It’s a perfect spring day in Texas. Sun is out, skies are piercing blue, and the air is cool and full of promise. The wilting heat and humidity of summer are still a couple of months away.
There are four members of our percussion ensemble in Robert’s blue and silver Dodge Charger, on the way to a band competition somewhere outside of Ft. Worth. Robert (on whom I have a major crush, he being half-Asian like me) is driving, Nic’s in the front seat, and I’m in the back with El Jefe.1 Windows are down, and Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, our latest obsession, are blasting on the stereo.
Nic is learning to shotgun beer: punch a hole in the bottom of the can and pull the tab at the top to drain the beer faster. The guys have a theory that if Robert is speeding down the highway while Nic is shotgunning, the beer will flow even faster.
That’s how we found ourselves flying down I-20 at a hundred something miles per hour.
I should be terribly uncomfortable with this arrangement, seeing as how I am a sheltered goody two-shoes who does not approve of alcohol and we are all very, very underage. Robert’s a good driver, though, and he hasn’t been drinking. And it’s not my place to tell Nic what to do. Mostly, I’m enjoying the feeling of being a teenager, hanging out with my friends, not a care in the world.
Somewhere around 120 miles an hour, one of the tires blows out in a flaming mess of glory, and we coast to a stop in the grassy median that separates the two directions of traffic. (Thinking back on it now, we’re lucky we didn’t roll the car or slam into someone else. At the time it wasn’t frightening, just hilarious. Kids.)
Good news: there’s a spare tire in the back.
Bad news: it’s buried underneath an entire drum kit.
Groan.
We unload the kit piece by piece—cymbals and snare drums first, then toms, then bass drum—stringing them along the median. There’s the spare tire, finally. We might even make it to the competition on time.
My job is to watch for traffic. Cops, other cars who might hit us, cops, that sort of thing.
I’m standing there watching Robert and Nic futz with the tire, when I hear the unmistakeable sound of drumstick on cymbal: tss ts-ts tss ts-ts tss ts-ts tsssss.
El Jefe is providing a background track.
I turn, expecting to see him holding a cymbal and a drumstick, but no: he’s set up the entire kit, and he launches into a full blown drum solo.
We all laugh, banging our heads along with the boss.
Two lanes of traffic whiz by in either direction, no clue that one of North Texas’ finest high school drummers is rocking out in the median.
The sound of the drums floats up and over the highway, the bluebonnets sway in the gentle breeze, and the sun continues to shine.
Perfection in a moment.
Rhythm and blue sky.
- With the exception of Robert, my recollection of the actual players in this incident may be off. Though there was one guy whom we referred to as El Jefe, I don’t think he was in the car. I’m taking license with the cool nickname.
