Chapter 17-19 Ch.17 While the band prepares to rehearse - PowerPoint Presentation

Chapter 17-19

Ch.17 While the band prepares to rehearse , Bud works with the mop , pretending that it is the underwater boat in the book he erroneously remembers as   Twenty Thousand Leaks Under the Sea .  The boy knows that Herman E. Calloway is trying to " work [ him ] like a dog ," but Bud is used to hard labor . The old man's efforts are falling far short in wearing him down .  Bud's attention is suddenly diverted by someone shouting out , " One , two , one two three !" The Thug begins brushing his drum sticks on the cymbals , making a sound " like a soft rain ... commencing to fall ." Dirty Deed joins in , making the piano match the " rain pats " the Thug is creating . The combined sound is like what Niagara Falls must sound like ... big bright drops of water splashing up and over , over and up .

Steady Eddie starts snapping his fingers , then puts his sax to his lips and makes it talk . His instrument makes the most beautiful sound Bud has ever heard ; the notes swirl and float over and above the rest of the " storm of music ."  Bud is so mesmerized by the band's music that he does not even hear Miss Thomas , Mr . Jimmy , and Herman E. Calloway come up behind him . The vocalist and Mr . Jimmy compliment Bud on the cleaning he is doing . Mr . Calloway lets out a grunt as the three head up to the stage . Bud at first is inclined to acknowledge them , but ends up saying nothing , because it somehow seems that talking [ would be ] wrong what with all these wonderful sounds ... coming from the people on the stage .

Mr . Jimmy picks up his trumpet and joins in the impromptu session with the other musicians . Miss Thomas sits on a stool , closes her eyes , and bobs her head to the beat , while Mr . Calloway takes his giant fiddle , putting one hand near its top and using his other hand to pull at the strings . All of the instruments blend together , and Bud cannot tell which is his favorite . Then Miss Thomas begins to sing , and the boy wonders why Herman E. Calloway takes central billing in the band's many names . It seems clear to Bud that the music revolves around the talented woman vocalist . Miss Thomas is so good that she [ doesn't ] even have to sing real words , mostly she [ is ] saying things like " La da de da de da da , ha whee a ho , ha whee a ho , ha whee a day ...." 

All the other instruments try to break into the conversation — Dirty Deed on the piano , Mr . Jimmy on the trumpet , and Doo-Doo Bug on the trombone . Mr . Calloway on the giant fiddle and the Thug on the drums pound out a steady beat , " like someone's heart turned way up loud ." In the end , though , it is Miss Thomas's voice and Steady's saxophone doing " the talking that you really [ want ] to listen to .“ After a long , exciting spell of heavenly give-and-take , the vocalist sings out a few lines in real " American " words , and the music starts to fade , like the sound of rain and thunder " getting farther and farther away ." Finally , there is " dead silence ," which is broken only when Bud drops his mop and starts clapping as loud as he possibly can .

Bud has been living with the band for just about a week, but already he is going on his third road trip with them. This time, they are headed for a small town called Mecosta, an hour and a half north of Grand Rapids. Herman Calloway and Mr. Jimmy are riding in one car with the instruments, while Bud is in the other car with the rest of the musicians. For this gig, Miss Thomas has stayed behind at Grand Calloway Station . On the ride up, the band members engage in one of their favorite pastimes—"teasing each other and talking about Herman E. Calloway behind his back." The focus of their good-natured gibes on this trip is Dirty Deed, who is the only white member of the band. Bud learns that Mr. Calloway "always keep[s] one white guy in the band." Negroes are not allowed to own real estate in many places during this time, so the band leader puts his properties in Dirty Deed's name. In addition, many white people would not hire the group if they knew they were a Negro band, so Dirty Deed often makes the initial arrangements. Invariably, once people hear the musicians play, people are so impressed with the musicians' skill that the color of their skin is no longer an issue. Chapter 18

The performance goes well, and Bud gets to sleep onstage that night to guard the instruments. In the morning, Mr. Calloway wants to spend some time with an acquaintance before departing, so Mr. Jimmy instructs the boy to assist Calloway and to ride home with him later. Bud is not looking forward to spending "a whole hour and a half trapped in a car" with the ill-tempered band leader. Sure enough, the experience starts off inauspiciously when, before getting in the car, Herman E. Calloway chooses a nondescript rock on the ground with his shoe and orders the boy to pick it up for him. Overcome with curiosity, Bud asks, with unintended bluntness, "What in Sam Hill are you going to do with a doggone rock?" The old man just utters tersely, as he puts the key in the ignition of the car , " Bad habit."   A short time later, Mr. Calloway leans over and opens the glove box of the car, showing Bud a collection of rocks, each with a city and date written on it. Intrigued, Bud tells the band leader that he has rocks "with writing and numbers on them too." Mr. Calloway responds absently and without interest, and the boy thinks he does not believe him. Climbing into the back seat, he takes two of his rocks from his sax case and hides them in his hands for the remainder of the trip home.

