Chapter 154

“The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.”
—Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book

THE REST OF OUR AFTERNOON was spent preparing for our evening taping at the Jefferson Memorial. We were thankful for Remas’s guidance through the intricacies of approaching the memorial with our bus, unloading, carting our instruments and equipment, and getting set up. Six helpers were onsite, dressed, like Remas, in National Service shirts and slacks with an orchestra emblem on the sleeve.

Donna was our official person in charge as producer and met with a National Park Ranger to show our permit. I’m still amazed that as part of the American public we were allowed to film our little dance and music expo in a memorial like this, and the permit cost $90. The ranger explained the permits were primarily to control the flow of activities so they didn’t have multiple groups trying to use the same space at the same time. And having our activity did not prevent other parts of the public from accessing the memorial. It’s open twenty-four/seven. Our shots were likely to include passersby who were just trying to get their own photos and read the many inscriptions.

We had a one-hour reservation at nine o’clock. The ranger went off duty at ten. At 8:45 we positioned my chair and the moms took charge of our instrument cases. We’d scouted the area on Saturday and knew exactly where our camera angles would be. Sophie took her position opposite the statue and people stopped to see what we were going to do. There was a little marquee stand that had the schedule of events and we had an audience of nearly a hundred by the time we struck the first note.

Laura kept her camera focused on Cindy and me most of the time. Leon was responsible for capturing the interpretive dance. But sometimes, Cindy moved away from me and joined Sophie. I was glad the two of them had worked out where the camera would be pointed when.

We weren’t really doing a public performance. That sounds strange, but our purpose was to film a ten-minute segment. We needed to do it three times in order to be sure we got everything we needed. So, there were no announcements to the public. When we were ready, we started filming and playing. Laura and Leon also had to capture some of the atmosphere around us, including the one sweeping shot that got the quote off the dome and brought the piece to a conclusion by focusing on the scroll Sophie carried.

It was an intense hour.

We finished, thanked the ranger, and took all our equipment to the bus as Emily pulled up in the turn-around; we then boarded. The helpers Remas recruited wished us well and took off. Remas got on the bus with us.

“It’s really been fun to have you here,” Remas said. “I know you got hit with a huge amount of information and you need to process everything, but I do hope you’ll be back to join us full time next year.”

“We really do need to talk it all out with our pod mates and families,” I said. Remas had made sure she was always next to me and I could see some amusement on the faces of Donna, Sophie, and Em. Cindy, of course, had only let go of my hand all weekend when she needed it to play her flute. She’d gotten a lot more comfortable with Remas and talking a bit, though with her typical soft voice, we all had to strain a little to hear her.

“It sounds exciting,” Cindy said. “So overwhelming.”

“You’re making such huge strides forward with your popularity. What I think is most important is that you are making classical music—and I use the term a little loosely—popular. You’re taking Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and turning them into pop tunes. What you need are some more good arrangements,” Remas said.

“Dr. Donahue made it clear that we needed to focus on that,” I agreed. “I only have the vaguest ideas regarding arranging.”

“Um ... I’m not a bad arranger myself,” Remas said. “Maybe I could contribute something. Like, I could arrange one of those Boccherini quintets and either replace a violin with flute or just add a flute to it. Sort of see if you like what I can do.”

“You’d do that?” Sophie asked.

“Well, yeah,” Remas said. “Maybe this winter I could come out to Indiana and you can reverse the audition process. I could audition for you and um ... your pod.”

I caught Donna’s eye and she was smirking. We’d just been propositioned.

We got an early start in the morning. I spent a good long time making sure Em knew how much I appreciated her Monday night. It seemed like she was always isolated in the front of the bus, having to go off and park it, or waiting with it. And I hadn’t spent nearly enough time feasting between her legs since she got her discharge. So, Tuesday morning early, I went with her to get the bus out of hock at the parking lot and then pull into the hotel pickup to load our family. We had coffee from the hotel but once Em got on the road she didn’t want to stop until we were well clear of the metroplex. She finally pulled in at a Cracker Barrel in Frederick and we all rushed to use the bathrooms before we stoked up on biscuits and sausage gravy.

