'No way, Weed. How am I going to notice that with everything else going on?' Brazil countered.
Weed thought. His face got tense, his shoulders slumped and he looked heart-broken when he said, Then I'll cut one loose. You can't miss that. Course you'll have to explain later why I did or I won't be playing cymbals in the band no more.'
'Cut one loose?' Brazil was lost.
'Let go of the strap. You ever seen an eighteen-inch cymbal roll down the road?'
'No,' Brazil confessed.
'Well, you see one,' Weed told him, 'then you know I'm telling you trouble's about to start.'
Lelia Ehrhart was already having trouble. She was closely inspecting the Blue Ribbon Crime Commission's red Cadillac convertible, with its streamers of blue ribbons that would float and flutter beautifully once the car was rolling along the parade route. She realized with horror that there wasn't a single azalea blossom, not even one.
'We must carry on to the theme and message of the parade,' she told Commissioner Ed Blackstone.
'I thought the blue ribbons did that,' replied Blackstone, who was eighty-two but maintained that age didn't matter. 'I thought it was called the Azalea Parade because of azaleas, which are everywhere, and it wasn't expected that we fill the car with them, especially since we don't have many seats anyway.'
Ehrhart could not be persuaded, and she directed that the white leather front passenger's side and most of the back were to be lush and dense with pink and white azalea bushes. This reduced the number of waving and smiling commissioners from three to one.
'I guess I'll have to ride alone by myself,' Ehrhart said. 'Well, I'm going to tell you something, Lelia,' said Blackstone as he leaned against his walker, straining to see through the huge glasses he'd been wearing since his last cataract surgery. 'You're going to have bees. That many blossoms, and bees will show up, mark my words. And don't say I didn't warn you about making those streamers so long. Twenty feet.' Blackstone was severe on this point. 'Anybody gets close to your rear with all those streamers of blue ribbons endlessly flying, something's going to get tangled up.'
'Where's Jed?' Ehrhart frowned.
'Over there.' Blackstone pointed at a tree.
Ehrhart searched the masses and spotted Jed hanging around an antique fire truck, talking to Muskrat, who had fixed her car a time or two. She didn't like to be reminded that Governor Feuer had declined to participate in the parade, even after Ehrhart had offered to ride with him. At least he had volunteered Jed to drive the commission's car, which was on loan from one of Bull Ehrhart's patients.
Tell to him it's times to come now,' Lelia Ehrhart ordered Blackstone.
Blackstone motioned at the tree to hurry along.
Neither Brazil nor West liked crowds, but Chief Hammer refused to bask in the limelight alone, especially since she hated parades and other public celebrations more than West and Brazil did.
'I can't believe you're doing this,' West complained from the back seat of the dark blue Sebring. 'You got this psycho kid out there waiting to make himself a legend by doing something really, really bad, and what do you decide?' She slid into the driver's seat and began adjusting mirrors. 'You decide to ride in an open convertible.'
'I don't like it, either,' said Brazil as he climbed in back, next to Hammer. 'You sure you don't want me to drive?' he asked West.
'Forget it,' she replied.
Brazil got out paperwork.
'We need to find the Mustang Club,' he said, 'because we're in front of them. And' - he traced his finger down a list - 'right behind Miss Richmond.' 'Yuck,' West said.
Pigeon and a fat man were within two feet of each other at Westover Hills and Bassett, across from Brentwood South.
The fat man seemed ready for action as he clandestinely searched the crowd through a pair of Leica binoculars. Pigeon was rooting for half a hot dog with mustard and relish that a little kid had just tossed into a trash can, as if hot dogs grew on trees.
Pigeon never missed the Azalea Parade. People were so wasteful. Not one kid this day and age knew the value of a dollar, not even those folks on food stamps. He fished out an almost entire bag of potato chips that some little brat couldn't toss without violently squeezing, crushing and pulverizing first.
'What we need is another good war,' he said to the fat man, although they were not acquainted.
'I've been saying that for years.' The fat man couldn't have agreed more. 'No one understands what it's like.'
'How could they?' Pigeon said, peering inside the bag, unable to find a chip bigger than a dime.
'My name's Bubba,' Bubba said as he continued his sweep with the binoculars.
'I'm Pigeon.'
'Nice to meet you.'
Pigeon homed in on another kid who dropped his bubble gum on the sidewalk after three chews, when there was still plenty of flavor left. A woman in jogging clothes stepped on it.
'Thanks a lot!' she called out to the kid as he popped open a can of Orange Crush and walked off.
She lifted her foot and stared at strings of pink gum leading to a blob fixed to the tread of her right Saucony running shoe.
'I hate you!' she screamed at the kid as people walked around her, looking for a spot with a decent view. 'I hate all children! I hate people!'
'That would piss me off, too,' Pigeon said. 'Nobody cares anymore.'
Bubba focused on Smudge and his wife opening lawn chairs in a yard no more than fifty feet to Bubba's right.
'He probably doesn't even know those people,' Bubba mumbled with fresh fury. 'Just helps himself like he does with everything in life.'
'All the world's like that now,' Pigeon said.
'He knows I'm here, too,' Bubba said. 'The son of a bitch knows he owes me a thousand dollars. Says he has amnesia, doesn't remember the bet, so it doesn't count.'
'I don't know what happened to honesty,' Pigeon said.
Bubba watched Smudge open a checkered tablecloth and spread it out in the grass. He set down a blue ice chest, opened the lid and rummaged.
Pigeon searched in vain for a cigarette butt. He could tell the price had shot way up. People were smoking closer to the filter, leaving nothing for him.
He was shocked yesterday morning when he was picking his way along Main Street, downtown, and observed on the Dow Jones electronic message board outside Scott and Stringfellow brokers that the price per pack had increased another two dollars and eleven cents. If only Pigeon had bought more when he had the money from the pawn shop. He could have done some quick trading. He'd probably be rich.
Even as Pigeon was thinking that, Bubba reached into his shirt pocket for a pack. He shook out a cigarette without lowering the binoculars.
'Those Merit Ultimas any good?' Pigeon asked as Bubba lit up. 'That's one I haven't tried yet.'
'Oh yeah,' Bubba said. 'Anything Philip Morris makes is the best.'
'I've always thought so. How are those different from regular Merits?' Pigeon asked slyly.
'Want to try one?'
'That would be nice,' Pigeon said as Bubba passed him the pack. 'Why, thank you very much.'
Wailing police sirens and the thunder of cops on motorcycles sounded in the distance, signaling that the parade was starting. Weed was so excited his knees were shaking.
He was positioned to the right of Lou Jameson on the snare drum, who was wearing sunglasses like all the drummers did. He had never been very friendly to Weed and more than once had commented that anybody could play cymbals and he'd seen girls doing it in other bands.
Western Guilford High School in white and black was directly in front of Godwin. Lakeview Junior High in gold and green was to the rear. Bright, brave uniforms of all colors and designs must have stretched for a mile, Weed calculated. The parade was starting to move. The lead band out of New Jersey exploded into 'God Bless America,' which wasn't very original and the trumpets were a little off.