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The Frontman

Page 12

by Ron Bahar


  “By the way, you need to take a look at your face. It’s a mess,” added Sundar. He returned moments later with a hand mirror. I removed the ice pack that had been placed over my eye and caught a glimpse. Oh God.

  “You’re going to have to tell your parents, Ron.” I looked up. The act of craning my neck already exacerbated the throbbing sensation around my left eye, but seeing Dr. Rajendran’s troubled expression nearly caused my entire head to detonate. I could tell that my mentor was not angry with me. It was worse; he was disappointed. He touched my brow. I winced. “There’s nothing broken, no orbital fracture. It’s just a shiner, but it’s going to take a while to heal, and it’s going to look a lot uglier before it resolves.”

  “Sorry, man, I tell my dad everything,” explained Sundar.

  “But—”

  “Please, Ron,” interrupted the doctor. “It’s time to face the music, son. Lying to your parents will only make things worse. I’m not a religious person, so I’m not going to pretend and preach that I think it’s the righteous thing to do. But I am a man of science, and I’d like to think I’m a man of honor. Consider how hiding the truth about what happened tonight will gnaw at your conscience . . . and your intestines. You already know how the mind and gut interact. With your IBS, if you don’t come clean, you’re going to create a tempest in you body. The honor part goes without saying. You’ve made some decisions that you probably regret right now. You can never undo them, but you can certainly own up to them and show that these indiscretions shouldn’t brand you for the rest of your life. I don’t think it’s a good idea to fabricate a story about your eye. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

  “I think so.”

  Sundar’s brother, Babu, had been listening to the entire conversation. Like Sundar, he essentially had no filter. “She . . . is . . . hot, dude! How was she, really?” he asked, genuinely interested. “Was it worth it?” Sundar could barely contain his laughter.

  “Babu, please! Not now,” said Dr. Rajendran, as sternly as his mild-mannered personality could muster.

  I was utterly humiliated. And sad. And lonely. What the hell had I been thinking?

  I had no idea what to do next, so I stayed at the Rajdendran’s house and lay awake in Sundar’s basement. My parents had already understood that I wouldn’t be coming home that night, so I had a little time to figure out what I was going to tell them. Or not tell them.

  The light from a nearly full moon shone through the basement window. It was then that I began to appreciate the profound quiet that suffused Lincoln neighborhoods at night. The crickets were not yet in season, so the silence was deafening. The alcohol and fist-induced fog had cleared, and I began to concentrate on the light, my own pulse, and the rise and fall of my chest. My mind started to spin. I thought about Amy, and the first time we held hands; I thought of how goose bumps and Peanut M&M’s turned to kissing and fondling . . . and love. I thought about Anthony, the little boy from Madison with the hole in his heart. His had certainly been fixed, but I had made a concerted effort in creating another, deeper, wider one inside Amy. The moonlight eventually reached my face. With it, I felt a wave of shame engulf me. I wasn’t dreaming. I didn’t deserve Amy, and I didn’t deserve to become a doctor. What a complete shithead.

  It was 3:00 a.m. I got dressed and left. I ran toward Amy’s house.

  CHAPTER 22

  “And he’s gonna break her heart to pieces

  But she don’t wanna know”

  —TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS’ “WOMAN IN

  LOVE (IT’S NOT ME),” FROM THE ALBUM HARD PROMISES,

  RELEASED JUNE 29TH, 1981. IT PEAKED AT NUMBER

  TWENTY-SEVEN ON US BILLBOARD’S HOT 100 SONGS.

  I had no idea what I would tell Amy, but I was terrified of losing her, so I kept moving. I must have looked ridiculous tearing through the streets of Lincoln in the middle of the night with a black eye and a paisley tuxedo. Worse yet, I couldn’t borrow running shoes from Sundar since his feet were significantly smaller than mine. I was, therefore, forced to run in wingtips with no socks; I couldn’t find them in my rush to leave the Rajendran’s house.

  Let’s just say tuxedo shoes aren’t conducive to sprinting. Though adrenaline led me quickly to Amy’s neighborhood, my feet hurt like hell. I had the bright idea of discarding the offending footwear and running barefoot for the last half mile. Bad move, Cornhusker; Amy’s front yard greeted my right foot with a fresh pile of dog shit, compliments of Diego.

