Necessity by Brian Garfield Page A

even to me. We just couldn’t have been that naive.
    â€œNow there was this one kid they auditioned from the school marching band, played the tuba, but he knew how to play the bass and he was by far the most accomplished musician of the bunch. You give him the notes, he can play them—almost never makes a mistake. Mike said this guy was the best-trained technician he’d ever heard.”
    He goes on: “But they turned him down. They went for another kid instead. Because this guy, the earnest zealot with all the training, he stood there like a lump and just played the notes. He didn’t have the music in his bones. He heard it—but he didn’t feel it. How’d they put it? They said he just didn’t have soul.”
    â€œI had a feeling there’d be a moral to this story.”
    â€œHoney sweet, you may be the world’s greatest pole-vaulter for all I know but you ain’t got the soul of an airplane driver. You study long and hard, you’ll memorize enough to get you a license, but every time you go up in the air you’re going to be scared of the aircraft. You’re never going to have a feel for it.”
    â€œWhy are you so anxious to do yourself out of a paying customer?”
    He smiles briefly: he can be surprisingly gentle. “Baby love, you’re not going to make a good pilot. And if you can’t do it well, why do it at all? Take up water skiing or horseback riding or amateur theatricals.”
    She doesn’t reply. She watches him. Charlie sips coffee and makes a face. “We having dinner tonight?”
    â€œThat depends.”
    He gives her a straight look. He has an airman’s blue grey eyes and when he isn’t being sardonic they seem morose. The random thought crosses her mind that if you were filming The Charlie Reid Story you could cast Robert Mitchum in the title role. Charlie doesn’t carry his eyes at half mast and he doesn’t really look like the actor but he’s got a similar resonance and he presents to the world a rough facade that hides a good ear and an ironic intelligence.
    Charlie says, “I wish I could tell when you’re really mad. Everything’s an act with you.”
    â€œWhen I’m really mad you’ll know it.” She perches a hip against the desk; there’s only one chair in the tiny room and he’s sitting on it. She glances at the ten-year-old snapshot of Michael above his head. The kid’s big-jawed face has the same effect as Charlie’s: a little shifty and a littly ugly but somehow you know that against your better judgment you’re going to like him.
    â€œDoes he still play in a band?”
    â€œThey’ve got a little group. Sorority dances and such. Just casual stuff. They have fun.”
    â€œWhat instrument does he play?”
    â€œSaxophone.”
    â€œIs he good?”
    â€œPut it this way. He’s enthusiastic.”
    She pictures the kid—tall now and hulking like his dad. Honking into a saxophone, trying to sound lyrical. Probably has girls hanging all over him.
    She says, “What did you do in the Air Force?”
    â€œFlew fighters.”
    â€œVietnam?”
    â€œI did a couple tours. You want us to talk about my war crimes now?”
    â€œDid you commit any?”
    â€œI made a deal with myself not to wear sackcloth and ashes the rest of my life. You get tired of examining the philosophy of what constitutes being a Good German and what constitutes being a normal human critter. You get tired of trying to define what’s a crime in those kinds of circumstances. It’s about as useful as counting angels on the head of a pin.”
    Then he adds: “I never was much on moral introspection. I don’t feel warped about it. I don’t think it turned me into a hero or a maniac. I went there, flew airplanes, did what I was told most of the time. Tried to keep my self-respect, stayed alive, came