Manhattan 62 by Reggie Nadelson

the Village, as a reward I am going to take you to a real rock and roll show, maybe even the Brooklyn Fox, or the Apollo.” In Max, I can see a potential convert. “The music will send you. The chicks will dig you. You will become Moscow’s ambassador of cool, the Messiah of cool even, and some day, I will visit Moscow, and who knows, you will take me to a rock and roll concert over there.”
    â€œBut cultured people will say it is just noise. I don’t think rock and roll can ever have a place in the Soviet Union. But I hope you will come to visit me, of course.”
    â€œWait and see, pal. It’s catching on like wild fire. Listen, down here in the Village, the folkies, most of them, think of rock and roll as music for lower orders, peasants you might say, but, man, I took some of my 45s over to Liverpool on vacation last year, and I played them my music, Smokey, and Marvin, and James Brown, of course, and Buddy Holly, and Chuck Berry, and they say, we want you to hear something. I think, Jesus, rock and roll is American. But they drag me into this lousy cellar in the middle of the day to hear these four boys. They are really good. When I go, I leave my cousins a few of the discs, and I got a letter saying the guys in that cellar went on tour with Little Richard who taught one of them, Paul was his name, his hoo holler.”
    Max thinks Ray Charles is certainly fine so we agree on this and also that it’s shame “I Can’t Stop Loving you”, number one most of the summer, has been topped by Bobby Vinton, who is a drip, singing “Roses are Red”. I feel I’ve done some basic work on Max. “You want to share another bottle of this vino with me?”
    â€œWith pleasure. What do you think of my new shoes?” He sticks out his feet to reveal his brand new loafers. “They are called Bass Weejuns, I purchased them at the store, B. Altman, and there is a slot for a penny. I say to myself, Maxim, only in this country could there be shoes with a space for money. It is, as someone said to me, crazy. I call them my Capitalists.”
    The bartender overhears him and starts to laugh, and it’s infectious. Everybody roars with laughter, and Max, too, lets out that infectious chuckle of his, and tells a Soviet joke involving sausages. Soon a guy, still laughing, buys a round of drinks. Max offers to perform a magic trick. I’ve seen him in the park, entertaining the little kids in the playground, pulling coins from their ears. Look, he says, a Russian coin, twenty kopecks. Max the Magician. Changes his clothes, changes himself. “Can I confide in you, Pat?”
    I gulp some wine. “Sure.” I’m flattered.
    Loose now, Max tells me how he practices English in his room, how he tries to speak less formally, like an American.
    â€œI think this sounding American and looking American go together,” he says, and tells me that when he’s alone, he stands in front of the mirror in his room, to get the posture right. He understands you have to stand loose, casual, get easy in your joints. Bend your knees, amble around like nothing matters, swing your arms, snap your fingers.
    â€œYou see? So in my room, where there is privacy, I rehearse this. What a miraculous piece of language making, a true art form this American slang is, Pat. In the subway I eavesdrop on people, I hear one fellow say to his friend, ‘Me and the chick, we are Splitsville.’ This is marvelous.”
    â€œBut you must have slang in Russia.”
    â€œSure, sure, naturally.”
    Naturally, I think. Sure, they have everything we have, and it pisses me off, a little, this response. “Let me ask you something, Max. Are you a member of the Communist Party?”
    â€œWhy do you ask?” He leans forward, and I think for a crazy moment he’s going to proposition me, that he thinks maybe I’m a candidate myself. “Yes,” says Max. “Of course.