When Madeline Was Young

by Jane Hamilton

  The spring of 1963, when I was fifteen, Mikey began singing in the evenings at the ice-cream stand by the community pool.

  Despite the name, the Dari-Dip, it had always done a good business through the summer. No one could say what prompted Mikey, one night in May, to jump up from the picnic table as if he'd been stung. He began to belt out a Jerry Lee Lewis number,

  "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On." There was probably even a recognizable rendition of the pianoand-guitar interlude. He'd been eating his cone one minute, and the next he was up by the trash can urging the world to shake it. "I said shake baby shake!"

  The few people sitting on the benches were too stunned to laugh. Mr. O'Day was beyond being embarrassed by his son, or maybe he was worn out. He averted his eyes and stood by. Mikey wiggled his hips, his face to the moon, his eyes shut tight, his mouth wide open. There must have been enough applause, because he went right on with an instrumental, "Mau Mau," his lips pressed together for the trumpet embouchure, his cheeks puffed to the limit, his horn sound soft but always exuberant, always clear in his jazzy staccato. He found a stick for the metal trash-can lid and banged out, more or less, a regular beat.

  Irene and Stu, the owners, came from the kitchen, clapping and crying, "Satchmo! Satchmo!" There was another tune and another, and the next night he returned, and the night after, and the night after that, until Irene and Stu suggested he sing, when time allowed, two or three nights a week. For Mikey's sake and for the sake of his fans. If a singer kept such an unrelenting schedule, they explained, he might tire his voice. It might not be good for the long haul. So it was established that Mikey O'Day would be the Dari-Dip headliner for an hour on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights. The loyal customers might have avoided the drive-in after Mikey began his crooning, but instead for a time it was a hot spot. I like to think people stopped by not because they considered Mikey a freak show but because the local color was theirs.

  His mother bought him a toy microphone, a prop that looked so real in his clutches you almost believed it made his voice louder. A reporter from the local newspaper showed up to do a feature, to write about Mikey's remarkable memory and repertory, from Tony Bennett to Peggy Lee, from Buddy Holly to Dionne Warwick. The article was also about the Dari-Dip's generous support of the retarded man. I remember my mother reading the Journal at the breakfast table. "Isn't that nice about Mikey O'Day," she said. "Isn't it interesting that he's developed an imaginary radio show, that he does traffic updates and weather reports in between his songs."

  What was she thinking might happen when, on a Saturday night in June, she asked me to take Madeline to the Dari-Dip?

  Would I mind walking the few blocks with her to get a cone? Would I mind? It wasn't that I was humiliated by Madeline. I had realized much earlier that if I was going to be ashamed of her I'd have to be ashamed of the whole family. That not only seemed impractical but also required more energy, more vigilance than I could give to the project. I don't rule out the fact that because Madeline was attractive it was easier to shoulder the burden of a handicapped sibling.

  Oh, but there was a price to be paid for that beauty. After it was established that we were walking to the Dari-Dip, we couldn't simply stroll out the front door, slap down the stairs in our sandals and along the sidewalk, buy our ice cream, and then turn toward home. No, no. Madeline must change her clothes to step out. "What's wrong," I said, "with your green shorts? And your shirt?" The small yellow-andgreen flowered print was very ladylike. She looked fine enough to order a dessert as extravagant as a banana split, if she was to go that far.

  She didn't dignify my question with a response. I could hear her up in her room, the hangers sliding along the pole in the closet, and she probably took out every single one of her shoe boxes and lined up her pairs of heels across the rug. As if for once she might be quick with her toilet, I waited for her in the hall downstairs, pacing and snapping my fingers. Little did I know that in a few days my impatience would be something I'd look back to fondly, an irritation so mild it would look like serenity in retrospect.

  Twenty-seven minutes later, she tap-tapped down the stairs to the landing, where she stood, allowing me to admire her.

  Her head was high, turned to show off her noble profile. There's probably a name for the kind of dress she had on, the square neck, open to the cleavage, the short sleeves, the gathers along the breast, the lowered waist falling into a skirt flouncy with pleats. She might have gone to the opera in that satiny blue dress, and with the pearl necklace at her smooth girlish throat.

