“Even more fan fiction about my friends”
I almost forgot about this one, but at one point I had grand dreams of creating an entire media empire about my experiences in high school, specifically within marching band. It was going to be a series of magical realist short stories that would spawn spin-off novels, movies, TV shows, video games, and more. I had huge plans for this thing I called The Marching Band Chronicles, and this was to be the first. So far, it’s also the last.
I haven’t given up on those dreams. They’ve just evolved. The experiences I had in high school since I came up with the Marching Band Chronicles showed me a different path that I could take. High school, as I’ve said before, was weird for me. For many reasons. And although band was consistently a high point in my school year and school day, my plans of a multi-media empire no longer revolve around it. Maybe this is for the best. I don’t know. You can decide for yourself after you read this story.
Also, on one final note, pretty much everyone in this story is analogous to a real person, with variations. Much like The Time Keepers. I’m really sorry if this story offends you. I don’t remember who is who anymore. But it’s all in good faith; I don’t dislike anybody I wrote about in here, and I was younger then anyway. Anyway, I’d like to thank my band directors, Mr. Gumina and Ms. Kiener, for making this possible. Thanks.
“It’s Okay, We’re with The Band,” by Andy Sima (2015)
“Band! Ten hut!”
“Go!”
“Band! Mark time, mark!”
“And one!”
“Band! Forward harch!”
“And one!”
“Band! Mark time, mark!”
“And-”
Wait, did he say ‘mark time’?
“-one!” There was a pause as the band almost unanimously stopped moving. Almost. A call rang out, unrelated to marching band. “Hey! Watch it, Tim!”
Yup. He had said ‘mark time,’ the call to stop moving. I missed it (not for the first time), and ran into the girl in front of me. Whoops.
Looked like it was gonna be one of those years.
——
It was marching band, to be sure. It isn’t band unless I screw something up. Oh, sorry, looks like I forgot to introduce myself. Hi, I’m Tim Lesh, nice to meet you. Currently, I’m a freshman at Lyle High School, and I suck at almost everything. I’m an awkward teenager with slightly too much fat and not enough muscle but plenty of height to go around. I’ve got your typical sad-lookin’ face and green eyes that my mom says ‘change color with my shirt’ and my doctor says ‘I don’t know what they are, but they sure are pretty.’ Thanks, doc. I’ve also got brown hair that looks best when it’s short, and I tend to keep it that way, not because it looks good, but because I don’t need to comb it. One way or another, I’m the kind of guy that you might pass in a hallway and then forget about, unless you get me talking. Then you’ll probably never forget about me, because I won’t let you. Speaking of that, you’ll be getting very familiar with me over the next few pages. And now that introductions are out of the way, what else can I say? Let’s see… Oh, yeah, I’m a huge band geek.
I’ll be up front and say it; if you aren’t in band at my school, chances are I don’t know you. But, Lyle being a school of 500 students, mingling is an inevitable event. I’ve got my fair share of good friends, both in and out of band, and I like to think I’m on good terms with ninety percent of the school, but I don’t know everybody, unlike some of my other friends seem to. But high school just started. I’ve got plenty of time to make friends. And besides, I haven’t even officially started school yet. I’m in band camp at the moment, before classes begin for the year, and I just about flattened somebody. Let’s get back to that, yeah?
“Hey! Watch it, Tim!” Kimberly spat at me. Kimberly Silus is a year older than me; a fellow French Horn player, albeit with a bad attitude and an acute case of resting bitch-face, otherwise known as RBF. As long as you don’t step on her toes (literally and figuratively), though, she’s alright.
“Uh, sorry, Kimberly,” I stammered out, backtracking to return to my spot on the 20-yard line, hopefully before our eagle-eyed band director Mr. Giocoso (‘Mr. G’ for short) spotted me. Oh, and here’s the thing about when I say eagle-eyed; I mean that almost literally. I think he’s part raptor.
There’s something you’ve got to understand about Lyle, and a couple of the surrounding towns; this place is different. I couldn’t tell you why to save my life, but there’s something incredibly special about this place. Something that is very seriously magical. In the sense that there is very, very literally magic in almost everything and everyone here. I’m not screwing with you. If I say something that sounds like an exaggeration, chances are it actually isn’t. Like, for example, if I told you my second band director, Mrs. Kiebar (from the junior high), shot knives from her eyes, it’s because she actually shot knives from her eyes. That happened to me one time. On one of my first days in band when I was just a wee little sixth grader, I pointed out the time (as it was nearly time to leave class), and she turned to me, slowly, and said, with venom in her voice, “I’ll tell you when it’s time to leave.” And then she shot knives from her eyes, narrowly missing my head. They drove themselves into the ground behind me, humming from the sheer impact with the ground. I thought they might have been whispering my name. Of course, not too much later after that I became good friends with Mrs. Kiebar. But maybe that’s a story for another time.
It’s all a bit beside the point. Or maybe it actually is the point. I don’t know. Whatever. Back to the present, I didn’t want Mr. G to see that I was out of line. Although he’s much more laid back than Mrs. Kiebar, he still doesn’t take kindly to failure. Generally, though, he’s a reasonable guy.
