Desert Discord Read online

  “You guys are insane!” said Saskia. “Somebody’s gonna get killed. If he wants more money, just give him money.”

  “Little girl, you need to learn some things about life,” said Douglas. “Let the men handle this. Now, go sit in the living room and do what I told you. When he gets here, let him in and be all friendly. I’ll do the talking.”

  “Idiots,” Saskia muttered, but she went to the living room. Andy returned to his room and tried to work on “Air Mail Special,” but he couldn’t focus. What should he do if the bullets flew? Get under the bed? He went back to scales for a little bit, to try and clear his mind and get back in practice mode.

  Fifteen minutes went by, and he heard Douglas in the other room.

  “Where is De Ghetto? Wasn’t he right behind you?”

  “Of course not,” said Saskia.

  “Then how did you know he’s coming out?”

  “Because his daughter Angela called me. She said her dad was all pissed off and was going to go out to see Doug at the farm.”

  “That’s it?” said Douglas. “That’s all you know? So, when is he coming?”

  “How should I know?” said Saskia.

  “Ah, Jesus!” said Douglas. He returned to the greenhouse, and the kitchen screen door slammed behind him.

  Andy sighed and fished through his music bag. He selected “One O’Clock Jump.” He glanced at the desk clock. Five minutes after one. How appropriate, he thought, and started playing.

  He was on the second page when the phone went off. Andy stopped playing and gritted his teeth. The phone rang a second and third time at fire-alarm levels before Reed picked it up.

  “Hello? … Yeah … yeah, he’s right here. Andy!”

  Well, that was a twist. The phone was never for Andy. He put the violin and bow on the bed, went into the kitchen, and picked up the receiver, which Reed had left dangling by its cord.

  “Hello?”

  “Andy, hi, this is Florence … at the Symphony.”

  “Hi,” said Andy. Florence was first-chair viola and a member of the Symphony Board. He knew who she was, but they had never spoken directly.

  “Andy, Dr. Dietz asked me to call you. We’re wondering if you can come to rehearsal early tonight. About six thirty.”

  “Uh, sure,” said Andy. “Why?”

  “He wants to meet with you and discuss something. It shouldn’t take very long.”

  “He wants to talk to me? About what?”

  “It’s just something that he wants to talk about face-to-face. It’s not a huge issue.”

  “Well, okay,” said Andy. “You don’t want to give me a hint?”

  “I’m sorry, Andy,” said Florence. “Dr. Dietz just needs to talk to you. It’s kind of important.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there.” Andy hung up. “Oh, man,” he said.

  When he walked back through the living room, Saskia looked concerned. “Is everything all right, Andy?”

  “I don’t know,” said Andy. “The conductor wants to talk. I’m guessing they want to kick me out. I suspected that might be in the wind. They’ve been acting weird around me lately.”

  “Kick you out of the symphony? That’s ridiculous! Why?”

  “SOS,” sighed Andy. “Same old shit.” He returned to his room and closed the door.

  Reed came into the living room. “Andy’s getting kicked out of his orchestra?” he said. “Why? Just for being a fruit?”

  “Oh, shut up, Reed!” said Saskia. “That’s fucking mean! We don’t know what’s going on.”

  “I’m not saying anything,” said Reed. “Andy’s an okay guy. I’m on his side. Hell, half those orchestra guys are homos. It’s not fucking fair.”

  The second-violin part to “One O’Clock Jump” came through the closed door, rather slow and mournful for a Goodman tune.

  – 2 –

  Apollo Needs Correction

  The day Professor Apollo Piedman turned fifty, he needed glasses. Not when he was around fifty, or approaching his fifties, but on his actual fiftieth birthday.

  There had been signs leading up to the fateful day. He’d been having trouble driving at night. Street signs were harder to read, and headlight glare was blinding. Apollo had been blessed with superb vision his whole life. In the navy after World War II, Apollo had served as an observer in search aircraft, ranging far out over the ocean, scanning the sea and waves, able to spot tiny differences that indicated a small life raft or capsized boat, or men wearing flotation gear huddled together to keep warm. He had received several medals for distinguished service in sea rescue.