  "We're going to the Dari-Dip, right?" I finally said.

  "Ready," she breathed, as one dainty foot in a pair of white slingbacks--I believe that's the term--reached the bottom stair.

  Had my mother told her about Mikey O'Day's entertainment, or was she outfitted for the public on general principle? Since she always dressed with care for any occasion, it was hard to say. She had a handbag, the color of her frock, large enough to hold a puppy. Inside, it's likely there was a stuffed dog, a few pennies, a comb, a shell, a spare necklace.

  Mikey O'Day and Madeline were about the same age. She had seen him any number of times through the years, at the pool, at the library, from afar down the block, but I guess she hadn't really looked at him. I later wondered what he'd been so busy with, for decades, that he'd never strayed down our alley; I wondered if he'd had plenty of girlfriends who lived north or east or west of us. It's safe to say that if they'd both had normal intelligence Madeline would never have given him a second glance, but even so he was, as my mother testified, cute. A darling, she said. He had thick red hair that had a furry softness, and enormous shiny blue eyes that were magnified by his glasses. His mouth was red, noticeably bright, and unusually elastic, so that his funny faces were clownish and in fact did make us laugh. In the beginning Madeline often stared unabashedly at his lips. He was shorter than she was, and goofily, pleasantly plump. If he hadn't walked with his head to the sky, bobbing as if his neck were a spring, you wouldn't have known at first that there was anything wrong with him.

  The Dari-Dip DJ always announced each number knowledgeably and with veneration. "This next one," Mikey would say,

  "is the Everly, the Everly Brothers, Don and Phil. They, they are brothers, they are very, they are very great, the greatest s-s-s-songwriting artists, song-writing artists ever, ever to be heard." Before he started, he screwed up his face, the skin of his nose bunching toward the bridge, his lips stretching to the ears, the effort of bliss. His brow was always rippling with wrinkles, and sometimes his eyes would pop open, out of amazement, probably, at what had come from his mouth.

  That night, Madeline slowly and demurely licked her vanilla ice cream and nibbled at the cone, the rip of her tongue as enchanting as a kitten's, or so she must have imagined. Mikey stood fifteen feet from us, by the trash can, singing his sha-nanas, the doo-doos and wahwahs, as well as making the shimmer of a snare drum and the click-click of the maracas with his own fetching tongue and teeth. When he did his trumpet impression, Madeline couldn't help giggling into her hands, blowing her cover as prima donna. There were plenty of people sitting around us, but we were the only fans actually listening to Mikey.

  The crowd was usually respectful, looking up long enough to cheer when he was done with a song.

  I remember him singing "Let It Be Me," how he did the violin part at the beginning, and the Hawaiian slide sound, too, and he worked at the beat with the trash-can lid and a real drumstick. His heart was in it; his heart was absolutely and completely in it. So it didn't matter if he couldn't quite hit the notes or he'd lose his place, or the beat would peter out and then come back with a vengeance, or if all of a sudden he was Frank Sinatra when he meant to be Don and Phil Everly. Even though he had serious trouble with intonation, his sturdy voice in those bright thumping early rock-and-roll songs had a sweetness that hit you in the pit of your stomach. There was nothing worse than Mikey, his eyeballs in the back of his head, singing, "Each time we meet, l
ove, I find complete love," and other sentiments that seemed equally removed from his own experience.

  Madeline, much to my horror, sat transfixed. She didn't seem to mind that her hand was sticky with ice cream, which is what happens if you take thirty minutes to eat a frozen confection. He went on to sing "Moon River"--so dreamily, with such volume--"Two drifters off to see the world." She sat up straighter, as if she were about to be called on. As unbelievable as it may seem, he sang "I Almost Lost My Mind." Also "Que Sera Sera," "Born to Be with You," and "The Way You Look Tonight."

  When Madeline put the last crumb of cone in her mouth, just as he was introducing "Are You Lonesome Tonight?," I said, "We need to go, Maddy."

  "No!"

  "Madeline."

