One Mississippi (16 page)

My head turned backflips. Young Love, First Love . . . is this how it feels? A little dizzy, out of breath? A little sick to my stomach?

One voice in my head said, Relax! Enjoy it! Have fun! Kiss her again! Be in love! Another voice was saying, Whoa, Daniel, slow down.

But I sure did like that kiss.

11

T
HE BAND BUSES ROLLED
through the green heat of a Mississippi morning, first week of May and hot summer already. On our bus Bernie Waxman had to shout to be heard over the rush of air through the windows, whipping the hair of the long-straight-haired girls.

“Band, let me tell you about Vicksburg,” he said. “Once upon a time this little town was the most fought-over spot in the world. As long as the Rebels held this town, they controlled the entire Mississippi. And they knew whoever owned the river was gonna win the war.”

This was old news. We knew all about the battle of Vicksburg, after three weeks of the subject in Mississippi History plus the annual class field trip to the battlefield. We’d all been to the visitor center many times to see the dioramas of Vicksburg under siege — mannequins posed in a cave tunneled into the hillside to escape the rain of artillery.

The park ranger explained that although the starving townspeople had been reduced to eating rats, they served them on their heirloom china, with their best silverware. The lesson seemed to be that a true Southerner retains his superior manners, even when faced with unfamiliar food.

“That’s us, band,” Waxman was saying. “Surrounded and outnumbered. This is not some piddly district competition, okay? This is All-State. The big time. Every big-school band in Mississippi is headed in with their heavy artillery . . . Columbus, Starkville, Warren Central . . . rich kids from rich schools. We’re a bunch of stubborn cave dwellers, poor but proud. We don’t have much, but we do have each other. And our instruments. And our Pride. What do you think, can you do it? Can you bring home a One?”

We roared,
YEAH, YEAH we can DO it!

“What is the word?”

“Pride!”

“What is it?”

“PRIDE!”

We poured off the bus in a frenzy of pride, One-lust, ambition, exhilaration, and onto the oak-shaded campus of Vicksburg Bible College.

Debbie Frillinger rushed up, eyes welling, clasping her clarinet to her breast. “Oh Daniel, do you really think it’s possible we could get a One?”

“It’s possible,” I said. “But if we want to do it, we gotta really burn down the house!”

“Yeah! Burn it down!” That was Brian Fairchild, lugging his tuba.

“It’s a good thing we’re doing the marching show first,” I said, “cause we’re too pumped up to play concert right now!”

Brian laughed. “Ol’ Musk Ox gettin’ worked
up!
”

Somehow we had passed through Vicksburg without getting a glimpse of the mighty Mississippi, but you could smell it, moist and muddy, in the air. Walking triple file through the trees toward the stadium, we heard the thunder of drums.

Waxman watched us pass in review with his family, who’d followed the band bus in their car — his tiny wife, Candy, their pudgy little boy and baby girl. Of course he had brought them. This was the biggest day of his year.

Waxman was so committed to the band that I never pictured him anywhere other than the band hall. I thought of that nibbled stub of a baton, the light in his office burning at all hours, the splotches that came out on his cheeks when we played the same wrong note for the twenty-third time. I bet his wife got sick of hearing about us.

We rounded the corner to Nebuchadnezzar Stadium. A thrilling blast of brass rose to meet us.

Contest was two parts: marching in the stadium in the morning, concert band in the afternoon. On the field, a vast band in navy and white executed precise diagonals. Large squadrons of flag girls twirled flags, rifle girls tossed weapons in the air, three drum majors twirled their maces in glittering arcs.

“Columbus High,” Waxman called over our heads. “They’re big, but we’re better.”

Good God what a sound! We could never produce such a fat brassy sound. The gust of trumpets on “Also Sprach Zarathustra” was enough to slick back the fur on our hats.

“Keep moving, keep moving,” Waxman shouted.

Wait — we were going on immediately after Columbus High? Everybody knew they were the best high school band in Mississippi. Straight Ones at Contest, many years in a row. The hardest act to follow in the entire state.

Waxman knew better than to tell us this news in advance. He let it sink in while we stood there watching Columbus finish their show. He didn’t look worried. He lifted his little boy to his shoulders and waved us to our starting position, behind the end-zone line.

