wrote hundreds of those damn screamers to excite people in circuses. My band director told us about them in junior high and we played a simple one once. I wondered what was going on with this guy for him to have picked this piece of music. It was crazy.

  I took a second look. Yeah, that was right, it was the type of music that was used to get the circus audience excited and their attention riveted on the big lion act or the clowns or the entry of the bear on the motorcycle or some death-defying stunt on the trapeze or high wire. I thought he was going to give me high-brow stuff like they would play at Juilliard, a classical duet, something written by a major composer at least on a serious theme, the death of some classical god or a battle or an ode to spring or a dying fawn. I thought he was grooming me for the symphony business. Highbrow crap and all that. Well, you'd think that from someone who went to Juilliard for heaven sake, wouldn’t you? But instead he was giving me this circus crap. It was real nuts!

  “This is a screamer,” I said to him bluntly after I had glanced at the title and the composer one last time.

  Gluey cleared his throat, I suppose in order to delay answering me, and because I had caught him at something he hadn’t been prepared for. “You are fundamentally correct, James. They do call this a screamer.”

  “I didn’t expect you to give me something like this,” I told him.

  “Ah, well. The screamer, James, is a highly esteemed music in my opinion, a very demanding type of music due to the rapid and advanced rhythms they use, especially the low-brass parts. Trombone and tuba. Good stuff.” He added this goofy defense in an attempt to end my suspicions and boost my pride in playing the piece. I wasn’t gonna be fooled.

  I stared at him dubiously.

  “I thought you’d assign some baroque or classical stuff. My junior high teacher once mentioned ‘The Dead March from Saul, Samson and Israel in Egypt.’ He said that was about the best piece ever composed for trombone. I thought I’d be playing stuff like that for you.”

  Gluey paused for a moment to think about the Dead March. “I’ve played it, of course.” Gluey seemed impressed that I knew the name of a famous piece, but I definitely got the impression he did not plan to assign that.

  “What about that? The Dead March thing?” I pressed him.

  “You don’t really want to play that, do you?” He sounded weary.

  “Sure, I do,” I lied. I was being a snot, frankly.

  “I’d like you to play happier things. I prefer music to be jolly.”

  By that, apparently, he meant screamers, straight out of the old circus line-up. Jeez.

  He seemed to think the worst was over, that I had capitulated. “You’re going to need double and triple tonguing in these measures. Have you done much tonguing, James?”

  “Not really, sir.” I felt fed up with him.

  Gluey ignored my obvious anger. “The syllables you say is ta and ka and you make it with the tip of the tongue touching the palate just above the top front teeth. I have a very famous book, a used copy, for you to borrow until you get the hang of it, and some practice sheets here for you to try during your practice time. These are free of charge to you.”

  “Thank you,” I said coldly.

  “Circus marches, screamers, are faster than a normal military march and usually are played at about 130 to 150 beats per minute. You’ll need to play fast on this one.”

  “I don't know if I can manage that.”

  “You probably can’t now. You’ll have to work on it, of course. It’s going to take a while to get you up to pace. There’s a lot to teach you. Can you play ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever?’”

  “I have played that, sir. A few times.”

  “Good. Do you still have the music?”

  “Possibly. I’m pretty sure I do.”

  He wrote that down in a notebook he had. “Excellent. In the next month I’ll want you to show me you know it by heart. That’s a useful piece of music.”

  Useful? It might be if you were in a military band, which was very uncool. He didn’t explain what possible use I might have for it.

  At this point I was wondering whether he thought I was no good as a musician or something. Or maybe he thought I was a kid and would want to play music that sounded like clowns and elephants dancing around. Adults have some really stupid ideas of what teenagers like. Sure, I’d played plenty of Souza in band class, but I hadn't expected something lighthearted and silly like a crappy circus piece, man. It would be fun, but it wasn't what you expect from a guy who went to Juilliard. You have to agree. You don’t expect circus crap.

  I looked over the piece he had put in front of me. It had measures with a lot of down and up slides, glissandos, which is the way they do it for silly sounds. Bwaa-upppp, you know. I could tell it was crazy music the minute he put it on the music stand in front of me and at the top it had instructions in Italian to play it like a circus. That was another clue.

  While I was looking at the notes and trying to make out what he meant by assigning me that piece, I had the strange feeling that Gluey was examining me, especially my head! I glanced out of the corner of my eye at him, but didn’t say anything. I don't like confronting people directly about stuff like that, when they’re being rude and things. I always figure they will stop soon enough and pretty soon I’m going to know what was bothering them. I know I’m not a great looking person, but I didn’t think I was a goddamned freak or anything. Why was he giving me the once over? The creeps was what he was giving me, to tell you the truth, and I was wondering what in the world could be wrong with my head. My hair wasn’t dirty or anything. I wasn’t a comic book horror. He seemed to want to ask me something, but I waited for him to decide to do it. I didn’t look his way. That way he wouldn’t know that I had seen him peering at me.

  “But... you like your hair long, James?” said Gluey finally, examining my ears. It felt to me as though something awful was crawling out of my head. Like I had head lice or gobs of shiny dark brown earwax oozing out for everyone to gawk at. He seemed genuinely curious to know what I thought.

