Recovering Charles (3 page)

Over the next two weeks we learned fingering and then, finally, scales. After another month of screeching out music that Mrs. Ingham called “beautiful,” we learned a John Philips Sousa song that would have been unrecognizable to Mr. Sousa himself.

“It’s time to practice on your own, students. This is what eighth grade is all about. Responsibility. If we want to be ready for the afternoon concert next month, you’ll have to commit to practicing outside of class.”

I hated practicing the flute at home almost as much as I hated blowing on the thing
during
class. But the flute kept me four inches closer to Chrissy Alves on the front row. Sometimes when she played, and she’d actually gotten pretty good, I would only
pretend
to play so I could look at her puckered lips through the corner of my eye. I secretly hoped she’d never been kissed and that I’d be her first, but I was afraid I was too late. The rumors were that she’d gone behind the school’s landscaping shed last year and left the Virgin Lips Club with a boy nicknamed “Funk,” kissing him square on the mouth. For obvious reasons, she denied it. But the silly look on Funk’s tomato-face whenever she looked at him gave it away.

“Are you all listening to me?” We packed up our instruments and shoved sheet music we didn’t really understand into our backpacks. “Practice this weekend, please. I expect to be emotionally moved by your progress on Monday.”

I took a deep breath and punched Chrissy in the arm.

“Hi, Chrissy.”

“Hi, Luke.”

“You gonna be practicing this weekend?”

“I guess I better after
that
speech.” She grinned and pulled grape lip gloss from the pencil pocket of her purple backpack.

Is she going to put that on right in front of me?

Gulp.
She did.

“That’s awesome. I like practicing, too. A lot, too.”

“That’s good.” She put the lip gloss away and rubbed her lips together.

“Would you like to, ah, to practice playing the flutes with me?”
Flutes?

She studied my face for what felt like hours. By the time she spoke, I was so shaky I needed the boys’ bathroom. I tried not to squirm and almost teared up at the thought of wetting my pants in front of the prettiest girl in the eighth grade.

“Sure, I’ll practice playing the
flutes
with you.” Her bright eyes could light a fire.

I nodded. Words couldn’t have escaped my cotton mouth even if I’d tried.

“You know where I live?”

I shook my head no. A big fat lie.

“I live across from the Kimbles. On Reservoir Road.”

“Oh, yeah,” I croaked. “Knew that.”

“Come over Sunday after church. We get home at 12:15 or so.”

“Awesome.” I picked up my backpack and casually threw it over one shoulder.

“Don’t forget your flute,” she said.

“Yeah, duh.” I reached back down, grabbed the case, and unzipped my backpack just enough to cram it inside.

“See you Sunday,” she said, walking away.

“Awesome.”

I practiced so much on Saturday that my lips were worn out from holding them in a position that should be reserved for first kisses. My hands ached and my pinkies were so sore I wanted to lop off them off with wire cutters. Dad came in every now and again to encourage me and to offer help. He took my flute and played a few bars.

“Geez, Dad, you play the flute,
too?
”

“Not really, but I know a
little
about a lot of instruments.”

“I wish I’d picked something else.” So did my pinkies.

“Don’t say that, son. The flute is beautiful when played well. It’s magical in fact. You’ll get there.”

“You don’t wish I’d picked the sax?”

“Not at all. You have your reasons.” He tapped my shin with his foot.

How does he know this stuff?
I thought.

“Don’t worry, Luke. Give it time, you’ll get there.”

“I doubt it.”

Dad handed the flute back to me. “You made a brave choice, son. Stick with it. It will be worth it later.”

Like tomorrow.

Just after noon the next day I threw my freshly-polished flute in my backpack and rode my black Huffy to Chrissy’s house. She invited me in and led me to the living room where she’d already set up a folding music stand in front of two dining room chairs. She’d also arranged a TV tray with two glasses of Kool-Aid.

“Hope you like grape.”

It could have been diesel fuel and I would have enjoyed it.

We sat side by side and blew our way through scales and then the only song we’d learned. We played it four or five times. Each time we’d start again her knee would inch closer to mine. By the time they touched I could barely breathe, never mind play the flute.

“You quit playing!” she squealed after the final note.

“Sorry.” My heart was racing so fast I was sure she could hear it. “I lost my place.” I pretended to straighten my sheet of paper on the stand we shared.

“You’re funny, Luke Millward.”

“You too.” I turned to look at her and her nose was so close I felt her breath on my face. She was making the face she made just before putting the flute to her gloriously shiny lips. But the flute was still in her lap.

I leaned in and at last forfeited my membership in the VLC. That was the last thing I remember about the first time I practiced the flute with Chrissy Alves.

~ ~

Our Sunday practices became the highlight of my middle school musical career. I got exactly one kiss every time we practiced. It always went down on her terms and the timing was completely unexpected. I tried in vain to convince Chrissy we needed to practice on Saturdays, too.

Six kisses into our flute relationship, Mom and Dad made me invite her to our house for lunch and a practice session in Dad’s den.

“We just want to meet your practice partner,” Mom said.

“Fine. But you better buy some grape Kool-Aid.”

Chrissy showed up the next Sunday afternoon and Dad led us into his den. We played our scales to his great satisfaction. Mom watched from the doorway.

“Outstanding, guys!” he said. “You sound great! Really good work. How about you play something from the concert coming up?”

