Chibber in the Jazz Age

It had been another of those social gatherings where we felt out of place. On Twitter you’re anonymous and foxes paws are irrelevant, at a high class event it’s different. It’s hard to become invisible especially when all you bring to the party is inanities. Try as we might, me and Chibber just couldn’t compete with the Joneses or the Powells or the Ashford-Webbs of this world. They had us beat in the paddock in the intellectual stakes; we were definitely oxymoronically double-dashed: an also-ran non-runner.

Chibber kicked an innocent stone that was lying in the pavement as went home.

“Did you hear that double-breasted suit guy? I can speak six languages.”

“Seven. It was seven.” not for the first time I corrected Chibber.

“Six. Seven. Doesn’t matter. It’s still more than one.” Mathematically, I did not argue with this statement. Chibber went on. “Then the other geezer. I can play nine different instruments. And they’re all those stupid snobby instruments. The piano. The harpsichord. The clarinet. And…and…all the rest.”

“You’re right. He didn’t say anything about a guitar now did he?”

Me and Chibber were both failed six-string guitarists. It’s easier listening to rock music than playing it. Various excuses were mooted and mantrad (sic): hard to fine time to practise, fingers too fat for the frets, hard to fine time to practice, fingers too fat for the frets, hard to find time to practise, fingers too fat for the frets.

“I’m going to learn to play the trumpet.” said Chibber.

“The trumpet?”

“Yeah. Think about it. It’s only got three buttons-”

“Valves. I think they’re called valves.”

“Valves then. Three valves. Now all you’ve got to do is blow and finger three buttons, um, valves. There can’t be many combinations in three valves. In layman’s terms, basically, the trumpet is a three cross: three singles, three doubles and a treble.” Chibber was over the moon. I tried to fell him with bigger numbers.

“Some trumpets have four valves. That‘s a Yankee combination”

“No. No. Forget the Yankee, Yankees are impossible. I’m going to learn on a three-buttoner.”

We walked along and Chibber ignored the discarded crushed can that was left in his path. I could tell he was in a charitable mood. I didn’t want to upset him but I had more things to say on the matter.

“If it were that easy, we’d all be trumpeters. Maybe there’s a certain way of blowing that takes skill or the valves have different settings. Quarter open or half open or something like that to get different sounds.”

“You’ve always got to rain on my parade , haven’t you?”

We walked on and I tried to cheer him up. “Juggling. Why don’t you become a juggler? Everybody likes a juggler at a party. Ashford-Webb’s sonatas would have to take a back seat to a guy levitating balls in the air.” I waited for his reaction. It was forthcoming.

“That’s it. You’re right. Juggling is an art,” he said, he was totally convinced. “and how hard can it be to juggle three balls? At every given time there is one ball in your hand so there’s only two balls to keep an eye on.”

“That’s right,” I said “and to really shatter Jones and his Bechstein Grand, to tongue -tie the multi-linguistic Powell, nay, to trump the high society set in all its splendour you could juggle four balls. That’ll show them whose boss.”

“No. No. Forget four balls. Three will be hard enough.”

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Tags: Chibber Papers, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Historical Fiction

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