Jeremy 11
If the Maestro had a grenade, the entire horn section would be nothing but a few scraps of metal and bone fragments right now. Luckily, he doesn’t have a grenade. What he does have, however, is zero patience, a hair-trigger temper and a strong distaste for women in his orchestra. Right now, he’s standing at his podium, glaring at the empty first horn chair as a low-level buzz starts to spread through the audience behind him. They are, no doubt, wondering what the hell is going on. The orchestra is seated; the Maestro is on the podium. Why hasn’t the concert started? From where I’m sitting, I can just make out the music critic for the Detroit Times Herald in his favorite box seat, leaning over the rail in front of him with interest.
I can hear the frantic clicking of Jennifer’s heels backstage as she runs from stage right, all the way around the back behind the curtain to stage left. Finally, she comes out on stage, head bowed down as she shuffles to the horn section and drops into her seat. The expression on her face is a cross between bewilderment, embarrassment and horror. The Maestro hops down from his podium and walks to our section. Up close, his fury is even more evident by the bulging veins in his neck and temples. He’s turning redder even as he stands here in front of our section.
Shit. This guy is starting to look like dear old dad did before he croaked.
“Where is your horn?” he hisses at Jennifer in his heavily accented English.
She shrugs and shakes her head in disbelief.
“I don’t know. It’s gone. I’m sure I left it backstage, but it isn’t there now. I – I think someone must have taken it.”
The conductor shakes his head at her disgustedly. Oh, this does not bode well for Jennifer. The ill-tempered Maestro is recently off the boat from a very stuffy, old school, all-male orchestra in Europe. He isn’t a fan of female musicians in general, and certainly not ones as young and pretty as Jennifer.
Ever since our misogynist maestro was hired in the spring, poor little Jenny has found herself defending her position as principal horn. He calls her out constantly, making rude and sexist remarks about her ability to play such a ‘masculine’ instrument. Once, he even suggested she must give an awful blowjob if her tonguing on the horn is any indication. I knew right then and there that he and I were going to get along very well, indeed.
Like I told Brett, I can’t hold too much against Jennifer, though, because a lot of it isn’t her fault. She’s not nearly as good as I am. Even she has said as much. At twenty-two, she’s fresh out of Juilliard. When she auditioned for the third horn spot, no one was more stunned than Jennifer was when they offered her principal instead. Just as no one was more stunned than I was when I auditioned for the principal spot and was handed third chair instead.
I was starting to think I was good and screwed when, one day, salvation showed up fresh off the boat in the form of our new conductor. Totally disinterested in orchestral politics, he just wants the best man for the job. And I do mean man.
Jennifer is crying now. This is just too much for our no-nonsense conductor.
“You! Get off my stage right now!” he growls, pointing his baton at her. She sniffs, nods and scurries off stage, then the Maestro turns to me.
“You can play the part, yes?”
“Yes, Maestro,” I assure him, taking Jennifer’s vacated seat in an instant.
He returns to his elevated platform and raises his arms. He looks at me with the question in his arched brows. I take a deep breath and give him a slight nod that tells him I am ready. I have to be, because the first horn is the first thing that you hear in Maurice Ravel’s haunting Pavane for a Dead Princess.
With the conductor’s downbeat, my mellow tone rises above plucked strings. It is the sound of molten honey, rich and smooth, golden and opaque. It flows so effortlessly out of my horn … out of me, that you’d swear I’d been practicing the solo for weeks. Maybe that’s because I have been.
When the piece has ended, the Maestro turns and bows to the audience, then he faces the orchestra again, gesturing to me. I stand, horn tucked under my arm, and give a quick bow from the horn section. The applause swells and I smile. If they liked that, wait till they hear what I’ve done with Jennifer’s part in the Brahms.
****
When I finally leave the hall, it’s well after midnight, and well after everyone else has gone home for the night. I walk around the block and find the kid standing on the corner where I told him to meet me, hoodie covering his head and hands stuffed in his pockets as he hops up and down in the cold night air.
“Good job,” I say when I reach him. “Where did you leave it?”
“In the dumpster on Jefferson, where you told me.”
“Anyone see you?”
“Nah. Who notices a Chinese delivery boy on a bicycle in that part of town?”
Exactly. And who would ever think there was a five thousand dollar French horn in that insulated carrier on the back of his bike rather than containers of Kung Pao Chicken and egg rolls? Certainly none of the dozen or so musicians who ordered dinner in from Wong’s Kitchen before the concert. The kid, Jimmy is his name, is at the hall so often that people have stopped noticing him. Security doesn’t even look up when he rolls his bicycle through the backstage entrance and down the hall to our break room. Which just happens to be across from the warm-up room. Which just happens to be where Jennifer leaves her horn when she goes outside to call her boyfriend before every concert. This shit is just Too. Fucking. Easy.
I pull a couple of bills out of my pocket.
“Here’s the hundred we agreed on. And a hundred to remind you that I can throw a lot of business your way, so long as you don’t breathe a word of it to anyone. Ever.”
“No! No, man, thanks! I promise!”
The kid excitedly snatches the money from my hand.
“Alright. I know where to find you when I need you again,” I inform him as I turn and leave him standing on the corner.
I’m sure it won’t be long before I do.