Trombones Can Laugh

by Lorraine Ray

  “Oh my,” said Moses. “Here it comes!”

  “This is most distressing,” said Gluey, the only Shriner who seemed upset by the fighting.

  “Look over there,” I cried. I’d seen a bigger battle in the center of the street which raged like a barroom brawl. Fists were flying wildly. The Bastards seemed to have the upper hand, with the exception of Mr. Thompson who was as mean as his personality in battle.

  “Gee, this is incredible,” said Moses, enjoying the fierce fighting which raged all around us. By now we’d all stopped playing music. Our eyes traveled over the scene.

  A Mountain Man was yanking the beard of a Bastard soundly and whisked away the kerchief from his head. Another Bastard crept up to the original Mountain Man and grabbed a buckskin pouch in both hands. He pulled the pouch in a downward motion. Very soundly. There was a horrid ripping sound when the pouch came free and it was tossed toward a town garbage can.

  “Ouww! Get off,” the disrespected Mountain Man tried to clobber the Bastard with his rifle. “I’ve never been attacked like this. Police!”

  After this success, the Bastard lurched off the curb, stepped down to the street, and fell upon the next Mountain Man he saw, seizing his wide sideburns and smacking his hat so quickly that it sailed off his amazed head.

  “Glor...,” he didn’t get another peep out, for the Bastard grabbed his beard and tugged.

  “Ahhhh!” screamed the man.

  “No, not you. I want him,” roared this Bastard, intent on grabbing Mr. Thompson. The snide leader of the Mountain Men was battling several vicious Bastards simultaneously. Somehow the donkey had gotten in between them. It was biting Mr. Thompson’s arm.

  Another old coot of a Mountain Man stumbled up the wooden steps to the boardwalk, but not before one of the I.O.O.B. with long fingers snatched at his layers and layers of long dangling suede fringe on his arms. “Mister, you’re plumb crazy!” shouted the Mountain Man.

  “Convenient stuff,” the Bastard shouted back, reeling the puzzled man in.

  “Hey, hey, how’s he? Pulling me? Stop that, sir, you're ruining my costu—ack!”

  A wheezy man, watching the whole thing, doubled over laughing and got kicked in the shins.

  The crowd screamed even louder and began running, and the people who weren’t screaming clung to posts along the covered sidewalk and gawked at the scene. One of the Bastards had his grubby hands around the fringe of a Mountain Man and was tearing fringe away right and left. On the Bastard’s face there was a peculiar faraway look, totally disregarding the helpless man in her hands, though not releasing him.

  “Here come the police cars,” said Moses when we heard two sirens.

  The squad cars pulled up on a side street and four officers scrambled out.

  About the time the police arrived, Mr. Thompson could be seen pinching the material of a Bastard's grimy yellow bandana. He succeeded in yanking it off the Bastard’s head, and tossed it to the screeching crowd. With the Bastard squealing like a stuck pig, Mr. Thomson reached his scrawny fingers onto the Bastard’s head and mussed his hair violently.

  “Get these wild men out of here,” a lady screamed at the police.

  A spry gentleman, scampered away from the battle. “You won’t get your evil claws on me, you friend of the devil, you fiendish hell hag!” He was yelling at a Bastard.

  ‘Not so fast!’ shouted a big Bastard. “Let me see about you!”

  Before the escapee could protest, the big Bastard had his knobby hand intertwined in the long, scraggly, grizzly gray beard. He worked his skinny fingers around the gray hair, tightening his grip and then with a tremendous tug yanked down soundly. The crowd shrieked when the old gent’s eyes bugged and his tongue popped out.

  When his beard proved real, the big Bastard instantly lost interest in him and shot his bony leg out and tripped another escaping mass of rawhide. The Bastard snatched the wolf head off the escaping man and brandishing the floppy furry pelt swiped around in the air, feeling for another victim who might be trying to escape him. He held back another escapee with the iron grip of an arm and said, “Oh, where do you think you’re going?”

  Then groping his way through the crowd of old coots he ripped and tore at their hair and beards probing for weakness among this strange shredded variety of human kind.

