Define pt. 3

Trumpet or snare drum. Trumpet or snare drum. Trumpet or snare drum.

I'm sitting restless on the cafeteria bench, pondering a bright future with both instruments. The music man hammers out a beat on the snare, then rises slowly up a scale with the trumpet. I'm supposed to listen to them both and pick one to play in band class. I knew I could succeed with both.

My friend John is there too, joining me on the bench, our backs turned to the music man. Listen, don't look. It's all about how the instrument sounds.

We had been waiting for this moment for a while, that moment when they call you out of your fifth grade class, play you some instruments, ask you to pick one, then suggest your parents fork over hundreds of dollars to buy you one brand new.

Music does not come cheap.

That in mind, I know my sister has a trumpet available to me if that's the path I choose. Would save my parents some money. And maybe my sister could teach me a few things. Not that it mattered, my sisters had played through to high school band, but it was never anything very serious to them. Just another activity to excel at in school.

I liked the snare drum's dominance - nice and masculine-sounding - but what kind of music is a simple '1,2,3,4' tap on a drum head? That doesn't impress the ladies, not even fifth grade ladies. I needed to sing with my instrument.

I go with the trumpet.

John ends up choosing the snare drum. No matter that his brother played trombone and has one ready for him, he wants to rebel. We head back to class talking up the future band we'll surely start.

Nobody in my family is very surprised I chose the trumpet. I had been thinking about it for a while. It was the easy choice.

That year, while John is taken out of band class to learn beats and rhythms for his drum, I'm stuck with the other instrumentalists in the band room learning basic notes and songs like 'Hot Cross Buns.' My friend Will is there too, he also chose the trumpet. We goof off most of class; teacher has only so much time and 20 other beginning musicians to teach. Regardless, turns out I'm ok at the trumpet. Top three musicians in the class, they claim. They stick me in front of a gym full of parents with Will and another trumpeter to play some silly song that we manage our way through.

Middle school presents some changes. Band class doubles, songs get harder. Sometimes the songs are fun, but for the most part it's all kind of boring. As long as we don't have to slog through music class, the alternative to band. Will and I try to make the best of it and compete to be the best in class. For the most part we just keep goofing off.

Our band teacher tells us about jazz band and we get pretty excited about it, but it falls apart when John moves to Los Angeles. Nobody to play the drums.

I keep up with band class because I don't know how to quit. Truth is I don't like it at all. I don't even practice at home.

A new band teacher is introduced when the other gets pregnant; I like him and he likes me. I'm the top trumpeter in class - Will finally quit - and he gives me some solos on cool songs. I like the attention but the trumpet doesn't really have a future for me. There is no trumpet in rock and roll. And it turns out ladies don't really care much for trumpeters, not even middle school ladies.

I quit the trumpet after the eighth grade. High school is approaching and I have a reputation to maintain.

High school is a lesson in laziness. I'm not athletic, so I don't play sports. I like watching TV, playing video games, listening to loud music; I thought it was kind of fun to be the standard rebellious teen. I hang out with my friends on weekends, get my sister to buy us beer. We listen to loud music together and talk about cool it would be to be in a band.

I pick up guitar, borrowing a friend's and teaching myself simple chords. Guitars are too expensive to buy and my parents aren't convinced enough I'd practice to buy me one. They were right, and I eventually give up. So much for the major record label waiting for me after college.

Somewhere around the time I get my driver's license I stop going to church with my parents. Just isn't holding my attention anymore. I believe in God but I also believe in sleeping in Sunday mornings. I stop going to youth group too; I'm different than those other students, and I know they know that. Don't much care for judgmental stares.

I keep up my good grades, but my teachers know I'm lazy. Not quite like his sisters, they say.

I graduate near the top of my class, but my resume and extracurricular activities are blank. I'm lucky I can get into college just with my grades.

College is the same as high school. I make friends in my dorm, party with them - alcohol but not drugs. Drugs scare me. Every weekend becomes a blur. We go to concerts uptown and admire the bands, thinking how cool it would be to be one of them. Too late now to learn guitar though.

Grades become less of a priority for me, though I hold my own. For the most part I hang in my room playing video games. College life becomes a routine of food, video games, partying, skipping class.

My parents say they're proud of me but I don't think they are.

Even though I'm in the same town I grew up in, I don't ever see my old friends. Not even old family friends I grew with. They stayed on the straight and narrow. From time to time I see old church friends or old school friends, but we both pretend not to notice each other.

Sometimes I regret the decisions I make. I know I'm lazy. I know I'm a bum. I know I'm out of shape. I know that my life has nothing to revolve around, nothing to identify with. But somehow I never find the time to care.

I just keep going with whatever life throws at me.