Beyond the Song

by Carol Selick

  “Which one?” I was hoping to change the subject and our mood.

  “I Haven’t Got Time for the Pain”

  “Yeah, that says it all. We’ve gotta get on with our lives. You wanna go hear some music?”

  “Cool, let’s go for it!”

  25

  INSPIRATION

  Just listen to your special rhythm.

  Your timing is right,

  Get on with the fight.

  There’s lots to do.

  Melanie and I lucked out and got the last two seats at the Bitter End. Our table was in the back of the room, but we could still see the stage. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had fun together. Being with her tonight reminded me of our cross-country trip when we were carefree and all excited about going to California. That was before all the bad things happened like the rape and the bust. Maybe, starting tonight, we could put those times behind us.

  The lights dimmed and the announcer came on stage. “It is my pleasure to introduce Arista recording artist, Melissa Manchester!”

  Melissa Manchester walked confidently onto the stage and sat down at the keyboard. She was wearing a long skirt and peasant blouse with a colorful flowered shawl wrapped around her shoulders. It was just going to be her and an electric bass player. From the minute she started singing, I was blown away. Her voice was powerful, her keyboard playing soulful, her songs uplifting.

  “She’s amazing!” I whispered to Melanie.

  Melanie whispered, “You could be famous too if you worked at it.”

  I smiled back at her. Melanie always had been my biggest fan. But what if she was right? Could I actually be talented enough to make it in the big time?

  I looked down at the makeshift leather bracelet I wore around my wrist. I noticed Melanie still had hers on, too. We had tied a piece of leather around each other’s wrists during our California trip. It was our symbol of strength. We were part of an underground sisterhood that empowered and supported each other through the good times and the bad. I felt very lucky to have a friend like Melanie.

  As the show went on, I felt more and more inspired. Melissa Manchester was everything I wanted to be: a strong female singer who accompanied herself on the piano and played her own songs. I knew I wasn’t there yet, but seeing her performing in front of me was beyond inspiring. It was mind-blowing! I knew I had talent alright, but I knew I needed voice and possibly piano lessons. It was time to come up with a plan.

  “Promise me we’ll go out again soon!” I said to Melanie as I hugged her goodbye.

  I picked up a copy of the Village Voice on the way home. Back at my apartment, an ad for voice lessons in the classifieds caught my eye: Experienced voice teacher specializing in Broadway and popular music. Convenient mid-town location.

  The ad made me think about Shelley, who I’d met at a music showcase a few months ago. She was so driven and focused on making it in the music business that she worked as a waitress, sometimes doing double shifts, so she could afford her very expensive singing lessons. A week later, she invited me to her cramped walk-up apartment on West 4th in the Village to demonstrate some of her vocal warm-ups.

  Shelley was my age and spoke with a pronounced English accent, but confided in me that she’d only spent a year in London. Everyone who met her assumed she was English, and she never bothered to correct them. She looked very waspy, with her long, curly strawberry blonde hair and turned-up nose. No one would ever suspect that she was a middle-class Jewish girl from Passaic, New Jersey.

  The only window in Shelley’s apartment led out to the fire escape. She’d opened the window and positioned a floor fan in front of it, but all it did was move the oppressive air around. We were sweating like crazy, but that didn’t stop her from attacking her voice exercises with gusto.

  “Ugh, Ugh, Ugh!” she sang up the scale.

  “Are you okay?” I lept up to slap her on the back.

  Shelley started to laugh. “Yeah, that’s one of my exercises. It helps to loosen up my tongue.”

  “I thought you were choking to death! That helps your voice?”

  “That’s what Joel Conlin says, and he’s the best voice teacher in New York. He has a lot of famous students.”

  “Like who?”

  “Bette Midler and a new singer he says is gonna make it big, Melissa Manchester.”

  “Far out! I think I’ll sit on the fire escape until you’re done practicing.” Even though Shelley had a good voice, listening to her sing those exercises was like hearing someone throw-up!”

