chapt 2 (still continued)

If he was late, and he might be, Scott would kill him, and that would suck.

The bus was reasonably full but Sam managed to squeeze himself and his suit bag and his sax case into a seat and out of the aisle. He didn't like riding crowded buses with his sax, because the case was big and bulky and always ended up blocking the aisle. People tripped on it or stepped on it and he'd learned early on he couldn't hold it in his lap with his suit bag, because he'd get to the club (or wherever he was going) and his suit would be all wrinkled, and while he wasn't the most fashion conscious of jazz musicians, he wanted to look good and professional. Wrinkles just weren't professional.

His sax was named Ella, after Ella Fitzgerald, and Sam was very protective of her. (When Sam's parents met, his dad's trumpet was named Parvati, after an old girlfriend. That name didn't last long, but his dad didn't think renaming the instrument would be good for it - he didn't want his trumpet to suffer an identity crisis, which Sam's mom thought was weird but Sam understood - so he stopped calling it by name.) The few times Sam had had to fly on a plane with Ella, he'd taken her in her case as carry-on luggage, not trusting the baggage handlers to not throw her around. He took very good care of his sax, polishing her weekly and changing the key pads regularly and (of course) keeping her in tune and well-played. Denting was punishable by severe tongue-lashing. Serious denting was punishable by serious pain. Fortunately no one had ever dented her, mostly because Sam wouldn't let anyone play her.

( cut for random bus- and club-related babble )

chapter 2

It didn't take much - he practiced every chance he got - and three minutes later he'd put on his jacket, clipped the neck strap to his saxophone and slung it around his neck, and headed out to take his place on the Bluebird's little blue-lit stage.

The Bluebird was not a big place, so it didn't have a big stage. It was also dim, and the blue lights Joaquin had trained on the stage made the boys look a little washed out and dead, according to Teddy.

"We look like we're underwater or something," he said. "We oughta wear merman costumes some night, put seaweed in our hair or something."

Scott said no. Sam said no. Teddy pouted. Scott and Sam won that round.

Tonight they were all wearing charcoal-colored suits and white shirts and variously patterned ties (Sam's had fish on it, for Teddy), and the blue lights gave their shirts a faint blue cast. At least they were used to it.

Sam paused in the hallway to fish his dad's ring out from under his shirt and kiss it, then stuffed it back under and went out to the stage. Scott was standing with his bass, plucking strings again, and Teddy was coming back from the front door.

"I know why no one's here," he said. "It's pouring rain."

words: 175
total words: 9,141
(i just wanted to hit 9,000 before i went to bed.)