Band Cramp

'Give it some welly!' Chase boomed to the flock of band birds in front of him, racing about as if to head south for the winter but not quite knowing where south was.

They'd been at this for an hour, following from their warm-ups, just repeating the same section over and over again. Chase was yet to be content with what he saw on the field. It was fast approaching midday and Gareth was already exhausted, both physically and mentally. There was the rest of the day to go, yet. Great.

At last, they'd finished racing around the same ten or so dots, out of puff.

'Not bad... for a bunch of excited hippos. Keep your posture at all times, puff out your chest like a pelican and stand tall like a giraffe, or you'll be the zoo of next weekend's show.' Chase nodded to the sea of wheezing animals in front of him. 'Take five minutes, then we're learning the dots to the fragmented Part 3!' Chase clapped, sending several members stumbling off the field to their bottles of water.

With one last gasp of air, Gareth put his horn down where he was, as everyone else had, and waddled to the front of the field. He creased his eyes closed as his head throbbed from having run around at the same time as remembering where to go for each dot. He'd struggled to remember what point in the music they were supposed to be at for every count. It was a daunting prospect and he felt there was a lot to accomplish all at the same time, perhaps too much.

Gareth took a swig of water from his cyan sports bottle as he headed to the waist-high horizontal pillar of a fence at the field's edge. Taking an uncomfortable, but strangely welcome seat on the fence, Gareth was suddenly alerted by a hand patting him on the back. It was none other than Nathan.

'Yo, Nath!' Gareth smiled.

Nathan leapt over the fence to sit beside Gareth.

'Chase is right, you know,' Nathan chuckled, 'you're like a hippo running from mosquitoes, out there.' Gareth didn't know whether to laugh or be somewhat offended. He decided not to let his short temper get the better of him, as Nathan likely meant well. 'Anyway, I'm here to not just check up on you, Gazza, but also to keep my eyes on Bob.'

'He's been fine. You know, his usual cocky self, but he ain't had any tantrums or nothing,' Gareth responded.

'Yet,' Nathan suffixed the sentence.

Chase walked towards Gareth, a piece of paper in his hands.

'Mr. Firkins, I hope you've taken the initiative to embed some of Part 3's transcript in your head. It'll aid your efforts if you visualise the music as you march to each dot. I digress, of course, as I'm here to give you a slight amendment 24 bars into Part 3 - a new section of music.'

'Why wasn't I told about this sooner? Gareth grimaced, as he found it difficult enough to remember the Nintendo section of the show.

'Let's just say that most of Adonis are well acquainted with social media, where this information is presented during the week. I'll leave you to it, Mr. Firkins,' Chase gave a wry smile.

'Cheers...' Gareth muttered.

As Chase went to turn, he caught Nathan's eye. Without further ado, Gareth noticed Chase give an affirmative nod, before walking back to Mandy. There wasn't much time to consider the nod, not when a new piece of music had been presented to Gareth, and he soon found himself frustrated just by examining the piece.

'Hyrule Temple? That's a thing from The Legend of Zelda,' Nathan commented, looking at the title.

'Since when did you play lame games?' Gareth asked, turning his head to his friend.

'Nintendo isn't lame... and, to be honest, you never asked what I did outside of hanging with you and Daz,' Nathan sniffed.

Gareth went to respond, but then realised Nathan was entirely right - he never asked about Nathan's home life and wasn't even aware he kept an eye on Bob the way he did. Gareth felt foolish, and a terrible friend.

'All right, back on the field!' commanded Chase, clapping his hands to pep everyone up.

Nathan gave Gareth a nod of reassurance as Gareth pushed himself off of the fence and pocketed the piece of paper.

'Pick up your horns and prepare yourselves for marching Part 3!' Chase called.

********************

The sun flared through the sky at the height of the day, spring having hit suddenly and ferociously against the wintery morning. Gareth was battling for his lungs as he raced around the field, his roll-step impossible to keep and his vision whizzed to all corners of the field with every new movement. Part 3 was hell.

