Norman and I lay down to sleep in a tent with a clarinet player called Big Mike. Big Mike, a small man, of course did not know that Norman was black. But he didn’t offer any objection to my presence. He was far more comfortable with my presence than I was with his. He performed what I imagined was his nightly ritual. He placed his cased clarinet very neatly and squarely at the foot of his rolled-out blanket, laid a cloth over it and then lay down to rest. Norman nodded to me and we, too, found our beds.
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