“You know, we’d have to think about stops like this more carefully,” Donna said. “Remas might have dietary restrictions and we’d need to be aware of it if she was traveling with us.”

“Wait! Traveling with us?” I said. “She’s just offered to arrange some music.”

“And to come to Indiana to audition with the pod,” Em laughed. “She did a lot of digging into what our lives were like and probably got enough from all of us that she has a profile on everyone in the pod.”

“We really don’t know much about her, though,” Sophie said.

“You should be careful about adding more people to your pod anyway,” Mom advised. “What you have now has grown organically. You knew each other. You worked with each other. You played together. There was a lot of getting to know each other and getting comfortable together that happened before people were added to the pod.”

“I completely agree, Mom,” I said—perhaps too emphatically. I really couldn’t imagine adding another woman to our group. We needed to be focused on supporting each other. And right now, I was focused on thinking about Rachel and knowing she wouldn’t be home to meet me when we got back to Fort Wayne. I whispered a little prayer for her as she moved fully into her full first day of basic training this morning. I doubted she was getting biscuits and gravy for breakfast.

“We don’t even know what color her hair is,” Cindy said. “She could be bleach-blonde under her hijab. Or bald.”

“I’m not in favor of investigating right now,” I said. “We need to really figure out what it would mean for us to accept the school’s offer. And for you to start service a year early.”

“I’m not in favor,” Betty said. “No matter what they say about the National Service, I still think you need a high school diploma. Dropping out after your junior year is just not acceptable, Cynthia.”

“Mr. Stern said part of my service would include getting my diploma,” Cindy said.

“What kind of college would accept a GED instead of a real diploma?” Betty asked.

“What other college would I want to go to?” Cindy snapped back. “This isn’t an offer to go to high school, Mother. It’s early admission into a prestigious college of music.”

“I agree,” Donna said. “Mary and I looked over the academic material carefully. It’s true that the curriculum is more specialized than in a public school. It is a school of the arts. But they have programs that would even allow Jacob to continue progressing with creative writing while he studied music. All students have to complete what they called the ‘functional studies’ that include math, English, and social studies. They would probably get a better foundation than they do in public school anyway.”

“Leonard will throw a fit,” Betty sighed.

“We’ll give him the best year he’s ever had before we leave,” I laughed.

“That sounds like you’ve already made up your mind,” Mom said.

“Um ... I liked what I saw and I liked what they said. The real questions for me revolve around how to hold the pod together and whether we can conform to the service enough to become a deputation team. I mean, they seemed okay with the piece we just filmed last night, even though it is a little on the rebellious side,” I said. “How far would they let us go? For that matter, how rebellious do we want to be? Are we going to make our mark doing protest videos?”

“Your protest videos have been carefully targeted,” Em said. “When it comes down to it, I don’t have a lot to complain about from my service. It was lonely, but that was partly my fault. I loved driving my rig over the roads and singing along to your music. I’d like a break from it for a while when we get home, but having the National Service Occupation gave me a huge boost in terms of being able to drive across state lines. You have to be twenty-one for that if you haven’t had the NSO training. It’s the social aspects of the service that are bad, not the idea of the service.”

“So, we shouldn’t repeal 28?” Mom asked.

“It’s the laws based on the amendment governing how it’s implemented that are at fault,” Em said. “Not the amendment itself.”

“So far, I think Livy would agree with you. She’s doing basic down in Memphis. She says other than how hot it is, she’s doing exactly the kind of physical activity she wants. She runs five miles a day, has learned to shoot, has classroom training on how to get the most out of her NSO training, and spends time each day in various team competitions. She’s having fun,” I said. “I just wish I knew Rachel was doing okay, too. Not having contact for three weeks is just crap.”