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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 36: Brown 294
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Takano 95
A week after Halloween Maurice, Vashti, and he had just finished playing for the lunchtime crowd when an older White man gestured to him to join him at his table. Derek walked over, and introduced himself. The man was dressed in a black, three piece suit with a red bowtie, and leather shoes that were finely engraved with a string of fleur-de-lis.
“Bonjour, Monsieur Brown. I am Pascal Beaufoy. I own the Beaufoy Mansion, and the Iron Works & Machine Shop, and a few other things.” The Louisiana-French accent was strong, and the refined mannerisms pronounced. Plus the man’s eyes were keen, so Derek focused his own mind to pay close attention. This was a man of importance. None of his words would be happenstance. “More to the point, I own the Tenth Street Music Hall, and I’m always interested in finding new talent to come through there. I heard of yours, and came to lunch to hear your band. I’d like to have you come by on Friday night.”
Derek noted that the man did not mention money, and he wondered if he would be paid for this. It was something an aristocrat might do--act like they are doing you a favor by giving you a chance to play for free. But such was the man’s manner that it seemed rude to press.
“We’d be glad to.”
“Good, good. It's my hobby, now that I am mostly turning over my businesses to my sons. But I also came down for an unrelated reason. I heard you had slain the Grunch of West Lawn Road. Tell me, did you see it disappear?”
Derek thought to himself, wondering if this rich man was one of the Devil’s servants. He seemed sincere, but still Derek reached out and read his mind.
I hope he did. My father wounded that monster with a silver crucifix many years ago, but it escaped to terrorize the area again.
Relieved, Derek smiled congenially at the man and spoke. “We killed it, and left it on the lawn. And the next morning I was outside, and I saw the sunlight falling on it, and it was turning to fine smelling smoke. After it was gone, I saw a great crowd of dandelions spring up over the next day right there, and touching the ground, I felt no darkness, but just normal grass and flowers.”
“Good, good.” The man then spoke again. “I do not want to keep you from your affairs, but I look forward to hearing you again Friday night.” It was a clear, if very politely delivered, dismissal, and Derek took it as such. He went back to his table with the other two, and joined them to suffer through more andouille sausage. It was not quite as hot as before, maybe, but that only meant he could eat more, and thus suffer more. Finishing his third glass of root beer, he got up, and walked toward the side table where the instruments were stored and Vashti already stood gathering her ney.
As he made certain everything was properly packed, he was aware of a young man, older than himself, perhaps mid to late twenties, approaching. When it was obvious that he was coming to talk to them, Derek turned toward him. The man smiled a bit shyly, making him look considerably younger. He was pale with light brown hair and blue eyes.
“Sir,” Derek addressed him first.
“I’m sorry,” the man replied, “but I did not get your name.” He spoke and there was a clear French accent not much different from that of Mister Beaufoy.
“Nor I yours. I’m Derek; Derek Brown. This is my wife Vashti, and our friend and trombone player Maurice Howland. You?”
The stranger looked over at Maurice with a touch of mild surprise, but hid it quickly before introducing himself. “I’m Pierre. Pierre Beaufoy.”
“Beaufoy. I just heard that name--a Mister, what was it? Pascal Beaufoy?”
“That would be my uncle--actually, my great uncle, my grandfather’s brother.”
“If you’re here to ask us to play at his music hall, we’ve already agreed.”
“We have?” Maurice said.
“Yes, I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but he’s asked us to play Friday night.”
Vashti asked, “What’s he paying us?”
“We didn’t discuss that.” She scowled at him. “Anyway, I said yes, and if he doesn’t pay us anything we’ll know better next time.”
“That’s not it,” Pierre said.
“Oh. My bad. Sorry to assume. What, then?”
“Well, I was wondering--this is going to sound odd. I’m a big fan of the music of John Phillip Sousa, and I heard you playing his ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ when I was riding past, so I stopped to listen. I say I’m a fan. A couple years ago I learned that he had invented this new instrument, what they were calling a Sousaphone, so I bought one and learned to play it. But it’s not really that much fun playing the bass all alone. So I was wondering if maybe I could play with you?”
Derek hesitated. On the one hand, a bass would add a lot to the band; on the other, there were aspects to their situation that limited him to some degree. Being careful what he said, he began, “I would certainly love to have you come over and show us what you can do, and play a bit with us. We do have the problem that Missus Johnson pays each of us individually and gives us free lunch, and so it’s up to her whether she’ll pay you to play here--”
“I don’t need to be paid,” Pierre interrupted. “And I don’t need a free lunch. I’ll gladly pay to eat lunch here if I can play with the band.”
“O.K., but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We practice a lot--every day. In fact, we frequently practice in the morning and again in the afternoon. I don’t guess you have your instrument with you.”
“No, I would have to go home for it.”
“Well, we’ll be practicing this afternoon, and probably again tomorrow afternoon after we play here for lunch. If you go straight out this road, we’re the old house on the edge of town. Bring your instrument and we’ll start with that, and if we think it will work we’ll talk to Missus Johnson.”
“Thank you, Mister Brown.”
“Oh, call me Derek. I don’t know anyone who calls me Mister Brown, except maybe Henri, and I’ve told him not to.”
“And you must call me Pierre, and I will see you, if not today then definitely tomorrow.”
“I look forward to it.”
Pierre excused himself and seemed to hurry toward the door. Derek looked at the others, who had finished packing everything, and they got organized to head for home and practice.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #502: Character Setbacks. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