  Driving to Duro Community College on Tuesday morning, still belching from the huevos rancheros breakfast his two older daughters had cooked for his birthday, Apollo suddenly could not see worth shit, as if a fog had come down in front of his face. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. It was like somebody had bumped a projector, and now it was all out of focus. Everything looked blurry. He pulled over into the SellRite Used Cars parking lot and fished around in the glove compartment because he thought there might be a bottle of Visine. There wasn’t. He decided just to rest his eyes.

  After sitting still with closed eyes for five minutes, and at one point having to tell the SellRite salesman who knocked on the car window that no, he wasn’t looking to make a great trade today, Apollo drove on to the college.

  Inside his office, he felt a little better. He picked up a scholarly book he had been reading called Neoplasticism and the De Stijl Movement and discovered he could read even the small type without much effort. Maybe he was okay. Perhaps his blood sugar was a little out of whack from an uncharacteristically hearty breakfast, and it was affecting his eyes. But when he looked across the room at the large wall clock, he couldn’t quite make out the time. Well, nothing to do about it now. Nearsighted or not, he had to teach in less than an hour.

  Apollo had always loved being an artist. It was art as an academic subject that didn’t sit well with him. He didn’t particularly enjoy teaching—art history, the movements, the various schools of thought. Especially to these two-year college students who were looking for a piddly subject they could sleep through on their way to an associate’s degree in business, or until they transferred to a real college out of town. In his first year at Duro CC, Apollo had made Art History 301 a darn brutal course. He threw a lot of information and reading material at his students and tested them thoroughly, pushing them hard to master the subject. He reduced more than one scholar to tears in his office, begging for more time on a paper or for a more merciful grade.

  After one semester, Apollo was taken to lunch by the department chairman and told gently that he needed to dial it back. His introductory course had the highest dropout rate at DCC, and this was community college, not the Sorbonne. Please just teach these small-town kids some art on their way to being real estate agents, office managers, or secretaries.

  So, Apollo taught his piddly courses and tried not to resent them. What had always gotten his juices flowing was the craft and creation of art itself. The canvas, the oils and the acrylics, the clay and the bronze, the welding and brazing. A few of his students were talented enough and excited enough that he looked forward to guiding them and being a mentor. Not many, maybe one or two a year, but it got him out of bed every morning.

  He made it through the morning Art History class all right, though it was a struggle. He could read his notes, and the example slides on the screen were big enough that he could comment on them intelligently. Lydia Moon, currently his favorite student, sat in her accustomed seat in the front row and asked smart questions.

  After class, he was packing up his notes when Lydia came up to the front of the room to talk with him.

  “Dr. Piedman?” she said.

  He smiled at her broadly. He normally didn’t like being called “doctor,” since he felt that title should be reserved for medical doctors, but from Lydia he liked it.

  “Yes, Miss Moon?”

  “I need to talk about my landsca
pe,” she said. “I know you said we are supposed to limit ourselves to gouache paints.”

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “I’ve been having a lot of trouble making it look good at all. I worked on it last night till almost midnight. I was wondering, do we have to use only the gouache? Is it a rule?”

  “Well, yes, in this case. It’s the assignment.”

  “But if I could use some watercolors for the background and the clouds, I could make it look right. The paint is just so … thick. It’s really hard to work with.”

  “That’s the point of the exercise, Miss Moon. I know it’s hard. The idea is to get you to try and achieve the appearance of translucent objects while using an opaque medium.”

  Lydia frowned. “Okay, it’s just frustrating. It almost had me in tears last night.”

  Apollo put his hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s just an exercise,” he said. “I don’t expect miracles, and I don’t want anyone to go crazy trying to get it perfect. But remember, if you can learn to work in gouache, you can work with any paint. It’s not very forgiving, but some of the great painters throughout history have used it.”

