When we arrived back home, I ran into the house to tell Grandma about my adventure. "Grandma! Grandma! I got a saxophone. I got a saxophone!"
"That's wonderful, Junior. Will you play it for me later?"
"Yes, of course I will, but I don't know how to play it yet," I said, suddenly realizing I knew nothing at all about my new instrument. It was a foreign world to me.
"Well, you can start practicing after dinner, honey," she said as she took a freshly baked cherry pie from the oven, and placed it on the kitchen counter to cool. It bubbled and hissed like a volcano. Red filling oozed from the edges of the crust. "You see, I baked you a pie to celebrate!"
That night for dinner, Grandma prepared one of her southern specialties; fresh honey-cured Virginia ham with candied sweet potatoes and corn on the cob. I don't know where Grandma learned to cook so well, but looking at Grandpa's big belly, I knew she had been cooking this way for a long long time.
Grandma grew up in a dusty western town straight out of a cowboy movie, Dodge City, Kansas. Dodge City was the kind of place you could throw a silver dollar in the air, and shoot a hole through it with your six-shooter. It was the kind of place where the sheriff kept a squinted eye on the horizon, waiting for the Dirty Dozen Boys to ride back into town, pistols a-blazing. People there had strange names like Hop-Along Cassidy, One-Eyed Jack, and Miss Penelope Sweetwater. It was the kind of place that my favorite western hero, John Wayne, rode in to on his white horse. It was the kind of place where a beautiful lady named Miss Kitty ran the local saloon and gambling hall. It was also where Grandma came from, and I tried to imagine myself growing up on the prairie, milking cows, riding horses, and shooting bandits. In 1910, Grandma, her mother Minnie, and her two older brothers boarded the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, and traveled four hundred miles west to Denver, Colorado, which at that time was still a booming gold rush city. Grandma got a job as a waitress at a fashionable restaurant called the Manhattan Cafe, right across the street from the train depot, and that's where she first met Grandpa. Grandpa would come in from Chicago or Salt Lake somewhere, pick up his paycheck, walk across the street, buy a newspaper and cigar, then relax to a quiet meal at the Manhattan Cafe. He knew there was a pretty waitress there named Eva Mills, and he made a point of dropping by whenever he got back into town. One day, Grandpa, who was quite a charmer, ordered a cup of coffee, and when Eva brought it to the table, he said in his smoothest voice, "Eva, why don't you and I go and get hitched? I see you working here everyday, and you're so doggone cute, I've fallen completely in love with you! Will you marry me?" Eva, who had seen her share of ornery railroad men coming off the trains with their roll of money, looking for booze and a lady, knew how to be careful, but this handsome character was different. He didn't drink, he dressed smart, and he knew how to talk to a lady. He always took his hat off before he sat down, and he was good looking as well. Eva paused a moment, holding the coffee pot in her hand. She didn't know whether to toss it in his lap, or keep her cool. She studied Grandpa for a long time without blinking then said, "Okay, what the heck! Let me go get my hat." She ran to the back, got her hat, and said, "Let's go!" They drove away to a little courthouse in Golden that very same day and got married. At least that's what Grandpa said. He always gave Grandma a little squeeze when he told the story, and she'd get all red in the face mad at him. Whatever the story was, the fact is that they fell in love in 1920, and they were still in love today.
"Take your elbows off the table," said Grandpa when I sat down at the dinner table. "A gentleman never puts his elbows on the table, and sit up straight there, young man, show your Grandma's cooking some respect!" He pat me on the shoulder as we waited for Grandma to bring in the ham.
"Here you go, my two handsome devils. Dinner is served!" said Grandma proudly. We both looked over at her and beamed.
"This looks delicious!" I said, and it sure was. I ate until my stomach nearly exploded. I ate and ate and ate and ate. Then there was still the pie left over for dessert. What a meal she made for us that day.
After dinner, Grandpa and I cleared off the table and helped wash the dishes. Today was my turn to dry, so I stood on my stool which was next to the sink, and waited for Grandpa to pass the dishes to me so I could wipe them and put them away in the cupboard. When everything was cleaned up, we all went out on the porch for a while, taking in the cool evening breeze. I told Grandma about the strange man at the music store, and about all the parts that were hanging down from the ceiling, and Grandpa told her it cost $465.
