NO ISLAND

When the usual rehearsal time for my neighbor's band, Noman Island, came around this week, only Noman showed up. He told me the band had broken up. It seemed the drummer and the flautist had decided to get out of the sticks and look for work in San Francisco. I asked about Hudson. He told me that Hudson had had a bit of luck. A talent scout had been in the music store and had talked Hudson into coming to New York to prep for a modeling career. I looked blankly at Noman. Noman shook his head from side to side saying he had no idea if it was true. Hudson is not much on telling the truth.

"What about you?," I asked.

He looked down at his feet like a little boy and my heart kind of broke for him. He said he was going back to school in the fall. Until then, Roman had asked him to help at the farm while I was on tour.

"Noman," I said. "When I first met you I thought you were a brat, but now you have become a good friend. Whatever you decide to do with your life I hope you will always feel like you have friends here on the chicken farm."

It sounded like a platitude. But I meant it. How do you tell a post teen who's life is just starting that at the end of it all, when you look back, your friends are the only thing that mattered.

Noman was upset the band dream had disappeared. I saw the flash of an old man's face as he turned to walk back home.

I found myself calling to him, "Noman, maybe you would like to join The Residents, just for this tour. Maybe get to see if this is even something you really want to do."

He looked at me and considered it for a moment, "Mr. Bobuck, no offense intended, but I don't like your music."

Yes, there it was. I had invented my own version of Noman as a tragic figure with dashed dreams. Music was not his passion. He was looking for something to momentarily take him out of reality. It was a shallow fantasy, and not a very original one at that.

I walked back to my studio to finish arrangements for The Residents tour coming up in January. I slid into my seat wondering how any teen could possibly turn down an offer to spend several weeks stuck on a bus with a bunch of smelly old people who played music that repulsed them. Unthinkable.