Ferocious

8. Walking the Mile

Letting loose with my arms and hands and feet, pounding out the rhythm that ran through my whole body, I felt free for the first time that day. No fear - I sent it hiding. No anger - it was used up as energy for my muscles. No ache for my sassing friends - this was the one way I stepped out of time and emotions. There was only rhythm.

Sweat prickled across my skin. My short sleeves were rolled up as high as they would go and skirt was hiked up in a way I supposed was indecent, if I cared about things like that. Especially when I was drumming.

My notes formed in my spine and danced through my limbs before dying in spectacular noise against the parts of drum kit. With the sticks balanced loosely in my hands, my feet cradled on the pedals, I lived and breathed the music. The room was a blur. My drums were all I could see.

"Hey, whoa, that's great Brooklyn!" yelled Stephen. His voice broke through the blur and brought me back to the room. "Let's wrap it up there. You can work out your solo stuff later."

I touched the top hat to quiet its ringing. "Good."

"Yeah, looks like you have 'Sweet Candy' down, except for the end of the refrain. Our old drummer did a quick ta-ta-da thing," Stephen said.

I blinked trying to imagine what he was talking about. The other two members of the band, Joshua and Mike, were not forthcoming with any additional help, so I shook my head. "I'll double check the CD and see if I can figure it out," I said. "What next?"

"'Walking the Mile,' if you practiced it."

"OK." I tapped my sticks together fast three times and listened as he opened with a screeching guitar solo. This song rubbed me the wrong way. Of all their pieces, this was the only one that annoyed me. I twirled my sticks around my fingers, waiting for my entry.

Joshua came in with his monotonous base-line, but for some reason he was staring at me. I kept spinning my sticks. Finally, I could start pounding my bass drum in a mind-numbing tempo. Not only did this song grate on my nerves, it was boring to play.

Halfway through and Joshua was still staring at me. Was my shirt ripped open? Chemical burns on my face that I hadn't noticed from Chemistry? Or was he looking at my shoulders? I had unusually muscular shoulders and arms for a girl between my drumming and martial arts practicing. I stretched my arms out and flipped my sticks before I started on the tom-toms with them.

Joshua missed a few notes and Mike paused on the keyboard to let him catch up.

"Whoa, stop!" yelled Stephen. As lead guitar player and singer, he was also the unofficial head of Spit Fire. "What is this crap? This practice is to help Brooklyn get up to speed, not babysit your sorry butts!"

The guys started flipping each other off and making obnoxious noises. I decided my snare drum was the most interesting object in the room and fiddled around with its height. I wanted to keep playing so I wouldn't have to think about anything else. Things like the words scratched into my closet wall, the hand print that was still in my book, that voice talking to me in the bathroom. I wanted it all out of my head. This day had already gone on too long and wasn't nearly over. The worst was yet to come.

I sighed and stretched my back. Now the guys were drinking water and telling each other what was wrong with the song.

There was something else bothering me. I knew when I nearly fainted in the Principal's office, I had had a weird hallucination of men and mud, but remembering exactly what happened was as hard as pinning a fly to the wall. It kept slipping away at the last second.

I rolled a military march rhythm on the snare drum, accentuated by a low boom of the base. A military march for ragged men in Civil War uniforms, waiting for orders to march to their death. That part I could remember. There had been death in their dirty faces, death on their thread-bare jackets and the threat of death in the watery mud.