Jay Versus the Saxophone of Doom

by Kara Kootstra

  Or concentrate on what I am doing RIGHT NOW so I don’t lose this thing.

  I am seconds away from making my shot, my eyes narrowing at the hole right between the goalie’s skate and glove where I know the puck can make it through. I pull back my stick and give a powerful wrist shot that Brent tries—unsuccessfully—to block.

  We’re tied, 1–1.

  I get a few whistles and shouts from the crowd as well, and I notice that Mick is no longer wearing a smirk, although no one would say he looks worried. He skates up toward me and grabs the puck, muttering “Lucky shot” on his way by. Mick’s next attempt is a good one, a slapshot that looks as if it might make it in, but Brent makes a sweet save at the last moment, causing me to let out a sigh of relief.

  Still tied.

  I am able to pull ahead with my next shot. I use the same backhanded move I tried with my first attempt, but when Brent tries to cover it with his glove this time it doesn’t work. I don’t want to look like I am being showy like Mick, but I can’t help but do a small fist-pump at my side, excited to be one up on my opponent. I pass the puck to Mick, who makes no eye contact with me and says nothing. For a big talker, the guy sure seems to get quiet when he’s losing. Interesting.

  I’m in the lead: 2–1.

  Mick skates hard up the ice for his next shot. Using a bit of fancy stickhandling, he attempts to get the puck in the top shelf, but it hits the post with a clang and Mick is still behind. He is looking increasingly uneasy, which makes me feel increasingly confident, and that could be why my next shot is completely wide. Like, not even close. You know what they say: “Pride goeth before losing a shootout to Mick Bartlet and becoming the laughingstock of the school for the rest of your life.” I’m paraphrasing, of course.

  But I’m still ahead, 2–1.

  Unfortunately, the next goal belongs to Mick, a shot right down the middle that the goalie is unable to get down in time to block. This seems to bring Mick’s spirits up a bit, and he skates over to where our classmates are standing, getting a few slap-fives and fist-bumps. Luke is standing with his arms crossed and gives me a look as if to say, “C’mon, get it together!” and I shrug my shoulders, taking the puck back behind the branch.

  We’re tied again: 2–2. If I can make this shot, I’ll win the shootout.

  I try to clear my mind of everything else as I push off to start my journey toward the net. Right, left, right, left. My blades glide one after another in a steady rhythm. The puck feels as if it’s part of my stick, moving with it, back and forth, as I draw closer to the target. Brent is bent over, intense and ready. I continue my stride, unsure of what, exactly, the plan is, but in the last few moments I see my opening: it’s up top, right over the glove. I pull back my stick and connect with the puck, hard. It’s whirling through the air, exactly where I want it to go, but I see the goalie’s arm rise and I know that it can be stopped with a glove save.

  I watch as the black disk becomes smaller and smaller, whizzing to its destination. It could go either way, into the net, or into Brent’s glove—literally an inch from victory or defeat.

  I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I can’t bear to watch.

  Suddenly there is shouting and cheering. I open my eyes and look up to find Brent taking off his gloves and mask. He skates away from the net, and it’s then that I notice the tiny, black speck behind him.

  My puck is in the net.

  Luke is now beside me, talking loudly in my face about not doubting me for a second, and a few of our other classmates have come over to congratulate me. I smile and accept the compliments, but I know there is something I have to do before anything else. I skate over to Mick, who is yelling at Max about unfair advantages, and stick my hand out. If there is anything my parents and coaches have drilled into me it is this: whether you win or lose, you always have to be a good sport. It’s not always easy—especially when you’ve had a particularly crushing defeat, or when you feel your opponents haven’t been the picture of good sportsmanship—but you do it anyway.

  “Good game,” I say, putting out my hand a bit farther so that Mick will see it.

  “Yeah, whatever,” he replies, but he does shake my hand. Even Mick knows the unwritten rules when it comes to stuff like this. That’s just how we play in my town.

