Where's My Wand?: One Boy's Magical Triumph Over Alienation and Shag Carpeting (26 page)

I closed my eyes and thought back to the day I had magically visualized myself as a member of the band Chicago. Maybe, I thought, I had aimed too high with that one. Maybe the stage band was an achievable goal.

I imagined playing a stage band concert, the trumpet section a precision group of players whose dance moves were almost as funky as their blowing. I imagined becoming first chair in that band, a standout whose star potential had been recognized by the band director, Mr. Ronson, from day one. I imagined my name on everyone’s lips, mentioned in the same breath with the greats: Miles Davis, Eric Poole, the black guy from Kool and the Gang.

Whoa, I thought, pulling out of my reverie. Sorry, God. I don’t mean to ask for the moon. I just want to win a place in the band, however lowly.

“Great,” I felt him say silently. “Let’s start with a killer audition number.”

With his heavenly inspiration, I chose “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero,” a song with a strong melody line and a profound social message about war or something. I spent the next several weeks playing it over and over, imagining the glorious and shining moment when Mr. Ronson, the band director, would anoint me as one of the group’s shiny new members.

 

 

THE DAY of the big audition, I arrived to discover numerous other members of the marching and concert bands already there. As had always been the case in band, I had developed more female friends than male—no real mystery, since girls possessed a much more satisfying sense of both humor and style.

I approached two friends, a pretty blond named Leslie Brockmeyer, who spoke in a voice so soft that you had to apply her lips directly to your ear to make out what she was saying, and Nanette Oslowski, whose dishwater-brown hair was cut short and mannish and who resembled a beagle with pierced ears.

“Your boobs are so big,” I said to Nanette as she stood gossiping with Leslie, “you could keep eighteen seamen afloat in a tidal wave.”

“You are such a crack-up,” Leslie appeared to say as I read her lips.

“I think I just peed a little,” Nanette added, which made sense given her proximity to the canine species.

I grinned. Their amusement at my wit was so intoxicating that it seemed unsportsmanlike to tell them that I had stolen the line from an Erma Bombeck book.

Suddenly we heard a voice behind us.

“Is this the foxy section?”

I turned to find Bill Pinkerton winking at Leslie. Bill was a short, good-looking senior, and what he lacked in height, he made up for in macho confidence, upper-class glamour and talent—he was first trumpet in virtually every band the school had. Had he been tall enough to see over the football, he probably would have lettered in sports instead of band.

“I suppose you and I will be first chair,” he said, putting his arm around Leslie’s shoulder, no mean feat since she was four inches taller. He sighed in a husky voice, flexing his pectoral muscles, which danced like marionettes under his too-tight T-shirt. “It’s a heavy load to carry, but somebody’s gotta shoulder the burden, right?”

Before I could ask Bill if it was easier to carry the load from a position so low to the ground, the band director called us to attention.

Mr. Ronson was a tall, slightly potbellied man with short hair that was graying at the sides. He wore Sansabelt slacks and short-sleeved dress shirts virtually every day, and was a kindhearted leader with, occasionally, the disposition of Sonny Corleone.

“The Hazelwood Central Stage Band,” he said, shouting into a bullhorn although we were just standing around the band room, “is the definitive reflection of north St. Louis County’s finest musical talent. Representing a group of this stature does not come without sacrifice, sweat and toil. Prepare to be worked like a Cambodian mule.”

My bandmates glanced at one another, murmuring nervously. A few actually trembled. I, on the other hand, refused to be cowed by his warning. I had God on my side.

When my turn finally came to audition, I summoned all my magical courage, performing “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero” with passion, with eloquence, with the inspiration, I felt, of one who was being called to greatness.

There was a long moment of silence as Mr. Ronson stared at me. Finally, he spoke. “Well, I
hate
that song. Who wants to hear about a bunch of draft dodgers?” He stood up. “You got anything else?”

I had not prepared a second number. No one had told me there’d be an encore. But I had to win him over. Without even thinking, I simply launched into the first song that came to mind, the romantic ballad “Me and Mrs. Jones,” as I studied Mr. Ronson’s face for any sign of approval. He just scowled.

