One Hit Wonder

by Charlie Carillo

  “I want him to have sense.”

  “If he grows up afraid, he won’t have a chance!”

  “If he gets killed he won’t have a chance!”

  “I didn’t get killed,” I offered, but I don’t think either of them heard me. I was off the radar for a few minutes while they went at each other, and even as they fought, my mother guided me by my shoulders to my place at the kitchen table, where a plate of food awaited me. A clear glass lid covering the chicken croquettes and mashed potatoes was beaded with condensation from the steam that had risen off the food, two hours earlier. See how long you were missing? Long enough for steam to turn into water!

  I dug into the food, hungrier than I’d ever been.

  “I can reheat it if it’s cold.”

  “It’s fine, Mom.”

  When I finally looked up from my plate the two of them were seated there, staring at me, waiting to be told.

  “I was in Manhattan.”

  My mother’s hand went to her throat. Manhattan to her meant sex, narcotics, minorities, crime, and rudeness. “Why were you there?”

  “It’s where Ronald Robinski lives. I went to his house to play my song for his father. He’s in the music business.”

  My father’s eyes widened as my mother’s narrowed.

  “That little song you were playing yesterday?”

  “Yeah, Mom, that little song.”

  “What are you saying, here? You auditioned?”

  “I don’t know what I did, Mom. I played the song on the school piano and Ronald thought it was pretty good, so I went home with him and played it for his father.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “The Dakota.”

  She turned to my father. “That’s where that Beatle got shot.”

  “I know that, Donna, I read the papers.”

  “You make fun of me for worrying, and meanwhile he’s at the exact spot where bullets were flying!”

  “Seven years ago,” I said. “They’ve stopped flying, Mom.”

  “Hey.” My father slapped the back of my head. “Watch how you talk to your mother.”

  “For Christ’s sake, it’s safe there now! They’ve got security guards all over the place!”

  My mother covered her face with her hands. “He talks to me this way all the time,” she said through the forest of her fingers. “Constantly. Never misses a chance to be fresh.”

  “Fresh?”

  “You heard me—”

  My father’s fist came down hard on the table, making my plate jump. It put us into a shocked silence, and then he was almost whispering when he spoke.

  “Did he like the song, Mick?”

  His face was bright with wonder at the idea of his son coming up with a song that maybe, just maybe, would be made into a record.

  I shrugged, still tingling from the impact of his fist on the table. “He said he’d call me.”

  “That’s not a good sign,” my mother said.

  “No? Jeez, Ronald thought it was.”

  My mother held strong and smug, with the patient grin of one who’s been there before. “I used to audition,” she said calmly. “When they want you, they tell you on the spot.”

  “Donna, why do you have to discourage him?”

  “I’m not. I’m just speaking from experience. It’s a rough business.”

  “Every business is a rough business.”

  “This one’s rougher than most.” She stroked my hair. “We’ll see what happens.”

  “Yes, we will, Mom.”

  It was a funny moment. In a way my mother was trying to cushion the blow for the almost certain failure I was facing. But I suspected that in another way, she was hoping I’d fall on my face.

  They were staring at me in a new way, as if I were a stranger who’d been dropped into their lives. All these years I’d been an average student and a marginal athlete, a devoted son and garbage-taker-outer, nothing special, nothing terrible, just another tart-tongued teenager growing up on the edge of Queens.

  At the same time, I was their only begotten son, their only child. No siblings to pick up the slack, or distract them from me. Embarrassment or pride: It was all riding on my shoulders, and until now the future had seemed foggy, at best. I’d be lucky to get into a state university where the tuition wasn’t ruinous to study to become…what?

  That was the big question for me and just about every other kid in the neighborhood. A lawyer? Slim chance. A doctor? No chance at all, with my dismal grades in math and science. Some kind of civil service job was looking more and more likely….

  Or maybe I could write songs for a living. What would that be like? I couldn’t help getting giddy about it, giggling like a child….

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, Mom.”

  “You must be laughing about something.”

  “I’m just a little excited. I mean, it’s only hitting me now, everything that happened.”

  “Delayed reaction,” my father said.

  My mother hesitated. “So tell me about their apartment.”

  She would never admit it, but despite her fears she’d wondered all her life about what it would be like to live in the big town.

  “Amazing place,” I said. “Huge windows looking out over Central Park.”

  “Noisy?”

  “Seemed pretty quiet to me. You hear the traffic sounds, but they’re pretty faint from the sixth floor.”

  She was fascinated, and at the same time she needed to find a way to be better than the Robinskis. At last it came to her.

  “Did you eat anything while you were there?”

  “No.”

  “Drink?”

  “Mom, I played my song twice and I left.”

  A dark gleam came to her eyes. “See that? These Manhattan big shots don’t even offer you a glass of water. No class.”

  She turned to my father in triumph before going upstairs to take a bath. My father lit up a Camel, considerately blowing the smoke toward the ceiling.

  “Play me the whole song,” he said when I finished eating.