  Okay, I deserved that.

  I took the final steps toward Amy’s uncovered window while rubbing my excrement-laced foot in the cold, dewy grass. Her bedroom was dimly it, so I laid the shoes at the foot of the window and peered inside. To my horror, I saw Amy . . . with Tommy.

  If they were having sex, Amy and I would have been even. What I witnessed may have been worse: they were having “a moment.” Their bodies, still fully clothed, were nearly silhouetted by Amy’s reading lamp, but there was no mistaking Tommy in a deeply emotional embrace with my girlfriend. My girlfriend. She lay there, receptive to his careful advances. Having heard me lament my virginity more than once, Tommy knew better than to try and add her immediately to his long list of conquests. Instead, after wiping away one of her tears, he leaned in, caressed her hair, and kissed her softly on the lips. Goddammit, that was my move!

  I felt sick. I had assumed Amy was incapable of succumbing to the spell of any man, even Tommy. Not so much. I was well acquainted with Tommy’s technique, and I saw Amy falling for him before my eyes. She was savvy, but she was also vulnerable; he was obvious, but he was also Tommy. It took me five fucking years to gather the courage to kiss Amy. It probably took Tommy five fucking seconds, and it all came so naturally to him. I imagined Amy hearing a nonchalant tap on the window before seeing his handsome fucking face appear out of fucking nowhere. She would then open the window and allow him to leap effortlessly into her room and into her life.

  Between passionate kisses, they smiled with pure satisfaction. Oh God, no. Perhaps he was falling for her, too. At this point, I felt like a lowly voyeur. I scampered to some nearby bushes, dropped to my knees, and puked.

  In an attempt to regain my composure, I took a deep breath and looked up. There, directly in front of me, stood Tommy’s Beemer, shining in the moonlight like a James Bond-mobile. I truly wanted to kill him.

  In a few fleeting moments, I had squandered all of the integrity and machismo I had worked so diligently to garner over the course of the school year. My insecurities came flooding back. I hated myself.

  Barefoot, malodorous, nauseated, lonely, and despondent, I ran home.

  CHAPTER 23

  “Darling, I confess, yes I've ruined three lives

  Did not care ‘til I found out that one of them was mine”

  —THE ENGLISH BEAT’S “I CONFESS,” FROM THE ALBUM

  SPECIAL BEAT SERVICE, RELEASED SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1982.

  IT PEAKED AT NUMBER THIRTY-FOUR ON US BILLBOARD’S

  HOT DANCE CLUB PLAY.

  I couldn’t study, run, or sing my way out of this one. Zillie wasn’t there to bail me out, and Carol Andrews was too smart not to question my sudden absence, Tommy’s sudden presence, and the shiner that everyone would talk about. By the time I reached my house, it was four thirty in the morning. I bought a few more hours alone in my room. Of course, I couldn’t sleep, so in my head I wrote a speech to my parents.

  Before taking the plunge, I waited until I heard two teaspoons tinkling in coffee cups in the kitchen so I could bolt in an unfettered fashion to the bathroom to inspect my face. Once inside, I locked the door, closed my eyes, and turned toward the mirror. Holy shit, I was hideous. It now made sense why my field of vision had decreased so drastically, as my left eye was nearly swollen shut. And “black eye” was a misnomer; it was a kaleidoscopic mess.

  My mom’s concealer was not exactly an option, so I took a shower and skulked back to my room with a towel draped over my face. I wasn’
t sure if the pain in my head was from my injury or from the headache created by my own folly.

  “Ronnie, are you awake?” asked my dad from the kitchen. “Come tell us about that silly dance. And where is your car? It’s not in the driveway.”

  Fuck. I forgot about the Duster. “It’s at Tommy’s house,” I called back. “Sundar took me home because . . . because I was running low on gas and I was worried that the station on Highway 2 would be closed. I didn’t want to take any chances. I’ll get it today. Sorry. I’ll be there in a minute. Just let me get dressed.” Great. I was already lying.