“In the future,” he announced as I concluded, “you might wanna consider a song that doesn’t break one of the Ten Commandments.”

“I can do ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers,’ if you want,” I said quickly, my voice quavering a bit as I felt my one opportunity for coolness slipping from my grasp. “Or ‘The Old Rugged Cross.’ I do it as a jazz number.”

“No, that’s okay.” He stuck his hand out. “Welcome to the Hazelwood Central Stage Band.”

 

 

I WAS in the cool group!

I was, of course—along with Stan Copley, a shy, bookish, dark-haired fellow trumpeter—second chair to Bill Pinkerton’s first chair. This wasn’t a problem, since I was thrilled simply to have been accepted. Besides, Bill had been playing trumpet two years longer than Stan and me.

What
was
a problem was that it felt as though Bill possessed a civic duty to illustrate his superiority at every opportunity.

When I talked Mother and Dad into buying me a three-hundred-dollar sterling-silver trumpet, a spectacular instrument that wowed my bandmates and gave me an impressive leg up, Bill showed up with an identical one.

During breaks in rehearsal, Bill would lift his trumpet to his lips and blast an effortless high C. “Now, guys,” he would say with impressive insincerity, “that’s the holy grail of a trumpeter. Without that, you’re nothing.”

Although grateful for the magic that had helped me gain entrance into this supercool group, I began to resent the feelings of inferiority that being around Bill induced.

“I don’t know why you let him get to you,” Nanette said when I confided in her. “He’s a troll doll with muscles. Screw him.”

But Bill could hit higher notes. Bill was better-looking. Bill was a senior. I couldn’t possibly screw him, I thought.

Until one rainy Wednesday afternoon, when everything changed.

 

 

THE BAND ROOM was unseasonably warm and humid this particular day, and everyone was tired, courtesy of the pep rally the marching band had had to play in the gymnasium earlier that afternoon. As we trundled through a new song, Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s “Takin’ Care of Business” (a hit from several years earlier, but a crowd-pleaser, according to Bill), Mr. Ronson stopped us.

“Okay, now in this part,” he announced, “we’re gonna try something different. I’d like to see if we can do a little jazz-rock interpretation.”

Everyone stared at him questioningly.

“I want to repeat this part three times, and have a trumpet solo here,” he said, indicating a specific chorus point. He pointed his baton at the trumpet section. “Bill, can you improvise sixteen bars?”

Bill looked up, a bit startled. “What?”

“Can you improvise a solo?”

“Well, ummm, sure, why not.”

Bill seemed a little thrown. Sweat began to bead his brow as we began the song again from the top. I glanced over at Stan, who seemed as surprised as me. We had never seen Bill nervous. Or maybe it was just the humidity.

It all became clearer when we hit the specified part of the chorus and Bill began to play.

What issued forth from his instrument was a cacophony of musical farts that sounded less like a song and more like he was attempting to remove something stuck inside the bell of his horn.

Bill tortured it out for the requisite sixty-four beats and then abruptly stopped, to the gratitude of most everyone within earshot.

Mr. Ronson stopped us. The room was quiet.

“Uhhhhhh . . .” He glanced down. “Hmmmm.” There was a long moment of silence. “Okay,” he said with unconvincing cheer, as though this had been his idea all along, “Stan, your turn.”

Stan next essayed the solo in heroic but uninspired fashion. Stan was a math genius who worked incredibly hard at trumpet playing, a skill that he was mastering in spite of the fact that it did not seem to come the least bit naturally to him.

“Yes,” Mr. Ronson said, searching for an accolade and coming up empty. “Okay, then. Eric, you’re up.”

When Stan had been called upon, it had suddenly occurred to me that I would be next, and an all-encompassing panic began to rise in me. I hadn’t the slightest idea what to do. And this had not been in my magical plan.

I began to shake. The room quivered like a mirage in a heat-stained desert. My breathing became shallow.

“I know this is last-minute,” I mentally pleaded to God, “but I could really use your help.”

As we hit the chorus, I took as deep a breath as I could muster and launched in, gamely attempting various runs and chord patterns, some of which worked, most of which didn’t.