  So I did. The song was two days old, but I felt as if I’d been playing “Sweet Days” for years, and when I finished he was smiling.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said. “It’s about Lynn, isn’t it?”

  I felt myself redden. “Yeah, I guess so. Hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “Not much you didn’t.”

  He knew I was lying, right through the teeth he’d paid so many thousands of dollars to have straightened.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lynn Mahoney. My love. My life. My obsession.

  I was fifteen years old and as shy as a boy could be without actually disappearing. I had an after-school job that seemed just right for a kid with my temperament—delivering the New York Daily News to families all around Little Neck.

  I shouldered a big canvas bag filled with rolled-up papers and went from house to house, leaving the papers in front of doors. I was conscientious about it. I never threw them from the sidewalk, because that could tear the front page. I had more than fifty regulars on my route and every one of them got their newspapers in good condition Monday through Saturday, rain or shine.

  I was quick on my feet and it didn’t take more than an hour to run the route each afternoon. It would have been the perfect job for me, except for one thing—collecting day.

  Every Friday I had to bang on the doors and ask to be paid for the week’s papers. Nobody was ever happy to see me.

  “Collecting,” I’d murmur. That was my whole speech. Bob Piellusch, the kid who’d turned over his newspaper route to me (in January, right after he’d collected Christmas tips from his customers), said it would help to smile when I said it, but it didn’t seem to make much difference. Often I’d wake people from naps, or interrupt them while they were preparing dinner. They acted as if I were being rude and unreasonable for expecting to be paid.

  I wasn’t. This was the deal. I had to lay out my own
money each week to buy the newspapers. The profit margin wasn’t huge, so I couldn’t afford to carry any deadbeats.

  And one family on my route had become the worst deadbeats of all.

  I was nervous as I walked up the path to the Mahoney house that chilly Friday in April. Funny thing was that for a long time, this had been one of the best stops on my route, because Mrs. Mahoney had always taken good care of me. She answered the door promptly, had the money in hand, tipped me half a buck, and even offered me cookies.

  But one Friday, she didn’t answer the door. Nobody answered it. I made a red check mark next to the Mahoney name in my record book and moved on.

  The next week, no answer again. Another red check mark, to be followed by two more. The Mahoneys were a month behind. You were allowed to phone your customers if they were real deadbeats, but I didn’t dare do that. I was actually willing to take the loss, if it came to that.

  The following Friday I almost didn’t bother knocking on the Mahoney door. The only reason I did was because the newspapers weren’t piling up on their porch. Somebody was taking them inside, so somebody had to be home. Maybe my luck would turn this time….

  And it did. The Mahoneys had a very creaky door, and it was opened that Friday afternoon by the most terrifying man I’d ever seen. His shoulders seemed as wide as the door and his angry blue eyes stared out of a massive skull with a gaze that seemed determined to melt me into a puddle.

  I’d obviously awakened him from a nap. His steel-gray hair was flat on one side, his socks were halfway down his feet, and loose red suspenders dangled from his hips.

  “What the hell do you want?” he growled.

  I swallowed. “Collecting.”

  “Collecting for what?”

  Instead of answering I handed him a folded newspaper. He took it from me and rubbed his face with his other hand.

  “Paperboy…what do I owe you?”

  I steeled myself for the outburst to come. “Fifteen dollars, sir.”

  “Fifteen bucks! Are you kiddin’ me?”

  “It’s for five weeks, sir.”

  He cocked his huge head at me, narrowed one eye. “You sure about that?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s three dollars a week. Nobody was home for the last four weeks. See?”

  I showed him my notebook with the red check marks beside his name. That didn’t seem to appease him. He clearly didn’t trust me.

  “Wife’s been sick,” he murmured.

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “Did you say fifteen?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He dug into his pocket and pulled out a twenty. “You got change, kid?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  So much for a tip. I took the twenty and handed back a five. He took it and slammed the door without another word.

  I got out my blue pen and conscientiously made a line through the red check marks, clearing the Mahoney account. Those few moments I lingered there for that bit of bookkeeping changed my life forever.

  Because while I was doing it the door opened again, and there she stood in cut-off blue jeans and a red T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, staring out at me with the biggest, greenest eyes I’d ever seen.

  Maybe it’s not possible to love a stranger at first sight, but it is possible to be hit so hard by a girl’s beauty that you feel as if your heart might explode, and that’s pretty much what happened to me that day on the Mahoneys’ front stoop.

  “Hold on,” she said, “this is for you.”

  She held out three dollar bills, but I was so blown away by the second thing, the sound of her voice, that all I could do was stare at her. If a brook could speak, it would sound like that, soothing and cool and tranquil.

  The sight and the sound would have been enough, but then I caught a whiff of whatever perfume she was wearing. As it turned out, she wasn’t wearing perfume at all. It was the smell of the girl herself, like a summer flower carried on an ocean breeze, sweet and salty at the same time.

  Somehow I managed to clear my throat to say, “I already got paid.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t get a tip.” She looked left, looked right, lowered her voice. “My father’s too cheap to tip. Come on, take it.”

  She didn’t want her father to catch her giving me more money. She kept peeking over her shoulder as she held out the bills.