Lionel Wooten pranced down the line with sharp chirps of his whistle. Lionel was lanky, skinny, black, a bit of a priss, with a shiny gold tooth and pneumatic pistons for legs. He danced, cavorted, bounded to his starting position. In his big bearskin hat Lionel looked twelve feet tall. He swung his tasseled gold-headed mace around his shoulder, tossing it high in the air, then hurled it like a thunderbolt so the sharp end stuck
sproinnng
in the mud of the field.

“Band!” Lionel boomed. “Atteennn-
hut!
”

We snapped to attention. The drummers clicked sticks on the rims, marching us forward at Parade Walk.

We were alone in the stadium except for a little crowd of Band Booster parents and the judges peering down from the press box. “Ladeeees and gentlemen . . . please welcome, under the direction of Bernard Waxman and the field leadership of Drum Major Lionel Wooten, the Mighty Marching Titans of Minor High!”

At football games this raised a gratifying roar from the stands.

“Band!” Lionel screamed into the silence. “Haaaaaaaawns
up!
”

The trumpeters opened up on the fanfare. When the piercing high C broke into a chord, we picked up our feet and marched.

We opened up into “Hands Across the Sea,” and things got complicated in a hurry. We spread into trapezoids and triangles, a three-masted schooner sailing across the field, an eagle with its wings spread. We marched the eagle downfield while the drummers banged a beat for the twirlers’ routine. I had a moment to think,
Hey, we’re doing great!

The march dissolved into “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” In quick succession we formed a steam engine, a Star of David, a pair of dice, old King Kong, and a junkyard dog. This called for a frenetic series of pivots and turns, our curving lines anchored on constantly shifting targets.

Then the thump of “Go Titans,” our fight song, a quickstep to the sideline, where we formed lines like rays radiating from the frolicking sun of Lionel Wooten.

We aimed our instruments at the judges and gave them a last shot of noise. Snapping down our instruments we shouted in cadence:
“We are the Mighty Marching Titans — of Mi-i-nor High!”
A rim click took us off the field.

I felt a thrill rising.
This
is how it feels to do something better than you’ve ever done! Once we reached open air we hollered and hugged and pounded on each other. Jon Crisler said, “If that ain’t a One, the goddamn judges are blind!”

“Jon!” cried Janice Lipscomb. “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, you’ll jinx us!” She hugged me. “Daniel, you were great! I always get scared when we have to make that pivot, but there you were, like the Rock of Gibraltar.”

Waxman wore a big smile. “Excellent marching. Find some shade, eat your lunch, focus on concert. It’s make-or-break time.”

We retrieved our sack lunches. Mine was a baloney sandwich and an apple with a note Scotch-taped to the stem:
Daniel, Best of luck today. Dad and I are proud of you! Love, Mom.

I struck my mallets in thin air, working through the memorized motions. My gravest fear was that my arms would seize up on that xylophone run in the Stephen Foster. I could blow the band’s chance for a One, all by myself.

All around me were band members thinking the same — eyes scrunched shut, lips brushing mouthpieces, fingers twiddling keys.

Waxman dandled his baby on a blanket under a tree.

Dianne Frillinger came up to me. “You okay, Daniel? You look so serious.”

“I’m fine. I’m just thinking about my part.” I had managed to mostly avoid her since Prom Night.

“It’s nerve-wracking, isn’t it?” she said. “Contest is so important.”

“Yeah, it is.”

She peered up through thick oval lenses. “Daniel, can I ask you something? Are you still mad at me?”

Uh-oh. Here we go. “When was I mad at you?”

“Well — I don’t know, ever since the prom, you pretty much stopped talking to me.”

“No I didn’t.” I examined my shoes. “I’ve been busy, that’s all.”

“Because I thought when you kissed me that night, it meant — something! But we were better friends before the prom than we are now.”

This is why I stayed away from girls. “Aw come on, Dianne —”

“It’s true.” Her eyes flashed. “You never call me.”

“I never called you before.”

“I know, but you never kissed me, either. Then after you did, and you didn’t even call — oh, this sounds so stupid. Stupid! Would you please tell me to shut up?”

“Look,” I said, “it’s just that I help Arnita after school. Then I have to ride my bike all the way home, and I’ve got all this grass to cut . . .”

She frowned. “What do you mean, help her?”

“With her homework. So she can keep up with her classes.”

“That’s so admirable it makes me want to throw up,” said Dianne. “But what does it have to do with us?”

