I am not one for being nervous. I am never nervous. I am not capable of being nervous. That is what I had always thought, and it had always been true. But when the opening of "Where is My Mind?" came onto my stereo and woke me up at 6:45 am on August 4, 2003, I knew what nerves were.
Every gulp of coffee and my heart beat got faster and harder. That's because coffee is bad for me and it was delivering an unhealthy dosage of caffeine into my system. I could feel every mouthful of Cocoa Puffs make the slow descent down my asophogus and then hit my stomach with a crash. I tried on every shirt in my closet, having a bit of difficulty because everything was old and nothing fit me. My legs bounced up and down on their own free will in the car on the way there.
"Bonnie, are you sure you're not a little bit nervous?" my mom asked me, pulling up to the curb of the high school.
"Me? Nervous? Nooo…."
I really had no idea what to expect. I had no idea where to go. I just went where everyone seemed to be going: through the brown steel double doors. Inside was a large, crowded room with walls made of cinderblocks painted white. The white linoleum risers were covered with metal and wooden folding chairs, each with a name and number written on a piece of white paper taped to the back. Everything was white, white, white and the fluorescent lights beating down on all made it glow. I felt like I was at the annual KKK barbecue down the street. And as strange as its sounds, it kind of looked like heaven. Hundreds of angst-ridden teenagers dressed in their summer attire were standing around and talking, all tired. And of course, the freshman, just trying to be inconspicuous and not look as nervous as they were.
I scanned the crowd for a familiar face. Just another freshman. This was hard because I am short. I had reached 5'1 ½" at the age of 10 and I never really grew again after that.
"AY!" Bellowed Gabby Hornblower, my best friend, approaching me, with a posse of friends behind her.
Now it was time for that awkward I-haven't-seen-you-all summer talk. In August. You know, "What did you do this summer?"
"You're so tanned, you look like a Mexican or something!"
"I love your hair…it's very…orange." This last one was about my freshly dyed orange hair. I had intended it to be red, but you know how those home hair dying things usually turned out. And that tan thing? Not about me. I am possibly THE whitest person who ever came into existence. I'm like Michael Jackson after a particularly long and tedious evening under his umbrella in his 3rd level basement.
Gabby, an avid sleeper, looked kind of like she had been hit by a truck. "I'm really tired," she told me. "The ghost of Jim Morrison came over last night and he wanted to play Monopoly. And you know how long that game takes."
"Yah, he called me last night like a 1 and said he wanted to come over and play Go Fish, but I told him I had to go to bed because I had BAND CAMP tomorrow."
Perhaps I should tell you a bit about myself, specifically at this point in my life. There were many times in my existence when my parents should have had me mentally evaluated, but alas I was not. I just might very well be insane. There's no telling, though. As I have already mentioned, I was short, with curly orange hair, kind of chubby. Wearing blue jeans, a pink blouse, and flip flops. I suffer from a combination of Mick Jagger and Julia Roberts syndrome, resulting in rather largeness of the mouth and teeth. I also suffered from John Lennon syndrome, which gives you kind of Asian-ness of the eyes. For this reason (and others, including a bit of a lying spree in sixth grade) I was often called "Jap." Okay, I just realized that my description made me sound like a bit of a Eleanor Roosevelt, but I wasn't. I'm very cute, in an Irish sort of way, if I do say so myself. Anyhow…
After that very peculiar conversation about the ghost of Jim Morrison, they told me that I had to go find my seat. You know, its often hard to tell where the saxophones are going to be in a concert band setting. Some directors put the on one side, some on the other, some in the middle. After much asking around I found that we were just in one big row behind the trumpets and in front of the trombones, right in the center. I started on the left side of this row and made my way all the way down, looking at every sign as I went. Finally, there it was. Bonnie Zimmerman. C6. On the left side was Kyle O'Range, on the right was Sandra Luenga. I tossed my saxophone on my seat with my folder of music and made my way back to the friends.
We probably had stood around for half and hour before Mr. Lewinsky came out of the office and blew his whistle. This was obviously the signal to get in your seats, children.
