Kyle Torke

The Band Played

Steve Jostes played the trombone better than anyone in the state of Colorado, and as a sixth grader at North Star Elementary, that skill meant something. I played trumpet with much less distinction and practiced with far less gusto and dedication in the same elementary school band, or Youth Orchestra as the administration labeled the rag-tag group of fifth and sixth graders. Usually, I disguised my lack of preparation for the evening's concert with soft notes and lots of smiling; Steve's brash solos and Gideon flare covered nicely for all the other players' deficiencies. At the spring graduation concert, Steve did not appear; his parents had taken him to Greeley, Colorado, to the state-wide band competition.

The custodians outfitted the gym for the grand concert with rows of aluminum seats and a small, roped-off section for the players. The order of volleyballs and basketballs for next years' classes had arrived, and all the white and orange balls sat stiff and windless in the corner. The basketball standards crouched neatly in the rafters, tucked like gargoyles, and the parallel bars and pommel horse sat beneath a large blue tarpaulin, but the gym odor persisted, and no one, despite the fancy looking programs, believed they had entered a concert hall.

I took my seat, tuned my trumpet, feeling as always that they keys and slide seemed unnatural and foreign. I'm sure I hit at least one right note, but I was not concerned. The other brass players would arrive shortly, and I could slide anonymously into a chorus of fine notes.

Just before the concert began, Ms. Krel, the band director, smiled, placed her hands on my shoulders, and said, "You can carry the brass section tonight. Okay?" I thought she had hurt her knee bending down to speak with me, but now I know the pain resulted from her deep sense of loss and the acknowledgment that without Steve, and even worse, with only me, the evening would be as flat as the volleyballs lined along the gym wall. None of the other trumpets or trombones made it to their seats, either. I would have to carry the brass section. I didn't know the music, and I hadn't practiced.

I blasted notes every once in a while when I could recognize them or catch up to the rest of the band on the score; I tried to fit in with the general movement of the music, but mostly I must have sounded like a car lost somewhere in the countryside, honking to stop a cop or warn pedestrians of an impending accident. The audience applauded appropriately, and my panic subsided the way a deer's panic must subside once it understands the lion irrefutably has it.

After the concert, Ms. Krel smiled another pained smile and tapped me on the shoulder, but didn't say anything to me. I heard her turn to the principal, Mr. John, and say, "Yes, yes, yes. We did miss Steve tonight."

I hadn't thought about Steve at all during the evening, except to acknowledge he wasn't standing behind me. At that age, I'm not sure I understood loss or how to miss somebody's presence. I was far more concerned with my own embarrassment. But six years later, when Steve drowned a week before we were to walk for high school graduation, I remembered his absence at that concert and how we had become good friends.

I gave up the trumpet while at Pecos Junior High. I played in Mr. Rudd's band for the first year, but my heart was somewhere else—and I stank. I remember selling light bulbs door to door to raise money for the band, and I remember knocking on Mr. Rudd's apartment door with a box of light bulbs in my hand, not knowing it was his door, and his startled expression when he answered, his hair electrified and the smell of burnt food leaking through the opening. His rooms seemed dank and gothic; clearly, he was alone. He mumbled through a mouthful of food and sent me on my way. I quit a month later.

Steve, of course, starred in the band. He began playing concerts, weddings, parties, and contests, wowing everyone with his gift, a gift, I learned later, supplemented with dutiful and enforced practice. We became friends, and our group included Steve's neighbor Donald Overholt. We played tag and hide and seek and statues during summer nights. Steve always had to go home early for bedtime, and Donny would walk with Steve; I had much more freedom and always felt slighted when Steve's parents called to take him away. We camped at each others' homes, rode bikes along the open fields that separated our houses, stole candy from the grocery store, swam together at my neighborhood pool, and even started to talk about girls together.

One afternoon, a group of industrious and poor entrepreneurs erected a water slide not far from my home on a hill that sloped wildly into a pasture. The site now is Hyland Hills Water Park, but its humble beginnings were far more austere than the slick wave machines and multiple curving slides. We had to trudge along a mud path to the top of the hill, pay fifty cents for a bracelet that allowed three rides, zip down the slide, and trudge back to the top. One of the boys at the top of the slide had a hose and would rinse the mud before we could slide again. The slide itself, made of first-generation fiber glass, felt as rough as asphalt, and the seams between section raked our hips and back and elbows like speed bumps on a highway. The novelty and the thrill charmed us, though, and we spent several weeks worth of allowance plummeting down the slides, collecting bruises, and rushing back to the top to do it all again.

