Coda Our final tune was always a Sousa march, like the one that goes da da, da-da-da, da-da-da—which Mitch Miller, if you recall, used as a sign-off for his sing-along show: “Be kind to your fine feathered friends . . .” I think it was Sousa. Always something loud and upbeat and meant for people to start clapping or pumping their arms like they were drum majors, eventually rising to their feet—a guaranteed standing ovation. I played the trombone. Third chair, though there were only three in the pep band, so it didn’t matter. We’d play at basketball games, pep rallies, and at least once every winter we’d pack up our instruments and bus over to the state hospital to cheer up the patients. The place stunk. We’d be let in some unmarked service entrance and guided through narrow corridors—like we’d come in backstage to some grand concert hall—guards unlocking one steel door after another, locking them again behind us—to a room that reminded me of that crummy gym-slash-auditorium in the old primary school before it was demolished, but with thicker bars over the windows, and mangled cages securing the In Which Brief Stories Are Told 56 ) lights, half of which were never lit. We’d sit on unpadded folding chairs organized on the floor, since there were no risers, and use sheet holders instead of music stands—just to be safe. We’d been cautioned: If one of them came onto the stage— which we found funny since we sat on the same level they did, on the same kind of chairs—we should just keep playing, as if nothing was wrong, and one of the attendants (that’s what they were called, not guards) would come and help him back to his seat. Him because it was just men, every time, the place was segregated . I don’t know who entertained the women . . . And they were harmless, mostly, we were told. Nothing to worry about. Well, we had just begun the march—da da, da-da-da, da-dada —when this guy in a grayish bathrobe comes right up next to me—I was on the outside, being third chair—and he begins mimicking my slide movements, marching around, smiling, then comes close enough to say something to me, though I couldn’t hear, what with the trumpets and drums . . . He smelled like puke and urine, but he was smiling. Then off he marches, and I stopped playing to watch. He looked like he needed a good meal and a shave—his face had a kind of scruffy gauntness to it—but he was marching and playing his trombone with an enthusiasm I’d never seen before. He was really enjoying himself. I’d played for five years by then. But I knew at that moment that I was done with it. It would never be anything more than a high school memory. I just didn’t have the talent. ...