  Twenty minutes later she waved me back inside.

  “Do you want to see my sight-singing homework?”

  Shelley was also taking music theory classes with Helen Katz, a teacher Joel Conlin recommended to all of his students. She was learning to sight-sing so she could audition for commercial jingles. I admired Shelly for being so ambitious. I’d thought about taking voice lessons, but wasn’t impressed with Joel Conlin’s method and knew I couldn’t afford him. As for jingle singing, I had no desire to sing the Meow Mix song, no matter what it paid. Shelley told me that one of Helen Katz’s sight-singing students had landed that commercial. I was impressed, but it wasn’t for me. I just wanted to do my own thing.

  All day Sunday I couldn’t stop thinking about the ad. I had no idea what this voice teacher charged, but I knew I didn’t have much extra money. Even the half-price deal Bruce offered me was stretching it, and I definitely couldn’t afford the $85 Shelley was paying for lessons.

  In the last few months, my singing voice had been getting lower and I was losing some of my high notes. I told myself it was allergies, but I knew it was from smoking. If I wanted to reach the next level as a singer, I’d have to give up cigarettes. But God was I dreading it. But wait, it could be a win-win —- if I stopped smoking, my voice would improve, and I could use the extra money to pay for voice lessons!

  By Sunday, I was down to my last pack of Tareytons. I smoked the last one and flushed the butt down the toilet. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I had to think of my bigger goals. Monday morning, I called the number in the ad and scheduled my first voice lesson for Friday afternoon, my day off. Maxine Adler put me at ease immediately. She sounded warm but professional. She gave me her address and requested I bring a blank tape and one or two pieces of music to work on. Best of all, she charged $45 for a one-hour lesson, half of what Shelley was paying. What a relief! With the money I was saving on cigarettes, and if I cut back on Chinese takeout, I could probably swing it. The protein bars in the health food store would come in handy as a cheap alternative to lunch.

  On my way to work, I bought a big pack of Doublemint gum. That was the brand my grandfather, Zeida, chewed when he gave up smoking. It had worked for him, so I hoped it would work for me. Zeida was the one person in my family who understood me. He was a wise man who’d been studying to be a rabbi in Russia, but because of the pogroms, his father sent him to apprentice as a tailor in Brooklyn. When I was very young he taught me Yiddish songs and encouraged me to sing them for his customers at his dry-cleaning store. Whenever I told him I wanted to quit piano lessons he got very upset and made me promise to keep practicing.

  Zeida loved telling me about a movie he couldn’t remember the name of, where a young woman was playing the piano on a ship and a man on the ship fell in love with her and asked her to marry him. More than anyone else in the family Zeida encouraged me to do my music. I guess it was fitting that he would be my role model when it came to quitting smoking.

  At the health food store, Katie noticed right away I wasn’t smoking.

  “No more cigarette breaks, Carol? First, you give up McDonalds and now cigarettes. Working here is starting to rub off on you!” She gave me a little hug and handed me another protein bar.

  “I quit smoking,” I proudly told Bruce later that day as I eyed the couch.

  “What made y
ou decide to quit now?” he asked with a not-so guarded smile.

  “Voice lessons. I want to pay for voice lessons.” It was the first time I ever talked to him without smoking. Cigarettes were like a punctuation mark at the end of every sentence. A smokescreen I hid behind to mask the sexual energy I felt between us. Today was also the first time I would be lying on the couch. I felt vulnerable and exposed. I wrapped my bulky black cardigan sweater tightly around me and stared at the water stain on the ceiling. A built-in Rorschach test? I closed my eyes and still wasn’t sure what the purpose of lying on the couch could be. Bruce had mentioned something about free association and uncovering repressed emotions.

  The one emotion that I did not want him to uncover was the way I felt about him. Why couldn’t he have been fat, bald, and middle-aged instead of tall, dark, and handsome?

  “In our last session, I said we’d work on separation anxiety.”

  “Yeah, I have separation anxiety—- from my Tareytons.”

