The No-Talent Kid

"The No-Talent Kid" is a short story first published in The Saturday Evening Post on October 25, 1952 and reprinted in the collections Bagombo Snuff Box in 1999 and Complete Stories in 2017. It was Vonnegut's first work to be published in a magazine other than Collier’s and came out the same day as a short story in that periodical, "Poor Little Rich Town". It is also the first story to feature band director George M. Helmholtz.

Plot Summary

George M. Helmholtz, the head of the music department at Lincoln High School, leads the school year's fifth session for the beginner's C Band. He is distracted by worries because the Lincoln High School Ten Square Band, state champions nine years running, were defeated last June after Johnston High School acquired a bass drum seven feet in diameter that impressed the non-musical judges. Having spent all the available funds, he frets about how the band can become competitive again.

Walter Plummer is a musically untalented third year C Band clarinetist who nonetheless has great lung capacity developed from years of swimming, which allows him to hold notes even longer than better musicians. He has long had ambitions to join the Ten Square Band and gain a much coveted letter sweater. He announces during class that on the semester's first "challenge day"—a competition held every other Friday during which members of lower bands can challenge those in higher bands for their spots—he intends to challenge Flammer, the superb first clarinetist of the A Band. Helmholtz encourages him to instead challenge Ed Delaney, last chair of the B Band, but Walter is confident he will win because he has a new, better clarinet.

The famous "World's Largest Drum" of the "All-American" Marching Band of Purdue University, Indiana

Helmholtz lies on his couch at home two hours after challenge day, during which he unsurprisingly favored Flammer's playing. He hears delivery of the afternoon newspaper by his paperboy, Walter. Inviting him inside, Helmholtz tries to encourage Walter to realize that growing up is about learning one's own limitations, with the hope that he will quit the band. Walter, however, continues to believe that his own playing is wonderful and says it's incompetence like this that cost Helmholtz last year's championship. When Helmholtz claims it was Johnston High’s seven foot bass drum, Walter says Lincoln High School should get its own huge drum "like the Knights of Kandahar use in their parades" and bicycles away. Later, Helmholtz sees in the paper that the Knights of Kandahar are indeed being forced to sell their bass drum, but every time he calls to buy it he gets a busy signal. Noticing that Walter left the newspapers for his deliveries at his home, Helmholtz calls Walter's mother only to learn that he had already left, saying something about selling his clarinet.

By the next school day Helmholtz has still been unable to get through to the Knights of Kandahar. At C Band practice, the absence of Walter in the last clarinet seat is noticed by much of the class. At A Band practice, Helmholtz learns that the bass drum has already been sold just as Walter arrives, hauling the drum behind him. Overjoyed, Helmholtz offers to buy it only to learn that Walter expects to play it in A Band until he graduates. Helmholtz rejects this and finally tells Walter that he lacks any musical talent. Heartbroken, Walter leaves and takes the bass drum with him, saying he'll never sell it to Helmholtz. However, watching Walter leave Helmholtz realizes that if the band were able to use the eight foot bass drum, someone in the A Band would need to balance and pull the drum along in a cart while someone else plays it. He offers the position to Walter, complete with letter sweater.