Chapter 136

“There’s no tragedy you can’t profit from.”
—Henry Mosquera, Space Fandango: Backstabber’s Blues

We all headed for Kokomo to watch Livy play basketball in the regionals. I mean a lot of people, not just my pod. Livy’s and Rachel’s parents, my parents, all the kids. Somehow, I ended up with Sophie in the front seat next to me and four kids taking the other options—Pey, Richard, Donnie, and Barb. Joyce and Lisa were a little miffed about not being able to ride with us but I couldn’t take all six and I at least wanted one girlfriend with me. We promised to switch things up on the way home.

Livy’s team took the first game, 68-39. They were so fired up they were ready to take on both the other teams right then. Of course, they had to play to find out who would be the challenger in the final game that night. We all went out to eat, laugh, and kid around before the final game in the evening. It was a closer contest, but we still managed to pull a 62-59 win out. The girls would head for semi-state next weekend.

It was an interesting combination that I took home. Lisa and Joyce sandwiched Richard between them in the back seat while Pey and Barb rode in the back with Donnie in Rachel’s Yaris. She got Nanette in front with her while I got Desi and Beca. Beca shoved Desi in the middle, graciously letting her sit next to me. It didn’t make much difference. I think I was the only one awake by the time we got back to Fort Wayne. We dropped the children at their respective homes and the rest of the pod headed for Donna’s. Rachel waited at the school for Livy and joined us when our lover got home with the team.

I’d been taking one of the upstairs bedrooms when we stayed over at Donna’s and just letting whoever wanted to join me. This time, though, Donna grabbed my hand and took me to her room where we had a night of slow easy loving.

We woke up to six inches of fresh snow. I was thankful none of us had to drive in it coming home from the game. There had only been a few flurries by the time we got home. I took Donna’s truck out and plowed the long driveway first thing. The snow was still coming down so I guessed I’d need to plow again before anyone left. Then again, if a snow day was declared for school tomorrow, maybe we’d all spend another night at the farm.

Before I finished, I shoveled the walk out to the parking area where we had our cars and cleared the area in front of the garage. Then I shoveled the snow that had blown under the roof onto the wrap-around deck. I was plenty cold by the time I got inside and was greeted with hot coffee and warm girls. We had a wonderfully cuddly morning, most of us doing the studying we hadn’t done Saturday.

Of course, Cindy and I had to do some practicing. We’d decided to Schubert’s Fantasy in F minor, D940. It’s written for piano four hands but Mr. LeBlanc ‘happened to have’ a copy he’d transcribed for guitar and flute. In return, we planned to do our next recording in his music room with a limited audience he would invite.

“So, where’d you sleep last night, Piper?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know!” she teased back. Then told me. “I slept with Beca. She’s so sweet! I always wondered what it would have been like to have a big sister instead of a big brother.”

“That’s cool. I think Beca likes being a big sister, too.”

“Are you nervous?”

“About Beca?”

“No. About the broadcast this afternoon. Will anyone even tune in on Sunday afternoon?”

“We can check to see how many have registered. I’m sure Beca’s been in touch with Joan this morning.”

“I’m worried no one will like it or they’ll think we’re too radical.”

“Let me ask you: Do you feel too radical? Is it an honest portrayal of your viewpoints? I don’t want to push my world view on you. It’s better to have your character out in the open right away, I think, than to gather a following and then spring it on them. Seems every music group I can think of who did that suffered for it.”

“I do think we took the right approach. I don’t want to be a political activist with my music but after what happened last month, the National Service scares me. Somehow, I thought I was going to go do two years of service and still be able to practice two or three hours a day and perform, like I would if I was in college. But it’s not like that, is it?”

“Well, it might still be possible. I don’t know what their deal is, but we’ve got that audition at the National School of the Arts this summer if we want it. It doesn’t really make a difference for me but if it can get you into a program there, it would be worth it,” I said.

“Why do you keep putting yourself down about your music? Do you really think I’d have chosen an inferior musician to be my partner in this? Your guitar is every bit as popular as my flute. We’re making a new sound and direction. That is what our broadcast today is as far as I’m concerned. I played four different flutes in this recording. Each one gave us a different sound for the composition.”

“That’s what I mean. I played one guitar and thumped on it a bit for rhythm.”

“We need to change that.”

“What?”

“We need to get you more guitars with unique sounds that you can switch to, like the lute guitar.”

“You want me to get that viola da gamba thing, too,” I laughed.

“Or a bowed guitar. It would double the range of things you can do,” she said.

“We’ll see,” I said. But it was an interesting idea. I really liked our music.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as performed by Marvel and Hopkins and Company had over two hundred viewers when we went live. It was great! I think. The half-hour discussion with the artists went nearly an hour before we finally had to cut it off. In the discussion, we introduced all the members of our pod and thanked Desi for her vocal contribution and Sophie for dancing and choreographing the whole thing. Of course, I mentioned John and the guys from my class who did the camera and sound but they weren’t with us.

“Is political satire going to be the future direction for Marvel and Hopkins?” one of our viewers asked.

“Not necessarily,” I said. “This piece came together after an extremely stressful time for all of us here. And, I suspect, for everyone in the country. It was timely and appropriate. Next time we are going to be back in a very intimate chamber setting to play Shubert’s Fantasy in F minor. We’ll have all the details on that up on our site soon. But we do like performing with costumes, dance, and storyline. There will be more of that whether it’s seen as political or not.”

“Are you opposed to the National Service?” another asked. I took a deep breath but Cindy jumped in before I could respond.

“I’m fifteen. National Service has been a thing since I was nine years old—not long after I started playing the flute. It’s not like I ever thought it was something we could change; it was just a part of life. I still have three years before I have to enter. But what I’ve discovered, partly through this past month and our creation of this piece, is that it is a huge obstacle between me and the fulfillment of my dream. Livy and Rachel turned eighteen this fall and we’ve all looked at their induction letters. We’ve been on the website and looked at what they can expect when they enter the service after graduation. There is a very specific list of things you can bring to basic training. Nowhere on that list is ‘musical instrument.’ I’ve been playing the flute three to five hours a day for six years. What’s going to happen to my playing when I can’t practice for eight weeks? Or sixteen weeks? What will happen to my fingers if I’m sent to weed asparagus ten hours a day for two years? Let me tell you, none of the kids working in those fields today are there because their NSAT showed a strong aptitude for playing in the dirt. I’m trying to get everything I can out of the next three years because I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to play again after that.”

“Are you members of the resistance who drove the president out of office last week?” someone asked.

“I’m seventeen and not eligible to vote,” I said in measured tones. “I think the president was driven out of office by a majority of the electorate who voted for his opponent. The constitution is very clear about his term ending when the new president is sworn in. I’m a little older than Cindy, but I’ve been really confused about how we seem to believe that what we individually want is what the constitution says. It’s like most people use the Bible. Decide what you believe and then look for a passage that supports it. For example, did you know the law for National Service, Title 53, doesn’t really cover how the Service works? It establishes certain bodies for setting up and managing the Service. The rules, regulations, and procedures are covered in a volume of over a thousand pages that is changing daily. And I guarantee you that even though those rules, regulations, and procedures have the power of law, there is no legislator who has read them. If you want to know if I’m part of the resistance, it has nothing to do with whether the president did or didn’t act within his authority according to the constitution. It has to do with whether I am about to be enslaved for two years without recourse to law or justice.”