Mr. Lewinsky couldn't have been very old. He looked like he belonged in high school with us. They had first brought him in when I was in sixth grade at McKinley Elementary as a student teacher. The next year that band director retired, so Mr. Lewinsky took over there, and I went to the middle school. In this way I avoided really ever having him as a teacher until now. Nathan Lewinsky was like 24 or 25. He was dating a girl who had just graduated. He had obviously been a bit of a nerd back in his days at Poland Seminary High School, and his voice often cracked, especially when he was angry. He seemed like a bit of a fag, too. Oh, and let's not forget that his last name was Lewinsky. This prompted many jokes. Obviously.
My squad was already seated by the time I got there. My first impression of Kyle was that he was male and he was bigger than me. I didn't really even look at him. I recognized Sandra from Middle School, so I knew she was a sophomore. The remaining member of my squad, who I didn't realize was in our squad until that afternoon, was a blonde flute player name Ashley Bates. She too was a sophomore.
I looked around and was sad to find that there weren't really any freshman around me that I particularly liked, except for Scott Stuart, who was sitting directly in front of me. He was the boyfriend of one of my good friends, Daphne Necco. He was a funny guy, there were much worse freshman that I could've been seated behind.
Mr. Lewinsky got onto the platform in the front of the room and everyone stopped talking. "Now I know you upperclassmen have heard this many times before, but we have to say it again for the freshman…"
Kyle turned to me and whispered, "This is the fourth time I've heard this."
I just smiled. I can be really shy around strangers.
Kyle O'Range…Kyle O'Range…the name sounded so familiar. At least O'Range did. Wasn't there a Jared O'Range? From when I went to a Catholic school?
Mr. Lewinsky went on to talk about the responsibilities of the upperclassmen, and blah blah blah. I really don't know what he said. I don't even know the main gist of it. But I'm certain he talked for a long time about transition, because that's what this year was all about: transition. He also introduced our newest band director, Mr. Zrubak (pronounced roo-bock), who had formerly taught at East Palestine and was a graduate of Poland Seminary High School. Then, after about twenty minutes, Mr. Lewinksy looked over at his leader, Mr. Giannini, and said, "Anything else?"
Mr. Giannini took the podium. He was a little Italian man, in his fifties, his black hair only beginning to go gray. His eyebrows were thick and furrowed and his forehead creased with many years of frowning at band members. But most importantly, he had a mustache. All great dictators have mustaches. Stalin, Castro, Hussein, Hitler, all of them, they had mustaches. Now, Mr. Giannini knew how to lecture us. This man could go on for hours. He had done the sectionals for flutes and clarinets in middle school, and as I had been a clarinet player in seventh grade, I knew this was true.
He talked for ages and ages. Mostly about transition. Mr. Stimple retiring was probably the roughest on him, because they had worked together for so many years, splitting the work in half. Now Mr. Giannini had to get used to taking over all the administrative duties. Poor guy. I wondered how long it would be before all his hair went gray and fell out, like Mr. Stimple's.
Eventually, after what had seemed like enough time to tell us the history of man from the beginning until now with excruciating detail, he brought his little speech to a close. The low brass, frumpets, and saxophones were sent to the auditorium for sectionals. Bringing their stands, of course.
I wasn't really sure whether to sit with my squad or not, but the three of us ended up sitting on the end anyhow. Everyone got situated, the saxophone players put their instruments together, and then everyone just talked. I didn't really have a lot to say, nor anyone to talk to, so I just sat there an listened. A very interesting conversation was coming from behind me.
They were three very good looking trombone players. The one on the right had shaggy blonde hair and blue eyes, the one in the middle had really curly black hair and bright green eyes, and the one on the left had brown hair and gray eyes and kind of a whisker thing going on.
"I hate this. I hate band. I'm going to kill myself," the one with the blonde hair said.
"Yah. We should all kill ourselves," o' whiskery on said.
"Jett," Curly said, addressing o' whiskery one, "You're not taken seriously enough to kill yourself. You'd be hanging from a ceiling fan and Mike here," he said, gesturing towards the blonde, "would come in and be like 'Hey Jett! What are doing, man? That's a great joke! Hahaha!'"
"Fuck. You're right. Hey, look at Vonilla!"
