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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 46: Brown 298
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Takano 98
They had agreed on the setlist, so as soon as he knew the others were ready Derek blew the opening notes of When the Saints Go Marchin’ In, and the others came in on cue. Maurice kept them together through the slow section, and then as Derek picked up the tempo into the second verse he saw feet tapping with the beat. We could use a drummer, he thought, but set the thought aside because he needed to be focused on right now if they were going to stay together all the way through.
The end of Saints was fast and dynamic, and there was applause from the audience to match. Can we keep it up? he wondered. That was undoubtedly our best song. But they stepped down a bit to a moderately-paced Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Derek thought they could do it faster, but this was the way they had learned it and he wasn’t going to change it during the performance. That led them into the slower How Great Thou Art, and then two verses of Amazing Grace, because Vashti did some wonderful lacework on the second. They followed this with a stately but powerful arrangement of A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, and at this point Derek was thinking that they had slowed it too much and were going to lose the audience. Fortunately the next song was At the Cross, which they had done with a bit of a swing beat and so it picked up the tempo a bit. They also had an upbeat arrangement of What a Friend We Have in Jesus, and some of the audience clapped along with it.
Yeah, he thought, we do need a drummer.
As he blew his spitvalves and the other brass players did the same, he decided to speak. He was not quite sure how to begin, but decided on the traditional formula.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said. “Halloween is behind us, and of course we are headed into Thanksgiving, but I think that we are already on the cusp of Christmas. So if you’ll permit it, we’ll honor the season with one I hope you’ve all heard.” He glanced around the group, and then using the bell of his trumpet to signal the downbeat they played Silent Night, with Maurice carrying the melody on the first verse and then handing it to Pierre on the Sousaphone for the second, and then repeating just the last two lines with the trumpet on the lead.
The audience was quiet enough as it ended that Derek worried whether they were now ignoring them--but he didn’t let it unsettle him, and as he played the pickup for the trio of Stars and Stripes Forever he was quite pleased that the team came in on cue. He worried through the interlude, but although it gave him a few high notes, the hard parts went to Pierre and Maurice there, and it circled back to the trio and out.
The audience stood up and applauded, and Alfonso hopped up the steps clapping. “Let’s hear it for the Brown Dixieland Quartet!” he shouted over the applause. Derek nodded to the others and stood, and in an unrehearsed and uncoordinated way they all stood, Pierre the slowest, and made shallow bows to thank the audience.
We weren’t that good, I shouldn’t think, Derek thought; but then, we’re probably only competing with local talent. He smiled, waved, and looked for the exit from the steps.
They packed up their instruments.
Sitting down, they took the time to order pies. Derek went with lemon meringue, Vashti, out of sheer curiosity chose shoofly pie, Maurice got pecan pie, and Pierre got chess pie. In actuality, everyone got everything because there was much polite and sometimes not-so-polite snagging of bites from each other's plates, as all of the pies looked delicious.
As they ate, Frank and Earl came on again, and sang "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen". It was slow and sad, and fit the later hour. They took their bows, and were followed by the white lady soprano who had done Mozart arias. She came out with a brisk step promising 'something different', and sang "You Made Me Love You (I Didn’t Want to Do It)" so that both Pierre and Maurice looked like they'd be happy to die in her arms after it, and Vashti just clung to Derek's arm as the romantic song about a man's power over a woman's heart echoed around the hall.
"Gentlemen, she's engaged already. But we can hope he gets struck by lightning," Alfonso said, laughing as he came up through the applause. She just shook her finger at him with a big smile, and walked off the stage with smiles at all her fans.
"I did say I'd be back, and so one more song for tonight. This is Frederic Chopin with Nocturnes in B Flat Minor. It is a good piece to send you out into the night to your homes with. Enjoy."
He sat down and began to play the quiet, intricate music which conveyed tiredness and continuing strength. At the end, he rotated on his bench, and slowly stood.
"Thank you everyone for coming. Thanks to the musicians, the kitchen workers, and waiters, and the doorman, and our patron. Feel free to grab a pie to take with you, and come back soon." Quiet applause greeted him, and he waved the rest of the musicians to the stage to join him. The clapping redoubled, and he spoke to them as it faded.
"Stay a bit, everyone, as usual. Grab another pie slice if you like, and more coffee. Let the crowd filter out."
So they did, receiving compliments, and chatting with the other musicians until most of the hall was deserted.
“We should go,” Pierre said. “The trolleys run all night, but not so often after ten.”
Derek nodded. He had just started toward the door when he heard a charming and thoroughly unwelcome voice to his left. To the ear, it sounded fine, but it grated on his spirit.
“Mister Brown! We meet again. Care for a game of cards?”
Derek looked at the familiar well-dressed man sitting at the table, and his memory struggled. He had met a man outside the city when he first arrived. This man had the same voice, the same suit and tie, the same facial features--but that man was black and this man was white. Yet the suggestion that they had met before could only be reconciled if that man, who had departed by transforming into a flock of crows and dispersing, was this man.
Mayor Devault was seated adjacent to him at the table, which was decorated with cards and poker chips. He pushed aside his discomfort.
“Somewhere I heard--maybe it was in a song--Don’t play poker with the devil, ‘cause you know he always cheats.”
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 #503: Versers Progress. 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:
