Page 50 of The Reformatory

Her face brightened. “Yes! Mr. Crutcher is my brother. Do you know him?”

Redbone’s shoulders sagged with bad memories. “Yes’m.”

“Well, what’s your name?”

“August Montgomery.” Redbone’s given name sounded like a storybook character.

She turned to Robert. “And you?”

“Robert Stephens.” He figured if Mr. Crutcher knew and respected his papa’s name, his sister might too. And she did: something stirred behind her eyes.

“From the mill?”

“Yes’m.” He wanted to add, He didn’t do what people say, but a woman might take another woman’s side anyway. Even a white woman’s side.

“I see,” she said, lowering her chin to study him. “Do you boys play an instrument?”

“I can play that drum,” Redbone said, which Robert was almost sure was a lie.

“Yes, everyone loves the drums,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “And you, Robert?”

“Mama taught me the scales on Miss Anne’s piano. I know most of ’em.”

Now her eyes were afire. “Oh! Can you read music, then?”

Her excitement made Robert afraid to say the wrong thing. Was knowing the notes on the lines on sheet music were E-G-B-D-F and the spaces were F-A-C-E the same as reading? Knowing where the letters told his fingers to go? Mama had taught him that much.

“I can read it some,” Robert said.

“Well, unfortunately, there’s no piano in marching band…” When she spoke the word un-for-tu-nate-ly, it sounded so pleasant that it didn’t seem disappointing. “… but if you have a musical foundation, maybe I can help fill in the rest. Do any of these instruments on the cart look interesting to you?”

For the first time in hours, Robert sat up. His back screamed at him. If the aspirin he’d taken had helped at all, it wasn’t helping now. But the trumpet helped: it was tarnished and the wide bell had dents, but it called out to him from pictures he’d seen in Papa’s DownBeat jazz magazines. He’d always wanted to play one. Shyly, he pointed.

“You can’t play without a mouth,” she said. “Use it, please.”

“The… trumpet. Please.”

Mrs. Hamilton picked up the trumpet and gave it to him, keeping both hands on it firmly until Robert had taken it into his own, like passing a baby. Most of its weight was in the center, where the three columns were lined up for the keys. It was somehow both lighter and heavier than he expected. Robert felt perspiration dampen his fingertips. The three younger boys had gathered as his audience, envious and mesmerized.

Mrs. Hamilton pointed out the rounded narrow end. “This is the mouthpiece. Raise it up.”

While Robert raised the mouthpiece to his lips, Mrs. Hamilton gently arranged his right thumb and fingers; his thumb beneath the thin bar, three middle fingers resting lightly on the keys, pinkie hooked around the ring. With his left hand, he grasped the columns to support its weight. The trumpet seemed to fit in his hands just right.

“Now give it a try,” Mrs. Hamilton said.

Robert puffed his cheeks out like he’d seen in pictures of Dizzy Gillespie and blew. Silent air traveled through to the other end. No sound at all. The boys laughed. Even Redbone hid a smile behind his hand. Robert’s neck flared with embarrassment.

Mrs. Hamilton snapped her fingers for quiet, the loudest finger snap Robert had ever heard, a crack. The laughter stopped.

“Your lips go like this,” Mrs. Hamilton said, and pursed her lips to demonstrate. “But don’t press too tightly against the mouthpiece. And you don’t blow air from your cheeks; it’s from your belly. What’s called your diaphragm. Try again, please.”

Robert almost said he didn’t want to try again; she was sure to lose interest in him once he failed. But he pursed his lips the way she’d shown him, pressed the mouthpiece to his mouth, but not too hard, and took a breath from his belly. Then Robert blew. He was already pushing out as much air as he could from his stomach before he realized he’d forgotten to press down any of the keys. Yet…

The pure, high-pitched note was so loud that Robert almost dropped the trumpet. The note rang against the windows and ceiling and circled the room, unbroken and steady. It sounded to Robert like both a peal of laughter and the world’s saddest cry. Redbone grinned and slapped Robert’s knee. The three other boys cheered. Mrs. Hamilton’s eyes grew wide, and she was smiling too.

“Well, listen to that,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “That was a high C.”

Robert’s face was hot. “Yeah?”