This would be a good time to mention a little bit about minorities at Poland Seminary High School. There are two Indian kids, three Puerto Rican kids, two Japanese kids, five black kids, and one kid who was black but also Puerto Rican. And proud of it. This was the infamous Benji Vonilla (he insisted in was pronounced Von-ee-yah, but people pronounced it vanilla to piss him off). He was a sophomore trombone player who apparently thought it would be a good idea to wear the Puerto Rican flag to the first day of band camp. Dumbass.
"What the hell is he wearing?" Curly asked.
"Fellows, I believe that is the Puerto Rican flag," Mike said.
"HEY VANILLA! NICE FLAG!" Jett shouted.
"YAH! PUERTO RICO SUCKS!" Curly shouted.
Sandra had been sitting facing forward in her seat, listening to this conversation. She slowly turned around, and addressing Curly said, "Robbie, I'm Puerto Rican."
This caught them all off guard, Sandra being hot and all. There were some grunts and some "Oh…"'s "Well…"'s and "You know…"'s before Robbie finally said, "Yah, but you don't advertise it on your shirt."
Sandra smirked and pulled her shirt out so it was flat and they could see it clearly. There was a sunset with a palm tree, and there, at the bottom, it quite obviously said "Puerto Rico."
At this time everyone noticed that Mr. Zrubak was sitting a stool on the edge of the stage, waiting for us to quiet down so we could begin.
"You guys...you guys, quiet down," said Mr. Zrubak, trying to quiet down 100 anxious students. The talking began to simmer down, as many girls started to pull out coloring books and markers. "I know you guys are excited, so I'll just wait til you calm down…Okay, I'm Mr. Zrubak, but you guys can just call me Mr. Z-"
"Z?" shouted one of those hairy tuba players in the back.
Mr. Zrubak chuckled. "Yah, the Z is silent. Back when I was in the Poland, there were less members than in this section together. Blah blah blah…"
My eyes started to glaze over as I slipped into a comatose state. I had learned to sleep with my eyes open in eighth grade reading class, because it was reading class in eighth grade. Just then, I felt a hand brush against my blue jeans and I snapped back to life. I looked over at Kyle, making very brief eye contact. Do you believe in love at first site?
"Put your saxophone together," he whispered.
Yah, me neither.
Let me tell you how interesting the next two hours were. Not very. They were possibly the two longest hours of my life. All we did was play pre-game music, which I already knew from parades and pep ralleys from eighth grade. The pre-game is before a football game starts, for some reason the band must march across the field playing the fight song. Then they stand there, play the national anthem and the alma mater. After this they watch the visiting team run onto the field while their wimpy band plays in the stands. Then the 300 strong Poland band plays, drowning out the other band, as our football players run onto the field in a fit of homosexual glee. This phenomenon occurs only at home games, and that truly is a blessing. Before marching band, I didn't know a pre-game show existed because I never came that early.
So here I was, two hours later. My ass was flattened from sitting in those uncomfortable seats too long, the inside of my bottom lip raw from playing so long. Mr. Lewinsky strode in as we were playing our own rendition of the fight song. It was quite clear that no one had been playing their instruments over the summer. Mr. Lewinsky stood behind Mr. Zrubak, folded his arms, and frowned, in a pose I was sure he had learned from the days when Mr. Gianinni was his teacher.
When the song ended, Mr. Lewinsky tapped Mr. Zrubak on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear. This raised eyebrows amongst the members of the band, because we were always looking for some kind of proof that Mr. Lewinsky was indeed a homosexual.
Mr. Lewinsky turned to us and addressed us. "Go back to the band room now."
All the saxophone players started to put their instruments away, so I did the same. Over the course of marching band season, I discovered that if there was one reason I should've stayed with clarinet, it would've been that I was good at putting that thing together and taking it apart. 30 seconds, tops. I had been playing saxophone for approximately 9 months, and it still took me 10 minutes to assemble it and take it apart.
I lumbered into the band room behind the tuba players, who had to haul those things around from room to room. I tried to make the high step up the risers with grace, afraid of ripping my pants and making an idiot of myself. I gingerly set my saxophone case down in front of my seat with my water bottle, sat down, and looked around. Ashley and Sandra were turned around talking to Andie Vesuvius and Ursula Akostolakis, respectively. Kyle was chatting it up with Justin Bassey. Scott was trying to convince Daphne to come sit by him. Gabby and Alexia Navajo, my other best friend, were too far away to carry on a conversation.
