In War Times (12 page)

“We do need a cover for our work,” said Sam, as they posted the call for tryouts.

“Cover!” said Wink. “Hell, we need to have a smashing time and knock their socks off. We need to think in music for a change. Jog us loose.”

Kocab, whom Sam had cajoled into performing a well-received magic show for Elsinore’s kids, answered the call by walking over from his work at the garage one day, wiping his hands on a rag, and offering himself as first clarinet.

When Sam lifted an alto sax from the crate, he felt blessed. Pawing through the straw remains, he searched in vain for reeds, but found some in a village shop the following week.

The first out-of-town gig of the Perham Downs was in a square stone building in Shrewsbury. Sam insisted that The Mess drive their truck, and was rewarded by having a chance to gaze long at Stonehenge, silhouetted in the twilight, as they passed.

The hall had a professional complement of dressing rooms for men and women, a real stage with a real, moth-eaten velvet curtain, and not a drop of alcohol. This was discovered when the Perham Downs took the stage to warm up.

“It’s impossible. An American swing band can’t play without beer,” Wink told the promoter.

Earl T. had begun a long-fingered strut along the piano keyboard, and a few girls stood expectantly at the edge of the stage, resting their heads on crossed arms and staring up at the band. In the center of the room an old man teetered on a ladder, trying to affix a mirrored ball to a light fixture.

“No booze?” Earl closed the piano with an air of finality and soul-deep regret.

Sam got out his polishing cloth and proceeded to remove corrosive fingerprints from his nickel-plated army-issue saxophone. Wink pulled the mouthpiece from his cornet and shook spit on the floor.

The promoter pulled nervously on his hat. “You see, it’s against the pub regulations. They do not want us competing against them.”

“So buy it from them.”

He shook his head helplessly. “It is more complicated than that, I fear. We cannot offer it to the dancers because of the nature of the hall. I mean, it is not a pub.”

By now, about thirty people were standing around in the large room. The promoter’s partner came over. “What’s the problem?”

“They won’t play without alcohol.”

The partner gave them a finely calculated look of utter contempt. “Yanks are famous boozers.”

“Nothing but selfish louts. It’s wartime. Our young men and women are in dire need of entertainment.”

Sam clicked shut his saxophone case and picked it up.

“It is blackmail,” said the first. “You are asking us to break the law.”

“Who ever heard of a band playing without drinks?” asked Wink in a reasonable tone of voice. “Our manager didn’t even conceive of such a possibility when he set this up.”

“Our manager’s an idiot,” growled Earl T. “Maybe we need a new one.”

“You’re elected,” said Wink, pretending to grow heated.

“I’m out of here,” said The Mess.

The first promoter said to the second, “Well, do something. Or we’ll have to give back the money.”

The second promoter quickly exited the hall as the first took the microphone and said, “Not to worry, folks, the Perham Downs will commence playing in just a few minutes when a certain lack is made up.” He glared at the band members. They waited without unpacking, feeling well within their rights.

Within ten minutes a keg was rolled onstage by two men and the pump set up. The musicians fortified themselves and once again unpacked their instruments. In a few minutes, the place was jammed with dancers, the mirrored ball glittered, and the band was making up for lost time.

Lunceford’s “Jazznocracy” was their most-rehearsed number, and they began with that.

The Mess and Earl T. set up the railroad beat, the train barreling down the track. Wink and Sam came in with the train’s horn as they approached a crossing. And then all hell broke loose.

They each took a solo, in the driving, frantic-sounding, yet well-controlled number. Their audience shouted, applauded, spun out across the dance floor, a swirling visual accompaniment to their wild swing.

After that, the ice was definitely broken.

After an hour, relatively drunk, they retired to a dressing room for a break.

It was very large, and filled with shadowy objects covered with a thick coat of dust. A broken rocking chair, a massive, scarred dresser, and a low table rested just beyond the pool of light that came from the distant ceiling.

Wink spied something off in a corner. “What’s that?” He pushed his way through mounds of debris and raised the neck of a bass fiddle from a nest of broken furniture. “This is exactly what we need.”

The Mess climbed over and examined it. “Looks sound. Needs strings. It would certainly fill that large hole in our arrangements.”

“This falls into the category of moonlight requisition,” said Earl T. “It’s been sadly neglected.”

“It’s yearning to be cleaned up and played,” said Sam.

“
Meant
to be,” said The Mess. He shook his head. “It’s a crime to treat a musical instrument in this fashion.”

The promoter stuck his head through the curtain. “Are you too soused to get on with it?”

After they got back on the stage, it became apparent to Sam that without keeping up with them drink for drink, the listeners lacked the ability to gloss over their mistakes in timing and harmony. He realized this when complaints were voiced, loudly.

A young woman climbed onstage and began singing. This rather drew things together for a time as she was not bad; she claimed a pint of ale as her right. The crowd danced to sentimental favorites and called out their picks, becoming hot and disheveled and happy. Sam and Wink embarked on a modern jazz rendition of “Moonlight Serenade,” but were dissuaded by angry shouts when it became clear that it was undanceable. “Stop that hobbyhorse music,” yelled one woman, and Earl T. hurriedly swung into a slow, soothing number as the lights dimmed.