  Panic set in as I vacillated between the factual and fictional versions of my tale, and sweat poured down my face as I removed the towel and dressed. Though during my seventeen years I had perfected the art of procrastination, I knew that on this occasion—this debacle, this fucking fiasco—I could no longer stall. Forget the IBS that Dr. Rajendran promised would manifest itself if my deceit continued; I was now on the verge of a fully-fledged panic attack. As the adrenaline once again flowed freely within my body, I felt the thud of my pulse in my ears and, for the first time in my life, I experienced real tunnel vision. I sat down on my bed with my head in my hands, trembling with fear. I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing to prevent myself from hyperventilating. I began to encounter chest pain, and tried to intellectualize to myself that I was not, indeed, having a heart attack. I was too young. Or was I? I was too healthy. Or was I? Fuck. I really thought I might die.

  Breathe. So what was really going to happen if I went out there, prostrated myself and divulged my sins? Would they forgive me? Would they disown me? Would my dad turn biblical on me and stone me? Zillie’s words of advice—“fucking carpe diem,” and “don’t be a coward”—eventually echoed enough to prevail and willed me to stand.

  I walked out of my room and, with dread, headed toward the kitchen. I was exhausted, not just from lack of sleep, but also from the myriad emotions that had depleted me over the previous thirty-six hours. A profound sense of immaturity overwhelmed me. I had failed miserably as a boyfriend and as a son; how could I handle the responsibility of becoming a doctor, let alone a singer?

  I crossed the threshold of the kitchen with my head hung low. Then I looked up.

  “Ronnie, what happened?” my mother yelled as she stared at me in horror.

  “Everything,” I answered, solemnly.

  “What the hell is going on?” my father demanded.

  “I made some mistakes. Actually, a lot of mistakes.”

  “Who did that to you?” my mother implored.

  “Tommy.”

  “I’ll kill him!” roared my father.

  “No, it was my fault,” I argued. “I deserved it. And I’ll be fine. Dr. Rajendran already took a look at my face and told me there was no fracture . . . but there are some things I have to tell you. You’re not going to be happy with me, but try and understand . . .”

  “Ronnie, you’re scaring me. What did you do?” my mother asked. She grabbed ice from the freezer, wrapped it in a dishtowel, and hurriedly applied it to my face. She began to sob. Fantastic. This was going really well so far.

  Surprisingly, instead of collapsing with the weight of my embarrassment, it was at that moment that I became consumed with the desire to grab my parents by the collar of their JC Penney his and hers terrycloth bathrobes and make them understand that I could not possibly live up to their unrealistic expectations of a seventeen year old Jewish kid from Lincoln, Nebraska. I got it; they were protecting me . . . but couldn’t they comprehend my desire for assimilation and companionship? How much were their sacrifices worth if neither they nor I could be happy as a result?

  “Look!” I howled. “I’ve been dating Amy since last Halloween. She’s my girlfriend. Or she was my girlfriend. I wanted to have sex with her, but she wasn’t ready. I got really drunk last night, and ended up naked with Tommy’s girlfriend instead. Tommy caught us, punched me in the face, and knocked me out. There! That’s it!”

  A horrible silence ensued. What probably lasted all of ten seconds felt like eons. Then my eyes began to dart, alternating between views of my parents. Tears poured down my mother’s face. I had rendered her speechless. Finally, my father pursed his lips. His face became flush with rage, and I braced myself for an eruption of volcanic proportions.

  Instead, my father suddenly clutched his chest, grimaced, turned pale, and collapsed.

  CHAPTER 24

  “You’re running around, I can’t stand it

  You’re fooling around with my heart”

  —ERIC CLAPTON’S “I CAN’T STAND IT,” FROM THE

  ALBUM ANOTHER TICKET, RELEASED FEBRUARY 11TH, 1981.

  IT PEAKED AT NUMBER TEN ON US BILLBOARD’S HOT

  100 SONGS.

  My father regained consciousness within seconds, but intense chest pain persisted. My mother turned to me and yelled, “Get on the phone and call an ambulance right now! It has to be his heart!” I watched, astonished, as, for the first time in my life, this relentlessly proud, strong, and fearless man appeared frightened to me. My mother held his hand, as though attempting to transfer these superpowers to herself so that she could now rise to the occasion. She turned and glanced at me, just long enough so that I knew she felt I was utterly reckless, selfish, and inept.

