The Frontman
Page 6
Though I was not invited to the wedding, I was made a roadie for the event so I could live vicariously through Scott and earn a few bucks while looking really fucking cool in the process.
After a grand entrance and a series of embarrassing toasts, the bride and groom finally spoke. Instead of talking politics or speechifying, they simply alternated reading verses from E. E. Cummings’ “I Carry Your Heart with Me.” It was dignified, beautiful, elegant, and captivating. Adults cried, children smiled, and I daydreamed. Not to be taken too seriously, however, Kimmy and Scott showed their sense of humor and timing, and, in dramatic fashion, had The Repeats interrupt the moved and silent partygoers with the music, appropriately enough, of The Romantics:
“What I like about you, you keep me warm at night . . .”
Benjie was in his element. From my vantage point beside the stage, I scanned the crowd and looked through his eyes. While I knew they weren’t listening to his original music, it didn’t matter. Beneath tuxedos and evening gowns, it honestly didn’t matter. We may as well have been seeing Marley in Kingston or Elvis in Memphis. The response was visceral and universal.
I was mesmerized and couldn’t stop fantasizing about my relationship with Amy and my desire to sing on stage. Fulfilling his duties as best friend, Benjie had already noticed me, scanned the crowed and looked through my eyes. He realized I was jealous even before I did, and though he craved the audience, he wanted to me to understand how it felt to be the frontman.
The first set included, among other hits, seemingly disparate yet perfectly-timed songs like Blondie’s “Call Me” and Prince’s “1999,” and ended in a tongue-in-cheek version of “Endless Love,” with Peter as Lionel Ritchie and Benjie as Diana Ross.
The Repeats truly relished performing, but each member took his job very seriously. Peter said once, in earnest, that he needed to respect playing cover music “like I’m babysitting the original artist’s child.” I began to understand what he meant.
Between sets, Benjie walked off stage, directly to me. He put one sweaty arm around me, grabbed a Coke with the other, and said, “You’re up.” I laughed, and he responded with, “I’m serious. I talked to the guys earlier and they okay’d it. I know you know ‘Abracadabra.’ When set two starts, you’re on.”
“Dude, we’re not in your house. There must be four hundred people out there!”
“Exactly. Go take a leak so you don’t piss your pants when you get on stage,” he said, grinning. The glow of excitement on his face could only have come from someone who had no agenda except for unconditional, lifelong friendship. I knew I had no choice. I was going to sing.
I took Benjie’s advice and ran to the bathroom. Taking a leak would not suffice. Apparently an IBS attack was part of my rite of passage to “the big time.”
BENJIE knew exactly what had happened. After suffering about fifteen minutes on the can, I heard a tap on the stall door. He offered a sympathetic laugh and said, “Listen, Mr. Shits, I know you can do this. Just imagine we’re in my family room. No biggie. Now wipe your ass, rinse your face, and let’s do this.”
If I couldn’t trust him, I couldn’t trust anyone. Once I used up an entire roll of toilet paper tidying up, I walked up to the sink, stared at my sweaty face in the mirror, then at Benjie, and rolled my eyes, resigned. “Jesus Christ, let’s get this over with.”
I returned to the party and stood nervously beside the stage. Only The Repeats knew what was about to happen, and all four grinned with one collective smile. This was going to be interesting.
Benjie sauntered to the microphone, guitar in hand, face beaming. “Now, from the streets of Lincoln, Nebraska, by way of Jerusalem, my good friend and guest singer, Ron Bahar!” His outstretched hand led all eyes straight to me. This was it.
I walked gingerly on stage. Only a few feet away stood Tommy (of course, he was invited) once again with totally-fucking-hot Julia Turner. Tommy stared, with mouth agape. This time even Julia didn’t look past me. Benjie whispered in my ear, “Just follow my lead.”
The music started. I was overcome by the power of the beat, the sound, and the people. Instead of passing out, however, I felt empowered to sing Steve Miller’s words:
“I heat up, I can't cool down, You got me spinning . . .”
