Tuxedo Bob

I am wearing my last clean tuxedo. My other five "After Six" ensembles are packed inside the road worn Samsonite suitcase that is also providing additional service as a chair. Sitting atop my dependable traveling companion I only need to perform an occasional adjustment to the placement of my feet to prevent myself from tipping over. The bouncing motions of the train might make my journey less comfortable than most traditional means of transportation - even the slightest bump gets emphatically announced within the walls of this baggage car - but I’m forever happy.

Part of my happiness comes from remembering, "Any situation in life is better when experienced in formal attire." My father (God rest his soul, and pass the potatoes) used to say that. He was a tuxedo dealer, and he used to say a lot of things. Many years ago, at the funeral of my piano teacher, he told me that if I remembered something about a person who had passed away, then that person would always be alive inside me. As I ride the rails in the direction of Schulberg, North Dakota, a number of hearts are beating among the musical notes in my mind.

Schulberg is the town where I was born, and where my twenty-three year career in the music business started. I know I have a modest bank account waiting there, but since I have no hard currency on my person – other than a quarter that I’ll never spend – traveling in a boxcar is a necessity. Had it not been for a guitar player named Deke (God rest his soul, and may I have another napkin, please?) I wouldn’t have known of this economical conveyance, and instead I’d be walking or hitchhiking my way across the northwestern states of America. Neither option is black-patent-leather-shoes-friendly.

While I bounce on my possessions a concerto for flute and violins begins to play in the part of my mind that composes music. The percussive quality of a properly tongued flute is a pleasant accompaniment to the rhythm of the rails. A soaring swell of strings adds lightness and breath to my cramped accommodations. For a moment a baggage car filled with crates and boxes and me becomes a symphony hall. It is in this moment that I notice the wooden coffin directly to my left, and my mental music yields to thoughts of my mother (God rest her soul, and can I get you another canapé?)

My mother was a mortician, and she taught me a lot about coffins. This one looks to be on the higher end of the pine family, and some of those can be quite plush on the inside. I don’t know who’s in there, but I’m certain he or she is much more comfortable than I presently am.

My mother’s career choice was the reverse of her initial desire to be a doctor, but as my father used to say, "Someone has to take care of the dead." It was indeed her calling. I once remarked to her that she seemed to love her job so passionately that, had she actually become a doctor, she probably would have killed her patients for the sheer joy of preparing them for burial. Much to my surprise she found this observation profoundly unfunny, and out of respect I never repeated the remark. My father, however, used variations of the line on several occasions in mixed company. "Margaret’s spending so much time with Mr. Norton, I’m beginning to wonder if he’s really dead," was one of my favorites. Her usual response to his teasing was a curt but loving, "That’ll be just about enough now, Orville!" Everyone knew when Margaret said, "just about enough," she meant, "far more than necessary."