I stood on the 20-yard line of our football field and stiffly moved my feet up and down, bending at the knees but not at the hips, lifting up my heels but not my toes, and marking time but not moving. My mellophone (a marching French Horn, for those of you not initiated into the cult that is marching band) in hand, I listened more carefully this time to the commands issued by the head drum major, Joseph Timber, and same commands then repeated by the two secondary drum majors, April Lisa and Mary Thompson. All great people, but also all very different from each other. There’ll be time for them later.
“Band, halt!” Joseph and his mirror-imaged followers projected.
“Step and close!” We all automatically responded.
There was a momentary pause as Mr. G grabbed his microphone.
“Alright, band, good job today! Let’s take it in!” He spoke into the microphone, releasing us from the rigidly held positions of a band at rest (but not Parade Rest, mind you, just regular rest). There was an expulsion of built-up tension, and I felt a collective sigh from the band as we moved towards the trees that lined the football field, where we kept our water bottles and some of us kept our backpacks. The first day of the Marching Band season had ended, and I had survived my first day of marching band camp with little-to-no incidents.
I glanced at one of the other French hornists and one of my best friends, Grace Lewis. I’d known Grace since we were in band together a couple of years ago, and we got to be close friends during our shared time under the tutelage of Mrs. Kiebar. She was a tall girl with straight mousy hair slightly longer than her shoulder and a perpetual expression of depression on her face. Take that with a grain of salt, as it couldn’t be farther from the truth. Grace is, in reality, one of the happiest people I know, and also one of the most understanding. There aren’t many people I’d rather spend time with, all things told. ‘Course, part of that is because her sausage of a dog is the cutest damned thing I’ve ever laid eyes on, but that’s only a small percentage of it.
Grace caught my eyes and glanced back towards Kimberly, still steaming from her time in the green beans. Wait, no, that’s an actual steamer. I’m not great with analogies, alright? Analogies aside and alliterations approved, Kimberly wasn’t happy that I had conked her in the head with the metallic part of my instrument; that is to say, the whole thing. I smiled sheepishly to Grace, shrugging my shoulders. Grace laughed silently in response, scrunching up her face in a mimicry off laughter, as is our usual mode of communication.
I wandered off to the tree, then, and picked up my water bottle, taking a quick swig and being careful not to spill any on myself. I spilled anyway, the water cascading onto my shirt like a vengeful waterfall finally breaking the rocks which kept it chained in place over many years, sitting squat atop a darkening rock obelisk, a mountain, night after night, year after year, until in one rumbling storm, the wall is torn away, and- Sorry about that, sometimes I get all poetic and go off on a tangent. Bear with me. Not a grizzly bear, but a polar bear.
One of my other best friends, Vincent Peterson, waltzed over towards me, multiple saxophones in hand. I wanted to ask him if they were all his.
“Are those all yours?” I asked him. He wanted to respond that they were all his.
“These are all mine,” he responded.
“Figures,” I muttered under my breath, thinking I could go unheard but knowing I couldn’t.
“What?” he asked, lips puckering in a question and eyes narrowing in confusion, forming a visage I had seen often upon him. Vincent Peterson was a very smart kid, who I knew was destined to succeed not because of his circumstances but in spite of them, but there was one thing that he lacked, that both of us lacked; street smarts. Where I could cover my basic lack of common sense with snarky comebacks and quick-witted sarcasm (at least, that’s how I tried to view myself), Vincent made inane comments and sad faces, because I think part of him took everything I said seriously, even though I knew that was ridiculous. I tried hard to hold my tongue around him. I failed a lot. But, hey, he was probably my friend who knew me best, this side of my brother. We could afford to joke with each other.
“Nothing, Vincent,” I responded. “Why do you have so many saxophones?”
“Because I’m learning how to play all of them,” he responded sincerely, as if I had asked the simplest question in the world, yet entirely missing the point. I sighed.
“Why you have so many saxophones with you?” I asked, turning to face Vincent and starting him in the face. He looked momentarily confused, and then, like something sparking in his head, he lit up with understanding.
“Let me show you!” He said in response, and suddenly, without warning, put all the saxophones to his mouth and began to play. All of them at once. With different tunes and rhythms. And that was the day I realized that Vincent was a born musician.
I stopped, jaw dropping in amazement. I looked him up and down in a new light, as if I were seeing him for the first time. Really, in some ways, I was. No one around us seemed to notice what was happening. Except, of course, for Mr. G.
“How’s it going, you guys?” He said, sidling over to us and watching Vincent perform with his trademark permanent smile etched onto his face, like a man made of stone. It wasn’t a bad trait for him to have. His short-cropped curly black hair sat on his head, eyeing Vincent idly. Okay, that was an exaggeration. His hair doesn’t actually have eyes. But sometimes it feels like it does because he sees so much. Thankfully for us, then, he’s pretty forgiving and/or oblivious, so he purposefully ignores or laughs at much of what he catches us doing. Sometimes he even joins in.
Vincent finished his performance and smiled. “I’m good, Mr. G, how are you?”
