Callback Camp
I met my first real drum corps friend at the callback camp in January. I hadn’t said a word since I had signed in, and then when rehearsal started and they were putting us in arc order, our instructor said, “Bennyt Ramsay, then Tracer Richmond, then —” So me and this averagely tall guy with dark hair hurried over to get in the arc.
“I’m Tracer,” he whispered as the instructor kept reading names.
I wanted to say, “I know,” but instead I said, “I’m Benny.”
“An interesting name for a girl.”
“While ‘Tracer’ isn’t a real name at all,” I teased.
He snorted. “I’m named after the detective persona in Calvin and Hobbes. Tracer Bullet.”
“I’m named after a state park,” I admitted. “Bennett Springs?”
He nodded. “So are you from Missouri, then?”
“Yeah,” I said, starting to get excited. “Are you?”
“Yep, born and raised. St. Louis, how about you?”
“Kansas City,” I said, “but I go to school in St. Louis.”
He grinned at me and started to say something, but then the instructor stopped reading names and told us to adjust our spacing in the arc.
I smiled to myself as we shuffled to one side. Maybe I really would have a friend here. If I made it, anyway.
* * *
I first heard of drum corps way back in middle school, because my band director marched for the Cavaliers and he used to have subs put drum corps videos on for us when he was gone. He explained it to us by saying that drum corps was like “advanced marching band,” but as soon as I saw it, I knew it was more than that. Drum corps shows were so much more intense and, I don’t know, alive than any other marching band show I had ever seen.
Even though I was a total “bando” — what drum corps people call band nerds — all through high school, and even though I had teacher after teacher tell me that I should march drum corps, I never thought I would actually do it. “It’s expensive,” I always told them, “and I have so many other things I want to do with my life. I don’t know if I can spend a whole summer on a football field.”
And then I got to college, where I was practically friendless — aside from my roommate and a couple of sort-of-friends in the trumpet studio — so when one of the grad students told me, “Hey, you’re really good, you should march drum corps” and told me about his experience with the Blue Stars, well… I couldn’t say no to auditioning.
So I prepared the audition materials and went to the first camp, November camp, in Indianapolis. Since I didn’t have a car, I had to catch a ride with this other random guy, Zack, who was auditioning for a tuba spot. He was nice, but we had nothing except our interest in drum corps in common. But after the whirlwind that was November camp, we both emerged with invitations to callback camp, and I found myself in Zack’s car for the four hour drive to Indianapolis once again.
I hardly remembered anything from November camp besides being terrified to shower, since the showers here hardly had curtains and the vets — people returning to the corps — seemed to think that showering together and walking around the bathroom naked was normal. I also remembered that I nearly fell over in my audition and that I talked to probably a billion rookies that weekend. I only remembered the names of a few people who had made it to the second round of camps, and I didn’t remember Tracer at all. Probably because he was a vet, and hardly any vets had bothered to talk to me.
It was easy to spot the vets. They stuck together and had inside jokes, they all had more than one shirt that said “Hi, my name is —,” and they all wore their corps necklaces. Tracer’s necklace had two things — a strange coin with a whole in the middle and a round, white bead.
As soon as we had a break for water in that first block, I asked, “What do the colors of the beads on the necklaces mean?” Some of the vets had blue beads next to their white beads, and some people who had volunteered to feed us this weekend had red beads on their corps necklaces.
Tracer reached up for his necklace and looked down at it. “You get your white bead at the end of your rookie year. The red ones are for your ageout” — everyone’s last year of drum corps is when they’re twenty one and they call it their ageout — “and the years in between are marked by blue beads.”
“Then what’s the coin for?” I asked.
Tracer smiled. “It just means you’re a Blue Star. You’ll find out more about it this summer.”
I tried not to show him that his casual confidence in me meant everything, but I couldn’t stop smiling.
“All the vets know you’re going to make it,” he said, picking up his water jug.
I blushed. “Oh, well, thanks.” I laughed nervously. “I don’t remember you from November camp.”