They had installed a small TV out on the porch which was perfect for evenings like this, and we all waited for the news. Grandma thought Ed Sardella, the local newscaster, was cute, and Grandpa liked to watch sports. I didn't really follow the news that much except the weather. I liked the way the weatherman drew arrows on the map with a magic marker to signal that a cold front was moving down from the north. If the cold front collided with the warm air moving across the state, he said, we could expect severe thunderstorms late tomorrow evening. After the weather, there was a special bulletin. A little girl named Mary Ryan was reported missing. Apparently she had gone to school and never come back. They flashed her picture on the screen and asked anyone who had information or had seen the child to contact the police. I felt a huge emptiness in my stomach, like I was falling from a cliff. I remembered how I felt when I arrived in Seattle, after my long flight across the ocean. I wore a tag around my neck that said "Transfer," and I followed everyone out of the plane. A stewardess spotted me, and took me to a small room. She told me to wait. So I waited and waited and waited. It was just me and the buzzing of the fluorescent lights. Eventually the door opened, and someone came in. He was an old man, and he laid down on a bench across from me and fell asleep. Then the lights went out, and it was just me and that old man sitting there in the dark. I sat there all night, waiting for someone to come and get me. I was scared to death, too scared to fall asleep. I was forgotten and all alone. I knew exactly how that poor girl felt. My eyes filled up with tears. Then the news was over. Grandpa shut the TV off, and said, "Maybe you should go and practice your new saxophone now, Junior. Before it gets too late."
"Okay," I said, and carried the instrument downstairs to my bedroom. I set the worn case on my bed and opened it up. The saxophone gleamed and sparkled as I took it out and rested it on my lap. It was much heavier than I expected. I searched around in the case for the neck, and attached that to the main tube of the body. Inside the case was a little cigar box that contained some bamboo reeds, and there was also a funny kind of mouthpiece that looked like a goose whistle. I didn't know what to do with those things, so I opened up one of the music books we had bought, How To Play The Saxophone, and looked at the pictures. It showed a picture of an old man with funny glasses blowing the saxophone. On the next page was a section that read: Assembly, Putting Together Your New Instrument. I followed the steps as outlined. Diagram 1) Take the instrument out of the case carefully, Diagram 2) Set it on your lap, Diagram 3) Attach neck, Diagram 4) Attach mouthpiece. The next section was called, Caring For Your Reeds, and there was a long description, about where reeds came from, which was new and fascinating to me. "Reeds are produced from a wild cane very similar to bamboo, Arundo donax, which grows all throughout the Mediterranean region. Most cane for reeds is grown in the Southeastern part of France, and along the coasts of Spain, Greece, and Italy, where the conditions needed to grow the best quality cane are best. The cane is harvested in the winter between the age of two and three years old. Younger cane is too soft, older cane too hard. The cane is cut, dried, sunned and seasoned by an elaborate arrangement of husking, washing, turning, sunning, bundling, separating, storing, and seasoning. After a period of about two years, the cane is once again inspected and selected according to its size. From an acre of land, a farmer can expect to produce around 30,000 cane stalks. Only about 25% is usable reed material. Of that 25%, 1000lbs of cane is produced, from which about 80,000 reeds are cut, or 8000 boxes of reeds."
I opened the little cigar box and counted ten reeds in there. I pictured a French farmer harvesting all that cane, then husking, washing, turning, sunning, bundling, separating, storing, and seasoning it before cutting it into these ten little chewing gum-size strips in my box. According to the book, the farmer could produce 30,000 cane stalks on one acre of land. I knew from my social studies class that an acre of land was about the size of two baseball diamonds, so I tried to imagine the French farmer mowing down two baseball diamonds full of cane, and since only a quarter of it could be used, I felt sorry for him having to throw away most of his crop, saving only the best cane for saxophone reeds. What a waste. It was amazing to think of all the time and effort that went into making these little cane strips before me. I read on. "Reeds must be moistened before playing," the book said, so I stuck one in my mouth and sucked on it for a while. I sucked and sucked until I was sure I had sucked all the French sunshine and bird poop off of it. I continued to read. "Once the reed is sufficiently moistened, attach it carefully to the mouthpiece, and secure in place by means of the ligature." I fumbled around in the case, found the mouthpiece and a funny round ring-like thing, and secured my reed carefully. I screwed the mouthpiece onto the neck, and my masterpiece was completed. Now I just had to play it. I looked at the picture of the old man for inspiration, and picked up the saxophone and blew as hard as I could. I puffed my cheeks and blew until my eyes popped out. I blew until the corners of my jaws felt like burning coals. I blew and blew and blew. Still there was no sound. I knew I was doing something wrong, but what? Just then, I remembered my strange experience at the music store, when I was flying through the clouds, surrounded by music and clouds, and miraculously, a sound came out.
