Mr. Bentley

“I don’t understand, I just don’t get it.” His voice is quivering and shaky while his face is flushing with emotion. “Why are you doing this?”

I sit there snickering behind the trumpet raised to my lips. The band class around me still making a most discordant noise. He is losing control quicker than usual today. It’s only 15 minutes in to the hour long class and he is almost at total breakdown already. He’s already started to run his hands through his combed and jelled dark hair so it is already quite disheveled. He’s tapping his baton on the music stand in front of him trying to get our attention. Those who feel a little sorry for him have already put down their instruments, but the hard core is playing on to their own beat just a little longer.

“Stop this racquet right now!” His voice is getting higher with each new instruction, and he is banging his baton on the stand louder and louder. He has already broken a few of them. Some of the students have dug them out of the class room garbage can to keep them as trophies.

“Stop it, Stop it!” He continues yelling. Finally, everyone has put down their instrument and he looks at all of us with that look he is so famous for. Exasperation and anger are there but yet also an unfathomable sadness seems to fill his eyes. It’s as if he just can’t understand why some of us torture him daily. Why we don’t share his love of music.

This is his first year as our high school band instructor and right from the start we sensed weakness and took advantage of it. Mr. Bentley was not an imposing figure being a little on the short side with glasses and rather soft spoken. He did however have a genuine love of his subject even if he was unable to maintain class discipline. Probably at the college level he would have been a successful instructor, but here he was out of his depth because of the disciplinary problems that come with high school.

Now he finally has our attention and has seemingly regained control. He always likes to predicate his instructions by referring to all of us assembled savages as a class.

“Class, we are going to try a different approach to this song. I’m going to have each section play the first thirty bars on their own and that way I can see where the biggest problems might be. So, let’s start with the backbone of any band which is the percussion section and then move on to brass and woodwinds after that. Got it? OK, percussion here we go.” He’s regaining confidence and thinks he just might get the song back on track.

However, the hard core, and that includes me, are holding our fire. Waiting until the time is right. So, we sit patiently while he goes through the percussion section and then brass and woodwinds. It is weird just to hear one section without the rest. It doesn’t even sound like the song at all, and worse than that, it is boring. When it comes the brass, my part as third trumpet is particularly under whelming, yet it perfectly reflects both my ability and interest level. I make sure not to mess my small part up because we trouble makers want to spring the grand finale on Mr. Bentley when he least expects it.

So after half an hour of going through each section, Bentley is finally ready to put it all together. He seems pleased and is actually smiling a little as he motions the whole band to start up in unison. For the first ten bars, the music actually seems passable, but that is when we strike. Each of the core five make loud discordant sounds with whatever instrument they are playing and the look of horror on his face is priceless. He stops waving his baton and hands and just stares at us looking for those responsible for this outrage. Then it happens, the total breakdown we had hoped for.

“I don’t know, I just don’t know!” He is shouting, and now as the band gradually stops playing he shouts even louder and is tearing at his hair. His face has gone red and his glasses are now on the floor while he holds half of the baton he has broken. “I don’t know, I just don’t know!!” He repeats over and over in a shout of total despair and defeat.

The class is now totally silent as he storms off the podium with tears streaming down his face. He goes out the class room door and doesn’t come back. Some students are in shock, but some of us are laughing because we finally broke him. I gather up his glasses and Charlie picks up the broken baton as more trophies of our victory. Smiling, we head out bound for our next class.

We never saw Mr. Bentley again. We were told he had quit and had a substitute until they hired another band teacher much, much tougher than Bentley had been. We heard rumors that he had a breakdown of some type and was hospitalized.For the rest of the year whenever we five got together someone would say “I don’t know, I just don’t know.” They would pull at their hair while saying it and act all crazy. We’d all laugh and laugh. It didn’t seem to get old. We sure were bastards back then.

Now, years later, I have regrets about my part and would make amends if I could. I never found out what had happened to him in spite of asking around. I can make excuses that we were young and stupid. I could say that we were self-centered and did it because we thought we were cool, strong, and funny. It could be all of those things or something else entirely. However when it comes right down to it, our true motives are a mystery. We drifted apart eventually and never thought or talked much about the why of what we did. The truth is I don’t understand exactly why we did it and only wish we hadn’t.