Band Fiction

Chapter 1: Dot Sheets

Before Mr. Nosecha made it down the one-hundred forty-seven steps from the box all the way down to the field, Andrew had already cut in front of the drum majors and tucked the rolled-up dot sheets into his back pocket. He wasn't a visual tech, but here at the Gray Avril Jr. Educational Complex, the best qualification for teaching was not having anything better to do. He also had no prior experience marching, no clue how to march, couldn't hold a trumpet up for more than five minutes without breaking, and was only a high school junior. That was besides the point; anyone could be taught how to read a dot sheet and tell kids that they were standing in the wrong spot. Dot sheets were glorified graphs, and so was music, and there was no better AP-loaded teacher's pet french hornist to plot these graphs than Andrew.

Instead of correcting the freshman tuba who missed band camp, he highlighted every M1 dot so he could stalk Colt around the field and mumble his comments into his phone like a judge's tape recorder. Andrew didn't care about contributing to the whole, he wasn't paid enough to. He ditched the overcrowded school bus home every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday night to watch the marching band struggle to learn ten sets in 3 hours. At the Gray Avril Jr. Educational Complex, that was the greatest application of music until December rolled by, Mr. Nosecha informed 5th and 6th period that there wasn't enough money to go to championships, and concert season could finally dominate. Fall meant bats flying across stadium lights, phones bouncing around in fanny packs during gush-and-go's, and pebbles of ground-up tires washing down the shower drain after long rehearsal nights where nobody could focus.

Andrew clapped his hands three times. Colt hated how easily he was ripped away from a conversation about replacing his shoelaces. No better than a dog salivating at the ring of a bell. There was an energy about Andrew, like the cocky strut of a salesman who thought it was a good idea to give his pitch to a receptionist behind a "No Soliciting" sign. It must have been that wide stance, maybe that dead-set focus in his dark eyes that silenced the Forevermore Regiment & Colorguard faster than any staff's bellow. Or maybe he just got away with everything because he was cute. The stage was his. Mr. Nosecha wasn't even halfway down, yet.

"Alright, folks!" he started. "We did some good band today. But we need to band harder if we're going to be the best band in Best Bands International. The way that we band is the way that we make band a true band! We've put our best band into this band, but we must ask ourselves not what the band can do for us, but what can we do for the band?"

Colt stopped himself from chucking his mouthpiece at Andrew. He was a section leader, now, and that meant refraining from murder. Never mind that there were only three kids in his section, including himself.

"Band... dismissed!" Andrew declared.

The brass caption head, Mr. Benjamin Moro, stepped in. "What? No, you're not dismissed!"

One kid booed.

Mr. Moro shooed Andrew away from the spotlight, who then returned to his favorite spot, Colt's side. There was a no butts on the field rule, unless you were stretching or injured at the sideline. Even Andrew knew that. Knowing made him feel all the more exempt to the rule, and Colt couldn't find a proper justification to yell at Andrew for it, so when a familiar weight sat itself down on Colt's Payless clearance sneakers, Colt rested the bell of his mellophone atop Andrew's head and waited for Mr. Nosecha to squeeze his way in front of the drum majors.

"Alright, folks!" Mr. Nosecha started.

It was no better than Andrew's speech. Maybe worse, the more Mr. Nosecha dwelled on the sluggish water breaks and even more sluggish resets. Always a lack of focus. That's what happened when the best qualification for marching at the Ray Abril Jr. Educational Complex's Forevermore Regiment & Colorguard was having nothing better to do. A few battery members in the back took off their harnesses, which proved to be a worthy investment when more staff members chimed in about the core values of the band and the discussion devolved to a Q&A about how to build a culture of success. Every post-rehearsal meeting truly lived up to the band's name. Andrew knew better than to interrupt the closing ceremony of adults declaring their disappointment at high schoolers' attention spans, at this point. These were the adults that granted him permission to take home the school's shiny Conn 8D horn every night.