Suddenly it felt so ridiculously natural . . . this could be addictive.
CHAPTER 11
“Everything is possible
in the game of life”
—SIMPLE MINDS’ “PROMISED YOU A MIRACLE,” FROM
THE ALBUM NEW GOLD DREAM, RELEASED APRIL, 1982.
IT PEAKED AT NUMBER SEVEN ON US BILLBOARD’S HOT
DANCE CLUB PLAY.
I conic Green Bay Packers’ coach, Vince Lombardi, once said, “When you get in the end zone, act like you’ve been there before.” I attempted in vain to remember these words during the week following my “touchdown” at the Campbell wedding. I was simultaneously embarrassed and thrilled.
Leonard Nickerson, my math teacher and dead ringer for Gregory’s Peck’s Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, was, like the character, extraordinarily reserved both in his appearance and in his mannerisms. However, when his daughter, my classmate Lendy, told her father what had transpired at the country club, Mr. Nickerson had all of the second period students greet me with applause as I entered his classroom. I blushed. He nodded. I smiled. I believe I represented to him a victory for nerds everywhere.
Tommy loved it. “Dude, some serious poontang is comin’ your way. I mean, rock and fuckin’ roll!” He raised a lighter high above his head, waved it just once, and paid homage to Lynyrd Skynyrd by yelling “Free Bird!” His predictable comments would not have caused me even to raise an eyebrow, except that Julia and her only-slightly-less-hot three-girl entourage—featuring Heather, Dana, and Jody—were standing in tow in the lunch line. I couldn’t escape. There was no time for a full IBS tsunami; instead, only a little sweat and a pathetic grin. This interaction occurred despite gaining more than rudimentary experience talking to girls with my incredibly disarming girlfriend. I definitely had a way with the ladies.
Later that day, Amy trapped me in front of my locker. “Tell me, how did it feel?”
“How did what feel?”
“You know, being onstage with all those screaming girls going crazy over your voice.”
“They weren’t going crazy over my voice. Everyone was having fun and I was like a novelty . . . you know, ‘Holy shit, Bahar thinks he can sing!’” I lied; I actually did think they went crazy.
“Oh, come on, Ron. And tell me you didn’t love it.”
“Love’s a strong word, Amy. I said I was just having fun.” I lied again. I had relived “Abracadabra” and Julia’s response in my mind continuously since the moment it happened. It all gave me one giant mental hard-on.
“And you’re sure it wasn’t planned?”
“Positive,” I answered, solemnly.
Despite my reassurances, she remained insecure. The next time we were alone, she asked me to sing to her.
I had seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High three times since its release in September, and I loved it. We reenacted the dugout scene (minus the dugout and, again, minus the sex) in which Stacy and the stereo salesman—also named Ron—get busy to Jackson Browne’s “She Must Be Somebody’s Baby.”
“Well, just look at that girl with the lights comin’ up in her eyes . . .”
Of course, we were actually in the Duster, this time off the road along Nebraska Highway 2, just southeast of Pine Lake. Amy interrupted my singing, not with her voice, but with her hand. She placed it on my mouth. She then smiled awkwardly, with consternation.
“Amy, what’s wrong?” I asked, bewildered.
“With you? Nothing.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“It’s just . . .”
“Just what? Is this about the ‘screaming girls’ again? I mean, what the fuck? Just because . . .”
“Ron, please don’t swear. Y
ou know I don’t like that.” I did know. It was part of what made her impossibly good.
“I’m sorry. Really. Talk to me.” I feared that something had gone terribly wrong.
“I’m worried. About us.”
“What? Why?” I asked, incredulously.
“Just hear me out,” she said. “Ron, this is so much fun, and it feels so good, but what happens tomorrow?”
“Another ride in The ‘Good Times Machine!’” I responded only half-jokingly.
