Xylophone (2 page)

Yet, in many ways, they were the only family

he currently had.

Chapter Two

DARE’S new part-time job came with a new part-

time family, and on Sunday morning they

assembled beneath a scrubbed blue sky at a

veritable shrine to families. The Wilbur H. Zandt

Memorial Pavilion—open to the elements, save

for its broad roof—stood on a low, grassy rise

ringed by trees about to burn with October color.

The simple structure looked welcoming. It seemed

to invite holiday picnics and class reunions,

anniversary celebrations and civic fundraising

events.

Ancestors

weren’t

excluded

from

the

festivities. The spirit guests even had their own

viewing gallery. At the western edge of the

pavilion’s grounds, in a small clearing, stood

graying, lichen-patched gravestones—a humble

country cemetery. Dare glimpsed it as he steered

his car up a service drive to the only fully-

enclosed portion of the pavilion.

One of his band mates, Max Kirchner, had

already parked and was pulling his encased bass

guitar out of the back seat.

“This must be the kitchen, huh?” Dare called

through his open window.

Max waved, nodded, and headed inside. The

other boys were already here.

There were no dressing rooms at this venue.

There were no toadies to deliver finger food or

groupies to deliver adoration. Hell, there wasn’t

even a box office. A makeshift ticket booth was

stationed at the opposite end of the pavilion, and

the only deterrent to gate crashers was a string of

triangular plastic flags, the kind that often adorned

car dealerships, wrapped around the structure’s

exterior like a belt.

Dare figured it was sufficient. The attendees

were probably as honest as Abe Lincoln and not

much inclined to crawl under or climb over
any

kind of barrier.

He opened the rear door, got a noseful of

lardy kitchen odor, an earful of laconic male

voices. The guys greeted him, asked if he was

ready, told him not to be nervous, offered him

coffee or soda.

“I’m good,” he said, which pretty much

answered everything. He glanced down at his legs

and grimaced. “Except for these pants.”

“What, too tight?” asked Junior, the band’s

drummer.

Bob, their leader, cruised past Dare and

squeezed his shoulder. “Just remove a coupla pairs

of those socks you got stuffed in the crotch and

you’ll be fine.”

“The damn things are
red
,” Dare said, staring

after him. He ignored the socks comment, even

though it had made him blush.

Bob stopped, turned, and clapped his hands to

his face in much the same way Trixie had done last

night, except his fingernails remained securely in

place. “Well, I’ll be damned. They are!” He rolled

his eyes and kept walking.

“At least they match your face,” Max said

with a chuckle.

“Shit,” Dare muttered. “I’m just glad I didn’t

get pulled over on the way here.”

In addition to the red pants, he was also

wearing a white shirt (couldn’t gripe too much

about that) and a navy blue tie patterned with white

stars and silvery squiggles. It looked like a ten-

year-old’s attempt to bedazzle daddy’s clothing.

“Quit worrying about your co-toor and come

see what I got,” Bob said over his shoulder.

Dare finished with his preparations and

ambled over. “Nice,” he said. “Shiny.”

He eyed Bob’s new accordion. Arrogantly, it

leered back at him, its mottled carapace gleaming,

its scrolled grilles bracketing the keyboard like

elaborate tribal scars. Red, white, and blue balls,

or maybe bubbles, decorated the edges of its

folded bellows.

Bob Lempke was nothing if not patriotic. And

flashy. The B-flat clarinet Dare gripped in one

hand looked like an anorexic phantom hovering

near a Mardi Gras king. Hard to believe the

squeezebox and licorice stick were distant

relatives, if only by virtue of their reeds.

S o
this
was what Bob’s trip out east had

yielded. From the moment Dare had auditioned for

the band, its leader had been grumble-bragging

about having to travel “halfway across the damn

country” to pick up his new “box.”

“I thought it was made in Italy,” Dare said as

Bob lightly, randomly pressed the bass buttons.

“You bet. In Castelfidardo.” Bob pronounced

the name like an American Midwesterner who’d

only heard Italian spoken by waiters and

comedians. Which was exactly what he was.

At their backs, Max, Junior, and Ernie

noodled around as they leaned against one of the

kitchen’s long, stainless steel counters. Ernie’s

banjo shook out a few bars of “Hoop Dee Doo.”

The other four men in the group were

anywhere from twenty-five to forty years older

than Dare and a whole lot straighter. More

wholesome, too. Sporting beer bellies and the rosy

cheeks of the good life, they were all husbands and

fathers and grandfathers. If they suspected

something other than age, weight, wives, and

progeny set them apart from their clarinetist, they

never let on. Not overtly, anyway.

They were good shits, all of them. From

blustery Bob to gentle, taciturn Ernie, from

clueless Junior to the sharper and smarter Max,

they were salt of the earth.

Dare felt at ease with these guys. Not a one of

them, he knew instinctively, would ever be the

perpetrator of an Incident.

Bob hoisted the accordion from its case and

slipped its straps over his hammy shoulders. When

he glanced at Dare, his look went grouchy.

“Straighten your tie, kid.”

Dare straightened his tie—at least, he did the

best he could without a mirror and with a hand full

of clarinet. “If it was made in Italy, then why does

it say ‘Lucille’?” He mentally played with the

pronunciation.

Maybe

it

was
Loo-chee-lay
,

emphasis on the second syllable.

