Songbird

by Lisa Samson

  “You look wonderful, Charmaine. I’m not sure why you felt you had to scrape your hair back though. I’ve been trying to get my hair to look like yours for years!”

  “I didn’t want to take away from the rest of the choir. This hair is loud, Miss Anita. People’s eyes just go to it.”

  “Like moths to a flame!”

  “That’s truer than I’d like it to be, that’s for sure.”

  We smiled at each other in the mirror.

  “You’ll do fine, hon. Trust me. And let’s face it, the people here at Holabird Assembly aren’t choosy. If there’s a blessing to be had, they’ll find it sure enough.”

  And maybe some hands would be raised in the bargain, lifting up holy hands to the Lord. Now if only I didn’t have to sing next to Mrs. Cox, because that woman couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, a bowl, or a box! Hopefully I could concentrate extra hard, especially before my solo part.

  I felt like I did the first time I performed at E.C. Glass High. I can hardly describe the nervous blips that ran through all of me like mice in a maze, when we walked onto the platform behind the pulpit. I felt like my heart and my brain turned into giant rat wheels, and two mean little rodents scampered on them, running, running, their slender feet and paws going like pistons, their beady little eyes glowing red and saying, “You nervous enough yet, Myrtle? Huh? Huh?”

  Then they laughed this little “weeee-heeeee” laugh that makes me want to stomp on them. Don’t even get me started on what they were doing down there in my stomach.

  To this day, after hundreds and hundreds of times up on stage, I feel exactly the same. It’s different singing for Jesus than in school plays and on “live entertainment night” at Suds ‘N’ Strikes. Yep, after the solo that I am about to describe, Mr. Frank said, “Let’s make Saturday nights a little classy at the alley.” And Miss Anita fell for the idea like a ton of girdled Jell-O, bouncing with excitement at the idea. Once again, I was fitted for a gown, but this time, wooo-hooo, we threw taste to the wind! Miss Anita and I sure breathed a more common air than Cecile Ferris and I ever would!

  Life was too short. Clothes could be too fun.

  But thoughts of sequined gowns were yet to rise from the depths of my entertainer’s heart that morning in church. A soulful sea of faces, Bibled laps and expectant hearts waited for a blessing.

  I was glad that tongues don’t sweat like hands do, further making singing in public even more difficult. But perspiration beaded on my forehead as the choir rose for the choral number. The piano player was Billy Noekowski, a bony, large-headed fellow with detonated black hair and ice-pick legs. His large knees reminded me of footballs. He pounded his way into the introduction.

  I started into the first verse of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” The choir ooohed and mmmm’d all around me as I sung louder and with more feeling than ever before. And I just wanted to sing and sing and sing and Zing about Jesus. Because He was all I had, really, right then in my life.

  All I had.

  I tell you this. He’s really all anybody has, and I count it a blessing I learned that so young. Because then everything else, all the people, places, things—the nouns of this world, and even the adjectives that describe them: big, nice, yummy, loving, breezy and all —are just filling in the pie!

  Nobody cares about you and God, Myrtle Charmaine.

  14

  Luella brought the kids over for my first night singing at Suds ‘N’ Strikes. In the women’s rest room she applied my makeup. “I just got into Artistry makeup, Charmaine. I figure if I sell a little on the side each month, it may pay for groceries.”

  “Sure looks good, Luella.”

  Oh, Luella is so pretty.

  Her girls, Isabela and Guadalupe watched, their large brown eyes absorbing their mother’s every flitter and flick.

  Anita Reasin entered one last time. “It’s almost curtain time, hon! How do you like the dress? Comfortable? And are those shoes too high?”

  “I love it. And the shoes are comfy as can be.”

  Well, as four-inch heels could possibly be.

  Luella pinkied some gloss over my reddened lips. “You did a remarkable job on this gown, Anita. You should be proud of yourself.”