  Everyone starts to clear off the ice, and as I walk home with Luke, I am more relieved than I am excited about my win. Okay, I’m a little excited. I mean, I should be able to avoid Mick’s relentless teasing now for a least a day, a day and a half if I’m lucky. But hey, you take what you can get.

  CHAPTER 15

  In the next few weeks, I try to avoid getting myself into any more shootouts, because at some point I really do need to practice the saxophone. I think I’m getting better, perhaps good enough to play in front of my mom, but I’m still VERY FAR from being good enough to play in front of an entire class of my friends, and Mrs. Jennings has said that our individual testing will happen in the first week of March. So, like Coach says, “Practice makes perfect.” Or, in this case, “Practice could potentially help me not pass out during my Music test.”

  Once again, I am standing in front of the mirror with my saxophone. (I don’t know why I practice in front of a mirror. It’s like I want to WATCH myself be embarrassing.) I take a deep breath and start to play. If you were singing along, it would sound something like this:

  Twin-kle, Twin-kle, little BLAR!

  Okay, that was six notes. I mean, it could have been worse. It could have been…uh…five notes. I take another breath and try again.

  Twin-kle, BLAR!-kle, little star,

  How I SQUEAK!BLAR! what you BLAR!

  By the time I have finished practicing, I have done the song eight times, with fewer squeaks and honks each time. I still can’t imagine ever doing this in front of people, but I am at least feeling like I can play my way through the song and it might even be recognizable. I would say that’s a huge improvement. So I’m counting this one as a point for me:

  Okay, TIME-OUT. This is the part of the story that gets tricky. In order for you to finish this book in any reasonable amount of time, I have to speed through a few things. For instance, you don’t want to hear about every single tutoring lesson and practice session I have, right? I mean, imagine if you had to read every terrible detail of my musical life. Not only would that be totally embarrassing for me, but I also feel like the book reviews would say things like:

  “A wonderfully humorous tale about one hockey player’s musical mishaps…until the end. Then it just got seriously boring.”

  —The New York Times

  Now, if this were a movie, I could just show a MONTAGE, which is basically a bunch of video clips of someone doing things over a period of time, set to really cheesy music. Or I could add amazing superpowers and car-chase scenes and special effects and stuff. But we’ve got what we’ve got. Work with me here. So, why don’t you just imagine me in a series of tutoring sessions that include tears and laughter and a few high-fives. I guess while you imagine me in this montage, you can also imagine a calendar turning from page to page, getting closer to a date with a red circle around it, labeled TEST DAY. And I suppose, if you really want to make this montage thing come to life, you can sing some music while you are picturing all of this, but don’t sing anything lame. Also, if you want to throw some of those special effects in there, and a few car-chase scenes, be my guest. The sky is the limit, my friend. Okay, I’ll wait for you to finish MONTAGING. (Is that a word? I don’t know, but I just used it.)

  Okay? All finished? Excellent.

  Here is where we end up: THERE IS ONLY ONE DAY LEFT UNTIL TEST DAY.

  I have made plans to spend the entire afternoon after school and the whole evening practicing the saxophone. (Wow. There’s a sentence I never thought I would say.) As soon as my school day is over, I run home and immediately race up the stairs to my room before anyone even realizes I’m there. For some reason, it is always when I have a million things to do that my parents
want me to:

  1. Do a random chore. Like sweep the back porch. Why are we sweeping something that’s outside? Doesn’t nature just sweep things naturally? With wind? It just doesn’t seem right to me.

  2. Pick up something from the corner store. (Go grab ice? Ummm…that’s something you can MAKE. It’s just frozen water. I can show you how to do it.)

  3. Talk about feelings. Every now and again, my parents feel the need to sit down with me and have a really long conversation about my life. During these conversations I am encouraged to just “open up” and not be afraid to “share what’s on your mind.” You know what’s on my mind, Mom and Dad? How boring this conversation is.

