A Gift that is Many Times a Hit

He heard a loud knock on his front door when he was sitting on the toilet. It was very late at night, and the amount of spaghetti and meatballs he had eaten for dinner was huge, and it was calling him. Living alone, he often cooked too much.

He could not remember the last time that he had heard someone knocking on his front door other than people trying to sell him something. He knew that it wasn’t a ‘you have just won,’ as he had not applied for anything that he could remember. Still, when he opened the door, he definitely felt he had just won a prize. It was a drum kit – snare, two wide cymbals, a base drum and high hat. They were pointed at his front door.

It had been a very long time since he had played on the drums, although he did a beat on the upper part of his legs when he was listening to music. Before deciding what to do with the kit, he looked all around to see whether there was a message from whomever had delivered it to him. There were no signs that he could see.

With great care and what he would call ‘love’ he brought all the parts of the drum kit into his house, eventually taking them into his basement. He lived alone, and the basement was pretty much sound proof, so he did not believe that he would encounter any complaints from the neighbours, once he played on the kit, morning noon or night .

Memories Flew Into His Mind

It wasn’t very long before memories flew into his head from when he was a teenager. He and his band played many a gig. He could easily say to himself that that was the happiest time of his life. He had wanted it to be his career, but the allied forces of his strict mother and his just as strict girlfriend, eventually his wife, did not so much talk him out of it, as bullied him. They forced him to give his kit away. Now no one would be doing that. He was a retired accountant now for five years, and had been divorced a few years earlier. He would be free to drum whenever he wanted to. He only regretted that he did not have a band with him. Drummers really needed bands.

There were so many memories there: Chick the lead guitarist, Fred the rhythm guitarist, Bill the bass player and Sandra their lead singer, whom he had wanted romantically but never made a move. He had heard that they had returned to each other’s musical company, playing gigs across the town and in neighbouring ones as well. While he wanted to hear them, there was something that held him back. He would see and hear what he had lost, and he felt that that would be too much emotional pain for him to endure. He said to himself, with some belief that he would soon take a step forward for him to regain his ability with the kit, and that would or should be enough.

A Surprise in the Town News

Two weeks after he received the drums, he was happy playing, and felt he did not need to know how he came by his instruments. Pursuit might mean loss. That Friday he read amazing news in the local paper. He always read it all the way through, even though there was not much that related to him.

There it was, an advertisement in the music column. A band was looking for a drummer! What made this especially exciting for him was that the music they played was labelled as ‘old music that would never lose its popularity’. And the person to contact for an audition was advertised as being ‘Chick Parker , the lead guitar player’.

This must be his old band! He felt that it could not be another. So he quickly made a call to the number presented. It wasn’t Chick who responded. However it must be someone who maybe was his son. He certainly had his father’s enthusiastic manner, and grossly repeated over and over again Chick’s overuse of the words ‘Right On.’. They arranged a date and location for the forthcoming Saturday. He said nothing about being in his father’s band decades before, and did not say what his name was. For a few seconds, he thought about presenting himself as having a different name, but that seemed foolish. They would find out eventually.

The Saturday Audition

It was the day of the Saturday audition. He loaded up his car with his instruments as he had done so often, so many years ago. That was never a problem for him. That was the reloading the instruments at one o’clock in the morning when he was worn out from playing for hours. That was very different, and he had a number of times had members of the audience help him out.

When he arrived at the designated location, he sat motionless for a few minutes in the front seat of his car. Was he building up to a big rejection, similar in ways to his divorce, and being forced to give up his drums?

The members of the band stared at him for a while, but still did not seem to make the connection between old and new.

They suggested a few songs that they would be playing in the audition. They were all old songs that he knew very well, having played them often some years ago, one of them a tune he had been enjoying the playing of for the last few days.

After an hour or so of playing together, there were smiles all around. Then Sandra spoke up. Well, Bill, it is good to see you again, even better to have you play with us once more. There were cheers all around. They knew!

As he was about to leave, Sandra said ‘I have heard from of your neighbours that you have been practicing a lot recently in your basement, but not too loudly. It’s like magic. And magic only works when you do not tell anyone your secret’. My father loved those drums when you gave them to him, and he was always a fan of yours. He cannot play anymore, as he doesn’t feel that he has the energy anymore. He was our drummer, and he suggested that your kit should be returned to you.