One Week Gig. Rufus Jr. Curry Jr.

arrived. The kids began to file into the band room, change their shoes and warm up on their instruments. Pretty Williams came into the band room wearing a very shiny, green southern belle-styled prom dress, and a pair of high-top basketball shoes. Chapman couldn’t resist the temptation of saying something smart to her.

      “Girl where are you going with that git up on? You look like a black Beverly Hill Billy.”

      The other band members just rolled over with laughter. He knew that he hit her good and hard with that crack, so he ran over and hugged her real tight while the kids got their laugh on. Despite her name, pretty she ain’t. Chapman swore her parents gave her that name because they knew she would need a confidence builder. After the laughter died down and Chapman was able to regain order in the band room, the mood turned serious. The kids seemed uneasy because they had never seen Chapman in such a somber mood. The only time he was like that was when he was mad at them or when he talked about his father and how he died and the lessons it taught him.

      He sat down in his chair on the podium behind his music stand. Leaning forward, he clinched the front edge of the director’s stand as he cleared his throat. He began to speak with great anxiety.

      “Whew!”, Chapman sighed. “This is going to be harder than I thought. Ladies and gents, you know how I have always talked about order and how things should take their proper place? Well, this is one of those times, and I know it is the right thing to do, even though it feels so wrong. Remember how I said that life is not a spectator sport, you got to get in the game and stay off the bench. Well, this is my opportunity to get off the bench. I make this choice, not because of anything that one of you has done or said. I have been offered the position of county music administrator, and I have decided to accept the job. I keep telling myself that I can do both jobs at the same time. But I know that that isn’t true. So, in order for great things to happen, you must commit all of your attention to what you are doing and hold it firmly with your mind. Remember what I said now, about me having eyes and ears everywhere. You all will still be my protégé’s whether I am here on the field, the county office or touring with my band. Mr. Goolsby will take over as the band director as of next Monday. I want you to give him all of the respect that you all know he is due.”

      Chapman looked around the room and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

      “Now don’t start that raining in here. We still have a show to do this weekend in Atlanta. I have been talking big trash to my boys and they will not accept any excuses. So let me hear it one more time, for ole’ time sake?”

      The class recited a poem that Chapman required them to learn.

      “EXCUSES are tools of the incompetent,

      That builds monuments to nothingness,

      Those who specialize in EXCUSES,

      Rarely, amount to anything.”

      Unknown

      “Remember that. Now let’s hit the field.”

      The kids poured out of their seats and mobbed Chapman right where he sat. Even the most thuggish knuckleheads had tears in their eyes. These were the boys and girls that no teacher wanted to have in their classes and Chapman made them officers in the marching band. He used their natural leadership ability on the field, and used their creativity as dance routine choreographers. It’s amazing what a listening ear will do for a kid who seemed to be going astray. For some strange reason music, and the thuggish persona went hand-in-hand. Some of the best musicians he knew were borderline jailbirds. Traditional Jazz was their breeding ground. Instead of doing drive-bys, they would sit in cramped smoke-filled clubs that Super Fly would have been afraid to go into when he was pimping and hustling. Instead of shooting machine guns, they sat under poor lighting with dark glasses and gunned down their audiences with improvised music straight from God, through them and out of their instruments.

      Chapman’s voice began to crack as he pressed the kids to get themselves together and gather their focus. They peeled themselves off of him and dried their faces, put on their shoes, and some even called their parents on their cell phones to inform them of the news. You would have thought somebody died. Chapman and his reputation of running a tight ship was the only reason some of these students’ parents allowed them to participate in the marching band. The band director, who the students had come to know so well, was moving on to his next mission, so hope was dying for some of them. Everything must change, is what George Benson said in one of his songs. Change is a constant force.

      Practice began with Chapman sitting in the tower as memories poured through his head and brought tears to his eye. He was cool he thought, as he turned his back to the field. He pretended to be looking at the rooftops of the houses that spread out just across the street from the practice field. The music was there, but their hearts were not. It was almost like a funeral march. Grabbing the bullhorn, “Hey, what in the world was that?”

      The drum majors gave their whistles several random blasts

      in order to stop the motion of the band. All of the students turned toward the director’s tower.

      “You all got to do better than that. Look at it this way; you will not have me breathing down your necks every day. But, I will be around occasionally for those of you who just need my special brand of correction.”

      He was doing his best to lighten up the mood. The kids began to smile a little more.

      “Let’s take it from the top? And put some heart in it!”

      Chapman, stood in the tower looking proudly watching the young men and women whose lives he had shaped. The band marched off the sidelines of the field with their backs straight, knees cresting well above the 90 degree requirement, horns swinging with precision, and a sound so big it would have brought tears to the eyes of any college band director. The energy was so thick you could scoop it like butter pecan ice cream.

      “Now that’s what um talkin’ ‘bout.”, Chapman’s smile was as wide as a piano’s keyboard. The weekend rapidly approached. For the time Chapman has left on campus, he vowed to put on his best face. It was tough. It felt like losing multiple family members at the same time.

      Thursday evening arrived like a dream. The walk-through practice ended and the students loaded the buses decked out in their purple and gold Freedman High School Marching Bulldogs sweat suits. The buses rolled through the dark of night to cover the distance required to get the band to their last show, under the direction of Mr. Chapman Sweet, Jr. They marched as if it were their last halftime show. It was…The last show, in the Chapman Sweet, Jr. era. The show ranked in the top 20 of all of the shows that the Freedman High School Marching Bulldogs had performed since Chapman Sweet, Jr. had the baton in his hand.