The Frontman
Page 4
“I'm not waiting on a lady,
I'm just waiting on a friend”
—THE ROLLING STONES’ “WAITING ON A FRIEND,”
FROM THE ALBUM TATTOO YOU, RELEASED AUGUST
24TH, 1981. IT PEAKED AT NUMBER FIVE ON US
BILLBOARD’S HOT 100 SONGS.
Turn up the distortion to ten. Just the distortion,” he said.
“I can’t. Your parents will freak out,” I answered. Benjie stared at me then rolled his eyes, exasperated. “This isn’t your house. My parents don’t care.”
“Whatever you say.” I delicately adjusted the distortion knob from seven to ten. I didn’t dare touch the volume, gain, treble, middle, or bass knobs. God forbid I even look at the reverb knob. Benjie was a free spirit, but not about his Yamaha Solid State G100-212 amplifier. It complemented his guitar, a mahogany Gibson SG, perfectly.
Benjie felt that his guitar, his amp, and he were somehow inextricably linked, and who was I to disagree? He had started strumming at age twelve, and, unlike most boys his age, he was not satisfied with learning the first few bars of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” or Boston’s “More Than a Feeling.” Instead, within two months, he was able to flawlessly play complicated riffs from such ’70s classics as The Allman Brothers Band’s “Jessica,” and REO Speedwagon’s “Ridin’ the Storm Out.” He especially loved the latter song because it involved the use of a siren. Rock and roll.
BENJIE was Iris’s age, and the two of them shared every educational experience together, from Jewish preschool onward. So, like Iris, Benjie had already graduated high school earlier in the year, in the spring of 1982. Unlike my sister, however, he decided not to leave town.
Bob Hirsch, the wealthiest Jewish businessman in town and owner of the decidedly un-kosher fast-food chain, The Salty Hog, had been admiring Benjie’s musical skills since he’d heard him play a tribute to Peter Frampton at Tifereth Israel Synagogue’s talent show in ninth grade. I swear, “Baby, I Love Your Way” never sounded so good. So in the summer of 1981, Bob called Benjie directly and offered him $1,000 if he and the three other members of his band, The Well Endowed, would play Top 40-ish music at his son Josh’s Bar Mitzvah. To a seventeen-year-old Lincolnite in 1981, $250 was a lot of money. Benjie would otherwise jump at the opportunity, but he worried about “compromising the integrity” of the band by playing cover music.
“Dad, should we do it?” Benjie asked his pragmatic father, Sheldon.
“Benj, that’s the dumbest question you’ve ever asked. You think there’s no virtue in making an honest buck for your talent? You’re goddamn right you should do it!”
Keyboardist Nick Ramsey left the band due to “artistic differences,” if that concept is possible for a teenager. He was immediately replaced by Peter Syrett. Peter’s father, David, pianist for the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra, also understood the value of a dollar. Therefore, to preserve their honor, Benjie, Peter, drummer Johnny Burke and bassist Jeff Sorensen, agreed to have two iterations of the same band: The Well Endowed, which played only original music, and a second group, which played only what was heard on KFMQ, the local FM pop station, and KLMS, its AM rival. The boys even gave the cover band a separate name: The Repeats.
Could the vested corduroy suits and powder-blue chiffon dresses of the Bar Mitzvah circuit mesh with the teen-hipster musicians of Lincoln, Nebraska?
Money spoke loudly, both to The Well Endowed and to The Repeats. While The Well Endowed was popular in its own circle, it had never garnered more than about fifty fans at any single setting, including Lincoln’s most famous upand-comer venue, Duffy’s Tavern. The night of Josh Hirsch’s Bar Mitzvah, however, would be different. The Hilton rocked three hundred screaming fans that night. Offers from upcoming Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, including those from Omaha, Des Moines, and Kansas City, started pouring in.
Something else enticed The Repeats that night. To the girls in the crowd, it was as though Rick Springfield, Bob Seger, Foreigner, Hall & Oates, and The Police had all shown up to play for them, especially after the kosher Manischewitz wine was pilfered from the adult tables. The combination of alcohol, music, and hormones was simply too much for Dana Hirsch, Josh’s older sister. The band’s rendition of Seger’s “Against the Wind” made her lose all inhibition. After the gig, she treated Benjie to his first blowjob in the cramped back seat of his 1966 burgundy Mustang. She told him she loved his “majestic” Jew-fro (it was, indeed, magnificent).
