Sousa: A Tale of Blood, Sweat, and Caffeine
an excerpt

It was the evening of October twenty-ninth. The buses with their long-suffering drivers were parked in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Express while slap-happy students, giddy from two days of a band trip, milled around with their instruments. None of them dared let them out of their sight.
Somehow Melissa had ended up sitting on one of the plywood shelves in the Hertz truck, quickly identifying instruments and passing them down to the mass of kids below. The thick, splintery wood rocked beneath her as she passed down a heavy baritone case, making her struggle to regain her balance.
“Has anyone seen my pipes?” came the unmistakable voice of Alex the Dummy Bagpiper from somewhere in the crowd.
“Here they are,” Melissa said, locating a rectangular case with Alex’s name and a sticker of the Scottish flag on it. She passed it down, leaning a little too far forward…
The next thing she knew, she was lying on her back on the floor of the truck with a ring of concerned faces staring down at her. The plywood shelf and some scattered instrument cases were on the ground with her.
“Are you all right?” asked one of the band boosters, offering Melissa a hand. She took it, pulling herself up. Her right arm hurt a bit, but it faded.
“I’m fine,” Melissa replied. She lifted a euphonium. “Whose horn?”
“Mine!” someone called. Melissa handed it off.
Falling had to be a bad omen, she thought. As soon as she thought this, she surreptitiously knocked on the fallen piece of plywood shelving.
As quickly as possible, the teachers and band boosters shooed the kids inside of the hotel. They had already been given the hotel etiquette rundown, several times in fact, but that didn’t stop them from talking, laughing, and walking loudly as they went to their rooms. It was nine forty-five at night, and there were probably some hotel guests that were about to go on a chain-sawing rampage if they heard one more peep.
Melissa and Felicity, who shared a room, walked together to number 217. Close quarters with the mysterious choir director had made her grow on Melissa.
“My arm really hurts,” Melissa said conversationally. She could move it all right, but it was rather painful.
“What’d you do to it?” Felicity asked, unlocking the door. Both of them walked in, and Melissa sat down on her bed, the one next to the roaring, freezing cold air-conditioning unit.
“I dunno. I fell off the shelf in the Hertz; maybe that has something to do with it.”
“Here, let me see.” Her twiglike fingers flitted up and down Melissa’s arm, squeezing gently here and there before resting a few inches below the other woman’s elbow. “Melissa, your arm is… broken,” she said in an odd tone.
“No, it isn’t.”
“It definitely is. I can’t tell how severe, but it doesn’t seem too bad.” Felicity paused. “I don’t think you should conduct tomorrow.”
“I have to,” said Melissa, starting to panic. “This is my first festival here; I can’t back out just because my arm hurts a little bit.” Denial. Serious denial.
“You’re mad.”
“Maybe a little.” She thought for a moment, recalling her little brother’s scout handbook. “I should be okay.” She went to her briefcase and fished out the classified section from that day’s newspaper before digging a bag of hair ties and a bandana out of her suitcase. For some reason, she had a big plastic tuning rod from a flute and added that to her stash. She used her left hand the entire time, saving whatever strength was left in her right. Shostakovich and Mars needed all the strength she had.
A few minutes later, she was sitting next to the bathtub, numbing her right arm in a deep pool of cold water and crushed party ice, acquired by Felicity from a nearby 7-11. She had a lovely view of the toilet from where she sat, clad in a tank top and a pair of SHS band boxer shorts. Whenever she moved the offending limb, a jolt of pain all but paralyzed it.
“This sucks,” Melissa said eloquently. A pain-free Felicity was rubbing her hands with all-natural herb oil, one of those weird hippie things that Melissa didn’t get.
“Yeah, probably.” Felicity left the bathroom. “See you tomorrow, and don’t overdo it.”
“I won’t.”