  “Will you take it, already?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Huh?”

  “I said, what’s your name?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m Lynn.”

  “I’m Mickey.”

  “Take this money, Mickey.”

  “Listen,” I said, “you wanna get a slice tonight?”

  She cocked her head in puzzlement. “A slice?”

  She didn’t know what I meant. It might have sounded like a sexual offer to her. I had to clarify myself, and fast.

  “A slice of pizza,” I explained.

  Those impossibly big green eyes widened even more. She shook her head, as if to clear it of confusing thoughts.

  “You’re asking me out?”

  “I…yeah. Yeah, that’s what I’m doing.”

  “You don’t seem too sure.”

  “Did I do it wrong? I’ve never asked a girl out before. I’m not sure how it’s done.”

  She giggled, not at me but at the comedy of the situation. At last she lowered the hand holding those three bucks.

  “Sure, why not. When?”

  “Eight o’clock?”

  She nodded. “Okay. But please, take this tip.”

  She held out the money again. I shook my head.

  “Keep it,” I said. “You can buy the sodas.”

  She smiled, went back inside and shut the door. I was practically flying as I finished the rest of my paper route. Collecting from the rest of my customers was a breeze that day. Everybody paid up, nobody gave me a hard time.

  For the first time in my life I felt at ease in the world, like I belonged, like I fit in, but it wasn’t just that. It was a lot more than that.

  Suddenly I didn’t feel so alone anymore.

  She was waiting for me in front of her house at eight o’clock. It was a short walk to Ponti’s Pizza, an old-time joint that had containers of stale oregano and dusty Parmesan cheese on red Formica tables. We settled down at a booth with slices and sodas, and I was delighted to see that Lynn knew how to fold a slice so it wouldn’t flop over when she lifted it for a bite. It was the first time I noticed something that would always impress me—Lynn never, ever did anything awkwardly. I was always tripping over things and knocking over drinks but she glided through life like a swan, a pizza-nibbling swan who seemed to be enjoying our first date.

  We’d hit a silent patch. I felt I had to say something, and what I said couldn’t have been more stupid, considering where we were.

  “Do you like pizza?”

  Lynn nodded. “Who doesn’t like pizza?”

  Panic. “I don’t know. Maybe some people are allergic to it.”

  “Allergic to pizza? Who?”

  “I don’t know…people who are allergic to tomatoes, maybe.”

  “There are people who are allergic to tomatoes?”

  “Well, there must be….”

  My voice trailed off. I was drowning in my own foolish words, and just then in walked three Italian kids with slicked-back hair. Cigarettes dangled from their lips. I knew one of them from grade school, an indifferent student named Enrico Boccabella. Our ways had parted a few years earlier, when his parents chose not to waste money on a Catholic high school education for Rico. He acknowledged me with a solemn, wordless nod.

  Rico was the alpha male of the pack, ordering three slices and three Cokes. Jimmy Ponti seemed relieved when Rico paid up front. The other two carried the food to a round table, where the three of them sat and ate with their sleek heads tilted toward the middle of the table. Gold crosses dangled under their chins as they spoke in soft, urgent voices.

  There were
rumors that Rico was the leader of a burglary ring that hit rich people’s houses in Great Neck, the ritzy town right on the Nassau County/Queens border. They might have been planning their next heist. Now and then they stared at Lynn, but she looked back without fear, the way a truly calm person can stare down a menacing dog.

  I was impressed, and glad to have something to talk about besides pizza allergies.

  “My fellow Italians,” I said, almost in apology.

  “Oh, I think Italians are wonderful.”

  “They are? I’m not so sure about that.”

  As if to reinforce my point, Rico let out a long, resonant belch, to the delight of his companions. Lynn rolled her eyes.

  “I don’t mean those guys,” she continued. “I mean the Italians in Italy. The world would be a lot less beautiful without the Italians.”

  “It would?”

  “Oh, sure! The paintings, the sculptures…it’s an unbelievably rich history. I can’t wait to see it.”

  “See what?”

  “Italy. I’m saving up for my trip.”

  I was stunned to hear this. She was fifteen years old, and planning a trip to the other side of the world. The farthest I’d ever been on my own was Yankee Stadium, and I got lost on the way home.

  “I want to see Florence, Venice, and Milan,” Lynn continued, ticking the cities off on her fingers. “And Rome, of course. The Sistine Chapel.”

  “When are you going?”

  “When I have enough money. I work a cash register at Pathmark on the weekends. I’ve got a pretty good fund going…. Don’t you want to see Italy?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Aren’t you curious? You’re Italian, aren’t you?”

  “Half.”

  “Well, then, Italy is your heritage! Don’t you care about your heritage?”

  “What are you gettin’ so excited about?”

  “Ever heard of Venice? It’s this city the Italians built on water! People ride in boats called gondolas to get around! Wouldn’t you like to do that?”

  “I guess.”

  She giggled. “You guess? We’re talking about the most unique city in the world, here! Think you’re ever going to ride a gondola in Little Neck?”