A week later, the buttons, along with the uniforms, white shoes, and majorette boots, were sold to a secondhand shoe store in Secaucus for two hundred bucks.
All the band’s drums, trumpets, trombones, saxophones, clarinets, and tubas that the kids had worked so hard to pay for eventually wound up in various pawnshops all over New Jersey and New York. The buyers never knew where the instruments had come from. Most didn’t care. All they knew was they had gotten a good deal. The thieves were never caught, and the robbery earned them a lot of street cred and respect in the gang.
Three years later, after things got too hot in Newark, the two moved on to San Francisco, where one had a cousin. In October 1989, the day of a World Series game, they were out at Candlestick Park, but not to see the baseball game. A few minutes later, they sped out of the parking lot in a brand-new red Ferrari they had just stolen. As soon as they hit the freeway, they started high-fiving each other and laughing their heads off. They gunned it as fast as it would go and headed north on the Nimitz Freeway with the music blasting away. A few seconds later, an earthquake shook the entire Bay Area and the top layer of the freeway collapsed onto the lower level, smashing the Ferrari and its two passengers as flat as a pancake.
During the cleanup of the freeway, as the large crane rotated around and lifted what was left of the red Ferrari from the rubble, a bystander remarked, “Shit…that car looks like a red Frisbee.”
The owner of the stolen Ferrari had filled out a police report. Several weeks later, when the man received a call from the police department, a man’s voice said, “Sir, I’m calling about a police report you submitted regarding a stolen car?”
“Yes?”
“I’m calling to inform you that we found your car. You might want to contact your insurance company.”
“Was it wrecked?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where is it? Can I see it?”
“Sir, I wouldn’t bother if I were you. There’s not much left to see.”
“Oh…Where did they find it?”
“On the Nimitz Freeway. The suspects appear to have been headed out of town when the earthquake hit, and the bridge collapsed on top of them. Both were killed instantly.”
“Oh, I see. Have they been identified?”
“No, sir. Not much left to identify, just two gold chains.”
“Oh, so…uh…can I press charges against them or what?”
The officer, who had a sick sense of humor, paused. He wanted so much to say, “They have already been pressed, sir.” But he didn’t.
—
THE ABANDONED BUS HAD been found a week after the theft in the back lot of a warehouse in Newark, stripped down to the bone. They had stolen the motor, the tires, the radio, the leather seats, everything. And someone had painted graffiti all over the sides in black paint.
Cathy Calvert typed up the headline for her column:
* * *
NEW BUS, UNIFORMS, AND INSTRUMENTS ON THE WAY
* * *
by Chatty Cathy
The Elmwood City Council announced today that thanks to a generous donation sent by an anonymous donor, the band bus and its contents will all be replaced by no later than January 15.
* * *
Of course, everybody in town knew it had been Hanna Marie who had sent the check. Even though she was now Mrs. Vincent, she was still a Swensen and her father’s daughter.
Ander, who was up in years now, had retired a few years earlier. When he did, he appointed Beatrice’s nephew, Albert Olsen, to take over operations. Ander had trained the young man and felt he had left the dairy in good hands. But he would still stop by the dairy from time to time just to say hello.
Ander Swensen may have felt good about Albert Olsen taking over as manager, but his son-in-law, who now had to take orders from the nephew, did not. He felt that as Hanna Marie’s husband, the position should have been his. But he didn’t say anything at the time. He figured he wouldn’t have to put up with Albert too much longer. The old man was getting up there, and as soon as he was out of the way, things would change.
Aunt Elner’s birthday was coming up, so Norma asked her what she wanted this year. Aunt Elner said, “Oh, honey, I don’t need a single thing. I’m trying to get rid of things as it is.”
“You have to want something, Aunt Elner.”
“I don’t.”
“No, really….Think, if you could have anything in the world, what would you want?”
“But, honey, I don’t want anything.”
“Really?”
“Oh, if I was younger, I suppose it would be a litter of kittens. Oh, there’s nothing in this world more entertaining than watching a bunch of kittens playing. They are the cutest little things…with their little paws, I could just kiss them to death.”
“I know, but the problem is they grow up to be big, ugly cats, and you can’t get rid of them. Nobody has any use for some old mangy cat.”
“Oh, Norma, they can’t help it. We all grow up. What if nobody had any use for us when we grew up? Just because they are older doesn’t mean they aren’t sweet.”
—
AND IT SO HAPPENED, up at Still Meadows, they were talking about the exact same thing. Lucille Beemer had just posed a question. “Mrs. Bell, at what age did you begin to feel old?”
“Well, the last time they took my picture for my driver’s license, it nearly scared me to death. ‘Mercy,’ I thought. ‘When did my eyes get so squinty and all those chins show up?’ It’s best not to have your picture made or hear your voice on a tape machine. It can really depress you. I thought I was still cute, but I was wrong. I was an old lady with an old lady’s voice. It sure wrecked my high opinion of myself.”
“What about you, Birdie?”
“When I started to look like my grandmother. But the funny thing was I didn’t feel old inside. I remember how I used to feel about old people. I could never imagine them as young…but it’s a different story when you’re on the other end.”
“Oh, is it ever,” said Ola Warren. “At the end, I got to the point where I hated having a body. Everything started going haywire on me, and I started falling apart like an old car. If it wasn’t one thing, then it was another. You just get your gallbladder out, then your heart starts acting up, then you need a new hip, and after that, a cataract operation, then you need a hearing aid. Oh, it just goes on and on. You finally get everything fixed, and you think you are ahead, then you come down with the heartbreak of psoriasis. Most of the stuff I got after that, I couldn’t even spell.”