  She looked up at him with a sweet but pleading expression. “Do you think … you might have time today …”

  “Did you bring it with you?” he asked.

  “I did. It’s in the little studio.”

  “I’d be happy to look at it with you and give some suggestions. It will have to be later this afternoon, after fourth period.”

  Lydia broke into a huge smile. “Oh, thank you, thank you!” She turned, gathered up her sketchbooks, and left the room briskly. If his eyes hadn’t been failing on him, Apollo would have enjoyed watching her go out the door. Of the many promising students who had come through his classes in recent years, Lydia was his favorite and the one most likely to pursue visual art later in life. Her father was a wealthy doctor, so there was hope. Sometimes Apollo joked to his students that if they didn’t give up this silly “art” idea, they were all destined to be dope peddlers or gold smugglers.

  He made an appointment with an ophthalmologist. At first, he was just going to get his eyes checked at the walk-in clinic next to the Sears store, but one of his colleagues told him he really ought to see a full-fledged eye doctor, considering the problem had struck so suddenly. He reluctantly agreed, and found a doctor who could see him early that afternoon.

  He was driving across town, feeling put upon that it was his damn birthday and suddenly he was an old man with Mr. Magoo eyesight. Ramona had promised him they’d all go out to dinner at the Trawler Restaurant, just his wife and daughters and not Reggie, who practically lived with them now, and not Erycca’s useless friend Tim, who did live with them.

  My wife isn’t even going to bring her boyfriend along to my birthday dinner, he thought. How considerate of her.

  He blinked and tried to read the street signs. He was looking for Forest Lane, which had a row of medical clinics on it, when suddenly a thought struck. What if it’s not just my eyes getting old? What if it’s something more horrible, like a brain tumor? He’d read somewhere that blurry vision could be caused by a tumor pressing against the optic nerve. Or something equally awful, like a minor stroke or an aneurysm ready to burst and kill him in his tracks.

  That pretty much ruined his day.

  – 3 –

  Dr. Dietz Has the Community to Consider

  Andy put his violin in the orchestra pit and went up to see Dr. Friedrich Dietz. This week, the orchestra was rehearsing on the big stage at Blocker Auditorium, getting ready for the season opening, and the orchestra pit was the safest place to keep expensive instruments.

  It was 6:25 when Andy arrived at Dr. Dietz’s office. He considered waiting five minutes, but then said “screw it” and knocked.

  Mrs. Florence Bozeman answered. She smiled a little too widely.

  “Andy, come on in! We were just talking about next season.”

  Dr. Dietz sat at his desk, which was cluttered with loose sheet music and music books. He rose and extended his hand.

  “Good evening, Mr.…”

  “Zamara.”

  “That’s right. Mr. Zamara. I knew that; it just escaped me for a moment. Please, sit down.”

  Andy sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair across from the desk. Mrs. Bozeman took another.

  “Mr. Zamara, I just wanted to chat with you a little bit, and also ask you a couple of questions. First, let’s just start simply. How do you like playing in the Duro Symphony Orchestra?”

  “I like it a lot, sir,” said Andy.

  “Well, that’s good,” said Dietz. “I know we don’t pay our orchestra members as well as we should, but I understand we do a bit better than Lubbock Ensemble.”

  “I get by,” said Andy.

  “Good. Now, Andy … may I call you Andy?”

  “Sure.”

  “Andy, I’m really glad you enjoy playing with us. We’re happy to have you. You’re one of our more accomplished violinists, and at your age, you’ll go far.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Anyway,” he said, “to get right to the point, I’m looking to make a change in the orchestra lineup before the summer season starts this weekend. And I’m going to let you in on something, which doesn’t need to leave this room. Specifically, I’m thinking of making a change in the second violins.”

  Andy was confused. Were they dropping him? Giving him a promotion? Mrs. Bozeman’s expression hinted at bad news.

  Dr. Dietz rose and walked to the window, as if he were checking to see if the lawn had been mowed properly, then turned back around.