  Anita herself dressed up for the occasion. No housedress tonight! The black skirt and beaded sweater actually became her girth. She appeared heroic, a woman in charge of the place. “I am. I haven’t sewn in years. I wondered if I could still do it. Well, anyway, you guys, Frank just taped up the final bit of tinsel on the new stage and we’re ready to go.”

  I gazed at myself in the mirror one last time. I looked at least twenty-three or -four. “Are you sure this is okay?”

  “I sure am, hon. I haven’t been this excited in years. A lot of the church people are coming, too. You’ll have a full house, hon.”

  And so my debut as a real singer occurred that night in May during my sixteenth year, over five years after Mama had left. I sang songs like “Sing,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” and well all those Burt Bacharach type songs because Billy Noekowski had piano books for them. He played, banging away, his sparkly red bow tie that matched my gown vibrating with each chord pounded, or tinkled, or swirled.

  I sang amid the sounds of tumbling pins, dryers, washers, pinball machines, and cheers from folks who got strikes and spares. I sang amid the fluorescent lights, the gleam of polished wood, and the neon beer signs. I sang amid the smell of popcorn butter and pink candy, pizza and National Bohemian. I sang under the warm air from the overhead heating vent and the smiles of those who knew me as that poor girl with no family.

  And I sang better for all of it.

  I know that now.

  But I still don’t know if the misery is worth the art. I did realize, however, that I would do all I could not to become like Mama. Work hard. Not be satisfied with my present.

  We ended that set at the bowling alley with “Down by the Riverside.” The joint really thumped, let me tell you.

  Part Three

  1

  It’s easy to see your life as a roadmap of sorts after the fact. Looking back now it made perfect sense I wouldn’t stay at Suds ‘N’ Strikes Forever. I spent an entire year there singing. Mrs. Reasin showed me how to sew and Luella somehow managed to pass her eye for design on to me. And I’d be dishonest if I said I didn’t enjoy my life there in Baltimore. Church with the Reasins on Sundays. Choir. Singing at the bowling alley and running the snack bar during the days. My nosebleeds stopped, too.

  Luella and the kids invited me over for supper at least three times a week and those kids just loved me because I’d play Monopoly or Ants in the Pants with them as much as they wanted, which gave Luella time to have a nice long soak in the tub. “I haven’t felt like a girl since Claudio died,” she said. “Sometimes I get so busy being a mother I forget I’m even a woman at all.”

  So I learned to sew and that skill came in handy because I was always working on some kind of singing costume. A lime-green affair with silver beaded trim hugged my frame the night Bansy Pruitt entered my life.

  Now Bansy resembled a human beanbag, a lumpy pyramid that began beneath a skull the shape of a gumdrop and continued to flare out in a downward flow.

  He placed a tiparillo between his ribbon-thin lips, lips shadowed by a nose so small I wondered if someone had wacked it off in his childhood with a hockey stick or something. See, that northern, cold weather look hovered about him, categorizing his entire form as jowly, soft-sided luggage.

  I hated his accent from his first word which was, “Yo.”

  Yo? What kind of a greeting was that? I could see “Hey” or “Hi” or even a nod and no word at all. But “Yo”?

  “Hey.”

  I just finished my set. Old Billy Noekowski and I really grooved. We settled into our own artery, pumping rhythms and melodies together in a most biological fashion. I don’t mean to be prideful, but I don’t think anybody does a better rendition of “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” than I do.
And I sure did have them laughing with my irreverent interpretation of “Billy Don’t Be a Hero,” an eye-roller for sure.

  Bansy smacked his lips. “Good singing, gal.”

  Gal. Oh, my lands!

  “Thank you.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “What’s yours?”

  He sucked on the tiparillo. “I like your style, girlie.”

  At that moment, Mr. Reasin sidled up and spirited me away.

  “Who is that guy?” I asked.

  “Beats me. Seems a little shifty, but you can never tell.”

  “He reminds me of that Plumpy character in Candyland.”

  Frank laughed at that. “You know, Charmaine, you’re exactly right.”