The three other Repeats also fared well. Though The Well Endowed had an inkling that performing music live was an aphrodisiac, they had no idea until the Bar Mitzvah that a big crowd would make them feel like the fucking Beatles during the British Invasion. Any concerns they had about “selling out” dissolved with the influx of money and girls.
“Something happens when you have a guitar in your hands, a wad of money in your pocket, and mob of girls in front of you,” Benjie would later say. “You have this power over them. It’s palpable. I could be the world’s ugliest man, but if I can sing or play guitar, it just doesn’t matter. Look at Gene Simmons or Keith Richards. Now those are some ugly motherfuckers. Women line up just to have a chance to ‘do the deed’ with them. And the money’s not always a part of the story. I know plenty of guys with no cash who get some serious tail just for playing the part.”
The Repeats didn’t just conquer the Jewish circuit. Once word of the band’s vibe had spread, the boys became the hottest thing at weddings, graduations, proms, homecomings, and fairs alike. While The Well Endowed continued to perform at small venues, like Little Bo’s, to perform their original music, the boys knew where their bread was buttered. Benjie put college on hold to see how things would go. And the beat went on.
BENJIE and I had been best friends since early childhood. We hid nothing from each other. I understood his dream of becoming a successful musician, and he understood my obsession, if not dream, with becoming a doctor. He all but felt my fear of failure, my sources of guilt, and my need to please my family. I all but felt the rush and the catharsis of his performances.
We shared everything about Judaism: Bar Mitzvahs, Holocaust stories, the miracle of Israel, and having the rabbi kick us out of Hebrew School class together for uncontrollable laughter at the emission of a silent fart. I taught Benjie how to swear in Hebrew, and he taught me how to sing in front of a crowd, but up to this point only facing the congregation, and not the rest of the world.
THE Yamaha hummed slightly as the volume was cranked, but the music that emanated from it was always clear and powerful. “Ronnie, you know that new Modern English song?”
“‘I Melt with You’?” I asked. “Of course. Not only do I know all the words, but I can air guitar the shit out of that thing.”
“Okay, I want you to listen to this and tell me what you think . . .
Moving forward using all my breath, making love to you was never second best . . .”
Fucking rock star. I understood. Honestly, he made cheesy profound.
“Well, what do you think?” he asked.
“Dude, I think I’m hard for you.”
“Exactly. I think I’m hard for myself.”
We both laughed, hard.
Then he looked at me, intently. “Now you sing.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? I don’t do the real thing,” I answered.
“What the fuck are you talking about? It’s just me. Go ahead,” he said.
“Okay, okay.” I grabbed his real microphone. No mirror, air guitar, or lip sync this time.
I started again from where he left off, tentatively at first, but by the chorus . . .
God that felt good.
CHAPTER 7
“I’m floating
in a beam of light with you”
—A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS’ “I RAN (SO FAR AWAY),”
FROM THE BAND’S DEBUT, EPONYMOUS ALBUM, RELEASED
APRIL 30TH, 1982. IT PEAKED AT NUMBER THREE ON US
BILLBOARD’S HOT 100 SONGS.
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I would do anything to spend time with Amy: make unnecessary locker visits, linger after classes when I knew she would show up the next period, time my arrival at school so that my Duster would coincidentally park next to her Rabbit. For PE, I even took disco dancing instead of wrestling, so that I would have the chance to touch her instead of a sweaty teenage boy. Despite the merciless ridicule I endured for that decision, I would consider it, on balance, unmitigated genius.
By mid-October, 1982, I called Zillie to discuss my dilemma. “Honestly, I don’t know what to do,” I complained. “I’ve had a thing for Amy for years. And now I know she likes me, but I don’t want to go behind anyone’s back . . . this just sucks.”
To say Zillie and I saw the world differently is an understatement. “First of all, you didn’t need to tell me you were hot for Amy. I think the fact that you drool every time she’s around gives it away.” Thankfully, she couldn’t detect my blush over the phone. “I just don’t understand you, Ronnie. This is your life. You’re only going to be a horny seventeen year old once. Don’t blow it. Remember when I started dating Brian Cook my junior year of high school? Mom and Dad found out, right? And what happened?”
