Only the Good Die Young

Chapter 5.1

The music room is gigantic, perhaps a third the size of the school's gymnasium. In the middle are felt-covered risers that are about a meter wide, arranged in a semi-circle. Dark brown sound baffling is stuck to the concrete walls to make the room soundproof. The few patches that aren't covered in baffling are plastered with advertisements from instrument manufacturers like Yamaha and Jupiter promoting the latest in trombones, drums, French horns, flutes, and saxophones. There's even a signed poster featuring the five members of the Canadian Brass with their polished golden horns, grey suits and spotless white running shoes. Rumour has it they're really American.

Inside is chaos. Saxophones hang from the necks of several students in chairs, a low, foghorn-sounding tone coming from several of them. Others chat with their friends, all the while a reed dangles out of their mouths. Larger saxophones rest on the hips of several of the guys, but a few girls grip smaller saxophones between their legs in a somewhat sexual fashion. Surely there must be a different way to hold them.

Students with trombones jerk their slides back and forth as they purse their lips, filling the room with a fat, brassy bellowing. Loudest of all are the students auditioning for trumpet, playing brash, high notes which for some reason sound red to me. They pierce through the rest of the noise and echo off the walls, a cacophony of scales and arpeggios.

Beside one of the trumpets stands a scrawny, dark-skinned guy with black hair in a ponytail, fingering the thick strings of an electric bass. Dull thuds pound from the black speaker behind him so loudly they shake my stomach. I learned about sympathetic vibrations in theory, but I've never experienced anything like this.

Then, mercifully, I spot a familiar face. Next to the bass player is Kyle from English. He's strumming an electric guitar, oblivious to the noise in the room around him. In class he looked half-asleep, but now his eyes are bright and alert.

Desperate to stop standing at the door like a loser, I muster up the courage to walk over to him. As I take my first step, the crash of a cymbal stabs my ears and stops me dead. A guy at a drum set bashes violently, his sticks leaping from snare drum to tom-toms, dirty blonde hair swirling about. After a second, louder cymbal crash, he stops playing to brush his hair out of his face. It's J.J. A small piece of paper taped to the front of the bass drum has The Doctor Is In written on it, and the paper vibrates with each deafening kick of the drum.

I roll my eyes at his arrogance. He's clearly a self-taught drummer, and self-taught musicians can't hold a candle to ones trained by the Toronto Conservatory. Still, I'm attracted to him in spite of myself. I'd smile at J.J. even if he accidentally ran over my pet dog.

 J.J. sees me and winks. Then he lays into his drums again, rapid-fire, his hair flying in every direction, his sticks a blur. Thunder comes from the drum set and tosses my stomach. He grins, but Kyle scowls at J.J. behind his back.

At least I know two people. Then I hesitate. If J.J. is here, maybe Alex is here, too. I scan the room. Most of the girls here have the straight lines of a typical teenage body, not the curves of a future Maxim cover model. I breathe a sigh of relief. My eyes settle on my salvation from field hockey, and I wince.

In the middle of the semi-circle, sitting on a wheeled metal frame, is a seven foot brown Yamaha grand piano that looks like it's been beaten in a bar fight. There are gouges in the body of the wood and water rings from glasses and Coke bottles. The bench's finish is badly scratched, probably from the rivets in jeans of students who pounded the keys after school. There's also the faint smell of stale cheese potato chips. Evidently the bench has been used as a garbage can. Very few people respect the piano as an instrument. Most just see it as furniture.

One thing I've learned in my brief career performing in nursing homes and churches is that there's no such thing as quality control. I played on a Baldwin baby grand in a rest home that was older than the residents. The keys were chipped and the damper pedal squeaked like a rusted gate every time I tried to sustain a chord. Two of the higher notes were so out of tune they sounded like that scene from Psycho.