It become glaringly apparent that Chase was out to push the entire corps; Kelsey was waving a different flag every time she was in Gareth's vision, Melanie's torso-length hair flapped across her face in her quick movements, and Bob was furiously running like a crab constantly until sweat was dripping from his head. Through the chaos, Chase was flapping his arms in time, his expression ferocious and stern as he conducted such carnage.

'Cut, cut, cut!' Chase wailed, jumping from his little black cube and jogging onto the field. 'If we're to make this work, you endeavour to inject your all into this routine, do you understand?' Chase raised an eyebrow to no one single person, in particular.

There was a grumble from the corps, as well as from Gareth, who felt this was immensely unfair. He, and no doubt everyone else, was certainly giving it his all. He didn't know if he had anything left to give. Sure, he'd made a few silly mistakes towards the end, there, but that was because he'd been pushed and pushed and pushed until he was past his peak in energy. His concentration was waning.

'Mr. McCormack,' Chase cleared his throat, 'what do you suppose you were undertaking as you stumbled across the field?'

'I was crab-stepping to my dot. Nothing more to it,' Bob simply responded, his tone cold.

'Then kindly crab-step like the rest of the percussion. Adonis don't cut corners,' Chase rolled his eyes and turning back to his box. 'Everyone, from the top.'

'You mean the start of the part, or the start of the show?' Gareth asked, confused.

'I don't answer stupid questions,' Chase spat.

Gareth, feeling his short temper snap, was suddenly pulled back by Stefan.

'The top of the show. Don't mind Chase, he's in one of his moods. The first show is next weekend and we're behind.'

Taking a while to reposition himself to the very start of the show, struggling to remember what the first dot was, Gareth was eventually ready to start. He stood to attention in his starting dot. He'd been practising all week, trying to commit parts one and two to memory, musically. He knew he was far from perfect and there were still many little points in the music he couldn't quite remember, but he'd worked hard to not let anyone down.

He'd worked so hard in remembering everything, in fact, that he bumped straight into Bob just three dots into the show. With a clamorous thud, both players spiralled down to the ground. All noise ceased around them as Gareth rubbed his throbbing head. He knew an enraged Chase was on his way, yet, Gareth didn't quite count on someone else being far more angry with him at that moment.

'Thick and blind, that's what you are!' roared Bob, shoving Gareth to back the grass in his attempt to stand up.

Irritated, Gareth jumped back up, causing his medallion to fall from his pocket. With adrenaline rushing through his veins, he shoved Bob in the chest, above his harness where his snare drum sat, knocking him back. No one pushes Gazza down he angrily thought.

'Thick? I'm obviously more thick skinned than you are, mate!' Gareth retorted, eyeing Bob to see what he'd do, next.

Bob stumbled backwards, snarling back at Gareth.

'Fight now and you'll both be lapping the field more times than a kitty with its milk... and we all know there's no point crying over spilt milk,' Chase roared.

Bob cursed foully at Chase, rather aggressively, before turning immediately to Gareth and shoving him down to the ground, again. Gareth was now ticked off beyond belief. They'd all had a hard morning and Bob had his eyes set on Gareth for some bizarre reason. Bob was the kind of guy who looked after Nathan as best he could, always thinking Gareth as a negative influence, but he'd never lost his cool around Gareth, before. In fact, now that Gareth thought about it as he lifted himself off of the ground, Nathan probably looked after Bob just as much, behind closed curtains.

Gareth stood back up, ensuring he had pocketed his medallion. Bob had now removed his snare drum harness and was ready for a brawl. No one seemed to really be doing anything to stop Bob, but some seemed rather eager for a fight to break out, reminding Gareth of his first band camp. It didn't surprise Gareth, at all, that Kara was the one who was whooping amongst the band crowd.

'Bob!' Nathan shouted, running onto the field from his position on the fence, 'STOP!'