  My stealthy escape to my bedroom grants me a few hours to myself so that I can look over my music in peace. I play through my test piece, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” a few times, and after rendition number three, I notice that it has never sounded exactly the same twice. Is that supposed to happen? Mrs. Jennings did tell us about IMPROVISATION. I guess musicians add in their own notes and rhythm to a music piece, you know, to make it their own Do you think I can pass this off as IMPROVISATION for my test? Yeah, me either.

  After about thirty minutes, I decide that at this point there is really no amount of practicing that can save me. I’m either going to do this, or not do it, but staying up all night and stressing about it won’t change the outcome. One thing is for sure: I am definitely not looking forward to showcasing my talent (or lack thereof) in front of my entire class. It seems to me that there are really only two possible scenarios:

  Best-case scenario: I will stand in front of everyone and completely embarrass myself.

  Worst-case scenario: I will stand in front of everyone and completely embarrass myself WHILE failing my test.

  I fall asleep realizing that there are actually potential worst-WORST-case scenarios, which mostly consist of the scenarios listed above with added bodily functions.

  But no matter what happens tomorrow, I know one thing for sure—it’s all on me. Because in a solo music performance, you don’t have four other guys to cover you when you’re down.

  CHAPTER 16

  On the way to school, Luke is talking about some new movie he watched, which was something about aliens that can read minds…or maybe take over minds. Usually I would be totally into it, but I can’t think of anything but my impending doom. You think I’m being dramatic? Well, you’ve never heard me play the saxophone, have you? It’s worse than you think. So, SO much worse. Luke doesn’t seem to notice that I am preoccupied and keeps telling me about gory scenes from his alien movie, which, by the way, I’m totally going to watch when this whole music thing is done. I nod and laugh and say, “Cool” at the appropriate times, but my mind could not be farther away. I can’t believe this day has finally come.

  “Ready to rock?”

  I jump and turn to look at Luke, but he is looking at me with a puzzled expression. I turn around, and standing behind me is Ben “I like a challenge” Davidson, grinning as usual.

  “I’ll catch up with you,” I say to Luke, and he gives me a little salute and runs up farther to a group of our friends.

  “First of all,” I say to Ben, “you scared the crap out of me. Second, no, I am not ready to rock. Third, you cannot ‘rock’ a saxophone.”

  Ben’s smile widens.

  “C’mon, Jay! You’ve been getting so much better. You’re going to smoke this test!”

  I shrug my shoulders, partly because I don’t believe him, partly because I want him to think that it’s no big deal and I’m not completely stressed about it.

  “Okay, last lesson.”

  “Ben, I’ve got, like, five minutes until class and I still have to put all this stuff in my—”

  “It’ll just take a sec.” I sigh and gesture for him to go ahead. “You’ve learned all the technical things you need to know, but there’s one thing that you don’t have.”

  “Talent? A chance?” I probably should have warned you, sometimes I make jokes when I’m feeling nervous. Furthermore, I’m not really good at making jokes.

  “No. Confidence. From the moment you started learning the saxophone, you had decided you were not going to be any good at it. And even now, after you’ve worked so hard, you still won’t even consider the possibility that you’re not as bad as you think.”

  Okay, this is a super-cheesy pep talk. I realize this. But I’m also realizing something else, maybe for the first time. Even though Ben and I are VERY different people and I’m still not sure we would ever be best friends…I actually kind of like the guy. His weirdness grows on you after awhile, you know?

  With this in mind, I try responding a little less snarkily. “I’m not trying to think that way. I just…I just don’t get it. You know, music.”

  “Look, I’m going to be honest. You will probably never ‘get it’ the way you get, say, hockey. But that’s not the point. You might never be great at music, or even good—”

  “Okay, this is not going in the direction I thought it was going,” I interject, suddenly wishing for more of his cheesy pep talk.

  “I wasn’t finished. You might never be a musical genius, but telling yourself you’re terrible at it isn’t going to help you NOT be terrible. Whether you realize it or not, confidence has a lot to do with success. Think about when you skate onto the ice. Are you imagining all the ways you’re going to embarrass yourself? Of course not. You know that you might miss a shot or make a sloppy pass but, overall, you feel confident that for every bad move you make, you’ll make two or three more good moves. So, that’s my last lesson. Confidence. Take some confidence into the test today.” Ben smiles and gives me a thumbs-up as he walks away. For some reason, I give a thumbs-up in response, but quickly put it down when I realize what I’m doing.