“Oh yeah, that’s ’cause I had to send in a video audition. I had a big wind symphony concert that weekend, so Robert said that I didn’t need to come to camp.”
Robert was the brass caption head, which meant that he was basically god of all the trumpets, mellophones, baritones, and tubas. I had never had a real conversation with him, but he had led all the big brass rehearsals back in November. He sort of terrified me, but I liked him anyway.
“My friends told me about you, though. And a few other people, like this guy named Noel and a girl named Poe or something. You know them?”
The name Noel didn’t sound familiar at all, but I knew exactly who Poe was. She was young and short and she knew Zack somehow, so I had talked to her a lot at November camp. “Kinda,” I said, just as our instructor — a trumpet tech named Chris — called us back to rehearsal.
* * *
At fourth meal — what most people call the meal after dinner in drum corps — I sat down next to Poe, some other girl, and a couple of guys, some of which I recognized from November camp.
“Hey Benny,” Poe said, smiling.
“Hey,” I said, smiling, but mostly down at my boat full of buffalo chicken dip and pita chips.
“Do all of you November camp people know each other?” One of the guys that I didn’t recognized asked. “Apparently me and Aaron are the only people who survived from Minnesota.”
“That’s because Minnesota sucks ass,” one of the guys that I recognized teased.
“Yeah, yeah, you think that now, but just wait until we get there on tour and it’s not two hundred degrees.” Then he looked back at me. “I’m Noel, by the way.”
“Benny,” I told him, smiling slightly. If the vets all thought Noel was going to make it,I was glad that I was meeting him now.
“How come all the girls have boy names?” The Minnesota-hater complained.
“I’m right here,” one of the girls I didn’t know said exasperatedly.
“Fine, sorry, Leah,” the guy said, laughing. “But seriously, Poe and Benny? Who named you guys?”
Poe was staring down at her food, chewing slowly, so I said, “What’s your amazing name, then, if ours are too weird for you?”
The guy seemed to blush, just slightly. “Jordan.”
Everyone who had been following the conversation laughed.
“I was just commenting on your guys’s names because I hate that I have a girl’s name,” he said defensively, but no one really believed him.
Poe smiled at me, and I smiled back. If she and I both made the trumpet line, we were going to be friends.
* * *
I didn’t see Tracer again until the next day when he sat down next to me at breakfast, grinning. “Any day they serve bacon is a good day.”
I nodded in agreement and went back to eating my coffee cake and bacon.
“You sleep okay last night? I remember I had such a hard time falling asleep at camps when I was a rookie.”
I laughed. “I slept terribly. Better than November, though, because this time I brought something to cover my eyes. Last time I just couldn’t sleep because it was too bright.” And because I was too busy overthinking everything I had done that day, wondering if I was going to make the cut.
“So how are you feeling about your audition, then?” He asked as Poe sat down across from us.
Terrible. I had practiced a lot, but I still hadn’t practiced nearly enough. “Not too bad, I don’t think. The music isn’t very hard.”
“Right?” Tracer said, laughing, as Poe grimaced. “I keep hearing everyone — who isn’t contracted I mean — complaining about how the music is so much harder than the November camp music, but I think they’re just being wimps. If they can’t hang with this music, there’s no way they’re going to survive the season.”
I could practically see Poe sweating at this point, so I said, “What high school did you go to?”
“Parkway South,” he said. “You?”
“Blue Springs,” I said proudly. We were a pretty big name in BOA — Bands of America, the ‘league’ in which all best high school bands in the country competed in.
Tracer snorted. “Of course you did.”
“What do you mean?”
“I meant that you’re good, but it’s also kinda funny. So many people come in here thinking that they’re gonna make it just because they were in a BOA band in high school.”
“Oh,” I said, blushing slightly. I didn’t think that at all, but after November camp I had also bragged to my high school friends and my roommate about how well my high school marching band experience had prepared me for drum corps. It hadn’t been a difficult transition whatsoever, especially since the Blue Stars marched the same style as my high school did.
