The Tuba-Man of Chicago
In Chicago, school band once roamed the streets, and had duels whenever they met with one another, the outcome of which determined who controlled that block. Most people don't know this, but the origin of some of Chicago's most feared and legendary street-gangs lies in these bands.
In the late '70s, an up and coming high school band was around, and their lead player, a musician of the tuba, was well known throughout the city for practicing nonstop. Even while he was in the shower, neighbors could hear the long, deep notes emanating from his apartment. It was common knowledge that a showdown with the nearest neighbor of this band, the Gary West Side High School, was long overdue, and the tuba-man had kicked his practice schedule up a notch, playing even during gym class.
The band from WS High was nervous about him, and believed they could easily lose more than half their territory to his band - but not if he wasn't in it. The night before the expected band off, a group of students from West Side got in a car, and as the tuba-man was crossing the street to get to a 7-11, drove into him, honking the horn as they did so. The clerk from across the street saw it though, and called the police.
By the end of the week, tuba-man's funeral was held, which all his classmates went to. He was buried with his broken tuba six feet deep, but evidently, it wasn't deep enough.
The first sightings were just four months later, when a burglar allegedly saw a rotting corpse at the window, watching him. After that, reports came from all corners of the city, and some other nearby areas as well. Criminals, from litterers to murderers, began reporting an increasingly rotten corpse watching them, and some even claim he motioned for them to come near. They all suddenly stopped for nearly fifteen years, until the early '90s, when he began again, this time fully free of any flesh - it was just the bones.
The urban legends of tuba-man, come back from the dead, were quick to crop up on the early 'net. Some claimed to see strange movements at the cemetery he was buried after the sun went down, and others claimed to have seen him whilst high. No matter whether he really existed or not, the possibility of it ran fear through criminals, and it's undeniable that the crime rate dropped heavily starting then. Chicagoans, grateful of the comparative peace, began attributing it to him, the student killed by gang violence.
Tuba-man was buried with his tuba, but everyone knew it was broken. Even after being killed, and even after losing all flesh, even after being forced to use his broken tuba as a completely different instrument, he continued to play. He played the last thing he could remember hearing in life, the sound of a car horn, and whenever someone in Chicago hears that sound, they thank him for keeping the city safe.
Doot doot.
Originally uploaded on June 26, 2015
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