Theme Song for October 11

Awkward Chambers

I call elevators awkward chambers. It seems that anything that you say outside of an elevator automatically becomes awkward once in the elevator amongst other passengers. Likewise, anything that you might say that would be awkward outside of an elevator becomes exponentially more awkward once you’re inside the elevator. I had one of the latter moments yesterday morning after musicology class.

The lovely young horn player I’m assigned to accompany this year and I were sitting outside of the elevator on the bench. (In a comfortable silence) He spoke up. “So…how’s piano stuff going?” To which I replied, “Good.” And then remembered something. It’s actually not going that well because I was recently injured in a four-car rear-ending. So I proceeded to explain what had happened. I saw it as a business move. If I told him I was injured, three weeks from now (hypothetically speaking) when he wants me to have the whole of a Hindemith sonata learned to accompany him at a jury, which he won’t- he’s a very reasonable fellow, but supposing he did, then I could say to him, “Well, I hope you remember that I was injured and that is why I only have the first movement learned and so I hope that is enough and I’m dearly sorry for any inconvenience.” I was explaining the particulars of the incident to him in my foresight, just as the elevator approached level 2 and opened for us to board. As we were stepping onto the awkward chamber, I was saying, “So, yeah, the police wanted to give me the ticket.” At which point all heads turned toward us. Four strangers can become highly attentive in less than eight square feet of cage-like space. He replied “That doesn’t make sense. If you’re the third car in a four car accident, why should you get a ticket?” The strangers visibly relaxed. To which I answered, “Yeah, but I didn’t get the ticket after all. My mom showed up and she’s half-black.” The poor horn player didn’t know what to say so he said the age-old, “That’s random.” And one of the passengers giggled nervously.

 I should explain the giggling passenger here. He is not simply some stranger as I put it before. He is a freshman jazzer. What kind of instrumentalist he is, I can’t remember, but I do know he has taken a particular shine to me. He uses my name more often than is normal for conversation and very enthusiastically makes observations about small things to me non-stop when we are in the same elevator together. In fact, I met this chortling jazzer on the elevator and happen to do most of my getting to know him on the same said elevator.

            I had dropped a bomb that I couldn’t possibly diffuse in the time it takes to get from floor 3 to floor 5. What I meant when I said, “My mom showed up and she’s half-black,” was that my mom advocated for me in front of the police in a persistent manner characteristic of her upbringing. .  If you’ve ever seen a cougar mother bravely protecting her cubs, you know how intimidating it can be.  Imagine that sort of feline advocacy mixed with the matronly protective instinct of a bear and you’ve got what we refer to as “Rambo Mama.” Usually that line at the end of my car accident story (yes, I have used it previously) gets a knowing nod or a chuckle or both, but not from my horn player. I’m convinced it’s the affect of the awkward chamber.  We stepped off on floor five and parted ways without another word.