The Frontman

by Ron Bahar

  My mother had spent the better part of the previous week “kosherizing” our home for Passover. No housekeeper or child could be trusted to complete her version of spring cleaning, in which she would singlehandedly scrub down the kitchen so it would be free of chametz, Hebrew for leavening agents, like yeast. To complete the task, she would place all nonperishable items in the garage, throw out the perishable ones, and replace them all with rabbinically-certified Kosher-for-Passover foods. The end result was an immaculate kitchen, bottle upon bottle of Manischewitz wine, box upon box of matzah, and drunk, constipated parents.

  IN an attempt at civility, Steven and Carol Andrews arrived together with Amy, a prompt half an hour before sunset. My mother could never quite understand Gentile punctuality and would genuinely be surprised whenever guests arrived on time. When the doorbell rang, she was always still knee deep in chicken broth, so she’d send my dad to entertain the guests.

  The Andrews were, of course, well read on the Passover story and practices, so they knew better than to bring a bottle of Inglenook or Carol’s famous homemade Black Forest Cake. Instead, they brought roses.

  “Carol, Steven, come in. And thank you for the flowers,” said my father, smiling. He gave both a warm hug. When he saw Amy, he said nothing, leaned in twice for a hug, retracted, and then gave her an awkward handshake, as if to say, “I’m not sure what the hell to do with you, but I do care about you, so just get inside.”

  Though Amy so thoroughly resented her father, and had no illusions about a reconciliation between her parents, she was noticeably eager to portray Carol and Steven’s relationship as amicable. “Mom, Dad, why don’t you sit together,” she stated more than asked.

  Perhaps the best thing about Passover is that, whether the Seder is experienced in Jerusalem, Buenos Aires, or Lincoln, its tales and rituals are the same and have been for centuries. Despite our deserved reputation for wandering, we Jews are linked by the event. I know that anywhere in the world where Jews live, Moses’s frightening and uplifting story will be lovingly told, and I know that the participants in any Seder are obligated to drink four full cups of wine.

  Yes, four full cups.

  In the spirit of “when in Rome,” the Andrews agreed that Amy should be allowed to immerse herself in the novel cultural experience and partake in all aspects of the Seder.

  Yes, four full cups.

  An extra leaf was inserted in the table to accommodate all nine participants. My grandmother liked her elbow room, so she sat at one end of the table. My parents were situated on either side of her. The professors Andrews, guests of honor, were located at the center of the table, with Carol by my mother and Steven by my father. Iris and Zillie sat opposite each other next to the professors, so Amy and I were placed next to each other at the other end of the table. I’m right-handed, so I sat on the right; Amy is left-handed so she sat to my left. My mother liked to make sure there were no dominant limbs colliding.

  The Seder progressed in a shockingly smooth fashion. My grandmother charmed the guests with tales of her childhood in Baghdad. Page 6, drink the first cup of wine. The Andrews and the Bahars exchanged faculty war stories, and Amy and I listened intently as Zillie and Iris gave advice on prerequisite classes, kosher-style fast food, and the best boom box choices for dorm rooms. Page 27, drink the second cup of wine. According to custom, I reclined and my outstretched legs slid under the table. As Amy drank, or perhaps as she was emboldened by the new power she felt she wielded over her parents, she abandoned her inhibition and began to rub my thigh with her non-dominant hand. Zillie and Iris both gave me “the look.” I think they knew what was happening. I didn’t care.

  I too abandoned by inhibition, and yes, I had a woody during the Seder.

  Page 30-37, grace after the meal. Upon its conclusion, a third cup of wine is poured for everyone in anticipation for the arrival of Elijah the prophet, forerunner of the Messiah. A child, representing the future, is asked to open the door at an eastern entrance, in the direction of Jerusalem.

  “Dahling, would you open the door for Elijah?” Granny asked me.

  Oh God, Granny, no, not yet, I thought. I didn’t need to look down to know that I was pitching a tent with my boner. Standing up would cause instant humiliation, acrimony, and the end to my love life as I knew it. I froze. I dared not look at my sisters; I didn’t want to know what was going through their heads.