“’Cause that’s what I named her.”

Dare was stunned. “You can’t name your

accordion Lucille! That name is reserved for B. B.

King’s guitars!”

“Ask me if I care,” Bob said with a touch of

huffiness. “For your information, Lucille was the

name of my sainted music teacher.”

Dare helplessly pointed toward the glittering

cursive that extended above the keyboard. “But—”

“But nothing. Do you have any idea what I

paid for this baby? Not to mention I had to drive

out to friggin’ New Jersey to get it.” Juggling his

shoulders, Bob adjusted the accordion’s position

and undid the bellows clips. Softly, Lucille

wheezed in relief. “I’ll call it The Queen’s

Poontang if I want to.”

“Which queen?” Junior asked from behind

them. He seemed genuinely curious.

“I don’t give a crap,” Bob said impatiently.

“Just pick one.”

Dare was tempted to say
Freddie Mercury
,

but he knew the subsequent explanation wouldn’t

be worth the time or effort. Besides, Freddie never

had a poontang.

“I’d say the Queen of Kiss My Ass.”

Grinning, Max strolled past Dare and laid a hand

on his back. He leaned forward and murmured, “I

agree with you about the name.”

“I mean, really,” Dare murmured back, and

immediately wondered if he’d sounded too gay. He

wasn’t sure what tipped off older straight guys to

homosexuality, except blatantly flaming behavior,

but it was always hard to see yourself as others

saw you.

There was no indication Max possessed even

rudimentary gaydar. Thank goodness.

Of course Dare hadn’t mentioned his

orientation

when

he’d

auditioned—it

was

completely irrelevant—but he feared being found

out. This band and its audiences exemplified

small-town conservatism. And he needed, even

wanted, this job too much to lose it.

Dare turned his attention to his own

instrument. He slipped the mouthpiece between his

lips and licked the reed, then idly danced his

fingers over the keys to make sure none of the pads

were sticking. He’d had to replace a few—the

original leather ones tended to dry out and shrink

over time, which impaired their effectiveness in

covering the tone holes—and elastic silicone pads

were still new to him. They slapped into place

nice and tightly.

Crowd noise from the pavilion continued

modestly to swell and make its way into the

kitchen. Butterflies awoke in Dare’s stomach. He

told himself to relax. This wasn’t exactly a sold-

out concert at a mega-stadium, and the people here

would be more focused on each song’s beat than

on the band’s musicianship.

Bob flipped his wrist and checked his watch.

“Any minute now.”

The other band members gathered near one of

the kitchen’s two doors. “Mad Max” Kirchner

loosely held the neck of his bass guitar. Ernie

Novak had a forearm slung casually over his

banjo. Junior Schoenfeld’s drums were already set

up on stage, along with Bob’s glockenspiel. And

Daren Webster Boothe, gender-defying performer

at the Sugar Bowl and newest member of Bouncin’

Bob’s Polka Doodles, clutched his nameless

clarinet in one sweaty hand.

At least he wasn’t thinking about Incidents

and Situations and Issues. Today he was a whole

new person—not homosexual or intersexual or any

kind of sexual. He wore no jewelry or temporary

tattoos. His rakish hair, its highlights washed down

the shower drain, was neatly combed, his face

bore a faint shadow of stubble but not a lick of

makeup, and his body was concealed by the same

dorky outfit the four older dudes around him were

wearing.

Today he was an ordinary-looking guy in an

ordinary little band, an unremarkable cog in a

small but noisy piece of machinery, and he would

do his best to keep the apparatus running smoothly.

From the other side of the wall that separated

the kitchen from the rest of the pavilion, a man’s

voice boomed through a microphone, “Are you

ready to
polka
?”

The crowd didn’t exactly roar in response,

but they clapped with what Dare interpreted as

enthusiasm. A few whistles even cut through the

applause. (Old guys, Dare had noticed in his

twenty-six years on earth, prided themselves on the

strength and shrillness of their whistles. He’d

never figured out the technique.)

The band jauntily emerged from the kitchen

and climbed the stairs that led up to the stage,

where three music stands, spaced carefully in front

of Junior’s drum set, awaited them. Bob didn’t

need a music stand. Every note of every song was

etched indelibly in his brain.

More clapping rolled their way. As Dare

gazed over the sea of aging faces and immovable

hair, Bouncin’ Bob threw up his arms.

The band members shouted in unison, “
Polka

doodle-doooooo
!”

Chapter Three

DARE didn’t have time to think. He wasn’t even

sure his crow had been audible. Bringing the

clarinet to his mouth, he fixed his eyes on the first

page of music and began tootling his way through

the “Beer Barrel Polka.”

According to Bob, who did in fact bounce as

he played, the Beer Barrel was the Be All and End

All of the polka canon and likely born in the mind

of God. That was why he insisted on beginning

every performance with it.

The pavilion came alive with movement.

After a few stumbles, Dare relaxed into his

role. His six weeks of rehearsal with the Doodles,

combined with hours of practice at home, were

paying off. He sang along with the other band

members when he wasn’t playing, but he hadn’t

acquired enough confidence to sing robustly. Bob

had assured him that was okay; there were already

four bigmouths in the group.

Dare did, however, have to show he was

immersed in the music. “The band’s gotta enjoy it