  2

  I found out Bansy Pruitt’s name the third night he showed up at Suds ‘N’ Strikes. By that time I began to get a little weirded out by the fellow, so I just |walked my singing shoes right on over, placed my hands flat on his table and set, “So let me get this straight. You’re here because you’re doing laundry, right?”

  “No.”

  “Then maybe you better march you and your tiparillos right on out of here because you’re beginning to scare me.”

  I felt my eyes tear up because although I was a scrappy sort back then, confrontations scared me to death. The shadow of Mama still loomed. Loomed like a thin, mangy old cat with only one claw left, but a claw that, nevertheless, could scratch out an eye in a split second.

  “Don’t be scared, Charmaine. I’m here because I think you’ve got talent. Have a sit.”

  Have a sit

  “Where are you from?” I asked.

  “All around.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “New Jersey.”

  I sat down.

  “So what brings you to Suds ‘N’ Strikes?”

  “I’m actually a location scout for a local filmmaker.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. We may use the alley in a new film.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “Bowl-O-Rama.”

  “Bowl-O-Rama?”

  “Bowl-O-Rama.”

  “What kind of a name is Bowl-O-Ramal”

  He shrugged, driving his angel-food shoulders up into his neck blubber. “My boss is more than a little eccentric.”

  “I’ll bet!”

  “So you think the alley will do for this movie?”

  “Yeah. You gonna bring your boss along?”

  “Yeah, next week.”

  “When I’m singing.”

  “I’m thinking about doing just that. He’ll like the strange angle. I mean who’s ever heard of a Laundromat-bowling alley with live entertainment?”

  I eased up a bit. “You can sure say that again, mister. Have you met the Reasins?”

  “They own the place, right?”

  “They sure do. And once you get to know them, you’ll want them in your movie.”

  “Think they’d mind having one shot here?”

  I shook my head. “They’d love something like that. They really would.”

  That night, a spring mist falling on the roof of the bowling alley, Mr. Reasin and I sat drinking vanilla Cokes. During the previous summer we put up a big beach umbrella and a couple of lounge chairs. But now it sheltered us from the wet.

  “Well, I’m letting them come make that movie here.”

  “You don’t say!”

  “Yep. Worked out a good deal, I guess. Not that I would really know if it wasn’t. But it’ll cover expenses and then some.”

  “So what are you gonna do when they shoot the film?” I asked. “Go on vacation for the month?”

  “Heck, no! I’m going to be watching these scoundrels like a hawk. You know those entertainment types.”

  Well, no, I didn’t really. “I know what you mean,” I said anyway.

  “Always looking for freebies even though they make more money than anybody these days.”

  I didn’t know that either. “Still, it’s gonna be exciting, don’t you think?”

  He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Let’s hope it’s not too exciting. But hey! You get to be an extra! Even have you singing in the background. That’s got to make you feel good.”

  “That’ll be fun. You think they’ll get me a real Hollywood costume?”

  “No way. Not those cheapskate s.o.b.s. If you want to look good you girls better come up with something on your own.”

  Me, Luella, and Anita designed a doozie.

  When we hand-sewed the last sequin on the night before the scheduled shoot, we actually threw a party there at Luella s. The kids made a big pitcher of cherry Kool-Aid. I brought some squirt cheese, pepperoni, and Chicken-in-a-Biscuit crackers. And Anita Reasin made her famous no-bake peanut butter fudge.

  What a time! The kids pooped out long before we did. Anita left to marinate the chicken legs she was throwing on the grill for the Memorial Day party they were giving the next day. Teriyaki chicken legs! So Luella and I stood at the doorway to the older two’s room. Isabel was a charming little beauty back then. Sweet nose, brown eyes, black bobbed hair, and big old,

  crooked teeth. In the bed next to her Esteban slept, his head of hair like a wild mane. Guadalupe slept in Luellas room in the toddler bed at the foot of her own double bed, her dark hair feathering like spin art across her cheeks.

  “I feel so sorry for them,” Luella said. “What kind of people will they be growing up without a father?”

