Strate Troo

”All right guys, from the top! We'll play it no repeats, strate troo, all right?? Strate Troo!”

It was an overcast Saturday morning as our band stood outside a church, finally about to start playing after waiting for an hour. Our band leader consistently errs on the side of caution when he tells us what time to arrive, so when my dad urged me after parking the car to run up the block because we were five minutes late, I took my time. Except for one crane blocking one of the side roads, we'd gone straight through to Brooklyn and the morning was running smoothly.

“OK, ready? Strate troo!” came the order once more. Amused, our bass drummer decided not to let the dialect slide: “True or Through? Which is it, Tony? Tone?” There was no answer as the congregation flooded out of the church and we launched into song.

Later in the evening, as I lay awake in bed, with the echoes from the amplifiers, ringing in my head...wait, I think I'm thinking of someone else. Later in the day, we'd covered what felt like half of Brooklyn, walking for two hours without stopping. Each step was an effort, but I pushed myself since we have guys in their ‘70s and ‘80s still going strong. Pollen or dust from various construction sites along the way had infiltrated my system, and I was coughing uncontrollably between songs, desperately in need of a glass of water. I heard our leader say we were finally coming to a stop.

When I was a child, my mother once scolded me at an outdoor school function for standing at a buffet table over a plate of cookies, chowing down. A lot of adults were doing the same thing at the feast, notably scout leaders who were setting a bad example for their young charges. Eventually, the sea of rude parted and I got my glass of water. The band always has the least time for refreshments on gigs, as we're expected to entertain everyone else in the procession. Sure enough, no sooner did I find a stoop to sit on than I heard a whistle cry out, summoning us back to the street.

“Take out dat march from before! Strate Troo!” Our bass drummer repeated his earlier inquiry and was greeted with laughter as his only answer. Soon, we were moving again, and within an hour the church was in sight once more. We launched into a rendition of Saints, traditionally the way we end most processions. It was one of the jazziest and most rousing performances we've ever given. I was ad libbing, improvising new response to the melody and wailing notes far above the staff. It was intense. We belted out an ending as strong as the beginning, and finally lowered our instruments. Behind us, the street was empty. When we turned, the flatbed truck with the statue of the saint we were playing for drove “strate troo” and up another street.

We waited a few minutes, as one of the officials told us they were visiting the home of a sick parishioner and would be right back. We didn't have another “Saints” in us, so we simply played them in with a hymn, a more solemn finish. The ride home was uneventful, up until we diverted on to a side highway to bring our friend Bill home. For forty minutes, we sat in traffic along with three other lanes, completely trapped. There had been one opportunity to drive across a divide with some other vehicles, but traffic on the other side was still moving, quickly and dangerously, and darting our from behind a bush on the median was probably a bad idea. I put on 1010 WINS, hoping in vain every ten minutes that they might tell us what the problem was. I guess it's kind of pointless to listen to the radio for confirmation that yes, yes you are stuck in traffic, but I still wanted to know why. In between traffic reports, they covered “serious” news, Paris Hilton most predominantly. Fifteen minutes before we reached the source of the delay, the station finally mentioned that first a car fire, then a subsequent accident, had resulted in the closing of two lanes. When we drove by the car was out, but char-broiled. Two vehicles were off to the side with fender bender damage; perhaps one of the drivers stopped short when distracted by the inferno.

Saturday was a long day, and Sunday night I'll be playing once more. I hope there's no traffic, so I can fly like an arrow, strate and troo...