“A lot of yelling, screaming, and crying,” I responded.
“No, no. I mean, what happened after that?”
“Nothing, I guess. You kept dating him. They were really pissed until you dumped him.”
“Exactly! Life goes on, Ronnie. I love my parents just as much as you do, but fucking carpe diem! They put you in Nebraska, so you have to live like a Nebraskan . . . at least until you leave for med school.”
“If I leave for med school. I haven’t gotten in yet.”
“Jesus Christ, Ronnie, your pessimism is part of the problem. Everything will be fine. Listen, I gotta go. Big econ test tomorrow. My parting words . . . don’t be a coward. Live a little.” Click.
HALLOWEEN was on Sunday night that year, so the parties fell the night before. Tommy’s parents were out of town, as usual, and the Hanson Tudor Estate, which itself looked like a haunted house, would need little decoration to become the site of this year’s festivities.
Jason from Friday the 13th and Princess Leia dominated the costumes. In an attempt at originality and Jewish pride, I went as Moses. My vision of him was always that of Charlton Heston. You know, The Ten Commandments movie version, in which he instantly aged about fifty years after beholding the burning bush. My cotton-ball beard was excellent, if I may say so myself. To avoid confusion with Santa Claus, I fashioned two pieces of Hebrew-inscribed construction paper to serve as my tablets; an old pool cue made a perfect staff. Naturally, I wore my leather-strapped Gali-brand Israeli sandals. Along with my dad’s Star-of-David blue bathrobe, I believe I did my people proud.
Though several girls dressed as black cats, I knew instantly which one was Amy. As I had stared at her butt a thousand times over the years, there was no mistaking her silhouette created by the fog and early Christmas lights outside the house in the makeshift beer garden. It was magical.
Sundar had driven me to the party. Though he didn’t share my obsession with Amy, he certainly understood the lust. “If you stare any harder, your balls might burst. Go talk to her, for God’s sake,” he said, smirking.
Of course he was right. Up to this point, my tactile experiences with girls consisted of an occasional game of Spin the Bottle or Seven Minutes in Heaven, the latter of which generally consisted of about six and a half minutes of awkward conversation, followed by a lackluster hug and peck on the cheek. Saliva was rarely shared.
I approached Amy and her best friend, Christine Evans, my college counselor’s daughter. “Ever spent an evening with a prophet?” I asked, putting one arm around each girl in a weak attempt at cool. “I envision you will,” I added, carefully raising an eyebrow for dramatic effect.
“Oh God,” Chris replied, simultaneously smiling, rolling her eyes, and walking away. Like Amy, Chris was attractive, smart, and intuitive. On her way to the Wapatui bowl (essentially a “kitchen sink” of liquor and fruit juice), she actually winked so that only I could see. I love you, Chris, I thought. Naturally, Sundar followed her like a lap dog.
Amy and I stared at each other and grinned. I was so nervous, my heart nearly leaped from my chest. Two aspects of the evening were in my favor: the air was cool enough to keep my palms from sweating, and the music was loud enough to muffle the sound of my rumbling abdomen. I prayed I wouldn’t fart.
God answered by quieting my generally untamed colon. He even added the sweet scent of applewood from the nearby bonfire. Nice touch, dear Lord; A Halloween Miracle.
The chilly, windy weather conditions prompted the kids to congregate around the flame, and the free flow of alcohol only enhanced an already celebratory mood. “The heat feels so good,” said Christine, whose sexy pioneer woman costume had rendered her barelegged and goosebumped. She stood with palms out, warming herself slowly to the rhythm of outdoor music. Tommy’s giant-ass JVC RCM-90 boom box did indeed “boom” and reverberate as it played Bow Wow Wow’s “I Want Candy.”
“I know a guy who’s tough but sweet . . .”
“Hey, that’s my theme song, baby!” declared an excited and decidedly drunk Tommy. “Wait! I got one more!” he then added, now laughing. He ran inside the house to his prized cassette collection. As “I Want Candy” ended, he stumbled in his return with a copy of Asia’s self-titled album. He changed the tape and cranked track number one:
“I never meant to be so bad to you
One thing I said that I would never do . . .”