I closed my eyes. Not seeing everyone staring at me helped a bit. Then, slowly, as six bars became eight, then ten, the notes, somehow, began to come a bit easier. A bit of melody emerged. A rhythm pattern. I began to sound just like Doc Severinsen—if his bell-bottoms were too tight and someone had hit him in the head with a brick.

Within seconds, it was over. Mr. Ronson didn’t stop the band at the end of the solo this time, and we played straight through to the end. When we finished, a couple of people clapped. Several others leaned forward to give me thumbs-up.

Stan punched me in the shoulder. “How did you do that?”

“Do what? It wasn’t very good.”

“It was better than me!”

Bill said nothing, instead busying himself by accidentally emptying his spit valve onto my suede Earth shoe.

Mr. Ronson smiled at me. “That was good, Eric,” he said, a note of surprise in his voice.

I fairly floated above the band room floor. I had done something special, something unique. This was magic, squared.

But it was short-lived.

Within seconds, my moment in the sun became a dark night of the soul.

“I think we’ll keep that solo in,” Mr. Ronson declared. “And I have some exciting news for you all.” He beamed, fairly bursting with excitement. “We’re gonna play three numbers at the spring dance!”

I froze. Performing a solo in the band room was one thing. Performing it at our concert in front of classmates and parents was something else altogether. Performing it at a dance, whose attendees included seniors, the jocks, the Elites, was beyond the pale.

Bill Pinkerton put his arm around my shoulder.

“When we do the show in front of the whole school,” he explained helpfully, “don’t think of it as your reputation on the line. Just think of it as a learning opportunity.”

 

 

I RETREATED to the basement for another talk with God.

“What have I gotten myself into?” I whispered as I sat in my old rocking chair, wistfully recalling the days when a tattered white bedspread bathed me in magic. “What if I screw it up? I’ll have to quit school and become a hobo and ride the rails. And those trains are filthy.”

The basement was quiet, save for the squeaking of the old rocker. Suddenly, I heard someone speak.

“What do you expect?”

I sat upright. The whole “heavenly voice” thing had been about as common an occurrence in my life as blazing shrubbery. God had always seemed to work more through inspiration than conversation. Was he actually talking to me?

“You don’t believe.”

There was no mistaking it this time. The voice was deep and authoritative, although it didn’t quite boom the way it did in the movies. I jumped up to check the black-and-white TV in the corner. Nothing. I ran into the laundry room. “Funny,
Dad
,” I hollered out, to no one. The basement was empty.

I sat back down in my chair, wondering if Val could hear this otherworldly voice upstairs. She would probably just assume it was me working on lowering my pitch again, since I was still sensitive about the recent years, when Mother couldn’t tell Val and me apart on the phone and would launch into questions about my use of Kotex or whether I needed a new bra.

I glanced around, a bit embarrassed to be talking to an empty room.

“I do believe,” I said, stammering. “I mean, for a while there, I wasn’t so sure, but I do believe in you, I really do.”

There was a long pause. And then, the voice once again.

“It’s not me you need to believe in.”

 

 

THE MARCH NIGHT of the spring dance was chilly, yet I stood in the band room sweating copiously in my new beige velour leisure suit, purchased especially for the occasion at Chess King. It was unclear whether my perspiration was the result of nerves or the tight polyester disco shirt I wore under it which, although open to the fourth button, mysteriously held in body heat like a spacesuit.

The other members of the stage band seemed excited, almost giddy, obviously unaware of the potential disaster that lay ahead of us. I, meanwhile, crept down the hall to the cafeteria, to gaze through the glass window of the door.

Hundreds of students were lurching across the makeshift dance floor to the ear-shattering strains of “Love Will Keep Us Together.” A few bored teachers stood around the perimeter, looking at their watches and drinking punch. I stared at the risers situated on one end of the room, the long wooden platforms that would elevate me to a moment of either triumph or disgrace. And the odds were long on triumph.

For a moment, I projected myself into my magical safe place, my cocoon, the basement. “Please,” I pleaded, “show me what I need to believe in.” Since that afternoon in the basement, God had been eerily, deathly silent.