Chapter 197

“There’s a pressure at all hours of the day only a poem can assuage.”
—Kristen Henderson, Drum Machine

FOR THE PAST TWO MONTHS, we’d been loading our instruments in the back of my truck and letting Em drive us to a high school or auditorium somewhere in Northern Indiana where we’d jump out, take fifteen minutes to set up and check the acoustics where we were performing, and then play for 200-500 people. Then we’d carry our instruments back to the truck and let Em drive us home. We got a shock when we rolled into Chicago and Em deftly maneuvered our bus and trailer into the loading dock at the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. How the heck she ever got us into that space was a mystery to me.

Donna and Jo met us as soon as the door opened. We’d been relaxed getting there since our performance wasn’t until eight. We stepped out of the motorhome (dressed) at just after two o’clock.

“Finally,” Jo said. I was ready to slap her down with her first words, but I suppose she was feeling jitters. For us, it was just another performance. For her it was the start of the first tour she’d set up.

“You’ll be able to leave the bus here until we break down this evening,” Donna told Emily. “We have to be out by midnight. How are you holding up?”

“Oh, fine,” Em said. “This behemoth has a few quirks of its own, but it handles well. And it’s shorter than the rigs I was driving in service. It’s really no longer than a school bus.”

“I know you want to see Cindy and Jacob perform, but it’s two and a half hours from here to Champaign-Urbana. We’ve got a nice space there for the bus and it’s less congested than here. You might want to get a long nap this afternoon since you’ll be driving our precious cargo in the middle of the night.”

“I don’t suppose you’d be able to nap with me, would you?” Em asked as she gave our wife a quick smooch.

“Who knows? I think we have a little overkill here as far as setup goes. Jo is nervous but wait until you see what is inside. We have an entire crew of National Service corps members here to set things up and guard the bus.”

“Can we see the space?” I asked. Cindy caught hold of my arm and we followed Jo inside. Donna directed half a dozen people in identifiable staff shirts to the trailer and Emily supervised unloading our equipment.

Inside ... Well, I didn’t think we were going to be performing in that many huge venues on this tour. The Harris seats about 1,500. The stage is forty-five feet wide. Balconies wrap around the orchestra seating, right up to the edge of the stage. They had a bandshell set up center stage. Cindy and I would be staying in front of the shell and not wandering across the whole width of the stage. The acoustics were phenomenal. Jo pointed out that you could hear a pin drop on stage from the farthest balcony.

“Jo, is this the size venue we’re going to be in on the whole loop? I thought the spaces were going to be more intimate,” I said.

“Most of the spaces are smaller than this one,” she said. “Big cities have big spaces. You’ll see more like this in St. Louis, Memphis, and Atlanta. But this is your kickoff for the tour. Simon has been all over promoting and getting some high-profile people in for tonight.” They might have mentioned that earlier. But I figured that was going to be the way of the tour. Probably the way of our entire two years in service. What Cindy and I had to focus on was performing. We’d performed at the White House for the President. It didn’t make much difference who was in this audience or how big the space was.

Our equipment was all moved onto stage in one go. The ‘staff’ were careful with our instruments, but I was still glad my guitars and viol were packed in hard cases.

Donna followed the crew onto the stage and directed where each piece was to be placed. We were doing different sets with different props. Over a year ago, we’d had real success with our tango series played at a small café table and danced as we played. Sophie had worked with us on our dancing and playing at the same time. We also had our cowboy hats that we’d don during our Morricone set. I guess we were happy to just sit in one place and play straight through a classical piece, but most of our touring set included some amount of staging and playing off each other. We even had a quick costume change when we did the Buenos Aires set. Between sets, I had some carefully prepared comments that I would deliver as Cindy changed clothes.

We prepared our concert so that it could be performed under flat lights. In other words, bring up the stage lights, play the music, take down the lights, and leave. But a venue like this had about a million different lights and by the time Cindy and I had unpacked our instruments to do a run-through in the space, Donna was in the light booth with a technician experimenting with different lighting. As we played through our set, we were periodically interrupted by her melodious voice asking us to please repeat a move or entrance so they could tie down the cue.

