The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
Page 3
And then the announcer yells, “Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis Presley!” and the place becomes one big scream. And out steps Frankie, wearing that gold jacket and a black shirt, a guitar around his neck, high on the straps, the way Elvis wore it. I braced myself for something, people booing or throwing stuff. But it never happened. They believed it one hundred percent! And Frankie stayed back with us like the Colonel told him, didn’t go out front where the cameras could catch him alone, and he didn’t do no talking, neither, just started right in with “Well, since my baby left me”—you know, from “Heartbreak Hotel”—and from that point, it might not have mattered if Frankie, me, or Pearl Bailey was singin’, it got so crazy you could barely hear. And suddenly all them kids come running out of the stands and out onto the field. And Frankie tears into “I Got a Woman” and “Rip It Up” and “Ready Teddy.” We’re looking at each other, smiling like bandits, because he’s good and we’re getting away with it. And the police are chasing the kids back up into the stands, but then they come running back onto the field again. With each song, Frankie is getting more and more into it, doing some of Elvis’s leg shakes and the way he’d thrust his hips. A couple times I shook my head at Frankie, like, Don’t do it, man, just lay back. Let’s get out of here safe. But then comes “Hound Dog,” and I guess he couldn’t help it, he just cuts loose. He pops out front and he’s shakin’ and windmillin’ his arms and he’s got that sneer on his lips just like Elvis—and that did it. The crowd mobbed the field, all of them—the police were trying to hold them back, whistles were shriekin’ and people were gettin’ knocked over. And as soon as “Hound Dog” was done, security hustled us off the stage, Frankie grinnin’ and wavin’ at the crowd like, good-bye, see ya!
Twenty-two minutes. That was the whole show. Twenty-two minutes. We pulled it off. To this day, people talk about that concert as one of the wildest and craziest of Elvis’s career—and his last one ever in Canada. And only the band, the Jordanaires, the Colonel, and Elvis his own self, God rest his soul, knew what went on.
And Frankie, of course.
He left the band the next day. I don’t think he wanted to face Elvis. Maybe Elvis didn’t want to face him. Either way, he was gone, and I didn’t see him again until he asked me to come on tour with him a couple years later. He was different by then. More confident. More like a star, you know? I think that concert changed him. He had a taste of it, and he wanted it for himself.
Nobody said nothing about that night for damn near sixty years. But I’m eighty-two now, and Frankie’s dead, so the hell with it, he deserves the credit. You think about all them people who became Elvis impersonators, made whole careers out of it. But Frankie was the first—and you gotta say the best.
I mean, if the point is to make people feel like they’re seeing the King, he’s the only one who ever really pulled it off.
4
THERE WILL BE MORE STORIES LIKE MR. DUNDRIDGE’S. It is why that Spanish news crew is camped on the church steps, the large bearded man with a television camera, the well-coiffed young woman standing next to him with a microphone. A death as spectacular as Frankie’s will draw interest. But whatever tales are shared, none will tell the whole truth. Because no one knows the whole truth but me. Well. There is one other person. But that person, I can assure you, will not be here.
Where were we? Ah. Yes. The Mijares River. A winter morning. A fleeing woman. And a child tossed aside with no protection in this world beyond a gray blanket and the sound of his own misery.
None of this, mind you, would the boy remember. For Frankie Presto, memory would only crystallize in the next phase of his life, the part he would call his “beginning.”
But even beginnings have beginnings. Take the prelude, an established form of musical composition. Today, it can be beautiful and elaborate, a song unto itself, yet originally—in its beginning—a prelude was something an Italian lute player in the sixteenth century called tastar de corde, “testing the strings.” Not very poetic, but accurate. One must indeed test the strings in this life, bounce the bow, wet the mouthpiece, prepare for the deeper music that follows.
The prelude for Frankie Presto began with his calamitous birth and ended with a splash in the Mijares. In one year’s time, he had witnessed death, siege, hunger, and abandonment, and now the cold river water dripped into his eyes and made him blink repeatedly as the current began to carry him downstream. He should have quickly sunk and drowned, and I was present to collect his unfulfilled talent should that have happened. But there are moments inexplicable in your world, and all I can relay is what I witnessed: that the gray blanket—the same blanket that once lay beneath Frankie’s true mother, Carmencita—did not submerge. It acted as a vessel for at least three minutes, carrying the child back toward the city, while Frankie rubbed his eyes and cried at an incredible volume—crying until even the Lord above could not ignore the sound.