“But you don’t seem like a bando,” Tracer said, smiling. “Besides, you’re actually going to make it. Most of the annoying BOA kids don’t.”
* * *
My name was finally called for the audition during dance block, which made me want to scream. I love dance block, even if I’m not all that great at it, and the choreography they were teaching us at this camp was really difficult. What if I missed this part of dance block and then they were evaluating me when I came back and I messed everything up?
I tried to push those thoughts out of my head as I grabbed my trumpet and headed to the stairwell, where we were allowed to warm up before out audition, but it wasn’t easy. Almost worse was the fact that my muscles were shaking from all the dancing, which meant that my marching technique was suffering. There was no way I was going to make it.
By the time they actually called me into the audition room, I had heard a number of people’s auditions. The only person I kind of knew was Jordan, and his audition didn’t exactly sound great. Somehow, though, that made me a little more confident.
I walked into the room and tried not to look at the judges too much. There was Chris, the trumpet tech, Robert, the brass caption head, and Markus, one of the more important visual techs. He may have been caption head, but honestly I wasn’t sure.
As soon as I was standing on the X, which was part of a box where I would do my marching part of the audition, Robert explained how it was going to work. I nodded along, and when he asked if I understood, I said that I did. And then I put my horn up and the click track began.
Despite my shaking limbs, I made it through all the marching and my sound when I played was only a little bit shaky some of the time. I was practically gasping for breath when I finished, I was so nervous, but I had survived it. Actually, I had done something between surviving and thriving. Maybe I would make it after all.
“Thank you,” Robert said, and Chris smiled at me as I left the room.
“You sounded so good,” Poe told me as I stepped back into the stairwell.
I grinned at her, my whole body still shaking. “Thanks. I’m sure you’re gonna kill it.”
She shrugged. “Thanks.”
I wished her luck again before running up the stairs and heading back to dance block. Even though they had definitely learned some stuff while I was gone, I jumped back in and caught up as fast as I could. Maybe I really could do this.
* * *
“How was your audition?” Tracer asked me excitedly at lunch.
“Honestly, pretty good, I think,” I said as I dipped my grilled cheese sandwich into my tomato soup.
“Awesome,” he said as Poe said, “She sounded great. Mine was pretty bad, though.”
“Aw, I’m sure it was good,” I assured her.
“Yeah,” Tracer agreed. “You were both looking super solid during dance block, so I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
The thought of Tracer watching me during dance block made my cheeks flush. I looked down into my soup, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
“My audition was trash,” Jordan declared as he sat down next to me.
I barely stopped myself from scooting closer to Poe to get away from him. I hoped that he wasn’t going to make it.
“Auditioning for lead is always rough,” Tracer said sympathetically. “I did it last year and it didn’t go super well for me. Thus why I’m stuck as a second trumpet.”
“Couldn’t you try to play lead this year?” Jordan asked. “I don’t want to not get lead and then get stuck on another part for every year that I march.”
“I just decided to stay on second this year,” Tracer said. “I mean, for the good of the corps. Chris told me that they had a shit ton of people trying out for lead, so I decided to stay on my part. We’re not the Blue Devils, you know?”
We all snorted and agreed. No one besides them could pull of that much lead trumpet sound.
We all continued to talk about our favorite drum corps shows in the past couple of years, and for the first time ever, I didn’t go to my sleeping mat and stare at my phone, alone, during a meal break.
* * *
The next day, Sunday, was decision day and I could feel the tension in the air as soon as we all woke up. Only a few people were pulled for auditions during the morning block, since nearly everyone had gone yesterday. And then they started pulling vets.
“Why are they taking you guys?” I asked Tracer during our next water break.
“They’re taking measurements for uniforms. And shirt sizes. Stuff like that.”
“Oh, cool.”
“Eventually they’ll start calling rookies, and that’s how you’ll know you made it before they officially hand you a contract.”