  "I said no!"

  How was it that someone like Mikey, with his limited powers, had gained entrance to musical paradise? How could he have the knowledge that people like Louise and Stephen Lovrek had, he, a part of that secret society? "We have to get home," I said.

  She stared straight ahead.

  We sat through "Wake Up, Little Suzie" and "Short Fat Fannie": "She watch me like a hound dog everywhere I go." Without realizing I'd drawn blood on my leg from my own fingernails. I said, "If we leave after the next song, I'll bring you back tomorrow night."

  She did turn to look at me.

  "After the next song. If we leave, I will bring you back. If you stay, I'm never coming here again."

  She considered her options. "Tomorrow night?" she said. "Tomorrow night." I was sure that Sunday the place would be closed, and by Monday she would have forgotten.

  "Tomorrow night you'll bring me."

  "Tomorrow night."

  On our way down the sidewalk, she had to stop every few feet and look back at him.

  How deeply sorry I was to learn that the Dari-Dip never shut down in season. It was on the second night, then, that I sat, my veins heating once more, while Madeline ate another cone, again with excruciating slowness. I had been too embarrassed to mention the situation to my mother, and because she was gone all afternoon and into the evening, agitating for peace, she missed the violence stirring within Mrs. Maciver the First. Every five minutes Madeline would come into my room and ask me how many more minutes until eight o'clock, what time exactly were we leaving, when did the paper say Mikey started singing, where was the paper, why hadn't I read the article? Which one of us felt time moving more slowly, which one of us more acutely felt the up-and-coming minute tugging at the minute it was leaving behind, the pull to get to the next number?

  It was on the second night that Mikey O'Day opened his eyes long enough to notice the single member of his public. We were under the fluorescent pole light that hung high over our table, Madeline bathed in the purity of that buzzing white glow.

  She was wearing another party dress, and she had a purple scarf tied under her chin, as a film star in a convertible might.

  Surely without the aid of electricity Mikey would finally have noticed Madeline's beam; surely he could not have avoided her determined gaze forever. It was during a self-imposed break, after he'd stood in line to get his complimentary sundae, that he at last made his move. He stood across the picnic table from her, his head tottering back and forth as if it might fall off his neck.

  "I'm Mikey, I'm Mikey O'Day, Mikey O'Day. I noticed, I noticed that you like, that you like my music."

  "Mikey," she said into her lap.

  "I'm good, I'm pretty good tonight, pretty good."

  She nodded, the normal motion, up and down.

  "We need to go, Madeline--"

  "No!" The shy demoiselle turned to glare at me.

  "M-Mad-Madeline," he said. "Madeline and M-Mikey, Mikey O'Day. Madeline and Mikey O'Day." He was firm in the final pronouncement.

  She covered her face with her hands, something she did when she was excited. "You're, you're not my boyfriend!" she tittered through her fingers. She was starting to tremble, one of the first signs, I feared, of love.

  "It sounds, it sounds good, the names, the names together, Madeline, Madeline and Mikey 0--"

  "Time to go!" I said, climbing out from the seat.

  "No, Mac!"

  Mikey took one large canine snap at his sundae before he rushed to the microphone that was resting on the trash-can lid.

  He began to sing another song, the type about loving you until the sun burns out and the oceans run dry, until the microbes, every last one of them, are exhausted. I suppose it was at that point that Madeline made up her mind. No reason to look any farther for romance. She was forty-four years old. The man knew the value of a love song. The hour had come.

  Later there would be other suitors for Madeline, men she had to reject because they were disfigured or they couldn't make eye contact or they were obsessive, prone to reciting the phone book, or overly stimulated by fire trucks. Even in her own compromised state, she had to find a man who wasn't too unstable or compulsive or ugly, and I think it was also important that her beau have something besides pure craziness to distinguish him. She was still, in her way, choosy.

  When he rang our bell the next afternoon, when I opened the door to his hard grin, and the dive for my hand so he could shake it and keep shaking it, I meant to tell him Madeline wasn't home. But it took him long enough to greet me, and he spoke loudly enough so that she came as fast as she could from her room, slowing as she neared the landing, her old feminine wiles, her native cunning, come back to her.