Bob had time enough to turn around just as Nathan slammed into his chest, rugby tackling his thick frame to the floor. With an embarrassing sound which was like the breaking of wind, Bob was pinned to the hard mud. He was strangely subdued as Nathan pinned him down, as if the wind had literally been knocked out of him, which may have explained the noise from before. Had Bob been as aggressive as he'd been a moment ago, Gareth was sure Bob would have simply pushed Nathan's smaller body off with ease.

'You're better than this, Bob. You work hard. I'm here for you. Calm down,' Nathan reassured in a hushed voice.

'He's leading you to hell,' Bob quietly responded.

'You were like Gazza, once. Remember that. Now look at you. He's not too different. You're okay, now. I'm here.'

Everyone watched as Bob's expression softened and he was his usual cool self. Chase let out a sigh of relief as Nathan slowly clambered off of his brother. Chase's eyes danced around his corps momentarily, before speaking.

'Top of the show. This time, Mr. Firkins, remember your dots. Mandy will graciously take over whilst I have a word with Mr. McCormack,' Chase announced.

'Why me?' Bob responded, coolly.

'Not you, your brother,' Chase responded, nodding at Nathan.

With the greatest enthusiasm ever seen by mankind, Mandy leapt to the small black box at the front of the field, gleeful to finally be in charge. With a flourish of her arms and a cherubic expression of joy, she called for everyone to set themselves at the show's start. Gareth couldn't help but watch Chase place an arm over Nathan's shoulders as they walked off of the field. This seemed unusually welcoming of Chase, but he had little time to think on it further - he had to keep his mind on the dots and not screw up, like last time.

'Come, come, my blueberries, horns ready, drum pads away - we're playing for real, this time!' Mandy called. 'Right, my chumlies, this is important! As you know, we'll be working with electronics for the first time, this year. I'm excited to help move Adonis forward into a new era. This will be our first practise with the new sounds which will wash over your soul as you play,' Mandy called out with a terrifying amount of joy.

Electronics? As in beeping noises whilst they played actual music? Gareth wasn't so sure that was a great idea. He watched in confusion as two of the large speakers were taken to the front of the field by Bruno and Cindy, plopped either side of the pit.

'Hit it, Bruno!' Mandy chirped.

Bruno, his tall quiff of an afro vibrating from the bass emanating from the speakers, pulled on his electric guitar and plugged his shades onto his face.

Various voices chatted through the speakers, Mandy standing on the small box with her hands in front of her crotch, relaxed and seemingly waiting. Uncertain of what was to come, Gareth followed suit. The voices all seemed to be from various interviews, talking about the video game industry and how it's evolved through time, until eventually, Mandy pulled up her hands, ready to conduct everyone in.

The audio wasn't terrible, by any means, but confused Gareth to no end. Still, this wasn't the time to dwell on it, not when Mandy's arms counted down the start of when everyone was to start moving. It was time to think about the show and which dot came next.

It was hard-going. Gareth hadn't counted on the extra exertion from playing the notes at the same time as running around the field. Was this what every rehearsal would be like? Would he be so out of breath that he'd no longer be able to play and just mime playing the notes? It was difficult to swallow, and the fleeting thoughts skipped in an out of his mind every time he had a moment to pause in one of his dots. The combination of remembering both the music, to which Gareth realised he knew less than he thought, as well as the marching dots, to which Gareth sailed much smoothly through this time, was an enormous drain on energy and concentration. Had Gareth not known better, he'd have thought this was impossible. However, as he had proved since the previous week at band camp, he'd already made several impossible things entirely possible.

And then they reached the new musical part. Out came dot books. The rehearsal slowed to a crawl as they learnt their new field positions to the new bars of music. Luckily, it wasn't particularly long and it slotted in neatly with what they'd learnt that morning, but Gareth was concerned that there was now another bit of music to learn before next weekend.