  I shrugged. If she wasn’t making the connection to me, I wasn’t about to remind her.

  What kind of people would they be?

  Empty?

  Sad?

  Scrappy?

  Lonely?

  Alone?

  Wanting?

  Scared?

  Apprehensive?

  Blue?

  What kind of people would they be?

  3

  On Bowl-O-Rama night I almost did’t make it out of the ladies’ room I felt so nervous and scared and bereft of talent, but Luella and Mrs. Reasin literally carried me out and when I realized my embarrassment at being forcibly delivered to the set would far surpass a flat note or please Lord no, the inability to hit the high note, I said, “All right you two, all right!” And set my high heels upon the industrial strength, grayish-gold carpet. “Just give me a minute to compose myself.”

  So I leaned up against the faded white lockers and said a prayer in my mind that might have lasted two minutes if said verbally, but only lasted twenty seconds as the thoughts didn’t really even get the chance to become actual words, just pleadings and emotions. Although, the words “help me” did manage to appear quite frequently.

  I stood before the director, Bart Lake, and tried to listen to his instructions.

  “Now you’ll only be on-screen for a couple of seconds, but we’ll want to shoot you for at least half the song.”

  Talk about a weirdo, this guy!

  So I sang in my green dress, my red hair dressed almost in an Afro by the hairdresser on the set, my makeup completely overdone, not that I dared to say anything. And do you know they let me and Billy Noekowski do the whole song because Mr. Lake forgot to yell “Cut!” halfway through.

  They all clapped when I finished.

  And I bowed. Regal and queenlike, hair vibrating like a hive of bees, I bowed.

  Now I’ve never taken drugs. In fact, given the circumstances of my life, I’ve emerged relatively unscathed as far as vices, thanks to that bunch of oddballs in Vermont. But acclaim is like a drug.

  I felt their approval.

  I felt their admiration.

  And it covered my desperation like a combed sheepskin all the while snaring me like the purest powder of cocaine.

  Bansy struck then, slowly inching his way toward me like a giant snail, secreting a trail of promised silver and maybe even gold.

  “You don’t need to be here at Suds ‘N’ Strikes, Charmaine. Bigger things await you.”

  Mr. Lake overheard. “He
’s right. Although, not much of this kind of singing going on these days, Bansy. You don’t sing disco, do you?”

  “I can sing anything, anytime, anywhere.”

  “Is keeping your clothing on a requirement?”

  I gasped.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Bansy said. “How old are you, anyway?

  “Nineteen,” I lied.

  “Twenty-one would be better.” Mr. Lake reached into the pocket of his bowling shirt for a pack of Dunhill cigarettes. From what I heard from the crew, Mr. Lake liked to dress for each shoot to fit into his surroundings.

  “Then I’ll be twenty-one. Shoot, mister, with this much makeup on, I look twenty-five if I look a day.”

  Two weeks later, I found myself on a bus to New Jersey.

  The same Greyhound station that welcomed me to Baltimore, bid me good-bye, along with Anita, Frank, and Luella.

  But I had to keep movin’ on. Just like the song says.

  4

  I first sang at a sorry old club in Atlantic City, after they legalized the casinos again. My first real live nonbowling alley gig and it occurred at some sorry old club with nothing but alcohol, some little round tables sprouting like mushrooms from a floor that looked completely capable of producing honest-to-goodness fungus. Of course, without a gambling license, that club was destined for a quick slope downhill and I slid right along with it.

  That stupid Bansy man.

  Mr. and Mrs. Reasin tried to warn me, but I saw film stars swirling all around my head like little Tinkerbells with wands trailing Stardust, or maybe I should say starlet-dust.

  I might have known better.

  I suspect that some Divine protection was in the works at the Satin Dahlia as well as some Divine workings-in-general.

  Maybe it was just dumb luck, Myrtle Charmaine.

  The night that impacted my life the most as it now stands, years later here with Harlan and all, was a particular Friday night in June of 1977. I followed another act, an act called the Gemstones.