The Gift of Fire (15 page)

“Danny, I’m glad you’re here,” Randy said as I entered the shop. “I want you to meet your new student, Al. He’s here for his first lesson.”

I looked around the store but didn’t see anyone except the irritating guy in the wheelchair. Turning back to Randy, I shrugged my shoulders and held out my arms, oblivious. “Where?”

“Right here. Danny, meet Al.”

I looked down at the guy sitting limply in his wheelchair a few feet away. I nodded blankly in his direction, then put my arm on Randy’s shoulder and steered him toward the back of the store. “Are you serious, man?” I whispered in his ear. “That guy is my student? You’ve gotta be kidding! What are you thinking?”

“You said you wanted to teach drums, didn’t you?” Randy retorted, once we were out of Al’s earshot. “Well, Al wants to learn to play drums. He’s your student; you’re his teacher. So go teach.”

My next complaint echoed words I’d heard about myself a thousand times: “There’s just no way … I can’t teach the drums to somebody who barely sits up and drools all over himself. Just look at him! The guy’s paralyzed!”

“What’s the matter with you?” Randy asked in disbelief. “Don’t you remember what it took for
you
to learn how to play? Do you think the world thought
you
would be a great drummer one day?”

I bit my tongue and put my ego in check, but maybe not enough. For some reason, I was angry that Randy would even think to ask me to teach drums to a person who probably couldn’t hold the sticks much less beat out a tempo. Sighing heavily, I looked my friend right in the eye and said, “All right, I’ll give it a shot. But if he doesn’t respond, I’m done.”

I wandered back over to Al, introduced myself, and vowed to make the best of it. I wheeled him to the far end of the store and into the practice studio where I’d set up two drum kits—one for the student, and one for me. I watched him as he sat in his chair admiring the set before him.

Al was a quadriplegic. On top of that, he wasn’t able to talk—he had a computer with him that he typed on by moving a plastic stick along the keyboard with his chin, which would then “speak” whatever he’d typed in. Where the hell was I supposed to begin? The man couldn’t sit in his chair without sliding toward the floor; the idea of him just holding a drumstick seemed out of the question.

Over the course of that first hour-long lesson, we didn’t even try to play drums. Instead, we just got to know each other a little. I figured I had to know what had happened to him, what his ability was, and all that kind of stuff before I set up a game plan.

I asked questions, and Al typed his answers. Listening to the mechanical voice of his talking computer, he told me the following: he’d been in a car accident ten years before; he was left paralyzed below the neck, other than some slight use in his lower arms and left hand; he was unable to speak; and, moreover, he’d suffered severe head trauma that left him with the mental capacity of a ten-year-old. The more he told me, the more I thought,
Man, I better give this guy his money back…
.

But when our session was over and Al’s nurse/ assistant arrived to pick him up, I asked her to bring him back again the next day. That’s when I finally let him attempt to hold a drumstick. Al had been a guitar player before his accident, so he did have some musical sense buried deep inside his near-lifeless body. Maybe there was hope after all! (Or, I
hoped
there was hope.)

During that second session, Al was able to hold the stick with his left hand. But his grip was so weak that, as I watched him attempt to tap on the snare, I became immediately discouraged. I wanted to be a better teacher—wanted not to feel the way I was feeling—but I couldn’t help myself. I was afraid that I couldn’t help an individual with such severe limitations play an instrument again.

When Al left that second day, he hadn’t made one solid drumbeat during our hour together. I went to talk to Randy. “I don’t think I can do this. It’s too much … the guy can hardly hold a stick. He can’t do anything,” I said flatly.

Boy, did Randy give it to me good when he heard that. “You’re the most selfish person I have ever met,” he shot back. “Don’t you remember all the help and support you got when you began? You couldn’t hold a stick in the beginning either—not for an entire month!”

That did it. I flew out of the store, jumped in my car, and burned rubber out of the parking lot. I went home and locked myself away with my drum set and played for hours, until every muscle in my body was aching and screaming for me to stop … and I kept going.