At this point, I will share something you are yet to fully discover. It is not just humans who are musical. Animals, too. This should be obvious in the thousands of birdsongs I have spawned, or the clicking of dolphins, or the moaning of humpback whales. Animals not only make music, they hear it in unique fashion.
On the river that day, Frankie’s crying rose to a sound beyond the human ear. Suddenly, a hairless dog, with thin, sinewy legs and black skin that seemed to be painted on, came charging down the riverbank. A leash, hooked to its collar, was flopping wildly. As Frankie’s squeals grew higher and more intense, the dog ran and yelped, and at a bend in the river, splashed in. The infant grabbed for the barking sound, his fingers ensnaring the leash. The dog bit down on the blanket and scrambled backward, until both of them were safe on the bank.
The child rolled over. The blanket slipped into the water, disappearing downstream. The dog put one wet paw on each side of Frankie’s head and lay its own head down, panting heavily.
Prelude complete.
No talent to collect.
5
LET US NOW, IN THE INTEREST OF SPEED (BECAUSE A PRIEST can take only so long to dress and cars are filling the narrow streets), jump ahead and place Frankie in his next home, a residence on Calvario Street with a tile roof and a horseshoe arch and two slots in the doorway through which a cart’s wheels could roll. It was the house of a Mr. Baffa Rubio, the owner of a small sardine factory, an Italian automobile, and that hairless dog.
The man who found Frankie on the riverbank.
Baffa, unmarried and in his forties, went to church regularly and kept a cross on the wall of his bedroom, so the discovery of an abandoned child was, for him, a divine act, like finding Moses in the reeds. He took the boy in. He bathed him. Fed him. Rocked him to sleep at night. Not many men would do this. But I pay great attention to labels (allegro means you play me fast, adagio means you play me slow, and so on), and while Baffa’s last name, Rubio, means “blond” or “fair-haired,” his scalp was covered with thinning black bristle. This confirmed a man who could alter his destiny.
He named the child Francisco Rubio.
The child called him Papa.
Baffa was potbellied, with a sagging chest, thick jowls, a drooping forehead, and a downward-bending mustache, so that when he sat, he seemed like a layer of frowns stacked in a chair. But the boy made him happy. Having inherited his family’s sardine factory, Baffa was an oddity in Villareal, a town full of orange growers, orange pickers, orange packers, and orange shippers. He’d grown used to being alone, a fat man with a fishy smell, yet suddenly there was a small human to share in his daily routine, which during the week meant riding to work in his Italian automobile, and on the weekends meant sitting in his small garden listening to the radio, with the hairless dog sleeping near a bed of pomegranate flowers. The radio was constantly on, morning to evening, and young Frankie was content as long as music emerged. He would squat near the speaker and sing along with any melody, in a high, pleasin
g voice. When Baffa turned the dial to hear the news (there was a terrible war brewing in Europe), Frankie cried until the man gave up and returned to whatever music he could find, a concert by an orchestra, an opera, or a Spanish jota, with its 6/8 tempo and endless energy. Frankie seemed to like that most of all.
One day, just shy of the child’s fifth birthday (not his real birthday, but the sardine maker had made a guess), Baffa saw him standing at the edge of a table, his fingers drumming to the sound of a complex flamenco guitar piece. He was keeping perfect rhythm, even though finding the beat in 6/8 time can be like cooking an egg under a blanket.
“Come here, little one,” Baffa said proudly. The boy, with a full head of black hair, turned, smiled, and walked smack into the leg of a chair, tripping and landing badly. He cried and Baffa lifted him and soothed him against his chest. “It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t hurt,” Baffa whispered, but he realized the boy’s vision was still not right. The water from the river trauma had infected his blue eyes, and the slightest sun would make him squint, his corneas would redden, sometimes he couldn’t see anything to his sides. Doctors had warned that his sight might one day go altogether. The irritation left him constantly rubbing, and the neighborhood children would mock him: “Are you crying again, Francisco?” As time passed, they called him Llorica—“crybaby.” While they played a ball game called trinquete in the street, Francisco sat alone, humming to himself.