  “You leave us alone!” shouted a skinny man who looked like a package of old meat that had fallen out of a freezer.

  The donkey stopped in place when the old man said this and it looked around rather sleepily.

  A large police officer stepped off the boardwalk directly in front of Mr. Thompson. At that point in the fight Mr. Thompson seemed to be a major perpetrator of the battle as he had several Bastards in his grip and was thrashing them.

  “Break it up,” shouted the officer to Mr. Thompson, “I am now placing you under arrest for disorderly conduct. I am requesting that you step out of the street. You’re obstructing the progress of the parade.”

  “Police!” shrieked Mr. Thompson when he realized the three Bastards now had hold of him.

  Somehow, and shit, it was weird to watch, Mr. Thompson shook himself free of the Bastards, but his mistake was to fall upon the policeman, touching his person, something which even I knew you never did with an officer.

  “I have to advise you that you are touching an officer of the law...” said the policeman calmly.

  “I have a job for you, officer. I want you to get this damn biting donkey out of my way.”

  “Sir, I am advising you—”

  “Get—!”

  This police man didn’t wait for Mr. Thompson to finish. Instead he escorted him, actually yanked him, up a side street to one of the waiting patrol cars where he intended to complete the formalities necessary to take Mr. Thompson into custody. Mr. Thompson’s authentic moccasins slipped and lurched on the wooden plank sidewalks of the old mining town. He cursed wildly at the idea of being arrested, something that was well overdue for all of them.

  “The street is clear. Now get this float going, now!” yelled another policeman at our driver. “Get out of here. You’re holding up the whole parade!”

  Policemen were breaking up fights all around us.

  “Okay, sir!” said our driver nervously.

  We braced ourselves as best we could and the driver accelerated.

  As we pulled away, I noticed the scattered Mountain Men and Bastards standing about in disarray. The decimated ranks of both groups stood motionless in the street, the look on the face of the driver of our float was one of sheer terror as he drove right through the confused fighters, narrowly missing many of the Gabby Hayes look-a-likes who sprang away with surprising swiftness. Some of them ripped their pants in the process, or dropped their coonskin caps as they scampered in lively fashions to safety at the side of the street. It was as though the movie set of a western had exploded with silly characters.

  I joined in on the Souza march we were playing, but I managed to see one last funny scene.

  It was unmistakable. The figure of Mr. Thompson scuffled away in the direction our float was going. He’d escaped arrest, but a policeman was giving chase!

  Outside the Ye Olde Times Rock Candy and Novelty Gift Boutique, Mr. Thompson panicked. When he saw the enormous plaster ice cream cone with a pink painted ball of ice cream and a brown waffle cone, he managed to scurry behind it, and he wedged himself in the space between the cone and the wall of the ice cream store. Who knows what he was thinking.

  The officer tried to pull him forward and he slithered backward. The officer went to the back and he stepped forward.

  In his last attempt to resist arrest, Mr. Thompson was like a scorpion that runs into a tight spot in the baseboards where you can’t squish it easily. There it clings, tightly squashing itself into a crevice, hoping you will be unable to see it or reach it or will become distracted or bored. But inevitably most scorpions that do this get squished and just as inevitably a big policeman yanked Mr. Thompson from behind the mass
ive pink concrete ice cream cone, and dragged him up the street while calling urgently on his radio for backup. While he was dragged away, Mr. Thompson cursed and struggled uselessly against the officer’s strong grip.

  “Unhand me!” Mr. Thompson ordered.

  “This way, sir,” said the policeman.

  But this was probably not the finale of the fight. We only saw what happened in front of us. As our float pulled away, we all strained to see more of the fight which had managed to move up a side street and involved left-over members of the two groups who were still going at each other.

  I played the music blindly. I was so amused I could barely see the notes, but I knew the notes by heart by then. Moses and I laughed so hard our brains and our mouths felt broken.

  Our float carried us back to the staging center where we drove in quietly. Most of the crowd had run down the street to see the big battle, and actually a lot of the people in the parade had done the same thing. Only a few stragglers drifted back to the Tough Cuss town center.

