Chapter 236

“It was early summer. And everything, as it always does, began to heave and change.”
—Helen Garner, Monkey Grip

“TUESDAY, WE’LL GO TO ALBANY for the interview with Sam Weston,” Cathy said. “He’s an auto mechanic and takes care of fleet maintenance for the City’s emergency vehicles.”

“Alone?” I asked. “That must be a huge job!”

“No, not alone. You’re right. It’s a huge job. But he’s doing exactly what he wanted to do in life. He had no idea where he’d be put when he started service but was matched up perfectly with this mechanic position.”

We were in the small bus headed for Lenox, Massachusetts on Sunday. Cindy, of course, was rehearsing and performing with the Boston Pops Thursday and Friday, but we’d piggy-backed recording two more television spots that week as well. So, Donna, Cathy, Lou, and Dave, our boom operator, were also along. Emily had decided to take on the driving duty personally this week. Desi was sitting in the front seat where she could talk to her as she drove. Rachel was tucked into a seat next to Dave and seemed to be getting along just fine.

“Sounds good,” I said, looking over the profile and script she’d given me.

“I talked to him and made sure he was together enough as a speaker for us to get a good interview. He asked for the script. We don’t have to stay tight with it, but he’ll be more comfortable if we don’t vary too much. Seemed like a really nice guy, though.”

“Hope we can get him with the hood up and his head in one of the vehicles,” Lou, the cameraman, said.

“We requested time in the shop. This was one of those instances where the service started offering workers to help local governments with high budget stress items. It’s working well,” Cathy said. “Then there’s the doctor on Friday in Boston.”

“Don’t ask for him to put the hood up on a patient,” Dave joked.

“How’d we get a full-fledged doctor in the service?” Cindy asked.

“He joined late. The service started recruiting and accepting volunteers almost two years ago. Dr. Cohen was in med school when the National Service started and was too old to be conscripted. When he finished his education, he was in debt by well over $170,000. He wanted to work in general practice with the poor and free clinics. But he couldn’t afford to. Just the maintenance on his student loans forced him to go to a major hospital.”

“Yikes. How is the service handling that?” Donna asked.

“They agreed to pay off his student loans if he would serve for eight years. Let me tell you, this guy is not driving a Porsche and playing golf every afternoon. We really had to work to get on his schedule,” Cathy said.

“From what I hear, our spots on the National Service Network are going over well and Joan says the hits on the webpage where you’re posting the stories are increasing daily,” I said. “How are we going to handle this when Cindy and I start touring full time again?” I was pretty confident now that I would be able to play well enough to accompany my partner, though there was a little question yet about when I’d be ready for the viola da gamba. Sawing the bow across the strings was a whole different arm motion than plucking the strings.

“That’s the question of the hour,” Rachel said. “We have a tentative tour schedule set up for you starting in mid-August. Jo is filling in the dates and Emily’s already been working on logistics. But no one wants you to stop doing the spots. We want to start getting them on commercial television as well as NSN. You’ve got a lot of image recognition and we want you to continue to be the face of it.”

“Please don’t have me running to a spot on one day and a concert on the next,” I said.

“Not a chance,” Donna scowled.

“Why not do them at the same time?” Cindy asked. I turned to look at my little Piper. Everyone else leaned in to catch what she said in her small voice.

“Tell us what you mean, baby,” Rachel coaxed. Cindy was blushing.

“Well, part of the tour agenda is to encourage people about joining the service. Jacob always does a little presentation in the middle of the program. Why doesn’t he do the interview in that slot? Tape it in front of a live audience and edit it down. Lou can go get location shots separate,” Cindy said.

“You know, that could work. The tour and the spots have the same basic purpose. Introducing the interview instead of a spiel in the slot would be logical.”

“Donna? Do you think that would create too much hassle backstage?” Cathy asked. She’d really come to respect Donna as a director/producer.