My heart skipped a beat and I wished that he wouldn’t have told me. I had been doing a decent job of holding off my nerves all morning, but now they came back full force. What if my name wasn’t called?
Chris called us back to rehearsal, and I tried to put the thoughts out of my mind, but I didn’t do a very good job of it. I made a few stupid mistakes through warm ups, earning me a look from a couple people when they realized it was me, but I wasn’t the only one making mistakes. All the people who didn’t know if they had made it or not were nervous this morning.
“Poe Bayless and Jordan Doorman,” one of the admin staff called.
Tracer smiled at me, and I smiled back because I was happy for Poe, but on the inside I was screaming because Jordan had made it. If Jordan made it and I didn’t… Well, I was never going to live this down.
I thought I had gotten used to having a last name near the end of the alphabet, but today was an exception. As they called more and more rookies who weren’t me, I felt more and more like barfing. The only good part was that I got to watch Poe, Noel, and Leah’s faces light up when their names were called.
“Bennyt Ramsay and Aaron Whitson,” someone said, and I nearly dropped my trumpet.
“Congrats,” Tracer whispered as I put down my horn and followed Aaron, who I had never talked to, to where we had had our auditions.
“Congratulations, guys,” the admin staff said, smiling at us. “We’re calling you over here so that some of our volunteers can measure you and get you fitted for a uniform.”
Aaron and I grinned at each other and then split off to different volunteers to get measured. The whole time, all I could think was, I did it. I actually did it!
* * *
Not long after I got fitted for my uniform, Robert gathered the all the brass people together and explained that he was going to call all of the contracted people into another room. I felt super bad for the people who already knew that their names weren’t going to be called, but I felt even worse for the people who clearly still had hope that they were going to be called, even if they hadn’t been fitted for a uniform.
When Robert called my name, I got up and headed to the other room. As I was going through the door, I heard him call Tracer’s name, and before I knew it, Tracer was in the other room with me giving me a hug.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said, letting go of me as I blushed fiercely. “And you,” he said to Poe, giving her a hug as well.
“Thanks,” Poe said, hugging him back. “I don’t know how I did it, honestly.”
I laughed. “Same.”
We all looked up as the door opened again, and this time Robert came in with a few of the other contracted people. He smiled at all of us and asked us to gather around so that he could give us our contracts.
That was when I noticed that Zack, my ride, wasn’t in the room.
Crap, I thought, how am I going to get to the rest of the camps? And then I realized that the last thing in the world that I wanted to do when I was this happy was sit in a car for four hours with someone who had just had their dreams crushed.
Once we all had our contracts, Robert let us hang out for a little bit before we went to perform for the parents. All the trumpet vets gathered us rookies together and started exchanging Snapchat QR codes and phone numbers with us.
“What’s wrong?” Tracer asked me once the excitement had died down.
“Nothing really, I’m super excited,” I said. “It’s just that, I mean, the guy I rode here with didn’t make it.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah. I just feel bad being all happy when I know I’m going to have to comfort him on the way home or something.”
“Is he from St. Louis too?”
“No,” I said, “he’s from Springfield, Illinois. He didn’t mind the extra driving before, but I bet he will now that he’s in a bad mood.”
Tracer nodded thoughtfully. “My parents want me to drop by on my way back to school, since it’s my dad’s birthday. It would be super easy for me to take you back to your school.”
“I couldn’t ask you to do that,” I said, laughing a little.
“No, I’m serious,” Tracer said, laughing. “It’s ridiculous to ride with that other guy, especially because he’s definitely going to be in a bad mood. Besides, it sounds like we’re going to be ride sharing for March and April camp, too, right? It only makes sense to start now.”
“Okay, you’re right,” I agreed, smiling. “I’ll let him know later.”
Tracer smiled. “Honestly, I’m just glad that I don’t have to drive home alone. It’s hard to stay awake for the drive after a weekend at camp.”
“Yeah, I can imagine,” I said, smiling back.