“I’m doing great, Vincent, thanks for asking. How are you, Tim?” he asked of me.
“I’m good. And you?” I responded politely, automatically.
“I’m still doing great,” he said, laughing. “I see we’ve got a one-man band over here,” he spoke of Vincent, a grin in his voice. “You could replace the entire saxophone section!” And then sunglasses appeared on his face.
Much like Mrs. Kiebar, Mr. G has some special band powers of his own, though his are very, very different. Each conductor’s magic powers match their own personality. For that reason, Mr. G has the tendency to materialize sunglasses over his eyes whenever he says something he deems as ‘cool,’ which happens pretty often. Sometimes he’s right. Usually he’s not. Sometimes no one can tell the difference. I like to imagine that a guitar solo is happening in his head when the sunglasses appear. If the sunglasses were pixelated, he could be the star of an incredibly dank internet video.
Vincent laughed, though I wasn’t sure if he was laughing at the sunglasses or what Mr. G had said. Either way, none of it made any sense to me. That tends to happen a lot around here.
Mr. G walked away, turning his attention to some other hapless kid in the band, leaving me to stand in awe of Vincent’s jazz skills.
“How can you play so many saxophones at once?” I asked, amazed and simultaneously incredulous. “No, scratch that. How can you place more than one saxophone at once?”
Vincent shrugged. “I practice,” he returned simply. Sometimes I wondered if I was the only one who questioned the way the world worked around here, with magic band conductors and multiple-sax-playing high schoolers, not to mention the innumerous other quirks, tics, bamboozlers, weirdos, scholars of magic, teleporters, reincarnations of Stalin, noir murder detectives, talking birds, and other strange breakers of the laws of physics that littered this town. But then I thought about how much cooler everything was this way, and I decided not to wonder about it.
You see, things changed for me on my first day of junior high. That was the day that I really began to see that things were different here, or at least to take closer notice. I’d had experience with this magic before, but that’s a story for another day. It was in junior high, though, where I actually really started thinking. Before then, I don’t know what I was doing. Anyway, I’m in high school now, so I’ve gotten used to it. But not really. Things can still surprise me, for better or for worse. And that’s what’s so great about this town. But let me tell you, now that I’m in high school, my real adventures are just getting started.
—–
“Music has always been whatever we needed it to be. From Jazz to Rock, and heck, even Dubstep, music reflects the feelings of a generation,” Mr. G said, writing something wholly unintelligible on the white board at the front of the room. I could really use some glasses.
Well, High School had really started, now that band camp was over. Just over a week into the year and things were already looking up for me. I’d seen friends I hadn’t talked to for a while, made new friends, love my classes, got a crazy teacher, wears- never mind. Going off on a tangent again. But, things are going swell, really. Much better than I anticipated. Being a freshman isn’t so bad after all. Being in a small school undoubtedly helps, since everyone knows everyone here, but high school isn’t the horror story I thought it would be. Looks to me like my future’s so bright, Mr. G has to wear shades. Which he does, as I’ve discovered, often.
“So, you guys, are you ready for another great marching band season?” he asked the collective concert band, moving on from his previous comment. He put down the marker and turned to face us, standing on a stubby conductor’s platform at the head of the band. He continued to smile.
I sat in the second row of the band made up of freshmen, sophomore, and one or two unfortunate juniors, and I had Grace on my right and Kimberly on my left. The head French hornist of our quartet was Angela Elridge, a thin and particular sporty girl with slightly curled brown hair and a face that always, frankly, scared me. One time I told her about how I used to avoid her in junior high because I was frightened of her, and then we both laughed because it was a ridiculous notion. I was easily six inches taller than her, even back then, and she’s a very friendly person. Maybe with a slight sarcastic side, but overall a great friend to have. Of course, I didn’t know that for a while because I stayed out of her way at all costs. That was at least two years ago.
“First thing we’re going to do today is practice our pre-game show songs, alright?” Mr. G said to us. He picked up his electronic tablet and pressed a button on it, beginning a set of rhythms and beats that were supposed to keep us on time. They didn’t always work.
“Check out these cool beats!” He said to us, looking up from his tablet, perpetually smiling. “You know they’re cool, right?” Nobody said a thing. A faint smile played at my lips, as I was wont to do when anyone said anything remotely funny. Mr. G was no exception. “Right, Kelly?” Mr. G said, calling on one specific, unlucky, student, since no one ever really knew how to respond. But that was alright, because no one really ever had to.
“What?” The chosen Kelly responded, absently.
“Oh, nevermind,” Mr. G said, not stopping the smile. “I’ll stop talking. Let’s get on with the music, huh?” And there were the sunglasses. Sometimes I wondered if he actually had control of them.