  “I know it’s hard, but try concentrating. Was there a time when your father scolded you for doing something wrong, Carol? Let me know the first image that pops into your head.”

  I took a minute to think back. “Okay. It was the first day of school, I think first or second grade, and I refused to go. My father insisted that I stand in front of our house and watch the other kids go to school.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “I got embarrassed and changed my mind and went.”

  “Interesting. Your father was using reverse psychology on you.”

  “I guess.” How is this going to help me? I thought to myself, but I decided to just go with Bruce’s questions. I concentrated on the sound of his voice, which always calmed me down. The rest of the hour dragged. I didn’t know if I liked this couch idea. I assumed he knew what he was doing and that lying on the couch would uncover thoughts and feelings that were buried in my inner psyche. Still, there were some feelings I could never share with him. My head might be “shrinking,” but my heart was expanding.

  It was torture, but I made it to Friday without smoking one cigarette! Cigarettes were a huge part of my persona, something I reached for so many times during the day: drinking coffee, finishing a meal, talking on the phone, songwriting, waking up in the morning, and especially after making love if I ever found someone to do that with again!

  Every time I reached for a piece of gum I heard my Grandfather’s voice saying, “You’re a shaina maidel, my pretty girl. Don’t be afraid of anything.” One of the last things he asked me was, “Doll, will you talk about me when I’m gone?” I was sure thinking about him now and I knew he’d be in my thoughts forever.

  Friday morning, I slept later than usual. I was so excited and nervous about taking my first voice lesson that I’d had trouble falling asleep. It didn’t help that I was going through nicotine withdrawal but heard Zeida’s encouraging voice in my head as I popped an extra B complex to calm my nerves, and made myself an English muffin and coffee.

  I put on my hippest outfit, a blue denim mini-skirt, black tights, brown suede boots, and my favorite beige cable knit sweater. Before I walked out the door, I glanced in the mirror and liked what I saw. I put on the navy pea coat that I’d just bought in a secondhand store in the Village and strategically positioned my black corduroy Bob Dylan cap to show off my new mod haircut. The day I bought my pea coat, I walked into a hair salon and had my hair cut into a layered style with bangs. I did it on a whim and liked the way it looked. The young woman who cut it had safety pins in her ears and tattoos on her arms. She tried talking me into dying my hair purple, but I nixed that idea. A long, layered shag was radical enough!

  I took the downtown bus to 56th Street and walked down Seventh Avenue repeating the address in my head, checking out the doorways as I went. I was reading the numbers on the buildings—881 Seventh Ave. This can’t be right, I thought. It’s Carnegie Hall! I pulled the address out of my pocket. Wow, it is right. Her studio is actually in Carnegie Hall!

  I entered the iconic building, took a deep breath, and rang the buzzer for Studio 902. “It’s Carol Marks,” I announced. “I’m here for my lesson!” As I rode the elevator to the ninth floor, my heart was pounding and my expectations were soaring! I’m coming up in the world! I thought.

  Maxine Adler opened the door and led me toward a black baby grand in a corner of the room. I took in the high ceilings, the skylights, and the large floor-to-ceiling windows. What wowed me was the wall of framed publicity photographs. They were all signed and some even had personal messages on them. I recognized many famous faces —- movie stars, recording artists, TV personalities.

  “Johnny Carson!” I couldn’t help commenting.

  “Yes, nice man. His wife gave him two months of singing lessons as a Christmas gift. He said it was his dream to learn how to sing.”

  Speechless, I just smiled at her.

  Maxine took a seat at the piano. Music books and sheet music were scattered in piles on top of the closed lid of the baby grand. In her mid-fifties, a bit matronly, but slightly eccentric, she was wearing a blue paisley printed blouse, a black wool skirt, silvery satin bedroom slippers, and black cat’s eyeglasses with rhinestones on the corners. She motioned for me to sit on a tall, wooden bar stool next to her. I welcomed the chance to sit down and get off my shaking legs. I didn’t know if it was nicotine withdrawal or if I was intimidated by her studio.