  I glanced wistfully at the gift shop near the post office, thinking of the gang of pretty girls who’d been there.

  Then I was stunned! They were there again! They’d gathered outside the shop window.

  The float stopped and I packed my trombone faster than ever. The shuffling old Shriners were filtering politely down the risers to a single set of portable steps. I wasn’t going to wait my turn that day!

  “Hey! Where are you going?” Moses asked, but I ignored him.

  I jumped off the side of the float, ran across the street and jammed the trombone in the luggage compartment of the bus. I took off in the direction of the Tough Cuss Gift Shoppe.

  The shop lady was serving three people in front of me so it took forever for her to get to me. I was terrified that the bus would go without me!

  “How much for a pair of those turquoise earrings?” I asked frantically when I reached the counter.

  “Which earrings?” asked the saleslady, coldly.

  “Doesn’t matter. Any one of them will do.”

  “Well, these—”

  “Yes! I’ll take them! Please! Hurry!”

  “Ten dollars,” she said suspiciously, lifting the pair off the display.

  I pulled out my wallet and paid her.

  The saleslady crouched down to find a gift box.

  “No need! I’ll take them.” I grabbed them off the counter and ran outside. I walked up to the group of girls. Think of the walk of a total blind jerk, but a brave jerk, wearing a red felt fez. I thrust the pair of earrings into the hands of the prettiest girl. Was she ever shocked!

  “For you! You’re beautiful!” I said, fleeing madly.

  Before she could thank me, I was halfway back to the Shriner bus. I was the last to board, thumping up the bus steps, two at a time. The driver pulled a lever and shut the door behind me. “Glad you could join us,” he said sarcastically.

  I fought my way to our usual seat at the back. The Shriners were clinking plastic cups in the aisle, toasting the giant battle they had seen, and shouting to one another in complete and utter happiness. I had my back thumped and my shoulder squeezed several times.

  “Do you know James, the attack of the I.O.O.B. on the Mountain Men was a spectacle which I shall never forget as long as I live. I’m only happy that I have lived long enough to see it,” Moses said, when I plopped breathlessly in the bus seat beside him. “And where have you been, my little lost one?’

  “Who’s the mother hen now, huh? I had an important errand. I won’t forget that battle either,” I agreed, changing the subject.

  “Oh, but it was wonderful, James. It was perfect, but I guess I shouldn’t say that. No one should enjoy egregious violence.”

  “I don’t even know what that means, but, come on, let’s enjoy it,” I said shamelessly.

  “Okay, let’s,” agreed Moses, taking a big swig of what seemed to be a Black Russian.

  “It was really boss. Do you think they’ll all get arrested?”

  “Maybe. And it couldn’t have happened to a better group of jerks. Do you know, to me it was reminiscent of a fresco of Dante’s Inferno I once saw,” Moses continued. “Except there was a large black monster eating a naked man and giving birth to another in the fresco. Other than that, it was real similar.”

  “Really? That sounds interesting. Giving birth? I’ll have to take your word for it. I don’t even know what a fresco is.”

  “Look that up for yourself then. In an art history book. I don’t know who did the one I’m thinking of, but look for the black devil. You’ll get a redo of what you just saw. Amazing. You’ll see why I compare it to this day.”

  Moses was full of these references to classy stuff. It made talking to him very interesting and educational, if not also a little confusing at times. It was hard to believe someone so fun-loving was also so knowledgeable about art and music. Greeks, Romans, Italians. On the long drive home, what Moses told me about that fresco of Dante's Inferno proves there was about the same amount of weird shit, whipping and clubbing and cuffing and slapping, in the picture as what we witnessed that day. Knowing Moses Grand was like having a private tutor or something.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I’d been offered drinks on the Shriner bus before, but it wasn’t until the Quibovari parade, a year after I had started playing with the Shriner band—and a gas of year that was—that I broke down and drank several scotch and sodas.

  What made me take to drink when I had refused to before? Well, I’ll tell you. I found out something terrible, something scary and awful.