Tommy raised an Anchor Steam beer bottle—only the best would do—above his head, and started to chime in. By the time the chorus arrived, the entire crowd was singing along.
Everyone was focused on the campfire, except for Amy and me. She looked directly at me with those enormous, shimmering eyes, and smiled so completely that I nearly melted despite the cold. Before I could kiss her, I tried to channel Benjie’s energy, Sundar’s bravado, and Zillie’s resolve. I simultaneously battled Jewish guilt. On a less syrupy note, I channeled Tom Selleck. Yes, TV’s Magnum PI. Dude was a stud, and he looked as though he smelled really good. Thank you. All of you. I removed my beard. We kissed. And kissed. And kissed. No bottle spinning. No seven minutes. This felt different. We fit perfectly. The rest of the world disappeared, if only for a moment.
Just then, Mark Gross, dressed as Superman, grabbed a fire log from its non-burning end. The opposite one glowed yellow, giving it the appearance of a giant cigarette . . . or of a giant burning penis.
“Look, my dick’s on fire!” he yelled.
Wildly drunk, he laughed, spun, and fell, right into one of the Princess Leias. This surreal sexual collision of intergalactic royalty would have been funny, if not for the fact that the dress of Leia, this time portrayed by Liz Olson, was set afire.
I’M fairly certain Amy and I were the only sober attendees. I ran for the water hose and Amy had Liz roll around in the dirt. By the time I returned, poor Liz was covered in debris. The water extinguished the remaining smoke, but Leia’s hair buns had transformed into mud pies.
Judge White, Tommy’s next-door neighbor, thundered into the backyard to determine what the commotion was all about.
“Tommy, what the hell is going on?” he roared. “I have half a mind to drag your parents back from Florida just to bail your sorry ass out of jail.”
“Please, Judge, I can explain everything,” he answered. “Only a few friends were supposed to stop by, and things just got out of hand. I’m telling you the truth.”
Tommy deserved an Oscar for his performance. Judge White and Tommy ended up sampling his honor’s best bottle of scotch together. An embarrassed Liz would come inside to shower and dress in Tommy’s sister’s pajamas. And, of course Tommy and Liz had sex later that night. Order was restored.
Before I departed with Amy, I approached Sundar to explain my situation. Before I could speak, he put his hand up as a gesture to ke
ep me from doing so. He then laughed and said, “Dude, you don’t need to explain. Go live the dream.”
Amy and I made small talk before reaching her mother’s house. Carol Andrews was out for the evening, so we were alone. We made out on the couch. The power of puppy love cannot be underestimated. I felt a series of hormonal surges pulsating inside my body, as adrenaline and testosterone fought valiantly for attention.
After a few minutes, Amy came up for air. “Ron, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Promise me I can trust you?”
I thought she was joking, so I followed suit. “I’m sorry, I can’t promise you anything,” I answered, chuckling.
“Don’t laugh!” she implored, now visibly upset. “If we’re going to be together, I need to trust you.”
“What are you talking about? Of course you can trust me.”
“No, I mean really trust you. I’ve been through too much since my parents split to be able to rely on any male, whether it’s my father or a boy.”
A single, plump tear formed at the corner of her left eye and began to drip down her face. I wiped it carefully with the index finger of my right hand. “Amy, I would never do anything to hurt you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Ron, I used to trust everyone, especially my dad.”
I didn’t answer; instead I held her close. We sat silently and I closed my eyes as I concentrated on the beat of her heart and the smell of her hair. I actually felt myself falling in love.
Moments later, Carol Andrews pulled into the driveway. Amy and I quickly reassembled ourselves, but the lustful atmosphere was still obvious. “Hi, guys,” said Carol in an inquisitive tone. Call me paranoid, but I think the good Dr. Andrews gave me the mess-with-my-sensitive-daughter-and-I’ll-rip-your-balls-off-and-serve-them-to-my-dog-for-breakfast look.
“Hi, Dr. Andrews, I was just leaving,” I answered. I tightened my robe, grabbed my beard, mumbled an awkward good-bye, and left.