He raised his conductor’s baton, and kept it in time with the cool beats. “Ready? Horns up.” We raised our instruments to our lips as one fluid machine. Well, one fluid machine with various missing pieces, as some people were late in getting ready. Oh, well. Mr. G continued anyway, sunglasses still there. “One. Two. Three. Four.” He took a deep breath in, as did the rest of us, and we began to play. It was some sort of modern, peppy, and utterly forgettable pop tune, as most music nowadays is. At least, that’s how I’ll probably think of it in the future. At the time it was the music of our generation, and at that exact moment I was having too much fun being in the band and playing up-tempo music on a mellophone, which let me tell you, is far easier an instrument than French Horn. If someone tries to tell you that trombone or, God forbid, trumpet, is more difficult to play than French Horn, then you tell them that maybe the trumpet’s got more range or the trombone’s slide is super weird, but trying to get a French horn in tune is like hitting a bag of cats against a wall. No, wait, that’s an awful metaphor, and horribly brutal. It’s like trying to tune cats; they’re too fast. No, that’s not it either. It’s like… trying to herd cats? Maybe. That kind of works, but it’s also kind of dull. But my point is, it’s tough. Really tough. And I’m really bad at it, which is my main problem with it. Which is why a mellophone, which doesn’t require constant motion and hands to tune, is so much easier to play than a regular French horn, and so much easier to march with. But I’m off on a tangent again. Or maybe it’s a secant? Doesn’t matter. Math is arbitrary and dumb. Moving on.
We played the song, and we played poorly. Well, that’s not exactly true; we played better than we did at the beginning of marching band camp. But it wasn’t exactly show-worthy. Let’s put it that way. Part of the reason was because the song was way too fast; whenever Mr. G conducted, I thought his arms were going to fall off and spin out of control like helicopters shot out of the sky by the rebellious forces organized to overthrown the fascist government formed under the militant watch of- tangent again. Moving on.
Mr. G put his hand down as the song ended, and nodded his head, thinking. “Alright,” he started, “That wasn’t bad. But let’s take it from the top, one more time. I want to try and get the beginning right.” So we played it again, not getting it right again. Mr. G put his hand to his chin in thought.
“Let’s try it again, but this time we’re going to slow the tempo down a little bit. Clarinets, pay close attention to that glissando. Okay, so one. Two. Three. Four.” The clarinets ignored the glissando.
Mr. G turned to them, as they were sitting in the front row, and half laughed, half snorted, after the song was over. “What are you doing, guys?” Well, someone panicked and decided to answer his hypothetical question.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was distracted by the glare on my page from the sun.”
“The glare, huh? Well, I can fix that,” Mr. G said, not catching the bullshit that was her response. But that didn’t matter. Mr. G looked towards the skylights that lined the back wall right at the top of the room, and raised his conductor’s baton. He gave a quick flick of his wrist along the unseen horizon, and suddenly, where there was blue skies and sunshine, were gray clouds and shadow, as they roiled in from the distance, looking like someone had pressed fast-forward on the sky. I balked.
“He can control the weather?” I whispered to Grace, half hoping he wouldn’t hear me, half hoping Grace wouldn’t either. Grace heard me and laughed quietly, quickly, uncomfortably, as she was as thrown for a loop as I was. Unfortunately, Mr. G heard, too.
“Oh yeah, I can control the weather! That’s one of the things I learned when I was initiated into the Band Director’s Guild out in the Black Forest of Germany.”
“Huh?” I muttered. He ignored me this time, and continued speaking.
“This baton is made of Hazel wood with a bulb of Oak heartwood, taken from a tree that was one-hundred years old. Crafting this baton required a performance to soothe the spirits of the felled tree. I had to craft it myself while spending a two-week retreat in the Black Forest. I had nothing but my wits. My wits and a soprano saxophone, which I used to fell said tree” he said, giving more detail about his life than I had ever heard before, and would probably ever hear again. And I didn’t understand any of it.
“I guess you could say that I’m really out of the woods now,” he said, laughing. And the sunglasses. The class groaned good-naturedly. “Okay,” Mr. G said, continuing. “Now that we’ve cleared up the glare and that whole shidazzle-”
“A what?”
“-I think we should continue practicing, right?” He finished, not catching or choosing to ignore the spoken comment. I shook my head, smiling, and glanced over at Grace. She laughed quickly, lowly, and tried not to continue as we lifted up our instruments to prepare. I tried to contain the laughter as well, as it certainly was contagious. It took me a few measures to finally find my composure.
Band conductor. Dedicated teacher and father. Ridiculous. Most interesting man in the town. A wizard. Saxophone god. Meme. Whatever you may hear, it’s probably true in its own right, but one thing is for sure; Mr. G is definitely a one-of-a-kind guy.
—–
Well, here it is. First home football game of the season. And that means the first marching band performance of the season. We’re going to go out there for our half-time show and play our hearts out on the performance we’ve been preparing weeks for.
Are we ready?
Hell no.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Half the freshmen don’t know how to march (me included, Vincent not), most of the band doesn’t have the music memorized, like we’re supposed to, and on top of that, we have to walk around the field and not get lost. It’s going to probably be one of the worst shows of the year. But at least it’s the first, so we can only improve from here. Right?
