pledge I had made to her one day when we were walking past Madison Square Garden: “Ma, I’m going to play that hall someday,” I vowed.
My father went along with it, too. He hated the aggravation of me going out late at night, not knowing where I was, especially when I came home with cheap wine on my breath and an attitude.
CHAPTER THREE
I had a taste of Broadway, but after the gig at the Metropole was over I was back at the King’s Lounge in north Williamsburg, playing for the boys with the pinkie rings. One night a guy came up to me during a break.
“I want my nephew to sit in and play,” he said.
I was a cocky kid then. I had a Beatles haircut and I was wearing a black vest with a polka-dot tie and a white shirt and tight pants and Beatles boots.
“Nobody sits in on my drums,” I dismissed the guy.
He threw a fifty-dollar bill on my bass drum. “The kid is going to sit in,” he said firmly.
And then he gave me a look that could kill.
“No problem,” I said meekly, and pocketed the bill.
It was harrowing playing at a Mob joint. I almost expected to see a bomb come in through the window. Every time the door opened and someone walked in, I was scared it might be a guy who was going to take a machine gun out from under his jacket and just level the joint. But one night in the summer of 1966, someone special walked through those doors. She was a tiny little thing with long, silky, beautiful black hair and a really cute face. I’d like to jump on that, I immediately"> We talked between each break and she told me her name was Lydia DiLeonardo, a nice Italian girl. The next day was the Fourth of July, so I invited her to go to Coney Island with me. We got to the beach and I tried to be very cool. I lit a cigarette, the ash blew back in my eye, and I felt like an idiot. But once I got her on the sand, I was all over it. We were making out like crazy. I don’t think it was love at first sight, but we kept seeing each other. She would come down on the weekends and see me play. We’d go to movies and hang out.
Eventually I asked her to go steady. Why not? She was really smart, going to school for bookkeeping. Back in Brooklyn, if you were going to bring a girl home to Mom and Dad, you wanted an Italian or an Irish or even a good Jewish girl. And Lydia to me was the Bella Donna, the Mother Mary. A real beauty. My parents loved her.
Her parents were another story. They were real Italians from Sicily. They had three sons and Lydia. She took me home for a Sunday dinner one night to meet them and it was right out of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? The whole family was around the table, which had an abundance of food on it. Her dad was sitting at the head of the table with a gallon of homemade wine in front of him. Her mom and dad and her brothers kept looking me up and down. And they were seeing a skinny kid with hair down to his breast and they weren’t liking the picture one bit. I may as well have been black or gay. I was the enemy. They despised everything that my long hair stood for. What’s worse, I wanted to be a musician—not a dentist, not a car mechanic, not even a plumber. I was a bum in their eyes.
But we didn’t care. After we started going steady, we had sex for the first time in Jerry Nolan’s mom’s bedroom. Then sometimes Lydia would cut school and come to my grandmother’s house and we’d make love in the daytime. We had to keep things undercover back then, because if her family had found out they would have killed both of us.
And if Lydia had found out about Linda, she might have killed me. While I was dating Lydia, I was sneaking off to have fun with a foxy little blonde whose mother owned a funeral parlor. Linda was just sixteen, two years younger than Lydia, and I was crazy about her. I would take Lydia home, then sneak off to the funeral parlor where Linda and I would make out in the coffins, bizarre but true.
When I wasn’t sneaking off to see Linda, I’d sneak off to see
My father went along with it, too. He hated the aggravation of me going out late at night, not knowing where I was, especially when I came home with cheap wine on my breath and an attitude.
CHAPTER THREE
I had a taste of Broadway, but after the gig at the Metropole was over I was back at the King’s Lounge in north Williamsburg, playing for the boys with the pinkie rings. One night a guy came up to me during a break.
“I want my nephew to sit in and play,” he said.
I was a cocky kid then. I had a Beatles haircut and I was wearing a black vest with a polka-dot tie and a white shirt and tight pants and Beatles boots.
“Nobody sits in on my drums,” I dismissed the guy.
He threw a fifty-dollar bill on my bass drum. “The kid is going to sit in,” he said firmly.
And then he gave me a look that could kill.
“No problem,” I said meekly, and pocketed the bill.
It was harrowing playing at a Mob joint. I almost expected to see a bomb come in through the window. Every time the door opened and someone walked in, I was scared it might be a guy who was going to take a machine gun out from under his jacket and just level the joint. But one night in the summer of 1966, someone special walked through those doors. She was a tiny little thing with long, silky, beautiful black hair and a really cute face. I’d like to jump on that, I immediately"> We talked between each break and she told me her name was Lydia DiLeonardo, a nice Italian girl. The next day was the Fourth of July, so I invited her to go to Coney Island with me. We got to the beach and I tried to be very cool. I lit a cigarette, the ash blew back in my eye, and I felt like an idiot. But once I got her on the sand, I was all over it. We were making out like crazy. I don’t think it was love at first sight, but we kept seeing each other. She would come down on the weekends and see me play. We’d go to movies and hang out.
Eventually I asked her to go steady. Why not? She was really smart, going to school for bookkeeping. Back in Brooklyn, if you were going to bring a girl home to Mom and Dad, you wanted an Italian or an Irish or even a good Jewish girl. And Lydia to me was the Bella Donna, the Mother Mary. A real beauty. My parents loved her.
Her parents were another story. They were real Italians from Sicily. They had three sons and Lydia. She took me home for a Sunday dinner one night to meet them and it was right out of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? The whole family was around the table, which had an abundance of food on it. Her dad was sitting at the head of the table with a gallon of homemade wine in front of him. Her mom and dad and her brothers kept looking me up and down. And they were seeing a skinny kid with hair down to his breast and they weren’t liking the picture one bit. I may as well have been black or gay. I was the enemy. They despised everything that my long hair stood for. What’s worse, I wanted to be a musician—not a dentist, not a car mechanic, not even a plumber. I was a bum in their eyes.
But we didn’t care. After we started going steady, we had sex for the first time in Jerry Nolan’s mom’s bedroom. Then sometimes Lydia would cut school and come to my grandmother’s house and we’d make love in the daytime. We had to keep things undercover back then, because if her family had found out they would have killed both of us.
And if Lydia had found out about Linda, she might have killed me. While I was dating Lydia, I was sneaking off to have fun with a foxy little blonde whose mother owned a funeral parlor. Linda was just sixteen, two years younger than Lydia, and I was crazy about her. I would take Lydia home, then sneak off to the funeral parlor where Linda and I would make out in the coffins, bizarre but true.
When I wasn’t sneaking off to see Linda, I’d sneak off to see
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