by Brett Rutherford
The bum slid in to the midnight diner’s
for his rope-tied suitcase, the fat tuba,
the trombone tied ‘round his waist,
the trumpet dangling from bright red belt.
“I shouldn’t serve you,” the waitress admonished.
(She needed a break to go
and chain-smoke in the alley).
“What with the epidemic and all,
and you with no mask at all, and dirty.
You look like Death warmed over.”
She sighed. “So whaddyaywant?”
The gaunt man asked for bacon and coffee,
and a couple of eggs, oh, any which way.
“You got the money to pay me, right?”
He waved a wad of ten-dollar bills; she thought
she saw a hundred in there among them.
“Okay, okay, just asking. We get all kinds in here.”
“I am an honest man,” he assured her.
“And I want to eat with metal utensils,
not that crummy plastic stuff.”
“Where did you find those instruments?”
She made small talk while she wrote his order,
imagining a band-camp bus wreck
he might have scavenged from.
“You’re off to pawn them, I suppose.”
“Pawn them? Young lady, I play them.”
Up went his head and chin, his shoulders proud.
“The tuba, the trumpet, the trombone, too.
I am a pick-up man, famous on three continents.
I never miss a note. My specialty is Requiems.
Offstage only, on account of my appearance.
“I am the Flying Dutchman of brass players.
When the composer’s score say “Brass band,
offstage,” that’s me in the lead, back-stage,
or in some balcony or apse or belfry, even.
Sure, they scoot a couple of the orchestra
to join me, but I am the voice of voices.
“Nobody wants a walking skeleton like me
on stage with the dainty-lady harps and fiddles.
I get the call for the Verdi Requiem, the Berlioz
(I’ll even do the Messiah trumpet so long
as I stay in the back and away from the lights).
Best of the best, conductors know me.
My Tuba mirum when all hell breaks loose
in those requiems is legendary.
Uncredited I am, but that’s me piercing through
in the records of Toscanini, and Reiner,
the golden age of concerts and records.
“Yes, I am a pick-up man.
Offstage only, top dollar.
They know I’ll scare the be-Jesus
out of anyone the way I play.
“Apocalypse coming,” they say, and shudder.
I take my money, mind my own business
until the next gig comes around.
When famous people die, they play
more Requiems than usual. Hell, I could have
retired on Kennedy alone.”
He eats in silence. The radio had died
the moment he had entered. They stand around,
adjusting the dial and the antenna. No matter:
it would start up again the moment he left.
It’s just a side effect that trails along
when the Last Trumpeter comes to dine.
Tomorrow he’d play with the Boston Symphony,
then off to New York, then a long bus to Seattle,
this way and that, city to city, year after year, until —
Until it would be just him alone. He’d play
the Tuba Mirum and no one would answer,
in a vast expanse of ruined cities, a world
empty and hammered flat by bombs.
He would play and play until his lips bled,
until with his last breath a requiem for one
and all, a requiem for one and all,
a requiem for one.
Thank you for making learning enjoyable and accessible.
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