All the while I was thinking about Al, my own humble beginnings, and the world I’d carved out for myself on the music scene. Here I was, certainly not the picture of perfection, being judgmental about someone who I had more in common with than with many so-called able-bodied people. Had I so quickly forgotten my own struggles as a beginner and become so arrogant and ignorant?

I flopped down on my bed, exhausted and sweating, and looked up toward God or whatever force was out there in the universe. It was time to find my humility again, or I’d never be able to move on with my own growth—emotionally, professionally, or spiritually.

The next day I went to Randy and apologized for my behavior. I thanked him for pointing out the level of my selfishness and asked him to book Al for more lessons. In the coming months, I’d teach my student the same way I learned, figuring out how to hold the drumsticks in a way that would work for him.

I told Al that there wouldn’t be any actual drumming at first. We were just going to focus on his life force, on finding a way for him to move the necessary fingers just enough to hold on to the stick—in other words, to accomplish something that most people would consider impossible. I knew that I just had to get Al to see the big picture, one tiny pixel at a time. If I could, then over the course of our lessons he’d finally find his way: he’d discover his own sound, his own tempo, and maybe even a new life. It was the least I could do—the
most
I could do!—to help a guy who just wanted to play the drums.

For months we barely made any progress, even though all I did was try to get him to focus on moving his fingers. We tried everything, eventually even employing some meditation techniques I’d taught myself. It might seem a bit loony, but tapping into all of the positive energy we could find really worked.

One morning, after spending four months trying to get a finger on Al’s left hand to move, it began to twitch. At first I thought it was a spasm or something, but I could see in his eyes that Al felt it, and that he knew something momentous had just happened. He began to weep, and a surge of joyous energy ran up my spine and buzzed through my head.

Within a month or so, my student was holding a drumstick and even tapping the drumhead a few times. It was remarkable, but the drumming became secondary to what was really going on: a sort of spiritual healing that was transferring into this man’s atrophied muscles and bones. By the end of the year, Al had defied all of the doctors who’d told him he’d never walk again—he had actually gotten up and was able to move around using a walker! Before long, he was even starting to speak. They may have only been monosyllabic words, but they were words nonetheless.

In the years to come, I’d often look back at Al’s desire to play the drums despite the fact that so many others, including myself, had said it was impossible. He’s the perfect example of the student teaching the teacher, and a testament to the power of positive thinking—something I was going to have to do a lot of myself in the months ahead.

O
NE OF THE MOST FRUSTRATING
walls of discrimination I’d face in my life was erected in the very place where personal freedom and open-mindedness are supposedly most encouraged—college.

Once I’d won my scholarship to Southeastern Louisiana University, I thought I was on my way. The depression that had dogged me since early high school lifted, partly because of winning the scholarship and partly because of the amazing transformation I was seeing in Al.

I was feeling good about myself, and my future was looking pretty sunny. But as I would learn, depression is a slippery animal that can disappear for a bit and then return to bite you in the butt when you’re not looking.

I sure wasn’t looking the day I showed up at SLU to register for the fall semester and finally met the jazz-band director. I’d been trying for weeks to contact him, since a major reason I was going to this college was to play in the jazz band, and I needed the director’s written approval to join. Despite my repeated phone calls and e-mails, however, he wasn’t responding to my messages.

My dad suggested that I just drive out to the campus to find this elusive director—the man who, temporarily at least, held my musical and academic future in his hands. I took his advice and knocked on the man’s office door.

“Can I help you?” the director asked.

“My name is Dan Caro, sir. It’s nice to meet you. I’ve been trying to contact you for weeks,” I said, as politely as possible, as my eyes moved around the room admiring the fine music books and classic jazz posters lining the walls. “I’m a drummer, and I’ll be attending classes here this fall. I’d like to get into the jazz band, so I was wondering if I could get your permission to do so.”

He looked me in the eye, glanced down at where my hands should be, and brought his gaze back to my face. In that instant, I was certain that he knew exactly who I was—that he’d heard about “the burn boy” who wanted to get into the program. I knew in a second why all the messages I’d left for him had gone unanswered. In his eyes, I saw a look I’d seen hundreds of times before. It’s the same look, I’m ashamed to admit, that I gave Al when I first met him—a look of prejudice.