I fell over my own feet towards Victoria Rennan as we awaited the call from the Drum Majors and Mr. G to start advancing on the field. Victoria’s a good friend of mine, although unlike Grace, who’s a year older, she’s actually in my grade. Long black hair and a short stature doesn’t make her a terribly imposing figure, but listen to her talk for one minute and you’ll realize she’s got a personality that’s not easily cowed by anything or anyone. Don’t let her icy outer layer fool you, though; she’s got a heart of gold. Well, to the people she likes, anyway. Thankfully I’m one of them. I swear she’s going to be the next drum major.
“Do you think we’re ready?” I asked her, one hand on my Mellophone and the my other hand adjusting the neck strap on my marching band uniform’s hat. It would become a question that I would ask at pretty much every marching band event for the next four years, I was sure.
“No. Of course not,” she admitted, turning to me, hands crossed on her chest, lips turned down in a frown, prepared for the worst. The air blew surprisingly cold for August, and clouds gathered overhead, dropping a light mist of rain. The particulates in the air caught the light shining from the stadium beams high overhead, creating a crystalline sea of shards above the football field underneath the lighted Friday night. In that moment, I knew it would be a view I would remember for a long time, and also the moment that I fell in love with marching band. I should write a book about this, I thought to myself. In regards to the rainy weather, though, at least it wasn’t full-on raining or thundering; then we would probably have to wait in the basement of the school for hours on end or something before they finally cancelled the game. That would suck.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I said, still messing around with the neck strap for my hat.
“What do you mean probably?” She said, staring at me, frown deepening. And then the frown cracked, revealing the smile it hit underneath. We both laughed comfortably. Much like marching band, this was one of the nights that I fell in love with Victoria. No, no, don’t get me wrong, nothing romantic or anything like that. As a friend. I held deep-seated love for many of my friends, and still do. It just wasn’t until high school that I really got to know Victoria specifically. But I digress.
Mary Thompson, one of the drum majors and very good friends with Victoria (less so with me, admittedly), walked over to us, finger tapping time on her thigh, eyes off on the field, waiting for the show to start. As she came up to us, her gaze shifted to my marching band hat, and she said, with fear and anger creeping into her voice, “Tim, where’s your plume?” The plumes are these ridiculous feather-sticks that pop out the top of our hats, as if the thick-bodied marching uniforms weren’t insane enough. I quickly reached up to the top of my head, Mary’s fear infecting my own thoughts. Had I lost it? I’d never hear the end of it if I did. Oh no, what have I- wait a minute. The plume’s right here. What is she-
“Hah, got ya, Tim!” Mary said, her face turning to a mischievous smile and eyes turning to a well-meaning squint. I groaned, loudly, silently, inwardly and smiled, uncomfortably, confusedly, outwardly. Classic marching band humor. Play pranks on the freshmen.
“I don’t get it,” I admitted to her, scratching the place on my hat where the plume definitely was.
Her smile didn’t falter, though Victoria’s grew. “It’s a joke, Tim,” she explained, perhaps slightly slower than she needed to. “You know, like when someone sticks there finger in your chest and says ‘What’s on your shirt?’, and when you look down they bop you in the nose. Except this is with marching band plumes.”
“Okay, I get it now,” I lied. I still didn’t get it. It would probably be at least a year before it made sense, when I could carry out the same kind of jokes on the freshmen. Of course, Vincent would almost definitely try the jokes on me and my other friends later, but being Vincent, no one would take him seriously and he’d fail horribly. But, that’s just the way things go, I guess.
“That’s the spirit,” Mary the drum major responded. She had a round face and dry, wavy hair. She was just around Victoria’s height, despite being two years older than the both of us. I didn’t know her very well, and probably never would, but I can say that she was serious about band and often a fierce leader, often tiptoeing the line of leader and dictator. At least, that was how it felt being a freshman. I could say for certain, though, that she tried to associate with everyone. Still, it’s a shame I’d probably never get to know her. There would be a lot of people like that, I’m sure.
“And, speaking of spirit,” she continued, turning towards the football field, “we’re about to start. Get in line.” Her last sentence was spoken with a ferocity I had rather grown accustomed to. I quickly moved into my position in line, bidding Victoria goodbye, for now, and then waiting until it was time to move. I was surprised it had taken us so long to start. Of course, the dance team had taken a long time to perform, so we were running a bit behind schedule. But it made no difference to me. Unfortunately, they weren’t very good, so that was kind of disappointing.
As the dance team moved off the field, and we moved on, a kind of reverent hush fell over the crowd. No, reverent’s not really the right word. No students really like marching band except for a select few, I guess, and they were the ones that most heavily made up the crowd. So it was closer to anticipation. Anticipation about whether or not we were going to screw up. My money was on ‘yes.’
We moved as one unit onto the field, Mr. G and the drum majors deftly leading us onward to glory, or more likely a show where someone falls over and creates a horrendous domino effect that causes the audience to sit in awkward silence while we figure out whose arms are whose. I have little faith in our band.
But it didn’t matter what I thought. We got out there, moved onto the field, and the drum majors did some sort of weird illuminati/demon-summoning/magic spell arm movement that I think caused a small, temporary tear in space and time before running at the speed of band up to their podiums. We stood, noiselessly, on the field, instruments held before us, as the announcer announced his announcements about our show this evening.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the Lyle High School Marching Band!” He said, annunciating clearly. This was a man with both a voice and face for radio, I could already tell. I could hear the capital letters on each word in his declaration. And with that completed, the drum majors lifted their arms to sky, and called out those words which started every great show.
