Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut [113]
Jim blew a smoke ring expertly.
"And then!" said Helmholtz. He snapped his fingers and honked his horn. "And then, Jim, I remember I’ve got at least one tiny corner of the universe I can make just the way I want it! I can go to it and gloat over it until I’m brand-new and happy again."
"Aren’t you the lucky one?" said Jim. He yawned.
"I am, for a fact," said Helmholtz. "My corner of the universe happens to be the air around my band. I can fill it with music. Mr. Beeler, in zoology, has his butterflies. Mr. Trottman, in physics, has his pendulum and tuning forks. Making sure everybody has a corner like that is about the biggest job we teachers have. I—"
The car door opened and slammed, and Jim was gone. Helmholtz stamped out Jim’s cigarette and buried it under the gravel of the parking lot.
Helmholtz’s first class of the morning was C Band, where beginners thumped and wheezed and tooted as best they could, and looked down the long, long, long road through B Band to A Band, the Lincoln High School Ten Square Band, the finest band in the world.
Helmholtz stepped onto the podium and raised his baton. "You are better than you think," he said. "A-one, a-two, a-three." Down came the baton.
C Band set out in its quest for beauty—set out like a rusty switch engine, with valves stuck, pipes clogged, unions leaking, bearings dry.
Helmholtz was still smiling at the end of the hour, because he’d heard in his mind the music as it was going to be someday. His throat was raw, for he had been singing with the band for the whole hour. He stepped into the hall for a drink from the fountain.
As he drank, he heard the jingling of chains. He looked up at Jim Donnini. Rivers of students flowed between classrooms, pausing in friendly eddies, flowing on again. Jim was alone. When he paused, it wasn’t to greet anyone, but to polish the toes of his boots on his trousers legs. He had the air of a spy in a melodrama, missing nothing, liking nothing, looking forward to the great day when everything would be turned upside down.
"Hello, Jim," said Helmholtz. "Say, I was just thinking about you. We’ve got a lot of clubs and teams that meet after school. And that’s a good way to get to know a lot of people."
Jim measured Helmholtz carefully with his eyes. "Maybe I don’t want to know a lot of people," he said. "Ever think of that?" He set his feet down hard to make his chains jingle as he walked away.
When Helmholtz returned to the podium for a rehearsal of B Band, there was a note waiting for him, calling him to a special faculty meeting.
The meeting was about vandalism.
Someone had broken into the school and wrecked the office of Mr. Crane, head of the English Department. The poor man’s treasures—books, diplomas, snapshots of England, the beginnings of eleven novels—had been ripped and crumpled, mixed, dumped and trampled, and drenched with ink.
Helmholtz was sickened. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t bring himself to think about it. It didn’t become real to him until late that night, in a dream. In the dream Helmholtz saw a boy with barracuda teeth, with claws like baling hooks. The monster climbed into a window of the high school and dropped to the floor of the band rehearsal room. The monster clawed to shreds the heads of the biggest drum in the state. Helmholtz woke up howling. There was nothing to do but dress and go to the school.
At two in the morning, Helmholtz caressed the drum heads in the band rehearsal room, with the night watchman looking on. He rolled the drum back and forth on its cart, and he turned the light inside on and off, on and off. The drum was unharmed. The night watchman left to make his rounds.
The band’s treasure house was safe. With the contentment of a miser counting his money, Helmholtz fondled the rest of the instruments, one by one. And then he began to polish the sousaphones. As he polished, he could hear the great horns roaring, could see them flashing in the sunlight,