“Yes, ma’am, thank you,” Andy said. “I will.”
Andy walked out of the store and stepped out into the hot asphalt, and as he held the record in the same hand that had held the boy’s, his middle fingers threaded through the center hole, suddenly the city didn’t seem so smoggy, so sweaty, so crowded, so exposed. The graffiti bombs and peeling handbills he could see on a storefront on the other side of the street looked like the botanical gardens in full bloom now. The feeling, if he had to describe it, was like being refilled, refueled, restored, reset, but even those words didn’t do it justice. He floated to the subway station, holding the record close to him, keeping the girl’s voice and the feeling of the boy’s strong, capable hand in his head. As he entered the stairs to the el, he barely realized that he was helping a woman in front of him with a large cart filled with groceries on her ascent, lifting up the back side of the cart to make her going easier.
He got home and raced up to his room and his record player. His mother noticed the change in him instantly. The lightening. “Everything O.K., son?” she called up after him. “Find what you were looking for?”
“I sure did, Mom,” Andy said. He couldn’t even begin to explain to her how happy he felt. He must have played the record a dozen times in a row. The girl’s voice alone made the experience almost as good as if that boy from the listening booth had been there with him. Almost as good.
Andy did go back to Rose’s Record Room several weeks later, when the singer, who turned out to be part of a duo with her older brother, had a new song on the radio, one that Andy, much to his surprise, liked even more than the first one. It was a stronger song, had a leaner, more active arrangement, and the girl just sounded even more . . . vital. Another necessity, another requirement for his collection. And in the back of his mind Andy was hoping that maybe he’d run into that boy again, or at least gin up the courage to ask the woman who owned the store where he might find him. He was sure the boy liked this second hit as much as he did.
But when Andy went to the shop again, on a crisp October Saturday, it was closed, its doors shuttered “by the authority of the I.R.S. for nonpayment of taxes.” “We’ll be back soon,” the woman or someone had written on a sign on the door. Andy felt sad for the woman, for the hippies, for the boy who had to find another regular record store, even oddly felt sad for the whip, with no perpetrators now to snap into line. He was getting ready to leave when, in the back corner of the window display, he saw a faded Polaroid of the boy’s face. The scribbling underneath it was too blurry; Andy could only make out the word “Farewell.” So the kid had moved away, Andy thought. He said a prayer for the kid: Be safe.
He ended up buying the duo’s new album, which had both hits on it, at another store. And he never saw that boy in the baseball cap again, though he would think of him often, especially when he heard that girl sing. And he kept that single, the one that the boy’s hands had touched first, in an honored place, curled his fingers through the center hole every now and then to bring back, to maintain, the muscle memory of that other hand. “Not a few teenage boys” want this record, that one clerk had said. But no boy like that boy.
18. Queens, N.Y., Fall 1970
They brought her the boy’s cap and baseball glove, in their pressed uniforms and shiny stripes and badges, the way military honor guards present American flags to the parents or spouses of their fallen comrades. Her sisters all showed up in their Sunday dresses and veils. They told her he’d gone away. Well, of course he had. That morning he seemed to have a mission on his mind. A special mission for a special boy. A boy who had been an answered prayer.
She’d just wanted him so much. It would be easy to say that it was because she grew up in a house filled with women, where for whatever reason there was no room for men, the father she never knew, the brother who disappeared off the grid. The men who always went missing, maybe driven away themselves by the number of women in the house. In the orbit of the Rooneys, it seemed to be a liability to be a male.
Until Roy came along. It was after Korea, right after she’d dropped out of college and was working for a business-machine company, that she met Roy down by the Red Hook ball fields, big, kind, strong, capable, incombustible Roy. He’d done his time in the service and had a good job with the Post Office. He never asked too many questions. He knew that just because he could hit a ball, he didn’t have to be Willie Mays, or even want to be Willie Mays. (His name even rhymed with “boy”!) Their courtship was spent mostly at football and hockey games, Ebbets Field and the old Madison Square Garden. Her sisters wondered if maybe she could do better than a mailman. No, Genie thought. He’s a mailman. He was an infantryman. He was a first baseman. Her own man. A man who wasn’t going away.
