welcomed me into the song. It was a satisfying moment.
The other guys had their functions too. Tread did magic tricks and made balloon animals, Emmett Kelly and his buddy were tumblers, and Julie shlepped around with her magic wand, telling knock-knock jokes that were incredibly lame, even for a fairy princess talking to preschoolers. I didn’t fare much better with my roving bubble-blower routine, but most of the kids, bless their voyeuristic little hearts, leapt at the chance to study a grownup shorter than themselves.
We were finished by five o’clock, packed up like gypsies heading for the road. I’d already begun to think of the job in those terms, for purposes of sanity, if nothing else. It was easier somehow to tell myself that this wasn’t Bel Air 1991 but Romania a century earlier (minus the pogroms), and we were all actors in a wandering troupe, plying our trade at a village fair. There was grass beneath our feet, after all, and simple music of our own making, and a blue dome of sky above our heads. So what if the villagers were all the same age and the local noblewoman had a ridiculous hairdo? Fantasy is the art of not being picky.
We dropped off the others at the parking lot, and Neil drove me home according to plan. As we climbed into the canyon, he apologized for the obstetrician’s wife, who, among other things, had called me “cute as pie” to my face in the same simpering tone she used with her five-year-old.
I told him I was used to it.
“Yeah, but still…”
“Did she commend you on your natural rhythm?”
He smirked and looked over at me. “She told me how much she liked Do the Right Thing .”
I laughed.
“They’re not all that bad.”
“Praise the Lord.”
“The kids were fun, though.”
It wasn’t a question, but I made a little murmur to be a good sport. I doubt if he was fooled. I don’t hate children or anything; some of them are very nice individually. I just prefer to avoid them en masse. When they hold big conventions, for instance, and get shitfaced on sugar.
Neil asked me where I’d learned to sing like that.
“At home. In Baker.”
“Baker?”
“It’s in the desert. No one’s ever heard of it. They call it ‘The Gateway to Death Valley.’” I rolled my eyes. “How’s that for another way of saying Purgatory?”
He chuckled. “They don’t call it that seriously?”
“Oh, very seriously. Big sign and everything. Right over the road.”
“I can’t picture it somehow.”
“Lucky you.”
“So you sang in school?”
“Sometimes. One or two assemblies. Mostly I stayed home and sang along with my Bee Gees albums.”
He took this in thoughtfully. “I can see the influence, now that you mention it. Your voice has a quality that’s really sort of…”
“Gibbsian?”
“Yeah.”
I told him Arnie thought I sounded like Teresa Brewer.
“No,” he said, “more like the Bee Gees.”
“Well, fuck you very much.”
“No, really. It’s a great sound. You could have something there. You should cut a record.”
What’s that they say about Hollywood? A town where you can die of encouragement? I didn’t want to look overeager, so I reacted with a skeptical expression.
“What’s the matter with the Bee Gees?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Do I really have to explain this to a black person?”
He smiled dimly and shrugged his enormous shoulders, as if to say his tastes were catholic and he could like who he wanted. “It wasn’t a bad sound. It’ll be back too, you watch. They’re already wearing platform shoes in the clubs.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“So when did you move here?”
“Nineteen eighty.”
“Did you run away?”
“Well, yeah…sort of. With my mom.”
“From your dad, you mean?”
“Oh, no. He split way before that. When I was three.” I smiled at him. “When he realized his little dumpling was gonna stay a dumpling.”
“Oh.”
“Mom and me were just running away from Baker. Plus I wanted to
The other guys had their functions too. Tread did magic tricks and made balloon animals, Emmett Kelly and his buddy were tumblers, and Julie shlepped around with her magic wand, telling knock-knock jokes that were incredibly lame, even for a fairy princess talking to preschoolers. I didn’t fare much better with my roving bubble-blower routine, but most of the kids, bless their voyeuristic little hearts, leapt at the chance to study a grownup shorter than themselves.
We were finished by five o’clock, packed up like gypsies heading for the road. I’d already begun to think of the job in those terms, for purposes of sanity, if nothing else. It was easier somehow to tell myself that this wasn’t Bel Air 1991 but Romania a century earlier (minus the pogroms), and we were all actors in a wandering troupe, plying our trade at a village fair. There was grass beneath our feet, after all, and simple music of our own making, and a blue dome of sky above our heads. So what if the villagers were all the same age and the local noblewoman had a ridiculous hairdo? Fantasy is the art of not being picky.
We dropped off the others at the parking lot, and Neil drove me home according to plan. As we climbed into the canyon, he apologized for the obstetrician’s wife, who, among other things, had called me “cute as pie” to my face in the same simpering tone she used with her five-year-old.
I told him I was used to it.
“Yeah, but still…”
“Did she commend you on your natural rhythm?”
He smirked and looked over at me. “She told me how much she liked Do the Right Thing .”
I laughed.
“They’re not all that bad.”
“Praise the Lord.”
“The kids were fun, though.”
It wasn’t a question, but I made a little murmur to be a good sport. I doubt if he was fooled. I don’t hate children or anything; some of them are very nice individually. I just prefer to avoid them en masse. When they hold big conventions, for instance, and get shitfaced on sugar.
Neil asked me where I’d learned to sing like that.
“At home. In Baker.”
“Baker?”
“It’s in the desert. No one’s ever heard of it. They call it ‘The Gateway to Death Valley.’” I rolled my eyes. “How’s that for another way of saying Purgatory?”
He chuckled. “They don’t call it that seriously?”
“Oh, very seriously. Big sign and everything. Right over the road.”
“I can’t picture it somehow.”
“Lucky you.”
“So you sang in school?”
“Sometimes. One or two assemblies. Mostly I stayed home and sang along with my Bee Gees albums.”
He took this in thoughtfully. “I can see the influence, now that you mention it. Your voice has a quality that’s really sort of…”
“Gibbsian?”
“Yeah.”
I told him Arnie thought I sounded like Teresa Brewer.
“No,” he said, “more like the Bee Gees.”
“Well, fuck you very much.”
“No, really. It’s a great sound. You could have something there. You should cut a record.”
What’s that they say about Hollywood? A town where you can die of encouragement? I didn’t want to look overeager, so I reacted with a skeptical expression.
“What’s the matter with the Bee Gees?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Do I really have to explain this to a black person?”
He smiled dimly and shrugged his enormous shoulders, as if to say his tastes were catholic and he could like who he wanted. “It wasn’t a bad sound. It’ll be back too, you watch. They’re already wearing platform shoes in the clubs.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“So when did you move here?”
“Nineteen eighty.”
“Did you run away?”
“Well, yeah…sort of. With my mom.”
“From your dad, you mean?”
“Oh, no. He split way before that. When I was three.” I smiled at him. “When he realized his little dumpling was gonna stay a dumpling.”
“Oh.”
“Mom and me were just running away from Baker. Plus I wanted to
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