  I felt self-conscious and blushed. “Huh?” was my reply.

  Gluey had a crew cut himself, then it dawned on me that he might not like the length of my hair, which is an issue with some older people, of course. Ever since young people have been growing their hair long, after the fashion of the Beatles, comments have been coming at those of us who dig even slightly longish hair, and mine is not that long compared to many. There are even people who will glare at you and call you names in public. Adults who will do that. These crew cut people can get uptight about even a slightly long crew cut.

  “You like your hair the way you have it now? Down below your ears?” Gluey continued.

  I frowned at him. Before this Gluey hadn’t seemed the type to dwell on the personal aspects of a young person’s appearances. Shit, I was shocked and I wondered what he was getting at. I figured he had a crew cut because he was balding at the temples so severely that he would have looked very strange with longer hair. He’d be something out of Dickens, the very picture of a creepy undertaker.

  “I have to tell you, James, almost all the men in the Shriner bands are very conservative and they don’t like any long-haired hippie boys.”

  “But sir!” I gasped in horror, “I’m not going to be playing in the Shriner band! Did you think I wanted to be in the Shriner band? There must be a mistake
or something. Maybe there’s been a misunderstanding. I…I don’t know what my mother told you, but um, I’m just taking lessons from you so I can be in the high school band, sir. At my high school! My new director wrote us a letter that said we all had to take private lessons from someone this summer if we wanted to be in the band. That’s why I’m here. I don’t know anything about the Shriner band. I think you have to be an adult to be one of them. They’re real old guys.” The idea that he thought I was going to be in a Shriner band horrified me. I’d seen Shriners in the parades, driving crazy loud little cars and looking stupid with Dumbo the Elephant hats on their heads. I didn’t know much about them, except that they were ancient and incredibly stupid.

  Gluey shifted uncomfortably in his chair and didn't look me in the eyes. “Well, James, I happen to play first chair trombone in the Shriner band, and I really enjoy it. The problem I have here is, if you continue taking lessons with me, I might need some more trombones to flesh out the band. I think I might have to call on you to sub in the Shriner band as another lower chair in the trombone section. Only the best kids that I teach get called and I think you might be one of the best ones this year, James. I’ll know after you show me your double and triple tonguing work over the next couple of months. And some pedal tones. I won’t say you’ll make it in the Shriners and I won’t say it’s absolutely required for you to help me, however if I ask someone they’ve always cooperated. Always. You’re one of the ones right now that I’m teaching who can read music, at least. If I can teach you to double and triple tongue, you’ll be useful to me. If we’re lacking tubas, I may use you for the deep notes. In the past I have hardly ever had to, but things are different this year and I might. Have to. The Shriners are volunteers and our circuses are for crippled kids, kids with cleft palates and burns, you see? It’s sad but we’re not getting that many to participate in the band, especially late this spring and next year. I’m anticipating losing a few old time players next year to age and health, too.”

  Oh, boy, talk about pulling the old sob story. Get out your goddamned handkerchief. Sheesh! Crippled kids are going to miss out. Old guys are dying all over the place. Heck, what had I gotten into? I knew those Shriner guys were really, really old. That would be a goddamned blast playing with a bunch of old farts.

  I was in such a panic mentally that I could barely think of a lie to get me out of that crap. Frantically, inside my brain, I was casting around for something that would work. I thought maybe I ought to claim to have some kind of deadly illness that would make it impossible for me to play trombone a lot in a week, but that seemed difficult to prove. I did have a light case of asthma, occasionally. I wondered if I ought to bring that up and exaggerate the diagnosis.

  “Sir,” I said gravely, “I have asthma attacks. I had to go to the Asthma Clinic and wrap my chest with thick rubber and tickle myself with a brush on a motorized cocktail mixer and go to these lessons with other kids where we run across the room...” I realized this true story about the various treatments I had undergone for asthma was pretty ridiculous, not to mention poorly explained, but I was really feeling hysterical at that point.

  “Oh, I’ve heard you playing James, and even with asthma you can blow fine. You’ve got plenty of breath,” said Gluey, shooting this down quickly.

  This Shriner thing was coming at me out of left field. I didn't know what to say next. I’ve never been much good at coming up with a series of good lies on the spur of the moment.

  “I think my mother and my father better hear this. I don’t think they’re gonna like it.” I was buying time until I could think of a reason why my mother wasn’t gonna like it. Several possibilities occurred to me.

  Gluey shrugged. “Okay, James, I think that would be a very good idea. Tell your mother what I said,” replied Gluey, as though it wasn't going to make a bit of difference and he knew it. I wondered if he’d already told her about this Shriner requirement. I had a sneaking suspicion about that.

  I suddenly had what I thought was an inspired bolt of brilliance. My mother had been complaining that my grades were slipping and I never did any yard work at home. She wanted me to rake the gravel in the front yard. I would use that as an excuse to get me out of the Shriners.