Early on she was curious about sex, and on the way home from a Rangers game one night she asked if they could get a hotel room, if maybe they could try it before they were married. But he said no, let’s wait, let’s do it right, let’s do what the church says. Genie almost broke it off with him over that, but after a couple of weeks, when he kept calling, and when not many other suitors did, she finally said yes, she would go out with him again, then yes, she would marry him, then yes, they could wait, and they did. Sturdy, undisappearing Roy.
The first year of their marriage, Genie went to Mass not just on Sundays but at least once during the week, and prayed for a boy. God rewarded her, she knew, almost immediately, when she conceived the night the Brooklyn Dodgers won the Series for the first and only time. Nine months later, she almost couldn’t believe her ears when the nurse said, “Mrs. Kelly, you have a son.”
And the boy, from the first minute he was put in her arms, was everything she wanted. Yes he cried and shat and ate a ton, but it never felt like work raising him. Every second they were together, he seemed to be telling her that all those years of waiting were really over now. He was handsome, he could throw a ball, he started to read early, he had a sweet nature. He was worth it all, this boy.
Genie thought she finally had everything she wanted: a good son, and a good husband, their own home. A home with men. She didn’t really love to cook or clean. She did most everything out of a box or a can or something prewrapped, so her meals were never as sumptuous as her sister Maddy’s, who could make even a main course taste like a confection, or Constance’s, whose dinners were more basic but still tasty. (Ever the spinster scold, Constance told Genie once she got engaged to Roy that maybe she should spend a little more time in the kitchen and a little less time sticking her nose under hoods, and start getting her hair cut in salons instead of barbershops.) Maybe the mops and the dusters in their house never got all the way into the corners. But once a month or so she’d make a cake from a mix. She took care of the boy. They were happy, the three of them.
She always knew he was destined for something special. She just didn’t think it would be this soon. He was only going to start high school in the fall, that big Catholic one on Long Island. Every morning and afternoon and into the night she would wear his cap and mitt and sit in the backyard or at the top of the driveway and watch the planes soaring into the sky from J.F.K. Was he on one of them? Maybe the White House was calling him to consult on all the youth unrest in the country. Or he was being called to the Paris Peace talks to help end the Vietnam War. A very special boy.
She’d been spotting for a while, but she thought nothing of it. She’d always been strong and healthy. And she never liked going to the doctor. Maybe she might even be pregnant again. It was a long shot, but not impossible. She hadn’t gone through the change yet. A third child, to go with the boy and the girl. She’d know soon enough.
Oh, yes, the girl. She’d never really thought about another child then, so perfect, so finally complete was her life, but about four years after the boy was born, she found out she was expecting again. Could she get lucky one more time? Have another boy? Handsome Jack Kennedy was on TV campaigning for the presidency. She was due around the time of the election. Just as she conceived the
boy when the Dodgers won the Series, her new due date seemed to augur something good. Kennedy won the presidency in a squeaker. A Catholic was going to the White House! She went into labor two days after the election.
But then, a girl. Constance told her she should have some girls’ names ready just in case, but Genie never thought about not having a boy. She let Roy name her, after his grandmother. That was fine. She liked Roy’s family, his mother cooked and baked hearty fare like pot roast and corned beef and cupcakes (always left unfrosted) and sewed and scrubbed and always made Genie feel warm and welcome in her home. She was an Irish nanny or rectory cook right out of central casting. Ample, uncomplicated, unquestioning, like her son.
