Only the Good Die Young

Chapter 13.1

The band assembles in the music room at nine o'clock sharp the next morning because the bus leaves at ten. Each student was given a note to take home to their parents, telling them to bring a white formal dress shirt and a pair of black dress pants as part of the band's uniform. I brought mine with me in a garment bag.

The dozens of clear plastic covers and the ugly yellow jackets have been wheeled into the music room. Each one comes with a black bow tie. They look like they're from the 1950s and they're ugly as hell. I thumb a plastic cover and the smell of mothballs disgusts me. "Don't tell me we have to wear these," I say. My nose crinkles.

"Uniforms," says Kyle, packing up his amplifier. "One size fits none. They're for concerts and competitions. Grab one and hope for the best."

I take one of the hangers off the railing and hold it in front of me. The outfit couldn't be more hideous. The jacket is made out of corduroy, the bow tie is a clip-on and the pants are so tacky they'd make polyester look like velvet. I guess I know how the band got its name.

Mr. McKinnon hands out a roll of masking tape and black felt markers for us to label our instrument cases. The sound of ripping tape mixes with conversation.

"Hey J.J.," says the bass player, hauling his instrument off a shelf, "throw me that roll of tape. How do you know you're kissing a French horn player?"

Jesse tosses the tape and watches him write TONY in block capital letters on a piece that he sticks to his case. "How?"

"She's got her fist up your ass."

Jesse laughs and picks up a marker. I write Lockhart, Rebecca on a piece of tape and stick it to my fake leather music folder. Good thing I don't have to bring my keyboard.

It takes nearly an hour for the band to find a yellow jacket that fits, lug its gear to the school's back parking lot, pack its gear in the luggage compartments under the bus, and file on board. Mr. McKinnon consults with the driver, does a head count, and the door hisses shut. I've always wanted to go to Whistler, and I feel the thrill of the unknown. Green signs with luminescent white text and arrows mark our progress as the bus passes various turn-offs and soon we're on the Sea to Sky Highway.

Students lounge about, some with their mouths agape but their eyes closed, their heads rocking from side to side. Others turn around and get to their knees to chat with those seated behind them. Several are plugged into iPods or mp3 players. It's not so much a band as it is a ragtag collection of musicians.

Music plays over the speaker system. Kyle sits in the empty seat across the aisle from me and can identify each song within seconds without hearing lyrics and schools me on the various bands: Wide Mouth Mason, Green Day, the White Stripes. You'd think that we'd be listening to jazz on our way to a jazz festival.

Eventually I get tired of the endless rock. "Do you have anything else I can listen to?" I ask him. "Something that's not rock?"

"I have my iPod." He pulls the silver device out of his pocket and passes it to me. I pray that he has something soothing and skim through the list of artists. Instead I find bands with titles like Megadeth, Slayer, and Guns N' Roses. One album is even called Appetite for Destruction. Clearly I'm not going to find Bach's Sheep May Safely Graze. "Try Little Wing by Stevie Ray Vaughan. He won a Grammy for it. It's my favorite song."  He fiddles with the iPod and presses play.

I brace myself, expecting my ears to explode. But instead of screaming lyrics and deafening bass, I hear very little, just a solo electric guitar without distortion. The song starts off quiet and almost melancholy, like a man looking back over the moments of his life. I even hear his amplifier buzzing. Eventually a drummer comes in, but strictly in the background.

There's a chorus to the song that comes around every minute or so and the song, oddly, reminds me of a sonata. Then there's a furious passage near the end where Vaughan seems to be exorcising his demons through his guitar. The song ends as quietly as it began, and I'm left with an image of a man utterly alone.

I take the earphones out and look at Kyle as he sits beside me, his black hair, his chubby frame and his half-empty bottle of Diet Coke.

* * *

An endless forest of Douglas Fir trees topped with snow passes on the other side of the window. I marvel at the infinity of nature until Kyle points to a section on a distant hill that's been clear cut into a wasteland of stumps and branches. Tire tracks from giant trucks have gouged hideous scars into the face of the mountain.

The air chills as the bus climbs towards Whistler and the driver turns on the heat. A pair of deer stand on the shoulder of the road, chewing grass as snow starts to fall. Not the big, wet flakes that melt the instant they hit the ground, but the small dry ones that seem harmless until they count into the millions. Eventually I realize that I'm still wearing Kyle's ear buds and I take them out.

"What'd you think of Little Wing?" says Kyle, noticing.

"It's sad," I say. "It's beautiful, but sad. I had no idea you listened to music like this."

"I listen to everything," he says.

"Except classical."

"If you're so interested in rock and roll, why are you playing jazz? Shouldn't you just form your own group and rock out?"

Kyle nods with the expression of someone who's been expecting the question. "Do you know Chuck Berry's tune Johnny B. Goode? It's the one that Michael J. Fox plays on stage in Back to the Future and he brings the house down."

"I remember. He turns it into this kind of hard rock tune at the end and everyone stares at him with their ears covered."

"That's the one. Listen." He plucks at Isabelle's strings as his fingers move on the fret board. The guitar isn't plugged in, but I can still hear the opening notes of the song. Even without amplification, the song has a driving groove that makes me want to tap my feet.

A guy sitting in front of Kyle turns around in his chair and says, "Johnny B. Goode, man. Cool."

Kyle stops. "Now listen to the opening notes of In the Mood, by Glenn Miller. It's a big band tune, and it was a smash in its day." He plays the opening notes to In the Mood, which I immediately recognize from my days in junior high swing dance classes.

"They're identical," I say, as realization dawns on me. "I mean, the rhythm is different but the notes are the same."

"Yeah. Rock has its roots in jazz. I figure if I study jazz I'll be that much better at rock."

 "I had no idea," I say.

Kyle grins. "That's your lesson for today." He extends his palm. "And that'll be fifty dollars."

"Cute. You know way more about music than I thought."

"Which reminds me," he says, "I need to go work on the blues."

Kyle leaves me alone to practice Isabelle in a seat across the aisle. He's a strange guy, but he's got more dedication to music than the rest of the band combined. And he's not that bad. I think he's just misunderstood.

I'm not falling for him, am I?