Damon Knight - Orbit 18

And as he went on, I could see him begin to forget his surroundings and become what he was, a musician working on the song, putting together phrases, playing with the sounds he could make. His forehead wrinkled and smoothed as he carved an especially difficult passage; he closed his eyes, and the notes took on a life that hadn’t been there before. He was lost in it now, completely lost in it, and the last time around he bent the notes like only a fine clarinet player can bend them, soaring them out into the cavern; a sound human and inhuman, music.

When he was done everyone was clapping, even me, and I realized that I had only thought the earlier applause was loud because I’d never heard that many people clap at once before. Now it was louder than when a ship takes off over a tunnel you’re in. . . .

We played Panama next, and the difference was hard to believe. Sidney was back in form, winding about the upper registers with quick-fingered ingenuity, and as he pulled together so did the band. And the kid, as if he’d only been waiting for Sidney, began to let loose. He’d abandoned his steady oomph-oomph-oomph-oomph and was sliding up and down the bass clef, playing like a fourth member of the front line, and leading the tempo. Normally I set the tempo, and Crazy and Washboard listen to me and pick it up. But the kid wasn’t paying any attention to me, his notes were hitting just a touch ahead of mine, and if there’s anyone who can take the tempo away from the trumpet it’s the tuba. I tried to play as fast as him but he kept ahead; by the time he let Washboard and me catch up with him we were playing Panama faster than we’d ever played it, and excited as we were, we were equal to it. When we finished the applause seemed to push us to the back of the stage.

We played the St. Louis Blues, and then the Milenburg Joys, and the Sweet Georgia Brown, and each time the kid took over, pumping wildly away at the tuba, and pushed us to our limit. Sidney responded like that was the way he’d always wanted to play, arching high wails between phrases and helping the kid to drive us on. And the audience was with us! Maybe the earlier groups had been too modern, maybe too many of them had been playing to the judges; whatever the reason, the audience was with us now. An hour ago none of them had even heard of Dixieland, and now they were cheering after the solos and clapping in the choruses; and we had to start Sweet Georgia Brown by playing through the applause.

Then we were set for the finale. “For all of you music lovers in the house, ” I said, knowing they wouldn’t get the reference to Satchmo but saying it anyway, “we going to do The Muskrat Ramble. ”

The Muskrat Ramble. Our best song, maybe the best song. We started up the Ramble and the band fell together and meshed like parts of a beautiful machine. All those years of playing in those bars: all the years of getting off work and going down and playing tired, playing with nobody listening but us, playing with nothing to keep us going but the music; all that came from inside us now, in a magic combination of fear, and anger, and wild exhilaration of knowing we were the best there was at what we were doing. Hook was looping his part below me, Sidney leaping about above, the kid pushing us every note; and to keep us with the weave we were making I had to play hard and fast right down the middle of the song, lifting and growling and breaking my notes off, showing them all that there was a man working behind that horn, blowing as clear and sharp and excited as old Dippermouth Satchel-mouth Satchmo Louie Louis Armstrong himself. When we played the final round of the refrain everyone played their solo at once, only Fingers and Washboard held us down at all, and the old Muskrat Ramble lifted up and played itself, carrying us along as if it made us and not the other way around. Hook played the trombone coda and we tagged it; then the kid surprised us and repeated the coda, and we barely got our horns back up to tag it again; then we all played the coda and popped it solid, the end.

I motioned the band off. We were done; there was no way we could top that. We started for the wings and the roar of the audience soared up to a gooseflesh howl. We hurried off, waving our arms and shouting as loud as anyone there, jumping up and down and slapping each other on the back, chased by a wall of sound that shook the building.

We waited; tired, happy, tense, we waited:

And God damn me if we didn’t win one of those grants, a four-year tour of the Solar System; oh, we leaped about that waiting room and shouted and hit each other, Fingers and Washboard marched about singing and smashing out rhythms on the walls and furniture, Hook stood on a table and sprayed champagne on us; the kid rolled on the floor and laughed and laughed, “Now you’re in for it,” he choked out, “you’re in for it now!” but we didn’t know what he meant then, we just poured champagne on his head and laughed at him, even old Sidney was jumping up and down, wisps of hair flying over his ears, singing (I’d never heard him sing) a scat solo he was making up as he went along, shouting it out while tears and champagne ran down his face:

In the hothouse warmth and intimacy of the closed car, she was almost naked beside him under the sheepskin coat. And she was his wife, and her name was Jenny ... or was it Nancy?

In the suburban dawn, fleece-lined with the soft first snow of autumn, she drove him to the station, arriving with a few minutes to spare before train time. The heater was full on in the car and in the blood-warmth he kissed her, not hurrying. He said, “Goodbye, darling. Don’t forget to phone up for an appointment to have that clutch fixed. I felt it slipping when we were driving home from the Jensons’ party last night.”

“Bensons’,” she corrected him. “Their name is Benson and they’re our best friends. I’ll get the appointment for later in the week. I have to pick Kimmie up after ballet today, and I’m carpool mother for the co-op nursery tomorrow.”

“Just don’t let it go too long. I don’t want you and the kids riding around in a car with a dangerous mechanical defect. We should have traded the Rover in this fall, I suppose, gone to Jim Hastings at Overseas Motors and looked at the new ones he has on his floor.”

“The foreign car dealer’s name is Henry Salter, dear, and his place is called Salter’s Imports. Not that it matters.”

“No. Not any more.”

“You think then that today’s the day?”

“Bound to be. We’re winding down. Would you like me to phone you, though, when the time comes?”

“Better not. It only makes the adjustment—more difficult. Instead I’ll wish you luck now.”

“Thanks. I’ll need a lot of it to do as well as this time.”

“Thank you, ” she said, smiling at him.

He luxuriated for a moment in the benign radiation of that smile, then flicked a nervous glance at the car clock and reluctantly cracked the door. A thrust of bleak morning air split their tiny, private atmosphere and he quickly pulled the door to again, but without letting it click shut. He looked at her with a finedrawn intensity, as if to fix on the retina of his mind’s eye the shape of her oval face still slightly ablush with recent sleep, the sight of the almost-gold filaments of fine hair spilling out of her hasty french knot.