The girl, though, was colicky. And always gave Genie trouble about food, wouldn’t eat anything but cereal until she was almost 4. Then was picky about everything else, clothes, getting ready for school, where she’d sit in the car, asking them to stop every hour on a long ride so she could go to the bathroom. And the girl always got in her face. While the boy would say, “Mommy, that’s coffee,” or pick out something on the piano on his own, the girl would say, “Mommy, what’s this, what’s that?” “Mommy, how do you make pudding?” “Mommy, what’s a 9-iron?” “Mommy, what’s a period?” “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy.” With the girl it seemed that every day Genie’s love had to be declared, reaffirmed, annotated. God, when Genie was in college, how she hated footnotes. So fussy. So tedious. So much effort. “Yes, yes, Mommy loves you. Ibid.”
The boy knew how his mother felt about the girl. And so he took care of his sister, watched out for her, got her out of the house, out of Genie’s face, included her in his very special life. The girl was athletic, too, if not as graceful as the boy. And she was musical, if not as tuneful as the boy. She overdid everything. Oversang, overcharged the basketball hoop. Still, the boy didn’t seem to mind. And when the three of them had their dance parties in the basement, Genie would swing both of them around, and suddenly the girl got in step. Those dance parties were their best times together.
A very special boy. And a girl who wasn’t as special but still had her moments.
The girl was away now, too, at a sleepover somewhere.
They just seemed to understand each other, she and the boy. Once he could talk, he never wasted his words. They laughed at the same jokes. The girl would say, “Mommy, why is that funny?” at something or other on TV, while Genie and the boy would look at each other and not say a word. They just knew.
And they liked the same foods. Broccoli and blueberries. How could you not love a kid who loved broccoli? Sometimes she’d stay out in the yard until 10 or 11, into Indian summer now, not caring about the night chill, the leaves starting to gather and crunch around her feet, the stars popping out earlier and earlier, and Roy would plead with her to come in, but she’d say no, she still wanted to listen for his bicycle at the bottom of the driveway. “This is the night he’s coming home, Roy,” she would say. One night she actually thought she heard him coming and ran into the house, figuring he’d be hungry. She didn’t even bother to turn on the kitchen light. She went right to the freezer and yanked out a box of broccoli. She threw the frozen chunk of it into a pot and just let it cook, till the water boiled out and it started to smoke. He’d smell it and want to come in, she thought. She just stood there in the dark over the pot and inhaled and waited for him. When after about half an hour Roy turned off the burner, she went up to the boy’s room. She’d kept it clean — she knew he’d like that — but she also knew he’d want it to smell clean. So she got out the bottle of Clorox, opened it and left it in the middle of the room. As she did every night since he left, she slept in his bed that night. When she woke up, the bottle was gone. Maybe he’d been there. Maybe he’d known.
Every night he didn’t come home, there were a few more drops of blood.
The boy had a secret. She knew this. But he kept it to himself, and she never pressed him on it. He seemed to have it on his mind that morning. Maybe it was his mission. Maybe that was the secret. Maybe he already knew that that was the day he was going to leave.
Didn’t everybody have secrets? She certainly did. Years ago she laughed when that surf group from California had the big hit with the lyric about the bad guys leaving them alone. She laughed because some young connected guy from the old ’hood in Flatbush had said that about her when she was about 15 or 16. The bad guys know Genie and they leave her alone. Because they knew what was good for them. And no boy wanted to get his ass kicked by a girl.
Whatever was on her boy’s mind, everything seemed perfect that morning. They were singing along with a song from the radio, by a new young singer — lovely voice, light and heavy at the same time. Genie and her boy sang in unison, then harmonized, then unison, then they’d split, she’d go up, he’d go down, he’d go up, she’d go down. The daughter was at the table, too. She tried to join them. She almost had it a couple of times but couldn’t quite hold her part. But the boy, he had it. They’d probably be able to pick it out on the piano.
On the last night, when she couldn’t cover or clean up the blood anymore, she crawled into the boy’s bed. She left the window open to listen for his bicycle, and she thought she could hear that girl on the radio again, somewhere in the distance, but singing a different song now. She’d close her eyes and listen. Such a pretty voice, that girl.
