In-Between
In-Between
We had settled down outside Waco that night. For the past week, we had mostly stayed on back roads, since Sprocket traveled slower than most any truck or car. His cruising speed was about thirty miles per hour. When I finished washing the dishes after dinner, Doc called me into Sprocket.
“How’s it going so far, worm?” he asked. He stood beside a curtain that opened onto a room across the hallway from his.
“Just fine, Mr. Miller, sir. I lo-o-o-ve my job.” As soon as I hired onto the crew, everybody forgot my name and started calling me ‘worm’. Razer had explained that it was an old custom; everybody new to the oilpatch got called that until they demonstrated that they’d learned the basics. Fortunately, the old custom didn’t demand that I had to pretend to like it. Matter of fact, being disrespectful seemed to work better than any other response.
“Well, good,” he said. “You seem to have mastered the important stuff quick. So I got some more for you to do now.”
I groaned. The important stuff he was talking about was washing or cleaning or painting or scouring anything that didn’t move out of the way quick enough. I had put in fourteen-hour days since we left the farm, repairing steel hose, greasing bearings, cleaning Sprocket inside and outside, cooking dinner, cleaning up afterwards, and on and on.
It wasn’t farming, and wasn’t nearly so hard as farming, so I enjoyed every second of it. Of course, I didn’t let anybody on the crew know that.
I figured he had some more stuff for me to clean or fix.
“Hey, Sprocket, how about lightening up in there?” he called.
The warts inside the room began to glow softly, then brightened further.
“Today, we start the most important part of your schooling, boy.” We stepped inside. I looked around the room. I only recognized about a third of the instruments. “You got a passable sense of rhythm,” Doc continued, “but we need to get you up to speed on a real instrument.”
The walls were covered with hanging tubas and oboes and trumpets and saxophones in three sizes. Black leather cases containing god-knows-what cluttered the floor. He pulled open the top drawer of a file cabinet bolted to the wall and displayed hundreds of music scores; then he opened other drawers that were full of books and further small instruments made of wood and brass.
“You got any preferences?”
I looked around the room, almost breathless. “Uh, not really. I always kinda wanted to play the fiddle.”
“Huh. Afraid the violin is hard as hell to play well. Best to start on it while you’re less than four feet tall. I’d prefer we find something that you can sound decent on fairly quick. Besides, Razer already plays fiddle for us.” He pulled a saxophone from the wall. “How about this? Tenor sax.”
I took it gingerly and handled it for a second, looking it over. I blew into the mouthpiece. It made a sound like a horse throwing up.
“Well, maybe,” I said.
I shuffled aside, fingering the keys on it. My foot bumped into a case leaning against the wall and knocked it over. The top sprang open when it hit.
It revealed my instrument.
Fifteen minutes later we left the darkened room behind us. Doc carried the books and music folios he had pulled from the file case. I held my case by the handle. I had clipped to my belt the tiny battery-driven amplifier. The curving word ‘Pignose’ was impressed in tin along its top, with a tiny metal snout poking out above the speaker grill.
In my room, we dumped all the goodies on the bed, and I popped the case open again. Under the neck of the cherry-red instrument were extra sets of strings, a couple of cords for hooking up to the Pignose, and a flat box holding a couple of dozen picks.
I picked it up, and somehow it felt immediately comfortable in my hands. I slipped the strap over my head and settled it across my chest. I smiled. I caressed the headstock, which was inlaid with the word ‘Epiphone.’
Doc shook his head mournfully. “Just what the oilpatch needs. Another hillbilly guitar player.”
I barely heard him. I was in love.