  "I brought, I brought my records," he called over my shoulder. "My, my records." They had discussed this meeting on the previous night, in the few minutes they'd had alone by the pickup window, before I'd dragged Madeline home. Without the Dafi-Dip, without his microphone and his trash-can lid, he was all nerves, stepping from foot to foot, breathing through his clenched teeth, his hands opening and closing, opening and closing. Behind him, indeed, were two blue metal boxes that held his 45s.

  I had never had a girlfriend myself and believed I never would, but in that moment I felt as if I'd skipped ahead, as if I were a parent. Or at the least a maiden aunt who has been brought on board to watch the young people, to make certain there is no hanky-panky.

  "You should go outside," I said to Madeline, sure that in the wide-open space of the yards, the long stretch of sidewalk, nothing could happen.

  "We're listening to music," she snipped, pushing past me to let Mikey through.

  The neighborhood children had always been welcome in our house, and yet it seemed wrong to let Mikey O'Day enter when my mother wasn't home. Down the basement, Madeline took the orange plastic record-player from the cupboard and set it on the carpet. I wasn't sure what to do with myself. There was no question that I was to watch over them, but where should I be? On the rug right next to her? In the laundry room with my ear cocked? I could busy myself at the bar fifteen feet away with my chemistry set; that was it. While I readied my lab for a titration, Madeline sat watching Mikey. She watched him decide what to play, watched him talking to himself about each record he considered. She watched the turntable spin while he danced. He danced to Joey Dee and the Starliters, he danced to "Love Me Do," and he danced to a song by the Cadillacs called "Speedo."

  These days, even now, if I stumble upon an oldie on the car radio, or if my daughters are playing music from my youth, it is always Mikey I see, always that stupendous head of his swaying.

  That first afternoon, every time he tried to get Madeline to dance she'd turn away, smiling to herself. Good, I thought, don't rumba with him. After more of that than you'd think a fellow could stand, they went upstairs to get something to eat. I followed them as if I were their Secret Service detail. It was, predictably, in the kitchen that she felt free to exert a wifely attention. "Sit down," she ordered.

  He swiveled in his chair to watch her reach up in the cabinet for his snack. She didn't ask what he wanted. At the counter she poured cornflakes into a bowl. She set it in front of him and then went to the drawer to fetch a spoon. "Now," she said, pointing a
t the small crock of sugar on the lazy Susan. When she turned her back to get the milk, he emptied the crock over his cereal. Did he think the mountain of sugar would escape her notice? She came with the pitcher to his place. She looked once, she looked twice. She frowned. He knew enough to explain. "I like sugar, I like it."

  "That's why you're fat," she said, matter-of-factly. "Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!" He punched his own stomach and then pursed his lips, made his cheeks big. "I like, I like being f-f-f-at." She wasn't amused, not yet. "Why?" She poured the milk carefully, watching the crystals sink and melt.

  "Because, because then I can eat, I can eat sugar!"

  There was silence before they both exploded with laughter. She had to sit and put her head to the table. Every time Mikey dipped his spoon into his sucrose soup, they laughed some more. While they were consumed with mirth, I emptied the dishwasher. Louise came in and looked at them and at me. "What's he doing here?" she mouthed. Was it courtship, or what we now call a playdate? I no longer knew. I shrugged, and she went into the living room to rune her cello. As if the sawing of the open strings were a siren call, Mikey stopped chewing. Lu often warmed up with one of the simpler Bach suites instead of scales, and the instant she began to play, Mikey pushed back his chair. In a flash he was in the living room, kneeling at the cello's stem.

  "What?" Lu said to him, as if he were a brother. "What do you want?"

  In the beginning I was always thinking about what he'd have been like without his sickness. Whether or not he had had a genius IQ before whatever fabled illness struck, there did seem to be a touch of the savant mixed up in his childishness. The way music affected him, it seemed as if he might have been truly gifted.

  "I have a radio show, I sing," he said. "I sing, I sing, on the radio. On the radio."