19. New York City,
September 1982
Summer was nearing its end, and three things were weighing on her mind, the first and foremost being, of course, her weight. She still hadn’t gained much, despite the therapy and the fact that she was actually starting to keep some food down. Second, there was the family’s imminent arrival from the coast, for a group therapy session. And third, oddly enough, there was I.’s pregnancy. After her initial joy for I. and P., and the mental gymnastics that told her she still had time to have children of her own, she got to thinking of the child she did have. The “baby” she had with P. They made the decision to have it, conceived after several weeks, helped it gestate for months. I. was even the midwife who coached her through the pre-delivery classes. The baby got to full term. And then . . .
How happy she was in those first weeks in 1979, thinking that she was going to bring something like this into the world: an album of her very own. She loved those days when she and P. would drive down to the city and the studio, reviewing songs, making an A list and a B list, going over tempos and keys. This project, this album, her album: She was calling the shots. Not the brother. He was brilliant, and she owed him everything, but now she wanted to try some different songs, some different styles, a different vocal register, a sexier lyrical approach. She liked how D.S. sang. Well, who didn’t in those heady days of Studio 54? (She was invited to go but declined, reported the fan club dispatches, because of her work schedule.) She didn’t think she was D.S., but hey, she had a voice, too. The day she signed on, she drove down Sunset with her windows open and “Hot Stuff ” blasting from the speakers.
Don’t do disco.
Oh, he wasn’t too happy about the album, the brother. He was taking time off — he had a little problem with pills — and he wanted her to do the same. You’re not well, either, he kept saying. Let’s both take a long break and get some rest and get healthy and then hit the new decade running. But she wasn’t interested in not working; and wasn’t work always the best therapy, for her anyway? He pouted, acted hurt, betrayed. Gave her the silent treatment for a while. But she knew he knew how stubborn she could be, and he finally relented and gave his blessing. He warned her about being too trendy, too dancey, too cheap. Don’t drag our good name through the disco mud, he said. Just when he was getting out of his treatment and driving all over the country, she was getting on a plane to New York.
They put out a call for material, she and P., and naturally got back lots of disco songs, including a couple of rough tracks from a hot songwriter that she liked but that even she thought sounded a little too funky for her. She told the songwriter t
o come up with something else. And she and P. kept going through the piles of tunes. Every day more demos. Stacks of them. People who wanted her to sing their songs. Some were too similar to what she’d already done, too lovey-dovey, she could hear P. thinking. Some were too different, too “out there,” she could hear herself thinking. And finally there were two dozen or so that gave her that tingle, that “chill factor,” the brother called it, only he would never consider these songs. It was all so thrilling.
So sue her, she picked one disco tune, written by a woman. It had those swirly Saturday Night Fever strings and a dope bass line played, strangely enough, by one-half of the other sibling act on her label, who had a few pop/funk hits of their own by that time. Would critics call her album pop/funk? Well, she wasn’t sure, but they certainly wouldn’t call it “easy listening.” The settings were leaner. She was singing higher than usual. Her low voice, yes, it had been their bread and butter, but music had changed since their early days, so why couldn’t she change with it, even for just one record? Their last few albums hadn’t sold in huge numbers anyway, so why not try something different? Their legacy was already solid. This could only benefit them. And sometimes she couldn’t help feeling that that low voice was the property of the brother anyway.
It took a while for her to get used to a new band, a new producer, a new city, the rock/R. & B. inflections. To work things out with the guys sitting around, instead of just having everything done for her already when she got to the studio. To find a different voice. To her, a sexier voice. To winnow down the two dozen or so songs to a perfect 11 or 12. To, as P. said, “grow up” with her audience. By the end of summer, there were four or five tracks in the can. A couple of label guys from New York came over to check on the progress. The Champagne flowed.
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