I loved the water. Steve and Donny had never had swim lessons, but they could get about safely in the five foot collection pool at the bottom. I never thought about how dangerous the slide might be or that the turns and bumps might break a leg or knock someone silly. I reveled in the thrum thrum thrum of my body blasting over the section seams, the kaphump and splash of entering the pool of cool, dirty water at the bottom.

I was already in line to go again when I saw Steve, his face covered in blood, walking back to the top with his hands over his lips. The slide had tossed him onto his belly, and he had caught his front teeth in one of the seams. They stopped the water on the slide, and an adult with goggles searched in the drop pool for Steve's front teeth. As the man fished, Steve sat on the concrete and bled. Once they found his teeth, the adult rushed Steve to his parents, who rushed him to the hospital. A dentist successfully re-implanted both teeth, and after several months, Steve's smile and his ability to play the trombone returned with equal brilliance.

The loss of Steve's teeth, however, signaled the end of our close relationship. I rarely saw Steve while he recuperated—it was summer, and I had much playing to do. And when the fall arrived, Steve was busy, and I moved in with my father. I didn't see Steve much the last year of Junior High, and we said hello to each other in the hallways of Thornton High School, but we never socialized. Steve and Donny remained friends, and I lost them both to the Marching Band, the Orchestra, the Brass Band, and the Select Band. Once I discovered swimming and abandoned my first love, acting, I never saw Steve at all.

On a Saturday before graduation, Donny and Steve decided to build and float a raft down the Platte River. They knew, as every kid growing up in the suburbs knew, the river could be dangerous. Wild stories of quicksand, whirlpools, and undertows rang as warnings in every young boy's head. Parents understood the lure of water, and especially of the river; every boy has a little Huck Finn streaming through his blood. But their raft felt secure, the water looked quiet with only a few eddies swirling the cottonwood seeds on the surface. They had brought sandwiches and a cooler of water. They applied sunscreen and wore hats. The life-vests felt heavy and warm, but they kept them buckled.

I imagine them sitting in the center of the raft on cushions; the plywood covering the uneven logs was not painted. Legs splayed, leaning back on their elbows, they reveled in their youth, of the promises lined up before them like prizes at a carnival: college scholarships, girlfriends, fraternities, musical accolades, and maybe even a record. I'm sure they didn't speak much, maybe not even when the raft drifted toward the west shore and snagged on a log covered by the heavy swell. Steve used the oar to push against the log while Donny rocked the raft to try and free it. Suddenly, the raft lurched and began to drift, Steve lost his balance, and Donny fell in the river as Steve dropped flat on the boards.

Donny laughed as he pulled himself back on the raft. Steve took his hand. Neither noticed they had gained speed or that a more severe snag threatened the raft. When they hit the rocks, Steve tumbled off the raft and got caught in a current. He laughed as he paddled back toward the raft, which had hung, but he couldn't beat the current, which pulled him first into the middle of the river and then toward the West side, again, where several cottonwoods and willows had tumbled into the water.

The water pulled Steve under the trees and trapped him. Before Donny could reach him, Steve had drowned.

Steve's death resonated through our school like a gunshot. The church that held his Mass could not hold all the students, teachers, and friends who came to grieve. The rain waited until the afternoon, leaving the morning to sunshine, but when the last mourner exited, all the streets ran with water.

I didn't attend the Mass. I saw Donny only once after the funeral, at graduation, and he seemed so sad, so heavy with guilt and loss, that I couldn't speak to him. I shook his hand, smiled, and thought, Now you will have to carry the brass section.

Kyle Torke publishes in multiple genres, and his screenplays have won awards. His most recent collection of poetry, Still in Soil, is available from World Audience Press (www.worldaudience.org). When he’s not instructing his young sons how to wrestle alligators or scan poetry, he teaches writing and literature to the fine cadets at the United States Air Force Academy.