  “911 dispatcher, what is your emergency?”

  “Uh . . . I think my father’s had a heart attack.”

  “Is he conscious?”

  “Yes, but he’s in a lot of pain and he’s short of breath.” One good thing about living in a city the size and density of Lincoln is that emergency vehicles can reach any house within three minutes. I heard a siren almost immediately, and paramedics from Lincoln Fire Station #6 arrived just moments later.

  My mother knelt at my father’s side while I greeted two burly, uniformed men at the door. The blond, crew cut, cornfed pair, who undoubtedly played football in former lives, nearly tossed me aside like a ragdoll while positioning a gurney next to my father.

  “Step aside, please,” the larger of the two announced quickly and firmly. The name GARNER was boldly embroidered in gold above his navy chest pocket.

  I watched in amazement as Garner and his partner, Jameson, seamlessly, if not compassionately, tag-teamed both verbal and physical duties.

  “What’s your name, sir?” asked Garner.

  “Ezekiel.”

  “What’s wrong, Ezekiel?” asked Jameson.

  “I don’t know. My chest feels like an elephant is stepping on it. And my left arm is killing me.”

  “Okay, Ezekiel, we think you’re having a heart attack,” answered Garner.

  “What are you talking about? I’m not having a heart attack. I’m just upset because my son is an idiot.”

  Undeterred, Jameson interjected. “Ezekiel, we really think you’re having a heart attack, and we don’t have time to quibble with you. Here’s some aspirin. I want you to chew on it. It’s going to help with the clot in your heart. Then I want you to stick this nitroglycerin tablet under your tongue. It’ll help relieve the pain. Then I’m going to place an oxygen mask over your face to increase the amount of oxygen that goes to your heart.”

  My father resisted by placing a hand over his face. “Wait! Nitroglycerin? Isn’t that for dynamite? I’ll explode! I don’t want it.”

  Garner and Jameson couldn’t help but grin at each other after hearing my father’s unintended comic relief. “You’re not going to explode, Ezekiel. I promise. We’re professionally trained to treat this kind of problem. We’re going to take you to the hospital right away so the doctors and nurses can take care of your heart. Every second counts, so take the medications, let us put the mask on your face, and let’s go,” said Jameson, matter-of-factly. Jameson and Garner gave my dad one second and one combined look that rendered any opposition to their instructions futile. My father then dutifully chewed, dissolved, and masked his way to the hospital.

  “Don’t tail the ambulance . . . it’s
not safe,” stated Garner. “We’re going to Lincoln General, so meet us in there in the emergency room.”

  Before being loaded into the ambulance, my father gave one last forlorn look to my mother. Though she kept it together, seeing him in a sickly, vulnerable, and defeated position was too much for me to bear. He left. She drove. I cried.

  I was officially the world’s worst person.

  My already-conservative mother took her instructions very seriously; the eight-minute, normally pleasant, sloped, grassy, flower-dotted 2.7-mile drive from South 39th Street —past Benjie’s house, Maude Rousseau Elementary School, and the Lincoln Country Club—to Lincoln General Hospital, took exactly eight excruciating minutes. “Please go faster,” I pleaded.

  “No. I don’t want to compound one mistake with another.” It was a fun ride.

  THE emergency room was simultaneously antiseptic and stale; it smelled of rubbing alcohol and pus. The charge nurse first escorted us past both an elderly man moaning about bedsores and a freckle-faced teenage girl huffing and puffing staccato breaths during an asthma treatment. Then we reached my father. Instead of exploding from the nitroglycerin, he was having an animated conversation with a doctor, as though the two of them were talking politics. Dumbfounded, my mother and I rushed to his side.

  “Dad, are you okay?” I asked while propping the pillow under his head. I had no idea what else to do.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Stop fussing over me.”

  “What do you mean, you’re fine?”

  “I mean you still make me want to pull my hair out, but I no longer feel as though I’m being hugged by grizzly bear.”

  IV tubing dangled from his right arm, and a cluster of wires was attached to twelve “leads” spread over his body. We had clearly interrupted my father and the emergency room physician, Dr. Driver. In reality, the two of them were having a heated discussion about my father’s EKG, which appeared to have confirmed a heart attack.

 

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