And suddenly I felt very alone.
Every gulp of coffee and my heart beat got faster and harder. That's because coffee is bad for me and it was delivering an unhealthy dosage of caffeine into my system. I could feel every mouthful of Cocoa Puffs make the slow descent down my asophogus and then hit my stomach with a crash. I tried on every shirt in my closet, having a bit of difficulty because everything was old and nothing fit me. My legs bounced up and down on their own free will in the car on the way there.
"Bonnie, are you sure you're not a little bit nervous?" my mom asked me, pulling up to the curb of the high school.
"Me? Nervous? Nooo…."
I really had no idea what to expect. I had no idea where to go. I just went where everyone seemed to be going: through the brown steel double doors. Inside was a large, crowded room with walls made of cinderblocks painted white. The white linoleum risers were covered with metal and wooden folding chairs, each with a name and number written on a piece of white paper taped to the back. Everything was white, white, white and the fluorescent lights beating down on all made it glow. I felt like I was at the annual KKK barbecue down the street. And as strange as its sounds, it kind of looked like heaven. Hundreds of angst-ridden teenagers dressed in their summer attire were standing around and talking, all tired. And of course, the freshman, just trying to be inconspicuous and not look as nervous as they were.
I scanned the crowd for a familiar face. Just another freshman. This was hard because I am short. I had reached 5'1 ½" at the age of 10 and I never really grew again after that.
"AY!" Bellowed Gabby Hornblower, my best friend, approaching me, with a posse of friends behind her.
Now it was time for that awkward I-haven't-seen-you-all summer talk. In August. You know, "What did you do this summer?"
"You're so tanned, you look like a Mexican or something!"
"I love your hair…it's very…orange." This last one was about my freshly dyed orange hair. I had intended it to be red, but you know how those home hair dying things usually turned out. And that tan thing? Not about me. I am possibly THE whitest person who ever came into existence. I'm like Michael Jackson after a particularly long and tedious evening under his umbrella in his 3rd level basement.
Gabby, an avid sleeper, looked kind of like she had been hit by a truck. "I'm really tired," she told me. "The ghost of Jim Morrison came over last night and he wanted to play Monopoly. And you know how long that game takes."
"Yah, he called me last night like a 1 and said he wanted to come over and play Go Fish, but I told him I had to go to bed because I had BAND CAMP tomorrow."
Perhaps I should tell you a bit about myself, specifically at this point in my life. There were many times in my existence when my parents should have had me mentally evaluated, but alas I was not. I just might very well be insane. There's no telling, though. As I have already mentioned, I was short, with curly orange hair, kind of chubby. Wearing blue jeans, a pink blouse, and flip flops. I suffer from a combination of Mick Jagger and Julia Roberts syndrome, resulting in rather largeness of the mouth and teeth. I also suffered from John Lennon syndrome, which gives you kind of Asian-ness of the eyes. For this reason (and others, including a bit of a lying spree in sixth grade) I was often called "Jap." Okay, I just realized that my description made me sound like a bit of a Eleanor Roosevelt, but I wasn't. I'm very cute, in an Irish sort of way, if I do say so myself. Anyhow…
After that very peculiar conversation about the ghost of Jim Morrison, they told me that I had to go find my seat. You know, its often hard to tell where the saxophones are going to be in a concert band setting. Some directors put the on one side, some on the other, some in the middle. After much asking around I found that we were just in one big row behind the trumpets and in front of the trombones, right in the center. I started on the left side of this row and made my way all the way down, looking at every sign as I went. Finally, there it was. Bonnie Zimmerman. C6. On the left side was Kyle O'Range, on the right was Sandra Luenga. I tossed my saxophone on my seat with my folder of music and made my way back to the friends.
We probably had stood around for half and hour before Mr. Lewinsky came out of the office and blew his whistle. This was obviously the signal to get in your seats, children.
