The Aftermath - 9/4/2006 in 2005 - 2007: High School

"I just got an update from Katie about last night," said Molly when she came back from her shower in the morning. "All of the guys got caught coming back to their cabin. And Brian, Jake, Steve and Noah were caught, and they told Mr. Thomas they'd been smoking."

"The fucking morons," I said. I couldn't believe it. They were out of the band now. They'd have to be. Two snares. A bass drum. The drum captain. And Brian. We were all excited to have two tubas, and Brian was so excited about band.

"He doesn't think we were smoking too, does he?" I said.

"I don't know."

"Fuck. Fuck fuck."

We packed up and brought our stuff to the dining hall. A crowd made up mostly of veterans had gathered there. The conversation was a low murmer, and there was no laughter.

"They confessed?" one of the cymbal players said softly.

"They had to," said Mike the Nerdy Junior. "They showed up at the cabins absolutely reeking of nugget."

"You were with the other kids, right?" said the cymbal player to me.

"Yes."

"And you were just... Sitting in the barn having a conversation?" said Mike.

"Yes."

"I heard all the drum majors and every section leader except Craig was there."

"...I guess."

"What's going to happen to you guys?"

"I don't know."

I saw Dave coming up the hill, and I ran up to him. "What's up?"

He closed his eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. It didn't seem to work. "Mr. Thomas knows, he's pissed, and..." his voice cracked. He looked helpless. "I don't know what's going to happen. Something bad. It's bad."

"Dave, he can't kick us out. He has no proof that we were smoking. He has no reason to think we were smoking besides that we were out at the same time."

Dave shrugged. "We broke a rule. And he's really pissed."

I felt my stomach squeeze itself into the size of a fist. This isn't happening. I can't be kicked out. It's not true.

"You guys weren't caught. Just us. But he must know that there were other people with us, otherwise we would've just stayed in the cabin. He knows about Nick..."

"It's going to be alright."

"Okay."

Breakfast on the whole was very quiet, but more information came out. Katie was with Brian and the others, but she wasn't smoking, and they told Mr. Thomas that she wasn't smoking. A rookie sax player confessed that he was the one who had woken Mr. Thomas up, because Nick said that he was going to brush his teeth and didn't come back for three hours. Eric and Dave both claimed total responsibility for what happened. We all decided that we would be honest and tell Mr. Thomas that Bonnie, Molly and I had been in the barn too. I kept trying to calm people down, even though I wasn't feeling calm myself. "He can't kick us out. He can't. He has no proof that we were smoking, and without us there is no band." None of us completely believed it. We were all afraid.

Mr. Thomas came over to our table. "Eric, Dave, Alex, Sam, I want to talk to you after breakfast. Come outside when you're done. Aidan, I'm going to need you to lead warmups by yourself today." I nodded.

The talk was relatively short, so Eric and Schultz did join me for warmups. "Just keep them short," said Eric, leaning in. "No one's in the mood to do arm circles today." The warmups passed in complete silence. "God," said Eric when they were over, "I feel nauseous."

Molly, Bonnie and I got the talk later. It was short, and less angry than I had expected it to be. Mr. Thomas said that he'd deal with punishing us on Tuesday, because he had more important things to deal with now.

Brian, Jake, Steve and Noah sat on the bleachers and watched us during drill. They all had their heads in their hands, and Noah had tears in his eyes. It must be the worst for him. I can't imagine what it's like for him. He joined as an eighth grader. He was section leader. He had a solo. He was one of the best musicians in the band, and band was his life. To top it all off, Eric and I weren't the only ones who felt nauseous. Ani and Danny were both too sick to march, and we had no snares for practice. Ally had already gone home sick, and Cassandra never came to camp because she was sick. It was not a good practice.

But we did march and play the first two songs. Not well, but we got through them. By the end of practice, we were all feeling a little better. There was some joking around as we loaded the truck and on the busride home. But when we got back to the highschool, nobody was talking about anything but the bad stuff. The rookies weren't talking to their parents about how awesome band camp was; they were only talking about the last night. It was impossible to talk about anything other than the last night, because everything came back to that.

Maybe it's good that this happened at band camp instead of later. We might have time to fix the holes left in the music and the forms. Greg, who is now left as leader of the entire drumline, has already started to shift people around to cover for those who are missing. Greg himself is going to come out of the pit to take Noah's spot in the first song. He has to learn all of Noah's sets. He is going to take Noah's solo. "Jesus, I'm going to feel terrible every time I play it. That was his solo - he was so excited about it."

We all speculated as to what our punishment would be. We didn't come up with anything decisive. But we were still in the band. That felt good. I don't know why I thought - I was just afraid. It was weird and irrational, but it was a strong fear. It made me nauseous.

When I got home, I packed for the wedding and fell asleep relatively early.