Finally, just as Gareth was about ready to collapse, Mandy called an end to rehearsing Part 3. Gareth leant on his knees, his head below his chest as he took in deep breaths to satisfy his hungry lungs.

'Good work today, my chumlies. You all know what you need to do before next weekend, I'm sure. So you all tell me, now, at the top of your voices,' Mandy sang, raising her arms. No one responded. Mandy cleared her throat and slowly raised her arms again, causing several others to realise she was conducting their response.

'Practise Part 3,' came several responses.

'Learn the new part of the music,' came several others.

'Close enough, my delicate cherubs. You all also have individual brain farts to overcome, I'm not naming anyone in particular, my lost Gareth, or my even more lost Lofty,' Mandy smiled, extending her gaze out to Gareth, before finding Lofty at the front of the field.

'Eh? I'm not even marching!' Lofty argued.

'You play a triangle, my pet. Ding it at the right time and you'll be my golden boy.'

Just as Gareth finally caught his breath, Chase returned to the front of the field and immediately proceeded to call everyone to the front.

'It has come to enlightenment that Mr. Nathan McCormack is in-tune with his brother. Rehearsal after rehearsal, he has soothed his brother when the situation has expanded beyond our aid. Mr. Robert McCormack drives the rest of the corps insane with the repetitive nature of his drumming, repeating his so-called music again and again, to such an extent that this becomes ingrained in other people's heads. Mr. Nathan McCormack has also been subjected to this and is, thus, well-versed in his brother's music. With all this in mind, may we all welcome the newest member to our corps, Mr. Nathan McCormack!' Chase clapped, creating a domino effect.

Gareth was gob-smacked. He'd never have thought Nathan would have joined the silly little drum and bugle corps that they would always make fun of... especially not by choice. Nathan looked somewhat chuffed, his gaze to the floor as he smiled at everyone's warm welcome.

'We all know that Mr. Darrel Ciciriello unfortunately left us shortly before camp, on the puerile grounds that Adonis was a costly excursion. You all pay your £2.50 subs a week. It isn't much. Some don't even pay at all, based on their... circumstances,' Chase explained, glancing at Gareth, 'so a snare drum position has been vacant in the marching dots ever since. Mr. Nathan McCormack will fill this position in preparation for our second show. This means he won't be there for our first show, next weekend, but I'm sure his sibling will show him the ropes of his drill whilst at home.

'As for the rest of you... Not bad, but not good, either. I have faith in all of you to perform well at next weekend's show in Basingstoke. We won't undergo the finale, just parts one, two and three. It's not a large show, but it is the first one of the year and I've always held the belief that the sooner our corps is out there, the better the experience gained in preparation for the season's end. We will receive our first placement against the other competing corps. We will know where we stand. The judges will weave together their feedback and we will use this to improve. So remember to practise, practise, practise, and meet in the town centre for 7.00am next Saturday, where a coach will pick us up for our journey to perfection,' Chase gave a forced smile.

'Cheers, Mr. Drum Major, sir!' Dave announced, after.

'No one can endure a curly bum-licker, Mr. Pritchard, so keep it to yourself,' Chase rolled his eyes in response.

'Yes, Mr. Drum...' Dave shouted, before lowering his voice as a legion of irritated expressions bombarded him, 'Major, sir,' he finished, more to himself than anyone else.

'Everyone grab a piece of equipment and load the truck!' Chase roared, signalling the end of rehearsal.

'Great...' Gareth cursed under his breath, enjoying the truck loading perhaps least of all.
As Nathan jogged up to Gareth, a cymbal stand in hand and a smile on his face, he knew life was going to become much easier knowing a familiar face in the corps. But just for a moment, Gareth thought he could see another familiar face behind Nathan, at the fence of the field; a face of disgust and rage, with fists of wrecking balls and short, black hair. If that was the face Gareth thought it belonged to, then all those hopes would be shattered to shards in an instant.

Darren Johnson.