  It happened like this: Moses met me on the bus that Saturday and right away I noticed that he seemed to have something important on his mind. After I got him his first drink, a scotch and soda, he came out with it.

  “Do you remember when we were at that bullring? And that clown bothered you?”

  “Yeah, sure, how could I forget? That was one of the scariest things that’s ever happened to me.”

  “Well, they just arrested a man in clown costume. He had stabbed a boy, a fifteen year old, at a circus in Mexico. I recognized him as the man who was talking to you.”

  “What!”

  “He wasn’t a real clown. Like I told you that day. I knew that he wasn’t. One of ours, I mean. I thought he might have come from the local Shriners.”

  “Oh shit!”

  “Oh shit is right, James. You could have been his intended victim that day. It was awful quiet in that passageway before I showed up.”

  “Are you okay?” Moses asked when he saw that I was staring into space and I didn’t answer him.

  “Not really,” I replied.

  “What you need is a stiff drink,” Moses suggested.

  For the first time, I agreed. I felt I ought to be blotto, as they say. I felt the world owed me a drink. The whole thing had me shaken to my core. I’d almost been murdered! And for once I wanted to get sloshed with my friend Moses. The idea that I had nearly been killed by that clown freaked me out, man. It was an awful feeling. If he had stabbed someone else, there was nothing to say he wouldn’t have stabbed me. I might have been only moments away from death at the hands of that horrible clown. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he must have been inside the bathroom and I’d only missed him by moving so fast to get out of what I sensed was an unsafe place. I peed in the hallway, something I had not done since I was little, which would have horrified my parents, but if I’d gone into that bathroom I’d have been killed.

  It called for a stiff drink, or two. I didn’t care what. I just wanted to be completely drunk when the shock of what happened truly hit. I was only halfway admitting to myself that the creepy aggressive clown I’d talked to was probably the same one that murdered the boy. It was a frightening thing for me to think about.

  Moses didn’t force me to drink, but he didn’t stop me either. When I went to get Moses another drink and the bartender offered me one, as always, I went ahead and took it. Several
of the old musicians came by and slapped me on the shoulder as they could see me getting one for myself. They always wanted to create another drunk. I stumbled up the aisle, back to the seats I shared with Moses feeling rather elated at what I had done. I’d finally done something seriously bad.

  I figured if I had this one drink I would be mostly sober by the time we rode in the parade and completely sober by the time we got back into town. After all, I’d taken a whole can of beer once from the refrigerator at home and it hadn’t done much to my ability to function. This was a mistake. I misunderstood the effect different kinds of alcohol have. I’d never heard that different liquors had different amounts of alcohol.

  Unfortunately, the first drink didn’t affect me as much as I’d counted on. I thought if I was going to get hit by scotch I’d know it right away. Well, shit, maybe the barkeeper watered mine down for the first one. I didn’t keep my eye on him and over the past year, I’d asked for watered down ones for Moses. The result was I wanted a second right away, before the full amount of the liquor had reached me. I walked back and asked for another, and the bar keeper was perfectly happy to oblige.

  An unusual float in the Quibovari parade that day was called the Patriot-mobile. I’d never seen it before. When we were parking near our float that day, Moses told me it was built upon a large old truck chassis and had been decorated with wood and saguaro ribs lashed to it with crisscrossed wire and cord. It had a series of flag holders along its sides which were used to hold American and Arizona flags mounted in an alternating pattern. This rolling monstrosity had appeared in many Southern Arizona parades and was always sure to create little or no interest in the public. What people asked frequently upon seeing the Patriot-mobile was “What’s that dumb thing supposed to be?”

  I overheard the Shriners discussing the Patriot-mobile.

  “Are the men in the back of the float freaks?” asked Milton II sarcastically.

  “Who let that horrid pile of crap into the parade?” asked the ancient foul-mouthed flute player who sat several rows in front of me.

  “It’s been in Quibovari Days every year since I’ve been playing for the Shriners. That’s been fifteen years. They built it on a 1931 Ford, I think,” someone piped up.