“Us?”

“Just tell me if you like me even a little, okay?” she pleaded. “Or if you don’t. Either way, would you please just tell me and get it over with?”

“Look, Dianne, you heard Waxman. Today is important. We don’t need to get distracted.”

She blinked, took a step back. “You’re right. I’m selfish and stupid. I apologize.”

“That’s not what I said.”

She backed away. I saw tears in her eyes. I didn’t stop her from going.

W
E MARCHED SINGLE
file across a dazzling white concrete plaza, up wide steps to a covered portico. The Clinton High band burst through the far doors, racing one another down the steps. They were done, their fate sealed. I envied their freedom and their joyful commotion.

I couldn’t wait to tell Tim that we had played Weener Auditorium. Except for its name, the building was unremarkable, plain as a Bible. Gloomy light fell through the tall narrow windows, onto simple wooden pews and a proscenium stage. We entered quietly, with solemn purpose.

I walked past the woodwinds to the table where my toys were laid out — concert bells, xylophone, vibraphone, chimes, crotales, triangle, tambourine, wood block, ratchet, slapstick. In the concert band, I was Incidental Percussion. My job was to bring a sparkle to the edges of our sound.

I squinted past the lights to the judges in midbalcony. I thought I saw them frowning at us.

Waxman spread his score on the stand. “All right, band. Let’s tune.”

Cecilia Karn rose to play a vibrato-free E. Cecilia was first-chair clarinet, a serious student and musician who would probably go on to become secretary-general of the UN someday. She took invisible breaths and kept playing E until her face turned as crimson as her uniform jacket.

Waxman studied us for a long minute over his half-glasses, then lifted his baton.

“King Cotton” started off like a circus parade, jaunty and cheerful until a few minor notes introduced a shadow. Then came sounds of war, resolving in the steady rising crunch of soldiers marching and firing, every cymbal going
clash!
The “King Cotton” march is a delicate thing for its size. We played it well enough to raise Waxman’s left eyebrow in pleasure. He even smiled.

We plunged into “Incantation and Dance,” a moody modern piece with frequent rhythm shifts, tons of Incidental Percussion. The opening was as somber as the leper music in
Ben-Hur
. Then a noisy jumping chaos got me scurrying among the timbales, wood blocks, and chimes,
bong! chok-chok-chok,
and
ka-ching!
Luckily the piece was so disorderly that no one could tell when I missed.

Everything in “Incantation” came down to one crucial duet between oboe and bassoon. Deirdre Adams and Jimmye Brashier performed this beautiful exchange of phrases, ladling the melody back and forth. Amazement rippled through the band — did we really sound that good?

A great shiny gold-plated One appeared in the air above our heads, floating, sparkling. All we had to do was reach up and grab it.

Waxman raised his baton. Cecilia played the opening solo of the Stephen Foster, the melody of “Camptown Races” in plaintive A minor, to a counterpoint from Tommy Wilson on cornet with a hat mute.

The full band came in for the first big wash of sound —

But something was missing. The sound was thin, lacking a bottom. Big brass.

I glanced across the stage to see Brian Fairchild and the other tuba boys placing their horns, bell down, gently on the stage beside them.

Shanice James did the same with her French horn. All the other horns followed their lead.

Every black member of the band stopped playing, placed his instrument on the floor beside him, and sat quietly with folded hands.

They were one-third of our band. Almost all the brass. Their silence ripped a great ragged hole in our sound.

In Contest there was no starting over, nothing to do but flounder on through the piece as the melody tailed off in embarrassing gaps, off-balance and wrong.

It took a long time to be over. The black students stared grimly at the floor. The rest of us strained, wild-eyed, playing louder, trying to make up for what was missing.

Waxman’s eyes burned. His hands measured a beat in the air, but his hands seemed disconnected from the fire in his eyes.

Who cared that I hit my xylophone run perfectly? We struggled on, begging, Please God let it end.

Eventually we stopped. Not all at once. A sickening silence descended.

Waxman’s mouth twitched. He appeared calm except for that twitch. I couldn’t bear to look at him. “Band dismissed,” he said.

We filed off the stage, too stunned to make a sound. The black kids coalesced in a mass toward the back. Their normal voices sounded like shouting. “We tried to tell y’all,” Shanice was saying. “Nobody would listen.”