“Ron, stop, I’m talking about us, the future. How is this going to work? You’re Jewish. I’m Protestant. Your parents don’t approve and my mom won’t intervene. You’re leaving next year, and I’m staying in Lincoln. Do you want me to go on?”
I was caught utterly off guard. Rather than babble in response, I remained silent.
Amy eventually tired of waiting and continued, “There’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“Well . . . I told my dad about . . . us . . . this.”
“Amy, why? What were you thinking? My parents are gonna kill me!”
“No, they won’t. Before I told my dad, I swore him to secrecy, even from my mom. He’s a lot of things, but he’s not a narc. He won’t say a word.”
“I still don’t get why you told him.”
“Maybe . . . maybe I wanted him to understand that he was no longer the most important man in my life.”
I was astonished, but this time I was not speechless. “Amy, I’m flattered . . . and I get it . . . and you’re the most important person in my life too . . . but if you’re so worried about us, why did you go out of your way to tell your dad now?”
“Because I really want it to work . . . I love you, Ron.”
“I love you, too,” I answered. Neither of us had ever used those words before, but they had been implicit for a while.
She examined my face inquisitively with her probing eyes as my heart flipped. She then placed her head on my shoulder, and we drove back to the Rabbit, which was still parked at school.
BEFORE she opened her car door, I rolled down my window. “Hey, Amy,” I said.
“Yes?”
“I really do love you.”
“I know you do.” She smiled hopefully, and we drove off in opposite directions.
CHAPTER 12
“Don’t you know by now
no one gives you anything”
—STEVE WINWOOD’S “WHILE YOU SEE A CHANCE,” FROM
THE ALBUM ARC OF A DIVER, RELEASED DECEMBER, 1980.
IT PEAKED AT NUMBER SEVEN ON US BILLBOARD’S HOT
100 SONGS.
Amy gave me a respite; we didn’t have another “relationship discussion” for several weeks. We studied and we played. I couldn’t help falling more deeply in love.
In the meantime, thanks to Ms. Donovan’s advice, my applications were well received. I earned four of five medical school interviews; only Northeastern Ohio apparently had no interest in singing doctors. For the interview suit, my mother and I shopped at Brandeis Department Store alone; including my father might have resulted in a plea for the return of polyester. We agreed on a conservative wool, navy blue, double-breasted number, in part because it was marked thirty percent off during the pre-Christmas sale, and in part because I refused the same brown corduroy design she loved in my Bar Mitzvah suit. However, Mom did insist on making the alterations herself. She had learned to sew by hand as a child, well before my dad surprised her with an electric Singer sewing machine after they moved to America. I must admit, she was good with the needle.
Mr. Evans had coached me for interviews by patiently guiding me through every iteration of Ms. Donovan’s “tell me about yourself” question. I happily described my background (I discovered interviewers were, without exception, fascinated by the notion of an Israeli kid in the prairie), and I was eager to discuss my mentor, Dr. Rajendran, and my career goal of becoming a pediatric gastroenterologist.
However, it was not until my last interview, at the University of Wisconsin, when, surprisingly, I entered my comfort zone during an interview. There, my interviewer, Jorge Ramos, was a forty-something Cuban American professor of pediatric cardiology. Unlike most of the doctors I had seen that day, Dr. Ramos didn’t wear a jacket. He was handsome, tall and slender, and though he had a distinguished appearance, complete with silver sideburns to garnish a jet-black quiff, his friendly smile exuded warmth.
“Ron, I just read your application and I see you like music . . . do you know about the four chambers of the human heart?” he asked.
“Yes, I do,” I answered, amazed that, thanks to Mr. Dupuis, I actually understood what the hell he was talking about.
“Okay, then, come with me.”
