Tré Burt (photo by Mary Ellen Matthews)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Tré Burt is No Depression’s Spotlight artist for October 2023. Learn more about him and his new album, Traffic Fiction, in this interview, and check out an acoustic performance of the title track just for ND readers in this video.
It’s the last day of third grade in the year Nineteen Hundred and Ninety-Nine, moms walking me across the cracked blacktop to the construction trailer where class was starting. My mom’s presence was a special request from Mrs. Painter, my teacher. I didn’t know what there was to talk about, it was glorious day. Field Day. You remember. That day before summer vacation where you and all your friends run around throwing balls of various sizes at or towards each other. Maybe telling Meghan that she should be your girlfriend and that if she agrees your mom could probably take you both to Water World.
I pull open the heavy steel door and once half in heel kick it for moms and run to my desk next to Pharaoh to start drafting teams for the impending four-square tournament, which was slated to be an absolute bloodbath and the most epic of the year. Mrs. Painter clasps her hands together from the opposite side of the room and starts shuffling towards the door and while making her way darts me a quick and worried look. In the middle of Pharaoh explaining why he’s the superior team captain my attention shifts to the secret meeting at the door. After a few moments of training my ears to the muted tones of adults’ conversation, I’m able to cut through all the clamor and noise.
I make out this sentence from the teacher: “Tré’s a bright child, but he lacks common sense.”
A glance at their faces revealed two heads slow-nodding and frowning in unison, my mother a bit confused. I could’ve done without the nay-saying so early in the morning but I was more or less unfazed by this coup and re-entered the war room where Pharaoh was now moving on to tetherball tactics with the rest of the group hovered over the desk. I look back over toward the door and mom is squinting with one hand on her chin and Mrs. Painter is looking through me with her hands behind her back swaying left to right. Mom’s phone rings from a work call, they give each other a motherly pat on the arm, and mom presses the door open with her hip and disappears into the bright white morning.
Mrs. Painter assumes center stage and commands the attention of the room.
“Alright class! Clean up your desks and line up to collect your cursive writing logs! Once you’ve got yours, head outside to the blacktop for Field Day!”
The floor shakes with the rumble of twenty 60-or-so-pound children swarming into a farce of order, foaming at the mouth to commence Field Day.
One by one the writing logs were handed back to the class and one by one the class flew out the door and onto the blacktop, letting out a custom-made yelp of joy. I’m next in line behind Pharaoh and ready my hands in the receiving position to expedite the process.
“Good job, Pharaoh. Head to the blacktop.”
“Yee-hooo haaaw!”
I approach Mrs. Painter, looking past her shoulder into the sunshine while blindly reaching for my log book, only to be stopped upon arrival.
“Not you, Tré. Go sit back down in your desk and I’ll be there shortly.”
Mrs. Painter shuts the door after the last kid and the room was finally empty. She takes a suburban sigh and walks to my desk.
“Is this about me lacking common sense?” I said sarcastically.
She places my writing log in front of me as if showing me evidence to a crime.
Apparently I took too many liberties in the book we’d been working on all year. Where there were dotted lines etching out cursive letters for us to trace, I had made haikus out of them. Where there were example sentences we were to write, I had connected every single word together. Where we were to copy a sentence, I would make up my own. And so on and so on.
“You’re going to have to sit here and redo your book the right way before you leave for summer.”
It took hours. It was about 100 pages we’d been working on all year. And I missed every single four-square match, every single tetherball tournament, and every single moment of Field Day. And missed my opportunity to proposition Meghan into a relationship. Leaving the blinds open so I could see all the joy I was missing out on was a nice touch.
I’m 31 now. The year is Twenty Hundred and Twenty-Three. I reflect on these words now at a cafe on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake, six hours before my new record, Traffic Fiction, comes out, and about 24 hours before I play The Ford theater. Me, the college dropout.
I remember for a long time after that feeling like I was missing something everybody had except for me. But it was exactly my lack of common sense that got me to where I am now. Where everyone went left, I went right, not to be contrary but out of curiosity.
“But what’s over there?” I ask myself a lot.
Common sense.
Who wants common sense anyways? Why be common?
And I wonder what the world would look like if a child’s quirks were celebrated instead of punished.
What if Mrs. Painter had just handed me a book of poetry at the door?
What if she had said she liked my haikus?
Eh, I guess that just wouldn’t have been common sensical, I suppose.