Melissa awoke suddenly. Her head was resting on the edge of a cold, hard bathtub filled with chilly meltwater. Her right arm was cold and white; her fingers shriveled up like the fingers of a corpse. Quickly, she looked outside the bathroom at the clock. Six twenty-nine. Felicity’s alarm clock would be going off in one minute.
I should have gone to bed, Melissa thought, her dread growing with each passing second. The number on the clock switched and sure enough, the room was filled with a surprisingly musical alarm. Felicity reached out a thin arm and turned it off. She looked so comfortable and well-rested in her bed that for a moment, Melissa hated her.
“Didn’t you go to bed?” was the first thing Felicity asked as she squinted at Melissa through tired eyes.
“I just sort of… fell asleep,” Melissa said. She felt gross and gummy, the feel of someone that hadn’t slept in a bed. “Oh man, I’m in trouble…”
“I’ll say.” Felicity got up and stretched lazily. “Big day, eh?” Melissa didn’t answer. She went to her suitcase and pulled out her concert clothes, the magic pantsuit and blouse, all in black, that wouldn’t wrinkle even when crammed into a suitcase for a day. Awkwardly, she got dressed using only her left arm.
Afterwards, Felicity helped her to make an impromptu splint using the newspaper, tuning rod, hair bands, and bandana. Melissa waved her arm around experimentally as if conducting. It hurt, but it wasn’t impossible.
“Why don’t you just conduct with your left arm?”
“That just isn’t done.”
“Through pain and risk of more advanced injury, never ever conduct with your left arm,” Felicity replied with mock hauteur. “Do what you will.” She went for the door. “We get to have breakfast before the students come down and trash the place. See you there.”
“All right.” She paused. “Felicity?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
Felicity nodded once and quitted the room.

Melissa came down to the place where the continental breakfast was offered, feeling slightly better with a good wash and tooth-brushing. Felicity, Kenny, and the band boosters were already there. All except Felicity were blissfully unaware of Melissa’s ugly secret that could ruin the festival for the school if it got out. Everyone would force her to forfeit, and that would really suck.
“You look tired,” was the first thing Kenny said to her. He was now wearing his signature kilt and Argyll socks. He looked extremely Scottish.
“Good morning,” Melissa replied grouchily.
“No, you do. What, no sleep last night?”
“Well, not really…” for a moment, she considered telling Kenny about her arm. He was one of the few people she could trust to keep quiet about it. She decided to keep her mouth shut, busying herself by getting a cup of cranberry juice.
“Here, have a muffin,” Kenny said, thrusting a sugary blueberry muffin at her. He didn’t notice that she took it with her left hand, the same hand with the cranberry juice. “And here, have some coffee, too! Get some energy into you. Who needs sleep?” he gave her a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, Melissa couldn’t take anything else with her left hand. The coffee spilled all over her forearm.
“Oh my GOSH!” As if that arm wasn’t in enough pain already!
“Ahh, sorry!” Kenny grabbed a handful of napkins and started to help Melissa clean up the mess. Suddenly, he stopped. “Melissa… what’s this?” He felt the shape of the Boy Scout splint under her sleeve.
Quietly, she told him what happened in a steady voice and forbade him from telling anyone else.
“You. Are. Insane.” Kenny’s words were short and final.
“No, I’m just a band director,” Melissa said. Lame joke and she knew it. “Hey, Felicity, do you have any meds?”
Wordlessly, Felicity dug into her woven-hemp purse and pulled out a bottle of Tylenol. She threw it at Melissa, who dropped it. Chagrined, Melissa picked it up and opened it, shaking out a dosage that seemed about right and swallowing the pills dry, like addicts always did in the movies.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Kenny said accusingly. “You’re either going to OD on Tylenol, or you’re going to get your arm whacked off by the doctor.”
“Either way, me and the doctor are going to spend some quality time together,” Melissa replied. She sat down and forced herself to eat a muffin. She wasn’t hungry, but knew she would need the energy later.
“You know, you have to conduct twice,” warned Kenny, still trying to dissuade her from conducting at all. “Once for the preliminaries and once for the finals. You won’t make it, especially with that literature.”
“I’ll be fine, Kenny.” A touch of annoyance crept into Melissa’s voice. At least, she hoped she would be fine.
She heard the sound of students coming downstairs in large numbers and saw the breakfast attendants wilt pathetically.
So, she wasn’t the only one feeling like this.