When they arrive at Grand Calloway Station, Bud shows Mr. Calloway the stones, but to his consternation, the old man examines them, then angrily accuses him of stealing them from the house. Witnessing the confrontation, Mr. Jimmy tactfully intervenes. Squatting down so that he can look the child in the eye, he quietly asks, "Son, where'd you find these? Just tell the truth." Bud swears that he did not steal the rocks, but that he got them from his Momma. Both men seem astonished by this assertion. Mr. Jimmy asks the boy what his mother's name was, and when Bud replies, "Angela Janet Caldwell," Mr. Calloway's pipe drops out of his mouth and he stumbles blindly away toward the house.

Bud is certain then that the band leader is the one who has been lying, and he exclaims triumphantly, "I knew it! I knew he was my father!" Mr. Jimmy, however, corrects him, stating firmly that Mr. Calloway is  not  his father. Angela Janet is the old man's daughter's name, which would mean that Herman E. Calloway is most probably Bud's grandfather.

Chapter 19 After learning Bud's mother's name, Herman E. Calloway locks himself in his room. Mr. Jimmy and Miss Thomas continue to question Bud in the kitchen, asking him how long ago his mother passed away, and what she looked like. Bud tells them that she died peacefully at home after a short illness four years ago, when he was six. He tries to describe her physical characteristics, but falls short in his attempt. Instead, he runs upstairs to get the photograph of her that he keeps in his sax case . When he gets to his room , Bud is surprised to find Mr . Calloway sitting there at the dressing table , holding his face in his hands , sobbing . The boy goes quietly over to the place near the bed where he keeps all of his important possessions and takes the envelope with his Momma's picture in it . Herman Calloway does not notice . As Bud passes by the man on the way back out of the room , he reflects that babies cry all the time , but that when an adult is moved to tears : you got a whole ' nother story ... you know you're square in the middle of one of those boiling tragedies .

Even though he realizes that the old man is crying "'cause he found out the two of [them] are kin," Bud cannot help but feel sorry for him. He walks over and puts his hand on Mr. Calloway's back. The distraught figure flinches, then looks at him and mumbles incoherently, calling him "Buddy," to which the child responds, not unkindly, "It's Bud, sir, not Buddy .“ When Mr. Calloway covers his face and "[breaks] down all over again," Bud reaches out to pat his shoulder, then leaves the room. He runs back downstairs where Mr. Jimmy and Miss Thomas are waiting. Bud puts his Momma's picture in the center of the table. Both adults examine the photograph closely, then Mr. Jimmy says, "Uh, uh, uh, that definitely is Angela Janet Calloway."

Automatically , Bud corrects him , declaring , " her name's Caldwell , not Calloway ." An amazing thought occurs to him then , and he excitedly exclaims : That means that's not some little dead girl's room I'm sleeping in , that's my Momma's room ! With painful realization , But asks poignantly : How come Herman E. Calloway never called on me and my mothe r? All he'd've had to do was call on us one time and I know she wouldn't have been so sad. Miss Thomas explains earnestly that Mr . Calloway didn't know anything about him . Bud's mother had run off before he was born , and no one knew where she had gone . Herman Calloway had been very hard on his daughter when she was growing up , reasoning :  This is a hard world , especially for a Negro woman , there's a hundred million folks out there ... who are just dying to be harder on her than I ever could be . She's got to be ready .

He had loved his daughter very, very much. He was determined that she was going to be the first in the family to get through college and have a profession. In his zeal, however, he never gave her a chance to decide for herself. Finally, Angela rebelled and ran off with one of the band's musicians . Miss Thomas fetches a portrait of Bud's Momma, taken when she was sixteen years old. She gives it to the boy and asks him to be patient with his grandfather, as the hurt of his daughter's death is still "brand-new" for him. She explains that when Angela Janet was little, she had asked her father to bring her a rock from one of the places the band performed. Since that day, Herman Calloway has taken stones from every place the band visited; he inscribed them with the names of the towns and the dates. The old man stored them all in boxes, saving them for her.

Miss Thomas leaves the room then to tend to Herman Calloway with Mr. Jimmy. Bud is alone in the kitchen when the rest of the band members come in boisterously, unaware of what has just transpired. Steady Eddie ceremoniously gives Bud a battered cardboard suitcase, which contains a gift the men have joined together to buy from the pawnshop. Inside is a small saxophone that Steady Eddie has patched up as best he can. It is up to Bud now to "shine her up," because "a man should polish his own horn." When he is done, Eddie will give him his first lesson . Bud thanks his bandmates profusely, then excuses himself and goes upstairs, carrying his Momma's pictures and his new horn. He hears Miss Thomas and Mr. Calloway talking softly in her room, but he does not stop to eavesdrop. When he is back in the room that his Momma used to sleep in when she was a little girl, he remakes the bed with his old blanket because he will be staying for a while. From his sax case he removes the old flyers announcing Calloway's performances and all but one of the inscribed stones. He takes them to his grandfather's room, leaving them on his dressing table. Bud tacks the picture he has been carrying of his Momma on the wall in her room, and he puts the one rock he has kept back in his sax case. He no longer needs to have all the mementos of his mother with him all the time; the single stone will suffice.

Bud knows that Momma lives inside him, and that there isn't "anyone or anything that could take away from that or add to [her memory ] either." He picks up his sax, puffs up his cheeks, and blows as hard as he can. He then looks over at his mother's portrait that Miss Thomas has given him. From the frame, Momma seems to smile at him, and Bud smiles back. The future looks bright. Closing his eyes, he begins practicing on his horn.