We played one of the three songs we’d learned. I’d played them so many times I didn’t even read the sheet music anymore. Dad praised us again and excused himself. He left the door open.

Chrissy and I played through each song one more time before taking a break to drink our Kool-Aid.

“What’s your dad’s job?” Chrissy asked.

“He’s an architect.”

“Like Mr. Brady!”

“You got it!” If she thought she was clever, I thought she was clever, too.

“So he builds buildings. That’s a cool job.”

“I guess. He doesn’t really build ’em, I don’t think, more like draws them out. Then like a million people look at them and say it’s OK to actually build it. Dad’s always talking about red tape.” I sat a little straighter. “Red tape means all the—”

“I know what it means, Luke.”

“Yeah, figured you did.” I slumped.

We finished off our Kool-Aid.

Chrissy gestured with one hand while wiping her purple mustache with the other. “What’s in there?” She’d spotted Dad’s saxophone case on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.

“That’s nothing, just my dad’s old sax.” Shortening it made me feel like a high schooler.

“Can I see it?”

“Better not, it’s super expensive. I’m not allowed to even carry the case for him. He’s had it since he got married. Mom bought it for him for their first Christmas. I could tell you the story, I’ve heard it a billion times.”

“That’s OK. Sorry for asking.” She took another sip and looked embarrassed for bringing it up.

Thinking first was never my strong suit. “Hold on.” I put my flute on my chair and walked over to the open door. I peeked out then pulled it shut. I carefully opened the case and pulled the heavy saxophone from its red felt bed. It was even heavier than I’d expected. I carried it across the room and placed it in her hands.

“Wow, Luke. This is
so
nice. It’s so beautiful compared to the ones at school. It weighs like a hundred pounds. It must have cost a fortune, huh?”

“Definitely.”
Hey, she thinks we’re rich!
I wiped my palms on my jeans. “Better get it back.”

“Yeah, you better.” She handed it to me and I turned back toward the case. Only I hadn’t realized how close I’d gotten to Dad’s heavy music stand and my left foot tripped over one of the legs. The stand fell and Chrissy yelped.

I fell too. Right on top of Dad’s saxophone.

Before I’d even turned over, Dad had flung the door open and rushed over to me.

He scooped up the instrument.

“Luke Millward! What did you do? What happened here?” Dad spun the saxophone end-to-end, examining the neck, mouthpiece, and rods.

I noticed the small indentation in the bell the same time he did.

I couldn’t speak.

Chrissy was frantically packing her flute.

“Luke!” Dad barked.

“Sorry.” I looked at my feet. “We were just—”

“Just what? Disobeying me? Showing off for your girlfriend? Which was it?”

“Dad—”

“Well? Now you’ve damaged the instrument. Do you have
any
idea what this means to me? Your mother saved like a pauper to buy this for me.”

“I said I was sorry.”

Chrissy also mumbled a “Sorry” and a “Good-bye, Luke” and scampered out the door.

Good-bye indeed. She never spoke to me again.

Chapter
3

Six o’clock
am.

     The TV was on again.

     A reporter at the Convention Center described terror overnight in a bathroom. A rape. A knife attack. Mayhem as refugees battled for water and a cot. Circumstances at the Superdome weren’t much better, warned another reporter.

Gunfire peppered the air from underneath an overpass. A pickup raced away with a man standing in the bed of the truck, holding a roll bar with one hand and a gun with the other. An eyewitness used the third
Mad Max
reference of the day.

The fierce debates over the government’s response continued. There were more facts in dispute than agreement. But one truth permeated the Gulf: people were suffering.

The “city in a bowl” was drowning.

I didn’t sleep much that week. Katrina’s images and the evolving stories of heartache and heroism spun nonstop through my head. Experts warned it could be the end of October before the city was dry. Somehow the “Army Corp of Engineers” was becoming a household name.

The economic numbers were so staggering they didn’t seem like numbers anymore. Damages topped $125 billion, five times what Hurricane Andrew cost South Florida. Insurance companies were already educating survivors on the difference between coverage for floods and coverage for hurricanes. With fanfare, FEMA was promising preloaded debit cards for everyone, a program that barely lasted long enough for a single visit to Home Depot.

I went back to the Red Cross web site and donated another two hundred dollars.

CNN was replaying snippets of a press conference. A FEMA spokesman was debunking the Convention Center rumors: no rapes. No murders. No anarchy. Later we’d learn the truth was somewhere in the middle. Yes, there had been anarchy, an understandable battle for survival that would have unfolded in any city in the world under similar circumstances. Yes, there were dead bodies and murder, but more of the former and fewer of the latter. In fact, only a few cases of homicide were confirmed.

Houston had begun receiving evacuees by the thousands, almost five hundred buses made the trek west on I-10. Others went north. Most of those who sought refuge at the airport weren’t told where they were going until the planes touched down—Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Phoenix.

I wondered if the families, many of them permanently incomplete, would ever again see their beloved Big Easy. Would they cram into small spaces between tourists to watch the Zulu parade during Mardi Gras? Listen to jazz in the French Quarter? Watch the bucket drummer perform a one-handed drum roll at the corner of Bourbon and Toulouse?

I also wondered where my father was living.

Does he even know who Katrina is?

~ ~

Dad and I had last spoken sometime during the summer of 2003. He called from a pay phone in Austin, Texas, outside the Alamo Drafthouse. He was broke. Again. The script was familiar.

“Hi, son.”