By five o’clock, everyone was satisfied that we had the program down. Cindy and I were led to a dressing room where Beca and Joan were waiting with our costumes. Donna and Emily joined us soon thereafter.

“Don’t we have to keep someone with the motorhome?” I asked when I saw Emily. I’d been concerned about her out there alone and intended to go out as soon as I’d seen the dressing room.

“National Service Security is guarding the bus,” Em laughed. “I mean literally, like no rent-a-cop ever hoped to. There are two guys at the door to the coach and two more standing at the doors of the trailer. Who knew the National Service had a Security NSO? I’m going back out to sleep after we have dinner and I couldn’t feel safer.”

“I’m still going to accompany you out to the bus and wait there until I see you safely locked inside,” I said. “We should never go around alone, at least in big venues like this. Not that I’m paranoid or anything.”

“No, you’re right,” Em said. “I don’t think we need to worry with NS Security hanging around, but I’d feel better if a couple people accompanied me to the bus and tucked me in before the show. I’ll just stay there until you let me know the equipment is ready to be loaded afterward.”

Dinner was delivered to the dressing room for the six of us. It was impressive. I expected Subway sandwiches or a pizza to be delivered. Instead, a chef with National Service insignia rolled a cart into the dressing room and served each of us perfect portions of salad, chicken Kiev with rice, and chocolate brownies for dessert. It was an excellent meal, and not too heavy for us before a performance.

After Beca and I escorted Em back to the bus, we returned to the dressing room to begin getting ready for the evening’s concert. Cindy and I were beginning the evening in a classic mode. She’d wear one of those long skintight black dresses she wore for orchestra concerts. I was wearing the soft black suit and black shirt I’d acquired to complement her. Beca and Joan fussed over her makeup.

Donna had to dress as well. She was still doing our introduction and welcoming the audience. It wasn’t part of the official program, but Beca and Joan were recording the concert and would upload it to our patrons. There were little platforms on either side of the stage beneath the balcony where they could film without being noticed. They both dressed in black jeans and shirts. I looked at my wives and thought they all looked extraordinarily cute.

Jo came to our door to announce that it was time to move to our places and we went out to face our first Grand Loop audience.

After Donna introduced us, we entered to applause and picked up our instruments. I was playing the viola da gamba for the first piece, Franz Schubert’s Sonata for Arpeggione, D821. An arpeggione is a six-stringed instrument that is fretted and tuned like a guitar, but is bowed. It wasn’t difficult for us to transpose the music from arpeggione and piano to viol and flute and it gave us an opportunity to start with a genuinely classical piece that still held some novelty for the audience. The three movements took us twenty minutes to perform. We bowed and Cindy left the stage to change into a more daring purple dress before the next piece while I spoke to the audience.

“Thank you for joining us on the first stop of our Grand Loop tour. Being Hoosiers, we’ve always looked to Chicago as being the big city and want to thank you for your gracious hospitality. Cindy and I have been performing together for about three years. Through the miracles of social media and my big mouth, we gained some notoriety for our criticisms of the National Service. Now, at the request of the President, we are out here promoting the service and the things we always believed in, like service reform.

“I’m not going to belabor the point, but we hope you will carefully consider the measure that has been proposed in congress to reform the National Service. This measure would remove the service entirely from military oversight and place it in the hands of civilians, where a civilian service corps should be. It’s a pretty simple decision when it comes down to it. Civilians under civilian management or civilians under military rule. We encourage you to vote this fall only for candidates in favor of service reform.

“Now, let’s get back to music as my lovely partner takes the lead in JS Bach’s Flute Sonata in E major, BWV 1035.”

Cindy reentered in her stunning purple dress with bare shoulders and arms to a fabulous round of applause. It was the first I really noticed that the auditorium seemed to be about full to capacity. Well, good. Cindy deserved this showing. She was beautiful and her music was inspiring. When we finished that piece of about thirteen minutes, I slipped backstage to change into a purple shirt that matched her dress while Cindy addressed the audience. I listened carefully. We’d rehearsed this piece over and over but I knew it still made her nervous to speak in public. Donna passed me with a microphone so she could be heard.