  Amy sensed my fear and immediately understood my predicament. Always a quick thinker, and despite her inebriation, she immediately sprung into action. She turned to Granny. “Mrs. Bahar, would you first explain why we open the door for Elijah?”

  Granny smiled; she knew full well that Amy was the “good friend” we had discussed weeks before. She proudly started, “Amy, dahling, each of the four glasses of wine represents one of the promises . . .”

  Just then Amy pinched my thigh—hard.

  As part of physiology class, Mr. Dupuis taught Amy that the autonomic, or unconscious, nervous system is divided into parasympathetic (feed and breed) and sympathetic (fight or flight) segments. The former is responsible for erections, and the latter is responsible for ending them.

  After nearly flying out of my seat, I collected myself then gave Amy an incredulous look. In a flash, she looked quickly at my crotch then looked up again, smiling.

  Boner gone. Life saved. I sauntered to the east-facing door and opened it. Welcome, Elijah. Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Mr. Dupuis.

  My father and I cleared the table and carried the dishes to the kitchen. The cracked matzah created a disaster on the dinner table, so my mother followed behind to retrieve the crumb brush. A bit tipsy herself, she turned to my father; she was no longer able to contain herself:

  Hebrew:

  Transliteration: “Chaval sh’hee lo yehudiah. Hee kolcach yafah, chachamah, venechmadah.”

  Literal Translation: “It’s too bad she’s not Jewish. She’s so pretty, smart, and nice.”

  Intended Translation: “I can see why Ronnie likes her, but if your son so much as kisses her, I’ll kill him.”

  CHAPTER 18

  “We,

  So tired of all the darkness in our lives”

  —JOE JACKSON’S “STEPPIN’ OUT,” FROM THE ALBUM

  NIGHT AND DAY, RELEASED IN JUNE, 1982.

  IT PEAKED AT NUMBER SIX ON US BILLBOARD’S HOT

  100 SONGS.

  In 1983, if you didn’t have a prom date, you didn’t go to prom. I literally begged my parents to allow me to escort my “good friend and study partner” Amy, who had no date. I played the, “I just want to be like everyone else” card with every ounce of persuasion my adolescent body could muster. After several conversations between my mother and Carol Andrews, and after endless pledges that the relationship would remain platonic, my parents caved.

  My father made an “I’m-not-fucking-around,” declaration with his Mr. Spock, single eyebrow raise and a wagging index finger, “Ronnie, remember what I said about playing with fire. Respect Amy, and when this prom thing is over, that’s it.”

  “Dad, I swear.”

  “We don’t swear in this house.” Really?

  “Okay, I promise.”

  My mother sat silently. She stared at me almost with pity and pretended to adjust her glasses while she subtly dried a tear from her eye. She couldn’t fool me. I had learned from the best. As upset as I was that I had to grovel for something that seemed like my inalienable right as an American teenager, I knew she understood my plight, if only just a little.

  THE Well Endowed signed a record deal with Capitol Records. Though the contract heavily favored the label, with its relatively small take for the band, a clause for exclusivity, and no release commitment, Capitol essentially “owned” The Well Endowed. But it was a contract nonetheless.

  Capitol would allow the band to reach its tentacles farther across the Midwest and to larger, more lucrative venues. Outside of school dances and weddings, The Well Endowed had previously measured its audiences in the
dozens. With a behemoth organization promoting them, however, they could take the next step and fill hundreds of seats in locales such as The Ogden Theater in Denver and The Park West in Chicago, so that their original sound could grow.

  Before the deal was inked, the band members, all Southeast High School alumni, had already agreed, both for old times’ sake and as a favor to me, to play one last prom. To be frank, the band knew it was phasing out performing cover music, and thought it would be fun to dip into the archives (if two years could constitute archives) and combine them with a few new hits. In addition, this time Benjie actually coaxed the band into granting me a “mini set” as lead vocalist. I still think they must have been drunk for Benjie to have convinced them, but I was willing to ignore my lack of self-confidence and ride their coattails.