Mr. Lewinsky couldn't have been very old. He looked like he belonged in high school with us. They had first brought him in when I was in sixth grade at McKinley Elementary as a student teacher. The next year that band director retired, so Mr. Lewinsky took over there, and I went to the middle school. In this way I avoided really ever having him as a teacher until now. Nathan Lewinsky was like 24 or 25. He was dating a girl who had just graduated. He had obviously been a bit of a nerd back in his days at Poland Seminary High School, and his voice often cracked, especially when he was angry. He seemed like a bit of a fag, too. Oh, and let's not forget that his last name was Lewinsky. This prompted many jokes. Obviously.
My squad was already seated by the time I got there. My first impression of Kyle was that he was male and he was bigger than me. I didn't really even look at him. I recognized Sandra from Middle School, so I knew she was a sophomore. The remaining member of my squad, who I didn't realize was in our squad until that afternoon, was a blonde flute player name Ashley Bates. She too was a sophomore.
I looked around and was sad to find that there weren't really any freshman around me that I particularly liked, except for Scott Stuart, who was sitting directly in front of me. He was the boyfriend of one of my good friends, Daphne Necco. He was a funny guy, there were much worse freshman that I could've been seated behind.
Mr. Lewinsky got onto the platform in the front of the room and everyone stopped talking. "Now I know you upperclassmen have heard this many times before, but we have to say it again for the freshman…"
Kyle turned to me and whispered, "This is the fourth time I've heard this."
I just smiled. I can be really shy around strangers.
Kyle O'Range…Kyle O'Range…the name sounded so familiar. At least O'Range did. Wasn't there a Jared O'Range? From when I went to a Catholic school?
Mr. Lewinsky went on to talk about the responsibilities of the upperclassmen, and blah blah blah. I really don't know what he said. I don't even know the main gist of it. But I'm certain he talked for a long time about transition, because that's what this year was all about: transition. He also introduced our newest band director, Mr. Zrubak (pronounced roo-bock), who had formerly taught at East Palestine and was a graduate of Poland Seminary High School. Then, after about twenty minutes, Mr. Lewinksy looked over at his leader, Mr. Giannini, and said, "Anything else?"
Mr. Giannini took the podium. He was a little Italian man, in his fifties, his black hair only beginning to go gray. His eyebrows were thick and furrowed and his forehead creased with many years of frowning at band members. But most importantly, he had a mustache. All great dictators have mustaches. Stalin, Castro, Hussein, Hitler, all of them, they had mustaches. Now, Mr. Giannini knew how to lecture us. This man could go on for hours. He had done the sectionals for flutes and clarinets in middle school, and as I had been a clarinet player in seventh grade, I knew this was true.
He talked for ages and ages. Mostly about transition. Mr. Stimple retiring was probably the roughest on him, because they had worked together for so many years, splitting the work in half. Now Mr. Giannini had to get used to taking over all the administrative duties. Poor guy. I wondered how long it would be before all his hair went gray and fell out, like Mr. Stimple's.
Eventually, after what had seemed like enough time to tell us the history of man from the beginning until now with excruciating detail, he brought his little speech to a close. The low brass, frumpets, and saxophones were sent to the auditorium for sectionals. Bringing their stands, of course.
I wasn't really sure whether to sit with my squad or not, but the three of us ended up sitting on the end anyhow. Everyone got situated, the saxophone players put their instruments together, and then everyone just talked. I didn't really have a lot to say, nor anyone to talk to, so I just sat there an listened. A very interesting conversation was coming from behind me.
They were three very good looking trombone players. The one on the right had shaggy blonde hair and blue eyes, the one in the middle had really curly black hair and bright green eyes, and the one on the left had brown hair and gray eyes and kind of a whisker thing going on.
"I hate this. I hate band. I'm going to kill myself," the one with the blonde hair said.
"Yah. We should all kill ourselves," o' whiskery on said.
"Jett," Curly said, addressing o' whiskery one, "You're not taken seriously enough to kill yourself. You'd be hanging from a ceiling fan and Mike here," he said, gesturing towards the blonde, "would come in and be like 'Hey Jett! What are doing, man? That's a great joke! Hahaha!'"
"Fuck. You're right. Hey, look at Vonilla!"
This would be a good time to mention a little bit about minorities at Poland Seminary High School. There are two Indian kids, three Puerto Rican kids, two Japanese kids, five black kids, and one kid who was black but also Puerto Rican. And proud of it. This was the infamous Benji Vonilla (he insisted in was pronounced Von-ee-yah, but people pronounced it vanilla to piss him off). He was a sophomore trombone player who apparently thought it would be a good idea to wear the Puerto Rican flag to the first day of band camp. Dumbass.
