World's only SuperBall xylophone band

Someone could have stopped it. In Flagstaff, in La Jolla, in Eugene. By the time they got to Portland there were only three of them left but the tour wasn't over, and it seemed a shame not to finish in Seattle like they'd planned. They eased the van into a gas station north of town and pulled some cardboard out of a dumpster. Pete got a Sharpie. Dave got one of xylophones out and set it up on the cracked asphalt. Ben went in to use the bathroom.

"We're going to play here?" Pete asked.

"Man, what the hell else are we going to do? We could be here for a long time."

It was chilly, but Dave blew into his fingers and worked his hands open and closed in between pulling SuperBalls out of a cardboard box and testing their bounce against the inside floor of the van. Pete was writing, in skinny block letters:

PLEASE HELP US GET TO SEATTLE

NEED GAS

WORLD'S ONLY

Dave jogged across the parking lot to toss a red SuperBall in the trash, then came back to look over Pete's shoulder.

WORLD'S ONLY SUPERBALL XYLOPHONE

BAND

The word "band" didn't fit on the same line. The dumpster cardboard wasn't long enough.

"All right. Warm up?" said Dave.

"Put this over here. Put your hat under it." Pete propped the cardboard against the back of the van. Ben had returned from the gas station store.

"Guys, I think I have dysentery, or something."

"Can you play?"

"Um." He sat down on the back bumper of the van. "I think I need to go to the hospital."

Pete had taken three balls and was juggling them downward against the keys of the first xylophone, experimentally. A few random notes sounded and then the strains of "Mary had a little lamb."

Dave put his hand on Ben's forehead. "You're sweaty, man."

"How are you going to afford a trip to the hospital, dude?" Pete clutched the three balls in one hand now and reached into the box for another.

Dave turned around. "How is he going to afford it? I don't know, you tell us. How much money's left in the emergency fund? The one you said we could restock if we started eating out of dumpsters. Huh?"

Pete shrugged and began bouncing the balls against the keys to the tune of "Oh when the saints come marching in," sustaining the long notes with multiple strikes like a mandolin player.

"I'm not sick. You're not sick. We're doing fine. He'll get over it."

"Well if he doesn't the tour is over. I'm not chasing after balls. It won't work. And nobody's going to pay to listen to you play the same three songs you know how to do by yourself over and over."

"So don't drop any balls." Pete didn't look up, now.

Ben was doubled over now, his blond head between his knees. Dave knelt beside him. "Look, man," he said quietly. "Go lie down in the van. If you still feel crappy in a half an hour we'll get you to the hospital. Don't worry about it." Ben nodded and Dave helped him up, around to the side of the van where he slid open the door, turning the painted SUPERBALL XYLOPHONE WORLD TOUR into the condensed SUPER HONE WOR.

"K, Pete," Dave said, dragging the box beneath the instrument and reaching in for a few balls. "I don't think either of us is capable of playing through all of, say, Stairway to Heaven without dropping at least once." He bounced his balls on the low end of the xylophone, tapping out "Hava Nagila" with stiff fingers. On the last note he missed his pickup and knocked the ball to the ground with the back of his fingers.

Three of the people who had been getting gas were now standing in front of them, looking from the instrument to the van and back, hands in their coat pockets. A teenage girl in heavy mascara leaned in and put a five in Dave's hat.

"Wanna bet?" said Pete.

"Yeah," said Dave. "I do. If I play with no drops, we take that five and put gas in the van and get Ben to the hospital. If you play with no drops, we take the gas and start heading up to Seattle."

"What if we're both perfect?"

Dave looked at their audience of three. "If we're both perfect, you guys are gonna shower us with dough, right?"

They chuckled. "I have a fiver," said a man.

"All right," said Dave. "If we're both perfect, we split the ten dollars. You get the van and I get Ben. If you're so damn good you can go to Seattle on your own. Me and Ben will figure out how to get back to Jersey."

"Fine," said Pete, so quiet the word registered more as a drift of misty breath in the cold air then as a sound. He lifted his arms a foot above the xylophone, ready. "We go on three."

Dave blew on his hands.

Note: Googled "Someone could have stopped it" and went off this picture.