"Blaaaaaaaaatttttt!" It sounded like a cow giving birth. I blew again, and another cow moan tumbled out. This was going to be harder than I expected. I concentrated on the faraway sound I heard while I was flying through blue skies, and blew again. "Hoonnnnnk!" Now it sounded something like a car horn. This wasn't easy at all. I was getting dizzy from all the blowing, and I realized I was a long way away from the man I had seen on TV two nights before. Frustrated and tired, I lay back on my bed, holding the saxophone in my arms. It felt comforting just to have it near me in my room. I felt like I had made a new friend. A very strange sounding friend, and I gave my friend a name, Cleo, after Cleopatra. We were studying about the ancient Egyptians at school, and one of the pictures in my book was of the great princess Cleopatra. She reminded me of the lady engraved on my saxophone. She was beautiful and tall, and wore long robes. As these thoughts passed through my mind, I closed my eyes and gradually drifted off to sleep.
I dreamed I was a blackbird, and I was looking down at miles and miles of golden cane fields in France. The fields spread out below me like a patchwork quilt, each rise and swell in the geography changing in color. I flew off my perch, and soared effortlessly through the air on the soft breeze, feeling the warm sun on my back. Off in the horizon was a big barn, and I flew to it, looking for a place to land. I circled around, and in front of the barn was a small lodge with several cars parked out front. A green sign read, "Elkhorn Lodge, Kittridge, Colorado." I flew around once more, and landed at a windowsill on the second floor of the barn. I peeked into the window, and saw a little girl sitting alone in an empty room. I pecked on the window with my beak, and the girl turned around. She was crying. I looked again, and saw that it was Mary Ryan, the little girl that was reported missing on the evening news. Just then I heard my grandfather calling me, and I woke up. I was still holding the saxophone. It felt hot, like the hood of a car. I was sweating.
"Junior, what are you doing down there? Come on upstairs and have some dessert."
I couldn't budge. I was so tired.
"Junior!"
"I'm coming, I'm coming," I said, and finally managed to get up.
"What took you so long?" he asked. "Don't you want your pie?"
"Grandpa, I just had the strangest dream," I said, rubbing my eyes. "I dreamt about that little girl on TV. She was all alone in a room at some place called the Elkhorn Lodge in Kittridge, Colorado. Is there really a place called Kittridge?" I asked.
Grandpa raised his eyebrow and gave me a funny look. "You dreamt about the girl?" he asked.
"Yes, she was crying."
"And you said you saw the Elkhorn Lodge? Are you sure it was the Elkhorn Lodge, in Kittridge?"
"Uh huh."
"But you've never been to Kittridge. How do know about that place?"
"I dunno. I just dreamt it."
"Junior, you're not fooling me are you?" he asked again seriously.
"No, Grandpa, I swear. I dreamed I was a bird, and I was flying around, and I landed at a window and saw the little girl. It was a place called the Elkhorn Lodge. There was a big sign out front."
"What color was the sign?" he asked, drawing me closer.
"Green," I answered, feeling a little nervous.
"Jesus Christ God Almighty," Grandpa gasped, "I know that place like the back of my hand. The old train used to pass by it on the way to Grand Junction. There's a big old barn out back. How can you know about that? You've never been there. I haven't been there myself in twenty years."
"I dunno. I was just playing the saxophone, and I fell asleep. Then I saw the girl in a barn. Is everything okay, Grandpa?" I asked, worried.
"No no, don't worry, Junior. I just don't know what to think. It's absolutely amazing. Why don't you go off to bed now, you hear? I'll think of something."
I tried to sleep, but I kept thinking about that little girl. It was all so real. Why did I have that weird dream? As I closed my eyes, I heard a faraway melody being played to me. It called to me, lulling me to sleep. I felt like it was taking me someplace, to a secret place. It sounded like my mother's voice when she telephoned from overseas, sometimes steady, then unsure. There was an echo, then a breeze, and I fell asleep.
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