  Round two of sparring with my dad involved my attempt to persuade him that I needed to perform at the prom. This time my angle would be . . . oh fuck it . . . this time my angle would be that I was a senior in high school and I was at the top of my class and I was going to medical school and I wanted to celebrate in a manner commensurate with my achievements. And, goddammit, I had a great voice and I wanted to sing in front of an audience and have some fun!

  “Dad, I need this.”

  “What you need is an education.”

  “I need both dad,” I pleaded. “Haven’t I proven enough?”

  The Old and New Worlds collided; what the hell did singing pop music at prom mean to him, anyway? You study, you work, you provide. If you need to leave your homeland as a teenager and move to a foreign country alone to get ahead, so be it. I trembled. I didn’t want to cry. The mere thought of doing so humiliated me, especially if it were to occur in front of my father. I would rather have bawled in front of every guy I had ever met and be ridiculed until the end of time. Fuck. It’s not that my dad somehow sought to exploit my weakness and make me feel like shit. This was the same man who gave me a kiss on the cheek every morning before I left for school. I knew he loved me. He just didn’t understand, and I didn’t want to disappoint him.

  I held it in. A stare down began, and though it probably lasted only a moment, it felt as though it took centuries. I was afraid that if I spoke, the waterworks would ensue. He finally broke the silence. “Fine,” he said, exasperated. “But keep your priorities in order.”

  LATER that night, I called Amy. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “How did you get your parents to agree to both me and the singing?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was because I loosened them up by doing tequila shots with them.”

  “No, really!”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. I feel like their default answer is always ‘no’ because maybe they think they’re protecting me. But I know what I want, and I don’t want to be protected anymore.”

  “I know.” Amy paused before continuing. “Ron?”

  “Yes?”

  “I do want to be protected.”

  CHAPTER 19

  “Aren’t we the same two people who live

  Through the years in the dark?”

  —THE EAGLES’ “I CAN’T TELL YOU WHY,” FROM THE

  ALBUM THE LONG RUN, RELEASED FEBRUARY 8TH, 1980.

  IT PEAKED AT NUMBER EIGHT ON US BILLBOARD’S HOT

  100 SONGS.

  Dude, have you ever hooked up with a girl?” asked Jeff, seemingly just to make conversation.

  “No,” I answered, laughing. “Virgin Jew.”

  “What? How long you been going out with that girl Amy?”

  “About seven months?”

  “Seven months? Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell are you waiting for? She’s hot!”

  “I agree. She is hot. And I’d be lying to you if I told you we haven’t talked about it. She’s just not ready.”

  “What do you mean she’s not ready? Dude, Big Dick and The Twins need to practice before you go off to med school and try and conquer all those cute dairy farm girls in Wisconsin. I bet most of them have never done it with a circumcised guy before.”

  “But I . . . I mean she . . . I’m not going to . . .”

  “Ron, I’m going to stop you right there . . . hey guys!” he yelled at the other end of The Garage, where the rest of the band was practicing “Too Shy.” Jeff had promised Benjie that if the band signed a record deal, Kajagoogoo would be front and center on subsequent set lists.

  “We got a penile emergency here!” Jeff added. Like Peter, he did have a way with words, and he himself was certainly not “too shy.” Laughter and ridicule ensued. I couldn’t allow the mockery to get the best of me. In their own twisted way, I knew they meant well.

  The band then made me sit alone at the opposite end of The Garage while they had a private conference. It lasted about five minutes. For the most part they whispered, but every few moments I would hear iterations of, “No that’s not gonna’ work,” “Yes!” “I think he’s ready,” or, “that is fucking genius.” Of course there was the intervening guffaw.

  When the meeting adjourned, all four Well-Endowed Repeats called me back to their jerry-rigged conference table, which consisted of a cardboard box and what was left of a large Godfather’s Classic Combo pizza, circumscribed by four cans of Coke.

  “Ron, what’s the theme of this year’s prom?” asked Jeff.

  “All Knight Long. Spelled K-N-I-G-H-T, not N-I-G-H-T. Get it? Like The Lincoln Southeast Knights? It was my idea.”

  “Okay, two things. First, I wouldn’t admit to anyone that it was your idea. Second, that theme is for everyone else. The five of us are going to have a different theme.”