  As a side note, here are acceptable kid greetings and/or goodbyes:

  1. Fist-bump.

  2. Low-five. (High-fives can be acceptable assuming they are not TOO high.)

  3. Nod of the chin in the general direction of another kid. (This is usually accompanied by some kind of verbal greeting, such as, “Hey.”)

  Unacceptable kid greetings and/or goodbyes:

  1. Thumbs-up.

  2. Handshake.

  3. Hug. (I should note that girls find hugs acceptable and hug ALL THE TIME. I should also note that there are specific circumstances in which a guy hug is acceptable, as long as it stays within a reasonable time frame.)

  Ben is 2 for 3…let’s hope a hug is not in my foreseeable future.

  I have to sit through Math and English (I have no idea what happened in either of those classes, and that will probably come back to hurt me later…but one failure at a time) before finally making my way down the hall to the music classroom. Mrs. Jennings, who looks extra-colorful this morning, is bounding around, moving music stands for the test. I take my seat, and I’m not sure if I’m nauseous or hungry or have a fever, but my whole body feels like all of those things rolled into one.

  Just be confident. I say it to myself, as if that will somehow make it come true. I am just in the finishing stages of putting my saxophone together when Mrs. Jennings claps her hands and puts her finger to her lips the way teachers do when they want silence.

  “All right, my little Mozarts! Let us begin our musical testing! We will proceed in alphabetical order…”

  What do you know about that? I’m going to be one of the last people to play. “Roberts” finally came through.

  Each student plays the small selection of music they have been given for the test. There are a couple of squeaks, some false starts, but nothing noteworthy. (Great, now I’m making musical puns.) Finally, I hear Mrs. Jennings call my name, but for some reason, it sounds as if she’s saying it in slow motion, like in a movie. You know the kind of slow motion I’m talking about? When someone realizes a building is about to blow up and they shout out to someone else, “Geeeeeeeeeet…doooo­ooooo­owwww­wwnnn!”

  Yeah. Like that. Only replace tha
t with, “Jaaaaaaaaaay…Roooo­oooob­bbbbe­rrrrr­rrrtt­tttss­ss.”

  Of course, in reality, she is calling my name in a completely normal way, and I am just sitting in my seat, staring blankly ahead.

  “Jason, dear? Jay? It’s your turn.” Mrs. Jennings is smiling at me and gesturing for me to come up to the front.

  I pick up my saxophone from where it is resting on my case, grab my music with my other hand, and slowly walk up to the empty music stand beside Mrs. Jennings. Everyone is silently staring at me as I unfold my music and place it on the stand. This is it. No more tutoring. No more practicing. It’s go time. I think about Ben’s pep talk. For some weird reason, Ben thinks I can do this.

  Confidence.

  I picture myself stepping onto the ice, stick in hand. Of course I’m confident when I’m out there. I know what I’m doing. How to position myself, how to hold my stick, how to control the puck. I can do that. I know I can do that. But then again…at the very least, I suppose I do know how to position myself with a saxophone, I think, moving myself until I am holding the instrument just like in my tutoring sessions. And I do know what to do with my mouth to make a proper sound, making the grandpa face I learned from Kaylee.

  Putting my lips on the mouthpiece, I suddenly feel as if there is a chance, a slight chance, that I might be able to do this. I blow some air into it, but no sound comes out. I try again, and this time I manage to get out a tiny squeak, barely audible. I look up again. They are all still staring, and I feel that wave of nausea coming back.

  I think back to standing on the ice. It’s not just that I know what to do there, I realize. I picture myself skating up the ice toward the net, but I’m not alone. My teammates are on either side of me, skating with me, doing their part in the play. It’s not just that I know what to do. It’s all of us, together, that makes it work.