  “Why do you want to take voice lessons, Carol dear?”

  I cleared my throat and said in a bold voice that even surprised me, “I want to sing my own songs and make a record.”

  “I see. What music did you bring?”

  I handed her my old stand-by, Summertime. She played the intro and I belted it out.

  “Good! Do you think your voice is loud?” Maxine asked.

  “Yes, I’ve always been able to belt out a song.”

  “True, but we need to work on placement and projection. I think you’ve been placing your voice in your throat. I’ll give you some voice exercises to help with that. Think of your throat as an open vessel so that the sound doesn’t get stuck there. You can improve your voice and protect it at the same time.”

  “Wow! I had no idea I was singing incorrectly!”

  “Yes, but it can be corrected. Did you bring a tape to record your lesson? Good, let’s get started.”

  26

  ANYBODY WHO’LL LET ME

  Anybody who’ll let me have it all without feeling small,

  Anybody who’ll let me take the time to cross over the line.

  Don’t try and understand me,

  Just let me show you how easy it’ll be

  When I give my love to anybody who’ll let me.

  “I slipped,” I said softly to Bruce as I took my position on the couch.

  “What, Carol?”

  “I slipped up. I gave in.”

  “Don’t feel bad. It’s very common for people who give up smoking to have a cigarette in a weak moment.”

  “No, I’m not talking about smoking! I let a guy pick me up at a bar and I slept with him.”

  Staring at the water stain on the ceiling trying to decide if it looked like a phallic symbol or the map of Italy, all I could hear was the sound of Bruce puffing on his cigar. Say something, say anything, make me feel like I’m not the slut I feel like.

  “What happened?” Bruce finally asked.

  “Saturday night I came home from work, had dinner, and tried to work on some music, but I couldn’t concentrate. I was feeling lonely. It’s the Saturday night thing.” I paused and heard more puffing, more silence. Why did I say anything to Bruce about it? “I put on my good jeans, piled on the makeup, and went for a walk. I heard music coming from a bar on Amsterdam and went in. I met this cute guy there and it just happened.”

  “Did it just happen?”

  “Maybe not.
”

  “You hoped to meet someone before you left.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I said sheepishly.

  I’d walked into Jake’s, a local club down the street from me, and found a seat at the bar. It was crowded and smoky and the band was playing a Stones song. I treated myself to a Kahlua and cream, closed my eyes, and listened to the music. The band was too loud and the lead singer was no Mick Jagger, but the songs were good. Someone tapped my shoulder and I swiveled around to see a tall guy with wild black Dylan hair and a thick mustache smiling at me. He looked part hippie, part mountain man with his red plaid flannel shirt, faded jeans, and hiking boots. He was my type, except a little taller than the men I was normally attracted to. Before I had time to think, he gently grabbed my arm and led me through the crowd to the dance floor.

  The closer he danced to me, the more I felt like I was being drawn into his energy field. We were dancing to the Doors’ “Come On Baby Light My Fire,” and the music was getting more and more intense. It seemed like the song was never gonna end. I tried averting my eyes from mountain man but all I could see was his dark eyes staring at me, following my every move. When the song was finally over, he put his arm around me and I melted. All the frenetic energy was gone, and I was spent. “Let’s get out of here and go someplace where we can talk,” he whispered in my ear.

  I was in an I don’t give a shit mood. I nodded yes and grabbed my coat from the barstool. We walked out into the sobering cold January air arm and arm. Halfway down the block was an all-night coffee shop that I’d walked by a few times, but only during the day. Tonight it looked like a refuge for druggies and prostitutes waiting for their connections, downing cups of lukewarm coffee, and pretending to look at the menu. We found a booth in the back away from the action.

  Hippie mountain man’s name was David. He didn’t tell me his last name and I didn’t want to know. “Do you know John Lennon lives in this neighborhood?” he asked.

  “Yeah, he lives in the building across the street from me on 72nd.”