Standing in this institute of higher learning, it didn’t feel any different talking to a university professor than it had encountering a bully in the Terrytown school yard so many years before. I prepared myself for the blows to come. Even though I’d been on the receiving end of these since the age of two, it doesn’t mean that it gets any easier to take the hit—just the opposite. It’s like when my movie hero explains in
Rocky II
why he doesn’t want to go back to fighting in the ring. He says that getting punched in the face 500 times a night stings after a while.

With sarcasm dripping from every word, the band director gave me the verbal version of a punch in the face: “How can
you
play drums?”

I kept my composure and patiently started to explain my technique to him. I’d brought a wristband and drumsticks in my bag to show him what I did, but he didn’t allow me to demonstrate. Instead, he waved me toward the door. “We already have a drummer,” he said. “And he’s a grad student, not a freshman.”

“But this is a state university, and I’m here on full scholarship,” I protested. “I’m not asking for special treatment, I’m just asking to audition! The jazz band is supposed to be open for auditions to every student … I only want to—”

Cutting me off, the director repeated, “I said, we already have a drummer for the jazz band, and he’s a grad student. You’ll have to sign up for the improvisation-method class.”

The improvisation-method class! That was a course in jazz basics, for God’s sake! For beginners! At this stage in my career, I’d already played gigs with some top professionals. At the very least, I deserved to be allowed to audition; in fact, it was my academic right to be allowed to audition.

There’s another scene from
Rocky II
that comes to mind when I meet people like this band director. Rocky’s old trainer, Mickey Goldmill, warns our hero to be wary of the boxer he’s about to step into the ring with, saying that the man doesn’t just want to beat Rocky, he wants to humiliate him. (Please don’t think that I live my life with a loop of
Rocky II
playing continually in my head, but there are definitely times when the story of the underdog being beaten down again and again resonates with me so intimately.)

I was furious with the jazz director and wanted to lash out, but there was nothing I could do. I had no power as a lowly freshman, and he was at the top of the academic pyramid. I couldn’t even convince him to hear me play or take a minute of his time to let me show him how I could hold the drumsticks. But I wanted to play jazz, and this man was my key. There was only one other way to accomplish my goal.

“Improvisation method, eh?” I said, nodding my head, as I turned and left his office.

A few weeks later I was in my first “basics” class, and it was made up entirely of incoming freshmen with very little experience. I didn’t want to appear overly confident with myself, but at the same time I didn’t intend to purposefully hide the fact that I was already a professional musician.

I positioned myself behind my drum set and waited until it was time to jump in and show my mettle. Thirty minutes later, after all of the intro stuff and course-outline explanations, it was my turn to hit the skins. I started banging the hell out of those drums, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see the look of shock on the director’s face. When I finished, the rest of the students applauded.

After class, as everyone else filed out the door, the director called me over for a private chat. “I’d like you to sit in on the jazz classes,” he said. “I’d really like you in the band.”

I guess I should have been flattered and elated. I’d proven myself and shown my ability. But the problem was that too much time had passed for me to be officially registered in his advanced class. It was impossible for me to drop the “basics” class now and enroll in the one he was asking me to “sit in” on. SLU had a strict policy on course selection: there was one week of add/drop, and that was it. After the first week, you were locked in to a schedule and no changes could be made. So, instead of being thrilled, I felt somewhat annoyed.

“You want me to sit in?” I repeated. “You do know that add/drop week is over, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. Just come and play. We could use you.”

They could use me. Great! I wouldn’t get any academic credit; it would be like playing a gig for free when everyone else in the band was getting paid. Half of me wanted to slug the guy, but my better half wanted to get my damn anger in check and do the thing I most wanted—play with that band. And if I’m going to be completely honest, I was hoping I’d get the chance to hear two little words from the man who was going to be my professor for the next semester. I wanted to hear him say, “I’m sorry.”