We took a walk from his office to the pediatric ward at The University of Wisconsin Hospital, situated at the west end of a beautiful lakeside campus that was frozen solid but still sparkling with a dusting of snow from the night before. Dr. Ramos stepped into a patient’s room and spoke to a nurse and two sets of parents. Two children shared the room. He poked his head out the door and directed me into the room. Once inside, I saw that one boy, Michael, was dressed in street clothes, and had a small suitcase by his side. Though he moved gingerly, he had an enormous smile on his face, and it was obvious that he was about to be discharged from the hospital. The other boy, about the same age, was sitting in his bed, wearing a hospital gown. Dr. Ramos washed his hands, had me do the same, and then approached the first boy.
“Michael, I’m going to unbutton your shirt so I can have this nice young man listen to your heart.” Michael was amazingly understanding and cooperative. His chest revealed a generous bandage over the sternum. Dr. Ramos placed the chest piece on Michael, and then had me take a listen with the earpieces.
“What do you hear?” he asked.
I closed my eyes and listened for about fifteen seconds. I looked up. “It sounds like: blah blub, blah blub, blah blub, blah blub.”
“Okay,” he answered. He turned his head to the other side of the room. “Now let’s do the same with young Anthony over here.” Anthony was happy to oblige, and it then occurred to me that both boys had been through this exercise many times. They felt no reason to be afraid of the doctor without a jacket.
Anthony’s chest looked unremarkable, but sounded different. I took another listen. “Okay, now I hear: shhhh blub, shhhh blub, shhhh blub, shhhh blub.”
Dr. Ramos smiled. We thanked the boys and their parents for their time, and walked back to his office. Interesting, but what was that all about?
He waited until we sat down before he spoke. “Last week, both boys’ hearts looked about the same. Both had something called a ventricular septal defect, or VSD. It means there’s a hole between the two lower chambers of the heart. It’s not supposed to be there. The ‘blah blub’ you heard in Michael represents the normal closure of the four heart valves, and the ‘shhhh’ you heard in Anthony represents the noise made when blood travels through the hole between those two chambers. But don’t worry, Anthony’s heart will sound just like Michael’s this time tomorrow.”
Then Dr. Ramos reached in a drawer and retrieved . . . a pair of maracas. “Ron, do they have these in Nebraska? Because I think I introduced them to the entire Midwestern United States,” he joked. He then handed me one. “Swirl it around just once,” he suggested, now smiling.
I followed his instruction: “Shhhh.”
“Sound familiar?” he asked.
Now I was smiling.
“That’s my music,” he continued. “I use the maracas with my medical students and interns to help teach them about heart sounds. Once they hear it, they never forget. I thought of it once while listening to some salsa. This way I always have a piece of home with me wherever I go.”
We talked about his family’s emigration from Cuba to Florida, along with the Latin Sound and how it was the foundation for much of the modern music I loved. He had been obsessed with salsa star Celia Cruz since he was a teenager, and he pl
ayed for me her most recent album, which she recorded with Willie Colón the year before. It was, indeed, sublime. Every immigrant has a story, but this one felt close to my heart.
A few weeks later, in early January, I came home after a brief visit with Amy. We had mixed things up a little and took the Rabbit for a bounce to Holmes Lake. Maneuvering around that subcompact was difficult, to say the least, and our best-laid plans went awry as our interlude was abbreviated when I racked myself on the stick shift. This time she had no problem when I squealed, “Fuck!” at the top of my lungs.
When I arrived home, still grimacing, my parents were waiting for me at the door. Both were smiling.
“Where werrre you?” my mother inquired forcefully, with arms flailing in a quintessentially Israeli expression.
“It’s only five! I’m hardly ever home this early!” I answered, utterly confused.
“Look!” my father pleaded. He was pointing to the kitchen table, where a flat, square package, padded and wrapped in butcher paper, stared back at me. It had a nameless return address from Madison, Wisconsin, but not from the University.
“Well, arrren’t you going to open it?” implored my mother.
I was perplexed. I had heard through the grapevine that acceptance letters from Wisconsin came in the form of a single page, sealed in an envelope with the familiar Bucky Badger mascot logo.