If he were to truly pinpoint the moment his musical career began, Darryl Philbin would say - with very little confidence - the fourth week of the third grade. It was in those short moments of Mrs. Furgeson’s elementary music class that he first harbored the delusions of becoming a trumpeter akin to Miles Davis.
When his mother had - rather skeptically - signed the tattered permission slip allowing him to join the school’s band ensemble, he simply flashed an arrogant smile. The next time his mother mistook his performance of Jelly Roll Blues for the dulcet timbre of Louis Armstrong, she’d be eating her words straight off the brass bell of his trumpet.
And when the moment of truth finally came - the third Tuesday after his cousin Charlie’s birthday - he kept the door to his bedroom propped open proudly. The smooth notes of the horn would be sweeter than honey as they wound their way down the stairs and slid across the linoleum floors of the kitchen where his mother was fixing dinner.
Slowly, and with a practiced cool that Lee Morgan would have envied, Darryl ran his hand across the cool brass of the instrument’s body and pressed his terse lips against the mouthpiece. Drawing in a lengthy breath, he positioned his fingers the way he had seen Bobby Grove - who sat three seats down and one row in front of him in band - position his fingers - the middle finger pressing the center valve firmly and the pointer and ring finger gracefully lifting, leaving the remaining valves open - and he blew.
Few words could be used to describe the noise that emerged from the end of the trumpet - however, heinous was one of those few words. As were horrendous, abominable, and just-plain-god-awful.
After a (failed) second, third, and - Lord, have mercy - fourth attempt, his mother had appeared in his unmercifully open door. “Child, if you even think about putting that hunk of metal to your mouth one more time, so help me-”
And with that she slammed the door - the sweetest sound that had been heard all night - and he snapped the trumpet into its case, renouncing his title as the greatest trumpeter of all time.
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Darryl ran his hand reverently down its long, smooth neck letting his blistered fingers slip across the polished maple and down to the sunburst rosewood of its body. He knew that his first endeavor in the world of music had proved to be (slightly) less than successful, but as he felt the terrific weight of the Fender Stratocaster cradled in his hands, he knew this was his destiny.
“I’ll take it,” he smiled to the disinterested teen currently sitting behind the counter of Dave’s Guitar Depot.
His mother and grandmother eyed him wearily as he walked through the kitchen, guitar case in hand. But he ignored their doubt because he knew in his heart of hearts that, while he had not been meant to be the next Miles Davis, he was surely destined to take B.B. King’s place if ever King was unable to get those blues out.
(Not so) expertly plugging the guitar into the amp he had purchased at Mr. Garren’s garage sale two weeks ago - the alien screeching and buzzing only lasted a few moments in which he struggled to find the knob to control the treble - and grinned coolly at Hendrix (who blatantly ignored him from his place on the Electric Ladyland poster).
Steadily, examining the crumpled piece of loose-leaf on which his best friend’s brother, Eddie, had scribbled a few chords, Darryl positioned his fingers along the fret as best he could, knowing the rest would come naturally. Guitar was, after all, his true calling. With his feet separated, and his knees bent, he mimicked a stance he had studied from pictures of Jimi, and measuredly, powerfully brought his arm down in a sweeping stroke that was sure to cause the guitar to produce a sound that would make angels weep for joy.
However, when the cheap plastic guitar pick touched the tight strings, instead of the opening chord to Hey Joe, a horrible sound - comparable to the crash of a small passenger plane - reverberated off the walls.
The loud banging of his mother’s broom against the ceiling of the kitchen was more than enough of an indication that his guitar career - while short lived - had come to an (abrupt) end.
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And so, it wasn’t until many years later that Darryl was once again placed directly in the face of his own musical impairments.
The decision to even come within ten feet of another instrument was not one he made consciously, and had he known that Lester and Roy had stuck an old synthesizer in the corner of the warehouse’s break room, he would have eaten lunch in his car. However, as he approached the black-plastic-box-of-an-instrument, he was pleased to discover that the object neither caught on fire nor spontaneously combusted.
“Hey guys, what’s this thing doin’ here?” He gestured wearily toward the keyboard.
Roy looked up curiously from his bologna sandwich and grinned, “Dude, Lester and I found that thing shoved in a box marked “Michael G. Scott.” That guy is a nut case.”
Darryl shrugged, but nodded his agreement.
Throughout the day, the keyboard seemed to always be in the back corner of his mind. He wondered what horrible noise he would make if he turned the thing on. His mother wasn’t here to chase him out the house, and as he watched Lonny and Maude argue over who could spit farther, he decided he would try his hand once more at this thing called music.
He sat down carefully at the worn, vinyl bench that perfectly matched the terribly cheesy synth. Flicking the big orange button, so that the red light glowed, indicating the keyboard had roared (perhaps too strong a word for the dim flicker) to life.
With a shaking hand, Darryl glanced around the room quickly, and in a move that resembled the sudden, jerky dive of a kamikaze pilot, stabbed at a black key somewhere in the middle. Instead of the inevitable deafening tone that was supposed to emerge whenever he played an instrument, a single, solid, beautiful note rose from the tiny speakers. And with each stab at a different key, the sounds that filled the room were not similar to the cries of a dying duck, but closer to the disjointed tones of an 80’s pop ballad. A step up, if he did say so himself.
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Just as Darryl was about to leave the Christmas party in the office break room - the party had died down shortly after his synthesizer had retired for the night - a soft hand on his arm stopped him just short of the doorway.
Pam looked serious, as if she were considering a difficult question, like those on Final Jeopardy when they asked the scientific name for asparagus or the name of a character in some obscure Rudyard Kipling novel. “Hey Darryl? If you don’t mind me asking, how do you know how to play that Alanis Morissette song?”
And that, my friends, is a story for another day.
Story Notes:
After the Christmas episode (3x10 A Benihana Christmas) I kept wondering how it was someone like Darryl came to be playing an instrument so...interesting as the synthesizer. This is what I came up with. Hope this gives you some insight.