"What the hell is he wearing?" Curly asked.
"Fellows, I believe that is the Puerto Rican flag," Mike said.
"HEY VANILLA! NICE FLAG!" Jett shouted.
"YAH! PUERTO RICO SUCKS!" Curly shouted.
Sandra had been sitting facing forward in her seat, listening to this conversation. She slowly turned around, and addressing Curly said, "Robbie, I'm Puerto Rican."
This caught them all off guard, Sandra being hot and all. There were some grunts and some "Oh…"'s "Well…"'s and "You know…"'s before Robbie finally said, "Yah, but you don't advertise it on your shirt."
Sandra smirked and pulled her shirt out so it was flat and they could see it clearly. There was a sunset with a palm tree, and there, at the bottom, it quite obviously said "Puerto Rico."
At this time everyone noticed that Mr. Zrubak was sitting a stool on the edge of the stage, waiting for us to quiet down so we could begin.
"You guys...you guys, quiet down," said Mr. Zrubak, trying to quiet down 100 anxious students. The talking began to simmer down, as many girls started to pull out coloring books and markers. "I know you guys are excited, so I'll just wait til you calm down…Okay, I'm Mr. Zrubak, but you guys can just call me Mr. Z-"
"Z?" shouted one of those hairy tuba players in the back.
Mr. Zrubak chuckled. "Yah, the Z is silent. Back when I was in the Poland, there were less members than in this section together. Blah blah blah…"
My eyes started to glaze over as I slipped into a comatose state. I had learned to sleep with my eyes open in eighth grade reading class, because it was reading class in eighth grade. Just then, I felt a hand brush against my blue jeans and I snapped back to life. I looked over at Kyle, making very brief eye contact. Do you believe in love at first site?
"Put your saxophone together," he whispered.
Yah, me neither.
Let me tell you how interesting the next two hours were. Not very. They were possibly the two longest hours of my life. All we did was play pre-game music, which I already knew from parades and pep ralleys from eighth grade. The pre-game is before a football game starts, for some reason the band must march across the field playing the fight song. Then they stand there, play the national anthem and the alma mater. After this they watch the visiting team run onto the field while their wimpy band plays in the stands. Then the 300 strong Poland band plays, drowning out the other band, as our football players run onto the field in a fit of homosexual glee. This phenomenon occurs only at home games, and that truly is a blessing. Before marching band, I didn't know a pre-game show existed because I never came that early.
So here I was, two hours later. My ass was flattened from sitting in those uncomfortable seats too long, the inside of my bottom lip raw from playing so long. Mr. Lewinsky strode in as we were playing our own rendition of the fight song. It was quite clear that no one had been playing their instruments over the summer. Mr. Lewinsky stood behind Mr. Zrubak, folded his arms, and frowned, in a pose I was sure he had learned from the days when Mr. Gianinni was his teacher.
When the song ended, Mr. Lewinsky tapped Mr. Zrubak on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear. This raised eyebrows amongst the members of the band, because we were always looking for some kind of proof that Mr. Lewinsky was indeed a homosexual.
Mr. Lewinsky turned to us and addressed us. "Go back to the band room now."
All the saxophone players started to put their instruments away, so I did the same. Over the course of marching band season, I discovered that if there was one reason I should've stayed with clarinet, it would've been that I was good at putting that thing together and taking it apart. 30 seconds, tops. I had been playing saxophone for approximately 9 months, and it still took me 10 minutes to assemble it and take it apart.
I lumbered into the band room behind the tuba players, who had to haul those things around from room to room. I tried to make the high step up the risers with grace, afraid of ripping my pants and making an idiot of myself. I gingerly set my saxophone case down in front of my seat with my water bottle, sat down, and looked around. Ashley and Sandra were turned around talking to Andie Vesuvius and Ursula Akostolakis, respectively. Kyle was chatting it up with Justin Bassey. Scott was trying to convince Daphne to come sit by him. Gabby and Alexia Navajo, my other best friend, were too far away to carry on a conversation.
And suddenly I felt very alone.