  “Mom’ll have to agree to me going anywhere on Saturdays. She’s real picky about me doing anything outside school, because of chores and homework and stuff. Algebra is going awful terrible for me right now and I can’t graph a thing right so far, because I have a real retard as a teacher and all he does is draw pests from his State pest test. And also, I don’t think she’ll agree to let me go anywhere that’s too far, because she worries something awful if I even spend the night at a friend’s house, or, maybe she won’t let me go anywhere at all. Come to think of it, she wants me to do lots of chores around the house this year, too. She says I’m about her laziest child and I have to change before she sends me out in the world.” I knew as I said all this that I was sounding more and more like a ridiculous kid, but I didn’t care. The thought of playing in the Shriners band was the pits. I couldn’t even stand thinking about it for a second. I was praying Mom wouldn’t want me to go anywhere. I was praying for lots of chores to come my way and for mother to remember how worried she said she was about my grades.

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” said Gluey calmly, “but if you take lessons with me that’ll be the understanding. I use the boys who study with me as subs in the Shriner band, so I guess I’ll explain that to her, and I think she’ll agree.”

  Of course, when Mom came for me that day I didn’t mention anything that Gluey said about the Shriner band, and how he wanted to recruit me. I’ve always believed that it’s better to let sleeping dogs snooze, as they say. If worse came to worse, I could pretend to be really bad at double and triple tonguing, though I knew in my heart that I wasn’t the type of person who could pretend to be a boob.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I suppose some of you wise ass-listeners are giggling to yourselves and can probably just about guess what happened to me next. Yeah, yeah, it’s obvious you’ll say, seeing into the Forces That Be in your infinite wisdom. Ho, ho, damn you. In the next episode of the Great Adult Conspiracy against James, Gluey actually called my mother a few weeks later, my freshman year in high school. It had been a couple of weeks and I foolishly thought that Gluey was not going to call for me or I’d told him enough ridiculous excuses why I couldn't volunteer that he’d been discouraged about my willingness. Nothing could have been further from the truth. He’d only been biding his time before striking.

  “Oh, hello,” said Mother with surprise as she picked up the telephone receiver one evening.

  I was suspicious about her surprise and I immediately got up from my desk and tiptoed out to the hall so I could eavesdrop on her end of the conversation. Our phone sat on top of the upright piano in one corner of that ‘60s living room I told you about, and you could stand in the hall without anyone seeing you and hear everything that was said on our end of the phone.

  “Uh huh,” said Mother, “I think that is a wonderful opportunity for our Jimmie.”

  Oh my god, I thought. Gluey had done it. He’d asked if I could play with the Shriner band and Mom was agreeing!

  “We don't object. Jimmie needs something to do on his weekends.”

  Oh great, she wasn't even asking me if I wanted to!

  Gluey made his request of me to be allowed to substitute in the Shriner band from time to time, as he put it, for circuses and parades, riding on the Shriner bus to remote towns, and my mother explained that her rules about chores and doing things out of school, strangely enough, did not apply to torturous shit like playing for the Shriner band on the weekend. Yeah, you guessed it. Oh no, according to my mother playing for the Shriner band was perfectly okeydokey with her, in fact, the more playing time with the Shriners the better, she thought. My old man, it turned out, had been in DeMolay, and knew all about black balling people, and the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the
Mystic Shrine, or A.A.O.N.M.S., also known as the goddamned Shriners, and junk like that, and he thought my helping the Shriners was boss and a cool thing for me to be doing in my spare time. Crippled children, tears, wonderful, of course, our son will be playing in the band to help!

  Notice, my parents weren’t helping any crippled children themselves. No way, Jose. Mom even called Gluey back after talking with my father and assured Gluey that he shouldn’t hesitate to call on me for anything at all. I was hearing her end of this whole conversation between them and moaning in quiet agony. As far as I was concerned, I was doomed. She said I was taking lessons from him, therefore I was going to have to replace trombones in the Shriner band as soon as he thought I was good enough.

  And I had to keep my hair no longer than the bottom of my ear lobe. Because my hair was completely straight, it was easy for them to see how long it really was. I wanted to grow it to my shoulders, but now that had gone out the window. I was my parents’ robot, without a will of my own, it seemed.

  On the first day of school when I was in my new band class, I stood in line to give my instructor the receipts from my lessons with Gluey. “I've got a whole stack,” I said to the guy in front of me, showing him my pile. He had stooped shoulders and a huge wad of small papers pinched in his hand. Receipts, similar to mine.

  “Me too,” he responded.

  “Hey, do we have to keep going to lessons?” I asked, fishing for more information without asking my band director who I knew would say I ought to continue with lessons simply for the love of music.

  “I'm not,” said the boy. “I think you only have to give these in once, before your freshman year.”

  By then I had reached the front of the line. The band director took the pile of receipts, wrapping a rubber band around them, without even glancing at the dates or anything. He put a check beside my name in his grade book! I sensed that this was all my teacher required and perhaps after I was in the band I didn’t have to continue taking lessons. I asked around some more to see if other people besides the boy in line had the same idea. They agreed that this band instructor only required the lessons before the first year, after that you didn't have to keep providing receipts. Nothing required me to go on for the entire school year!