“One. Two. Three. Four,” they said, hand moving like fish through waves, like birds through air, like my spoon through honey. Smoothly, that is. And we started to play.
Really, in all honesty, the show went smoother than I thought it would. Instead of playing the forgettable pop music I mentioned earlier, since that was the pre-game show, we played a classic-rock show featuring songs about clocks, smiles, and Saturdays in the park. In accordance with our music, we all moved around the field to form shapes including, but not limited to, clocks, smiles, and Saturdays in the park. I don’t really know how we pulled off that last one. There were no major hiccups, except for the fact that I broke both of my knees while moving at the speed of band to get from one end of the field to the other, and then proceeded to fix both of my knees my jumping up and down a lot. Don’t really know how that worked. Oh, and there was one other thing…
“Get off the field!” The football referee shouted at us, upon the completion of our second-to-last song. “You’ve taken too much time here! Look at the clock!” The frothing, spitting potato of a man was right, I guess. The football clock did read “0:00,” but in all honesty, it was the dance team’s fault for taking so damn long to complete their show. I mean, they did have a fireworks display, but still. We worked hard, too! Maybe even harder.
None of it mattered. Potato-coach wasn’t having any of it. We couldn’t finish our last song, the school fight song. No-sirree. Get off the field now, he told us, or get caught in the football game. And that’s when things changed. I could feel the smile spread from one of us to the other, like an infectious disease of unadulterated joy, which, let me tell you, isn’t a bad thing. Then, someone, I don’t know who, finally got up the nerve to say it.
“You heard the man!” Someone yelled. “I guess we’re playing football!”
And, like Don McLean once prophesized, the marching band refused to yield. The drum majors and Mr. G complied with our wishes, and began conducting the school fight song as both football teams moved onto the field. I glanced at band-is-my-trigger potato guy, and I could have sworn that if he had any hair he would have been tearing it out. As we dashed around the field, narrowly avoiding the onrushing players, we spat out rebellious notes that only served to feed the fire. The audience was going nuts. The football players were as lost as the referee was, and avoided us as much as we avoided them.
Somewhere, about halfway through the song, among the maze of people and the absolute chaos that the field had become, some football player for the other team thought it was a good idea to start the kickoff. So he kicked the ball and it squarbled through the air towards our home side. What? Squarbled isn’t a football term? Screw you, this is my story. The ball squarbled through the air towards our home side, but no one was really paying attention because of the band still being on the field. Well, that is, no one except a lone tuba player whose life goal had always been to be a star football player. Unfortunately, she was born scrawny, weak, and with an innate hate of sports, so her dream could never really work out. But her love of band pulled her through, and spotting the flying egg-shaped pig skin, she knew this was her moment. Gripping her sousaphone (Sousaphone [soo-zuh-fohn]: noun. A marching tuba, named after the king of marches, John Philips Sousa. Tan ta ta!) with white-knuckled hands, she prepared to catch the ball in the bell of the glinting golden instrument. And she did.
She then began to run, football inside the sousaphone. Across the field she ran, dexterously dodging any who would stand in her way, even with a 31.4-pound instrument on her back. I watched her run, momentarily stunned by the sheer sight of it. Then I remembered that I live in Lyle, and this stuff happens all the time. But, disregarding the rest of us except for those directly in front of her, she ran. She ran like she’d never ran before, leaping over downed football players and leaving a wake of disappointed young people. It wasn’t until she reached the end zone, though, that most of the band realized what had happened. That was when the touch-down buzzer went off and stopped us in our tracks. We had finished the fight song by that time, but we were having too much fun to leave the field.
We stopped and turned as one to see the lone tuba player retrieve the ball from her bell and spike it into the ground in triumph. Oh, but she wasn’t done yet, oh no. Grabbing the ball from where it had bounced, she moved back onto the field and took her place at the 20-yard line for the field goal. The stadium had gone silent, but that didn’t bother miss sousaphone. The home team, our team, formed the shape normal for a football game out of respect for the surprise player, and the other team did the same. Their bewilderment was palpable. But it didn’t matter. She took the ball, and placing it into the bell of her instrument, she played one long, loud, and incredibly deep note on the instrument. And, lo and behold, defying all laws of physics, the football shot like a squirrel-and-gunpowder-powered rocket from the impromptu brass cannon and flew directly between the yellow arms of the goal post. There was a moment of silence as we all figured out just what the hell was going on, and then the scoreboard reflected the new score. And that’s when the cheering started.
Oh, it was cacophonous, alright. It was like a bomb going off. It was like an echo repeated infinitely in a canyon. It was like a stadium full of people. Wait, that’s exactly what it was. A tidal wave of sound rushed outward from our centralized location, a cheer going up to the heavens as if beseeching a higher power that it would be, had to be, heard. I could now say that I had truly seen everything.
