The Trumpet Man

There’s a magic about street musicians that curses us—we are lulled into their sounds, their voices, yet are too afraid to treat them as mere mortals. They are more mysterious, more mystifying than anyone else in the city. Jazzed into a daze we pass them as our inner snobs tell us we can ignore the timbre notes, yet our eyes wander to their swelling forms, and linger on their closed eyelids, heads nodding to their own drums.

If we’re daring enough, we break that silence with a few crumpled bills and coins dropped into their instrument cases, but stroll by without another outward thought. But that’s where they get you. You start to wonder about their lives, and why they are on the street, why they chose the violin, or the trumpet, where they came from, their names.

I don’t run from their magic, I embrace it. On Halloween, I was helpless to the lure of the trumpet man playing under the neon stars of the brick split building.

The cars roared past as I listened on the cigarette butt-decorated sidewalk, sitting next to his black scuffed boots, worn jeans, and plain collared shirt, rolled up to the elbows. His dark eyes closed as his fingers pressed the three silver buttons and his deft hands held the plunger against the bell. His hair was short in dark waves and I was enraptured. Tall, dark, and handsome—wooing me from off the sidewalk of Congress Avenue in Austin. Wooing the masquerading people who rush past. The notes fell silent as he stood and said in his soft voice, “My butt’s asleep.”

It was our last night and the morning would bring All Souls’ Day. I was gallivanting around Austin with the rest of my crew—just a couple college kids who love writing (and will endure two bumpy plane rides to attend the National Media Conference) and have chosen it for a career (no thoughts of grandeur wealth here.) We ran down to South Congress where we were told all the best boutiques and shops were. They didn’t tell us which bus to take. The muscles behind our shins ached as we gave up our too-late search for a decent disguise.

Instead, we relinquished our attentions to a neighboring antique shop, Uncommon Objects. From ceiling to floor, relics of ages past waited to be glanced at, brushed by, and overlooked. Kevin set up outside as we walked in. He opened his black case and wiped the silver mouthpiece. I was seized, frozen by his young face scruffy with a midnight shadow, the golden instrument in his hand. Dark eyes like his that haven’t watched many years pass couldn’t be homeless. I wanted to ask his name, what the silver cup was for, why Austin, why me. Why ensnare me? He was there when we walked out a half hour later, one by one.

Street musicians intrigue us just enough so we have to keep looking, piecing together bits of them in our minds in two second glances. Out of politeness we try not to appear interested. Why? We sneakily snap pictures as they play when they aren’t looking up. The young man playing the trumpet looked up and I turned my head back to the store. I’d seen his face. I’d seen his face in the shop.

I ran back into the store and found my evidence—I clicked a quick picture of a painting hanging from the overcrowded ceiling. I half-jogged back outside excited to see if I was right. I flipped through the playback to see if the portrait was akin to the trumpet man. The painting was a blue background of a man with a short beard and adjoining mustache with dark eyes. As it was an antique store, the painting was probably of no one from Texas, but they were similar. Only fair to share the findings with the man in question.

I tiptoed towards him and waited for him to pause. With a quick hey, and a “How long have you been playing?” I told him my theory—our conversation was short-lived as I was called back to the group. We exchanged names, shook hands, and I was hooked.

Even though I shuffled back to the group, sullen, I couldn’t get him out of my head. I didn’t want to rip myself away from the siren’s call, yet my crewmembers dragged me back to the bus stop. I shook my head, but it was no use—the name stuck. My mind fought kicking and screaming. It thrust blurry images before the bridge of my nose of the people averting their eyes, snapping peripheral glances at the man with the golden brass. They would forever ignore him, fighting against the trumpeter’s call. Thankfully (and probably because I wouldn’t shut up about it), another girl in our group wanted to stay a little longer. We hustled back to the shops, and she went off and left me to my curiosity.

His eyes widened as I approached again, bouncing in my excitement to spend more time with the conjurer. No, he didn’t mind if I sat next to him. No, go right on ahead. Like a child I asked what and why. With patience he showed me what the plunger, straight mute, and wa wa mute were. He procured their different sounds and even revealed that anyone can play music on any instrument. He pulled from his bag a kid’s toy trumpet that had piano keys. He dueled the sounds with the toy harmonica and unleashed fervor of alluring tones. When he paused I continued my bombardment of questions.

“Why trumpet?”

“On the street,” he paused, “trumpet is the shit.”

As we continued rambling about music and artists I learned more about him. He didn’t have a favorite type of music, loved all kinds. “Even polka?” I teased. Even polka. I asked him about old Frankie. “Who doesn’t like Frank Sinatra? If you don’t like Frank Sinatra you’re a communist.” He played again, this time his trumpet. Not the only one he has, just the one he practices with. I recorded him, our conversation, not wanting to lose the enchantment of the moment, of the street musician’s captivation. But every musician has a history.

He wasn’t always in Austin. He didn’t always play the trumpet. He was a chef “by trade” and had cooked all his life. From a Greek family the focus had always been on food, not finger buttons. Following in his grandfather’s footsteps he became a chef and worked twelve-hour shifts, then played all night with friends. Five in the morning, he’d return to the restaurant.

“That’s a rough schedule!”

He laughed, “Yeah, no shit. It’s crazy, but it worked. I was dominating at work. I was dominating in my music. But, at the same time, expending that much energy for that amount of time will catch up with you. I was convinced that it wouldn’t and like, and then it did catch up with me. I lost my brain for a minute. But it’s okay to lose it as long as you get it back. I threw it out there and then I got it back.”

I nodded with a noncommittal yeah but I started thinking about all the people who passed him cemented in their schedules and constantly churning their ideas of success to career achievement. This man seemed content, doing what he loved and sharing it with the people who walked on, ignoring the voice that entices them to the source. It was then that I remembered his earlier words, “Once you get patience, you get whatever you want.” I was watching Kevin living his life easy, taking each day as a gift to enjoy and revel in, not as a deadline.

Before I knew it, my friend was back with cupcakes. “It’s a novelty buying cupcakes out of an airstream van,” she said before sitting down beside me. The white box in her hands contained three confections, two with chocolate icing. With a vanilla iced cupcake our trumpeteer told us the history of the airstream cupcake van. “It used to be ‘Hey Cupcake!’ was the only shack on that whole lot up until last year. Then all these friggin’ roach coaches came in and now it looks like a friggin’ trailer park.”

My stomach, newly awakened with hunger and sugar, growled. It was time to head towards the hotel and find some pizza, yet the magic of his story, his life, had entranced me. We said goodbye and for the rest of the night I could talk of nothing but Kevin the trumpet man. He taught me something I probably would’ve learned from the next street musician I bothered, except then it wouldn’t have been from him. Although they are mere mortals, street musicians are America’s snake charmers. And we are the slinking reptiles lured from our private baskets out into the sun.