“I don’t see a problem with it if we can work Lou and Dave into the positions without any trouble. Certainly, no more chaotic than nominating a new candidate for public office was,” Donna laughed.

The Tanglewood calendar was full, so people rooms were scarce. Cathy got a room by herself and the guys shared one. The rest of us split in two rooms at a bed and breakfast about five miles from the grounds in Lenox. The rooms were large and the six of us had no difficulty getting comfortable. I was surprised when Cindy opted to room with Desi and Emily, leaving Donna, Rachel, and me in the other room. Then she made it clear that sleeping arrangements were fluid.

Monday and Tuesday were dark, so people were filtering in for the week’s performances for the next couple of days. The atmosphere was relaxed and Em and I went out for a light run on Monday morning. It’s so beautiful out in the Berkshires.

“Wednesday morning, we’re doing a full 10k,” Em informed me. “You’ve got to be ready for that half marathon on Labor Day.”

“Am I really going to be ready by then? Where is it?”

“Seattle.”

“I am not going to be close to placing there. Seattle has hills.”

“Not on this course. But don’t worry about placing. There’s only a limited chance you’d place if you were running at peak form before the incident. It’s the flattest half in the country and elite runners come from all over to try to set their best times. And it’s the Northwest Track and Field championships so elite runners from the six northwestern states will be competing for that title.”

“Okay. So, I should just relax and run a slow race. I’ve run others where the important thing was to finish.”

There wasn’t time for much of a run Tuesday morning as Emily, Donna, the camera crew, and I drove to Albany, New York to find the fleet maintenance unit that Sam Weston worked with. It was a good interview and Sam was a good guy.

“I had no direction when I got out of high school,” he said. “No idea what I should do. I liked working on my car, but everyone said that was a dead end and I should be going to college and becoming an engineer. I just let the service place me wherever they found a match. I couldn’t be happier.”

“What’s after this?” I asked.

“I re-upped for six more years. There’s a new job application and transfer app and I’ve requested reassignment to Florida. I think I’ve had enough cold weather.”

Cindy was working her butt off during the day and getting it petted by all of us at night. I was practicing the guitar and making great progress on the repertoire for Cindy’s and my return tour. She couldn’t work on that this week. She’d rehearsed with the orchestra twice and Wednesday led a master class. She was amazing.

I’d watched Remas lead a master class with the high school orchestra at Mad Anthony and one of the things I noticed was that Herr Richter and Mr. LeBlanc both sat at instruments and followed along as seriously as the students. Even though, I’m sure, they knew the material as well as Remas did. Musicians welcome the opportunity to review and practice. Cindy was the youngest person in the room when she led the two-hour class on phrasing.

“With woodwinds and brass, phrasing and breathing are interlinked. We have to have enough breath in our lungs to complete the phrase we are playing. But breathing can be just as important to strings. As you look at the music, read it and practice breathing with the phrases. Now let’s take it from measure sixteen and breathe as we play each phrase that has been marked in the score.” I think I made a leap forward during that lesson in my guitar playing.

I, of course, went on in the afternoon to practice my guitar as the orchestra did their final dress rehearsal for the performances Thursday and Friday evenings.

“Jacob,” Amanda said softly when I put my guitar aside to stretch.

“What is it, Amanda?” I asked.

“I have a news item that I believe will interest you.”

“Please tell me about it.”

“An FBI sting just arrested forty people on sex trafficking charges in California.”

“Jeez! That’s terrible. Forty? How do people get away with this kind of thing?”

“As you know, various charitable organizations receive federal grants to provide services to people in need, including the homeless, the hungry, the unemployed, the addicted, and the psychologically impaired,” Amanda said. “Caught with the sudden influx of National Service Corps Members in the fields who were in desperate need of these social services, the OCS contracted with a dozen different organizations—mostly churches or denominations—to provide immediate counseling and medical services for the workers. It has been a year and a half since that started, as you know. In that time, two hundred seventeen corps members coming in from the fields have been lost.”