——
Well, not quite. I hadn’t really seen everything yet. There was something that happened at the last marching band performance of the year that I had certainly never seen yet, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. The rest of the iceberg is another story entirely.
Needless to say, the first marching band performance had been a huge success. Nothing could possibly have rivaled it, now or later or ever. Well, maybe the homecoming week, which I should probably tell you about, but that’s a story for, as I’ve said it a million times before, another time. What I can and will tell you about, whether you like it or not, is the episode, the kerfuffle, the affair, the… the… insanity that was the last marching band performance. Man, I used italics a lot in that last paragraph.
At the end of every marching band season, apparently we perform all the songs we did that year in our school’s auditorium in an actual sit-down concert. Let me tell you, the acoustics are a mountain of differences in the auditorium. This can lead to various problems such as harnessing the correct sound structure, composition, and tonal chordality (hey, those are Mr. G’s words, not mine), among other things. This can be fixed my moving around various types of walls and band shells so as to reflect the sound back at the audience instead of being absorbed by the evil cat-beasts that live at the back of the auditorium. Which, interestingly enough, was the cause of a small ruckus during the set up for the concert in which Vincent, myself, and my good friend Greg Belinski were tasked with setting up the band shells. Well, one thing led to another (“one thing to another” being we walked into the auditorium and were immediately attacked by cat-beasts) and I think Greg’s part of the Russian secret police now. Or he always was, I can’t decide which, because he very, very effectively dispatched of the cat-beasts, and was subsequently approached by a man in Russian cold-war era clothes who was accompanied by a bear on a leash. Go figure. But I digress too much.
The entirety of our band, older and younger, sat in the auditorium, wide-eyed and wearied as we had nearly exhausted our supply of songs to play, and Mr. G still wanted more. Well, I mean, that’s what it felt like, anyway, though even he was beginning to look a bit knackered. But, his enthusiasm is boundless.
ENTHUSIASMMMMMMM!
H-A-P-P-Y I LOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVEEEEEEE – sorry, force of habit. Summer camp thing. I’ll tell you later.
We had two songs left; the school song and a special piece that was the fastest song we had ever played. Come to think of it, it was actually the same song in which the clarinets had a problem with a glissando at the beginning of the year. Funny how things work out.
Our next song was the school fight song, and it was here I learned of a tradition that we always do at this particular concert; we have a guest conductor. Mr. G worked this out ahead of time and placed a small pumpkin sticker in the corner of some schmuck’s concert program, and whoever got the pumpkin got to come up on stage and make a fool of themselves for the enjoyment of all save one. That one was, obviously, the person on stage.
“I’ve got a special announcement for you now,” Mr. G said, continuing the show on after we had finished our previous song. “I’d like to have an audience member conduct the next song!” There was a startled gasp from the audience, the a series of laughs and applauses. Some people were thrilled by the idea. Some were not. Some, like my grandmother, didn’t know what was going on. All sat in anticipation, hoping Mr. G would/wouldn’t call them up, respectively.
“Okay, everyone, if you’ll look at your programs,” Mr. G continued, “And turn to the second page, you’ll see an advertisement for the shampoo I use to keep my hair so curly.” There were laughs from everyone, and like before, the consensus on whether they knew what was going on or not was split down the middle. I was on the latter side, as I never know what’s going on. So I say hey; what’s going on?
“No, not really,” Mr. G continued, after the laughing had subsided. “If you’ll look at the corner of the second page, you might see a small pumpkin sticker. If you have this sticker, please come to the front of the stage, as you are our special guest conductor!” There was momentary silence, Mr. G’s smile not faltering, white teeth gleaming from the stage lights above. No one said a word. “Anybody got the sticker?” Mr. G called again. “It’s the great pumpkin, Charlie – Oh, do you have the sticker?” Mr. G’s ramblings were cut off as someone near the back of the auditorium stood up and waved.
“Oh god,” Grace said next to me, shrinking back, laughing, and covering her face at the same time. “That’s my mom.”
And indeed it was Mrs. Lewis, a woman who looked surprisingly like her daughter except older and with shorter, blonder hair. She walked up the side ramps to the podium where Mr. G stood, and he said to her, “Great to have you here! What’s your name?”
“I’m Shirley Lewis,” she said. There was silence. “Grace’s mom.” A wave of ‘oh’s and ‘okay’s went through the auditorium. Grace managed to laugh and sound both uncomfortable and at ease at the same time.
“Okay, Mrs. Lewis,” Mr. G said, leading her up to the front of the band. “Just take this baton,” he handed her the infamous Black Forest baton, “and start conducting the band. They’ll know what to do. It’s going to sound great.”
“Okay, sure, I can do that,” Mrs. Lewis said as she caught her daughter’s eye and laughed, uncomfortably and at ease at the same time. Funny, like mother like daughter I suppose. “One, two, three, four,” she said, moving the baton in short, jerky motions to try and get us to play. We played.
It most certainly did not sound great.
I still to this day don’t know what happened, but instead of playing a G sharp, I played an A flat, and for my next note, instead of playing a B sharp I played a C. But that wasn’t even the worst of the problems. I somehow missed the first four measures of the song and started somewhere in the middle of the first line, and apparently I wasn’t alone. All of the French horns seemed to have the same problem. In fact, everyone seemed to be having problems.