  “I’ll be frank with you. For some time now, I’ve felt that Mr. Mathern does not belong in the first chair.”

  Peter Mathern was a middle-talent, uninspiring junior-high music teacher who, as far as Andy could tell, had ended up as the first chair of the second violins through seniority and by not falling out of that chair during performances.

  “I know you want what’s best for the symphony,” said Dr. Dietz. “You’d help us any way you could, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “I believe you’d make a top-notch first chair. I’d really like for you to take that role. It involves leadership, which I think you’re ready for. But something’s standing in your way. What I want to talk about is a little embarrassing. You know people … our community … and especially our patrons … they have a certain view of the symphony, and of our members. They have opinions about musicians, like you and me, that may not be correct. Stereotypes, you might say. With you, there’s an issue …”

  Mrs. Bozeman leaned forward in her chair. “Andy … it’s your hair.”

  “My hair?” said Andy.

  “That’s right,” said Dr. Dietz. “I realize this is 1970. It’s a new decade, and styles are changing, but still …”

  Andy’s hair, in truth, was a sight to behold. He had his grandfather’s hair, a man Andy knew only from pictures. He had been a vaquero from Sonora state in Mexico. There were photographs of Pepe Zamara on horseback, with long black hair flowing out from under a cowboy hat. Andy’s own hair was jet black and thick with a slight wave, and had been growing, untouched by scissors—save the occasional trim for split ends—since his second year of college at Texas Tech. It spilled over his collar and onto his shoulders like a cavalier in a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Lately, he had begun parting it in the middle. Andy took special pride in his hair. He was taken aback.

  “I … I don’t understand. What’s wrong with my hair?”

  “Your hair is great,” said Mrs. Bozeman. “I wish mine looked that good, but the truth is … well … Andy, we’re not in California.”

  Andy was flummoxed. Was he being told to get a haircut? The last person to do that was a high school assistant principal, and back then his hair had barely brushed the tops of his ears. “Well, that’s true, I guess, but I don’t see how the length of my hair has any real bearing on what I do �
�”

  There was a knock at the door. Mrs. Bozeman jumped up quickly to answer it.

  “Dorothy!” she said. “Thank you for coming to see us.”

  Andy looked back over his shoulder, and there she was, Mrs. Dorothy Kellogg, his former teacher and sometimes childhood terror, and now concert mistress of the Duro Symphony Orchestra. Andy had spent eight years living in awe and fear of Mrs. Kellogg, but at this moment he had never been so glad to see her. He needed an ally. Mrs. Kellogg didn’t put up with bullshit.

  “Good afternoon, Fred,” she said, and offered the conductor her slender, bony hand. She turned to Andy, who also rose and shook Mrs. Kellogg’s hand.

  How odd, he thought. I don’t think I’ve ever actually shaken her hand before.

  “It’s good to see you, Andy,” she said. “We don’t get to visit much at rehearsal.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Kellogg.”

  She sat down in one of the chairs, sitting as rigid and straight as she did during orchestra performances.

  “Fred, have you mentioned your plan to Andy?”

  “We were just discussing it. I was explaining to him that he would make an excellent first chair for the second violins, but … we need to think about the example we’re setting.”

  “But I really think I set a good example,” said Andy. “I don’t know anybody who considers long hair on men to be a big deal these days. Who could be offended?”

  “It’s not the example you set to us or to the other musicians,” said Dr. Dietz. “There are men with longer hair than yours all over the TV and movies. You don’t see many in Duro, but there’s the community to consider. We’re not in the vanguard here in West Texas. It’s just that … well … the symphony board is concerned about appearances. Not every member of the board, but several prominent people. You were discussed quite a bit at the last meeting. Some members were adamant that the length of your hair was unacceptable, but I defended you. I really did. I told them you were one of our best young musicians, and you have a good attitude.”

  “Do they think I look like some kind of radical?” said Andy. “That’s crazy. I play in the orchestra.”