They called an end to it around two in the morning and the crowd dissipated. The singer had become rather attracted to Earl T. and sat next to him on the piano bench, kissing him passionately.

“He won’t be much help,” said Kocab. “Where’s our promoter pals with our pay?”

“Early to bed,” said Wink, “makes them wealthy. They seem to have slipped away.”

“I vote the keg is ours,” said Sam. “Fair pay.”

They spent a few minutes wrestling it out the door and onto the truck.

“We do need that bass too,” observed Wink. “We could get a lot more work with a proper band.”

“Some practice wouldn’t hurt either,” suggested Kocab.

The bass was placed gently in the back of the truck on some moth-eaten blankets, also requisitioned from the depository of broken and discarded objects.

“What to do with that bass till things cool off?” asked Sam, as he backed the truck out of the courtyard.

“They won’t come looking for it. Nobody will even miss it.”

“But if they do.”

“Wake up Kocab. That’s his job—making things disappear.”

Kocab directed them to the garage. “Nothin’ up my sleeve,” grunted Kocab, as he helped lower the blanket-wrapped bass into the center of a tower of gigantic truck tires.

No one ever asked about it. After six weeks, they pulled it out, polished it lovingly, procured strings, and auditioned those who claimed to play bass until Wink was satisfied with Grease, a slight, pale kid from St. Louis. The Perham Downs continued their ascent to local fame, assisted by “Moonlight,” their new bass.

S
AM KEPT NAGGING
Wink to go to Elsinore’s beautiful, decaying mansion to entertain the children. He finally acquiesced.

They walked into the kitchen with their instrument cases early one evening and gathered an admiring crowd. “Keep back!” commanded Wink, holding his cornet over his head as if they might attack him. The children, who already stood well away in a quiet circle watching them, looked puzzled, except for one older boy with red hair, who laughed at Wink.

“What have we here?” Elsinore walked into the kitchen.

“You didn’t tell her?” asked Wink.

“Tell me what?”

“It’s a surprise,” Sam said. “Sit down.”

The red-haired boy pulled a chair from the kitchen table for Elsinore.

Without preamble they jumped into their modern jazz version of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” which they had renamed “Pleiades,” beginning with two short, recognizable bars and then flying into what Sam thought of as a swift, stunning tour of modern jazz ideas—unison octave jumps, sudden key changes, and abrupt pauses. After one such pause, they did not resume playing. That was the end.

It was then that Sam realized that not only was the red-haired boy laughing but that Elsinore had joined him. Her whoops filled the large kitchen. Tears ran down her face. She gasped for breath, her arms clasped across her chest as she rocked back and forth. Finally she slid onto the floor, still laughing, and then all the children roared.

“I told you that they were rude,” said Wink. “Despite the fact that Elsinore’s performance is much better than ours.”

“They’re just not ready for modern jazz.” Sam helped Elsinore up off the floor.

“You’ll—wake—the—
babies
,” she gasped, and then was off again, hysterical with glee.

The evening was not a total loss, though, for Wink. He met Elsinore’s sister, who worked a radar tower in the Home Chain over on the coast, and they went off to the pub for a pint.

After the children were put to bed, Elsinore sat with Sam in the now quiet kitchen and chatted. To Sam’s surprise and disappointment, most of her talk was of a flyboy she’d become smitten with.

He turned the conversation to the coming spring, and suggested that they renovate the flower gardens of the estate. Sam’s mother was a founding member of her local garden club, and he’d grown up pruning, dividing, digging, and fertilizing, enjoying it as much as his mother did.

Elsinore’s charming smile revealed her dimple. She grew excited. “Can’t you just see this place with vases full of flowers? The children will love collecting them. Mrs. Applewhist told me that the estate was once known for its gardens. Glorious, she said. A crew of four gardeners. There’s something left of it. A perfect project for the children.”

When Sam decided it was time to leave, Elsinore accompanied him through the great hall. He pushed open the front door. It creaked on its hinges, revealing a misty, moonlit landscape. Frosty night air rushed into the barely heated house, carrying the scent of woodsmoke. She clapped him on the back like a buddy. “What smashing fun for the children, Sam! See you soon, then?”

He walked back to the barracks alone in the dark, realizing that he too had wanted to woo the elusive Elsinore, and that he did not much like the role of “just friend” he had worked so hard to assume.

Sam and Wink practiced what they thought of as modern jazz any chance they got. Sam convinced Wink that he should use his cornet rather than his violin in this endeavor, reasoning that they would thereby duplicate the instruments they’d heard used to create this unique sound, this new music. They sought out places where they could practice. This Sunday night, it was a storage room for jeep parts.

Wink’s playing was full of fire and daring. After about twenty minutes he stopped in mid-phrase and said, “Okay. What’s wrong?”

Sam let his sax hang from the strap around his neck. “You know what we need, don’t we? A cavity magnetron. It’s in the plans. I don’t know how the hell we’re going to get one. I mean, even when they ship us the SCR-584’s, we can hardly pry the magnetron out of one of them.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Well, then the 584 wouldn’t work, and since we’re the ones who are supposed to get things working, it could reflect badly on us.”