  “Okay,” I answered,” smirking. “What is it?”

  “‘Music to get laid by.’ Dude, it’s perfect. Do you have any idea of the power of the love ballad?”

  At this point I could barely contain my amusement. “No. Please, go on.”

  “So we’ve already explained to you how a bunch of average-looking shmucks like us get so many women, right?”

  “Average looking? Speak for yourself, ya fuckin’ ogre,” Benjie interjected, chuckling.

  “Don’t interrupt me, Kushner, I’m on a roll.” He continued, “Well, if we really want to seal the deal and actually screw, we pull out all the stops . . . we go straight to the love ballad.”

  “I love it,” I said, grinning.

  “You think we’re kidding? Here’s the new set list. The last one is yours.” He handed me a sheet of paper. I grabbed it and read it.

  “Holy shit. This is amazing. You’re really not kidding.”

  I practiced my mini (three-song) set list with the band almost nightly for the two weeks leading up to prom. While the voice came naturally, I continued to require extensive body-language training. Benjie attempted, initially in vain, to help me perfect a dramatic grab-microphone-clench-fist-shut-eyes-in-anguish combo. “The key is to make it look effortless and spontaneous,” he instructed. Good luck with that, I thought.

  He went on to explain the almost magical effect of the point-finger-at-the-hot-girl maneuver, how it had to coincide precisely with the appropriate lyrics, and, in his case, that hand and finger movements needed to be timed perfectly between guitar strumming. Though use of the love ballad helped, it was not necessary with his level of expertise. He then demonstrated his wizardry with “Too Shy” by grabbing the microphone during the first verse, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his fist in anguish during the second, and sealing the deal by pointing at a hot girl during the chorus:

  “Modern medicine falls short of your complaints . . .” (grab microphone).

  I understood why he longed to use that song. He had honed his craft, and Kajagoogoo would get him laid. If I wanted to follow suit, I had a lot of work to do.

  I rented a paisley tuxedo jacket and wingtip shoes for the event. Though I may have been overcompensating for my otherwise lackluster appearance, I thought at the time that I looked pretty damn good. Amy was generally modest and would never admit that she wanted to look beautiful. She never really
had to try; without sounding trite, it was natural for her. She ordinarily didn’t spend much time shopping either, but on this occasion she dragged her mother through Nebraska’s department store circuit until she found the perfect burgundy tiered puffy-sleeved sequin number at Dillard’s department store in Omaha. The color matched my paisley perfectly. I had never seen her in heels before and, despite the panty hose, her legs were tantalizing. We would rock. And maybe, just maybe, I would get lucky.

  Sundar continued to go out with Anne after their very successful shared Sadie Hawkins conquest. We double dated in the Duster and arrived at the ballroom of The University of Nebraska’s Student Union early so I could help set up. I was, in the end, still a glorified roadie. Though they knew I would be singing, I refused to tell them what songs we would be performing, admittedly in part to maximize the surprising aphrodisiac effect of the love ballad set.

  Before entering the Student Union, Amy took me aside. “Listen, babe. I want you to know that I am happy for you, I promise. I saw how thrilled you were the last time you performed, and regardless of what you do with your life, you should be able to enjoy yourself. Just be good to me.” She smiled brightly at me and kissed me quickly but delicately on the lips. Her statement required no response; of course I would be good to her.

  Jeff lay in wait as we arrived. He gave Amy a once-over with his eyes, and then turned to me. I received a knowing smile, followed by a head nod. I had to look the other way to avoid cracking up.

  The pomp and circumstance of the prom royalty presentation was met primarily with cheers, but when Queen Holly Goodwin and King Chris Taylor were introduced, a contingent of hecklers made themselves heard. Though we pre-dated the anti-prom, or “morp” (prom spelled backward) era of the 1990s, there was some dissention from a limited but vocal nonconformist wing of the student body. I couldn’t help but think that a small part of me was one of them. Though the “royal court” represented nothing more than a post-pubertal popularity contest, I found solace in my own hot date, and in my temporary role as the frontman.