The trombones started on the last line of the song, the trumpets left their mutes in, the clarinets screwed up their glissando (and this wasn’t even that song!), the drummers were marching to the beat of their own drums, the flutes were talking about this one time at band camp, and the saxophones were attempting, and failing, to tune by playing an f-chord over and over again. Long story short, it was complete and utter disaster. Luckily, it only lasted for about fifteen seconds before Mr. G took over again.
“Sorry, wrong baton,” he said, and when we looked up to see what baton Mrs. Lewis was holding, we discovered it wasn’t a baton at all, but instead was a rubber chicken. Mr. G handed her the actual Black Forest baton. Had she been using the chicken the entire time? I couldn’t remember. In fact, I couldn’t remember almost anything about the previous fifteen seconds except that it had been fifteen seconds of musical hell. But, hell withstanding, it had been pretty funny.
The audience laughed, as audiences are wont to do, and Mrs. Lewis began conducting with the correct baton. This time, we actually played correctly, and we sounded pretty good. Of course, the school fight song is a song that we’ve played probably close to one hundred times, but still, at least it wasn’t as bad as the first time we played it tonight.
Upon completion of the song, Mrs. Lewis gave an awkward bow to the audience, and they held back from booing her off stage and clapped. No, not really, the clapping was heartfelt. I think. It’s hard to tell when you can’t see the audience anyway, because of all the stage lights.
But Mr. G moved back on stage, and took his rightful place as the band Czar. He then quickly briefed the next song by saying, “Thanks for sticking with us there, folks. I guess you could say that was a bit of a… banding moment for all of us.”
“Huh?”
“Well, I appreciate all of you coming out here tonight,” Mr. G continued, “and we have one last treat for you. What we’re about to play is the fastest song that I’ve ever conducted, here at Lyle or anywhere else. But we’ve got a great group of musicians here, and I know they’re up to the task.” Mr. G said, turning back to us and away from the audience. He smiled, lips tight in anticipation. “Ready?” he whispered to us.
“No,” I whispered to Grace.
“No,” Grace whispered to me simultaneously. Mr. G chose to ignore us.
He began to conduct. “One. Two. Onetwothreefour!” He said, arms suddenly leaping rapidly at a blazing pace of what must have easily been 300 beats per minute. His baton showed every individual beat, shooting between points in the air like a living laser beam. We crashed along, trying to keep up with his tempo. The music we made felt like someone took a regular song and tripled its normal time, which is actually way funnier than it sounds. I could feel the sweat growing on my brow as I tooted out note after note and hoped to God I got them right. I felt as if we were all one big train plowing down the tracks at a speed far faster than we were ever meant to move, a train hustling towards its inevitable doom when it rams into that unfortunately placed mountain. Thankfully, though, our own inescapable destruction was prevented by one thing and one thing alone; Mr. G the wizard.
Remember how I said that his arms moved so fast I thought they would fall off? Well, I was partially right; they moved so fast that something did happen, but it wasn’t them falling off; Mr. G began to float above the ground, right before our very eyes. His arms mimicked that of a hummingbird, and defying all laws of aerodynamics, Mr. G lifted off the ground in a fashion that would make Leonardo Da Vinci poop himself with envy. But floating a couple feet above the ground wasn’t the end of Mr. G’s magic show; arms still exploding at the speed of band, he began to sail through the air, diving and doing loops and skimming the heads of the audience and laughing raucously like a kid in a candy shop, or more accurately, like a band conductor in a band shop.
Dancing through the air like a hawk with rocket-propelled wings, attached to a squirrel, with similarly rocket propelled wings, Mr. G impressed everyone. Honestly, after a while, no one was paying attention to how bad or good we sounded. Hell, I don’t think we even were. It was all we could do to keep our eyes on Mr. G so as to continue following his tempo.
Finally, when the song neared its end, after what felt like mere seconds and probably was, Mr. G floated at the ceiling directly above his podium. The end of the song was one long, sustained high note, during which Mr. G flapped his arm and wiggled his feet, cartoon-bird style, and then, with the final, clamorous cymbal smash and drum beat, Mr. G shot to the ground like a sack of potatoes, tied to a sack of bricks, tied to an elephant, tied to- you get the idea. He hit the ground hard, smashing his podium to smithereens and kicking up a billowing cloud of dust that covered the band, but quickly subsided. The room was dead silent as we sat there, waiting to see what would happen next.
When the dust had cleared, Mr. G was standing in front of the band like nothing had happened. Behind him, the audience sat with their mouths agape. Slowly, they began to rise and give a standing ovation, the likes of which I had never seen. They clapped, and then they cheered, and then they hooted and hollered and screamed for more. But we had no more to give, and everyone in the room knew it.
“Great job, guys. I think that was a pretty good show,” Mr. G said, smiling at us, and motioning for us to stand and accept our praise.
It was marching band, to be sure.
What a wonderful story!!! I LOVED it!!!