Baffa, a practical man, worried for his boy’s future. What if he grew up without any friends? And if his vision was bad, what kind of work would he find? How would he support himself? That day in the garden, as the jota music played, Baffa had an idea. Musicians, trained properly, could always work, even blind, right? He recalled a taberna several years ago where a guitar player with dark glasses performed to great applause, and afterward a beautiful young woman took him by the hands and led him off the stage, planting a small kiss on his lips. Only then had Baffa realized the man could not see.
This, Baffa decided, could be a future for his divinely sent child. Through music, he could work. He might even find love. Never one to waste time (efficiency had always attracted Baffa, even in sardines), he took the boy to a small music school on Calle Mayor, the paved street in the center of town. The owner had a long chin and round glasses.
“Can I help you, señor?”
“I want my son to play guitar.”
The man looked down. Frankie rubbed his eyes.
“He is too young, señor.”
“He sings all day.”
“He is too young.”
“He keeps a beat on a table.”
The man lowered his glasses.
“How old is he?”
“Almost five.”
“Too young.”
Frankie rubbed his eyes again.
“Why does he keep doing that?”
“What?”
“He rubs his eyes.”
“He is a child.”
“Is he crying?”
“An infection.”
“He cannot play if he always rubs his eyes.”
“But he sings all day.”
The man shook his head.
“Too young.”
This, by the way, is hardly the first time one of yours has discouraged one of mine. If I possessed a metal link for every tongue-clucking human who said a child was too young, the instrument too large, or the very idea of pursuing music was “a waste of time,” I could wrap your world in chains. Disapproving parents, dismissive record executives, vindictive critics.
Sometimes I think the greatest talent of all is perseverance.
But only sometimes.
For while Baffa argued with the music school owner, young Frankie gave me a special moment. He wandered into the back room, where the instruments were stored. There his eyes widened at a treasure trove heretofore unseen in his young life: a spinet piano, an old viola, a tuba, a clarinet, a snare drum—and a guitar. The guitar was lying on the floor. He walked over and sat down next to it. It had a simple wooden body with a red and blue rosette around the sound hole. Most children would have grabbed its neck, plunked its strings, twisted its tuning pegs as if they were toys. But Frankie just stared at it. He studied its shape. He cocked his head as if waiting for it to talk. I found the respect he showed most satisfying. And, given what he had just endured with that long-chinned naysayer, I felt the moment was right for a little magic. Now and then, we talents can surge inside you to create the inexplicable (well, inexplicable to you). You call these “flashes of genius.” We call it stretching.
Frankie reached out and pressed a finger on the third string, just behind a fret. He quickly released it. A soft note rang out. He smiled and did it again, the next fret up, using what guitar players call the “hammer-on” technique—a hard and quick push and release. Another note. Then another. He quickly figured out the relative sounds made by pushing behind each fret. Simply put, he was teaching himself a scale.
So I gave him another nudge.
Soon he was sounding out a melody. His eyes widened with each new note, because playing a song for the very first time is my greatest revelation, like discovering you can walk on a rainbow. He began to hum along. Had the two grown men in the front room stopped their arguing, even for a moment, they might have heard the little miracle of Francisco de Asís Pascual Presto, not yet five years old, fingertipping his way through a tune he’d heard many times on a Saturday-morning radio program, a nursery rhyme turned jazz standard:
A-tisket, a-tasket
A green and yellow basket
I wrote a letter to my love
And on the way, I dropped it
It was Frankie’s first guitar performance.
And no one heard it but me.
Down the hall, Baffa lost his patience with the owner. He yelled, “Francisco! We are leaving!” The child stood up and gave a farewell pat to the guitar, realizing he had found what he was looking for, and he was no longer rubbing his eyes.
This still left him shy of a teacher. Clearly the music school was out, and it was the only one in Villareal. Baffa felt defeated. On the way home, he stopped and bought a bag of oranges. He peeled one for the child and gave a piece to the hairless dog, who chomped it loudly. They walked together, Frankie’s second band, a trio with eight legs.
“That man was an idiot,” Baffa mumbled.
The hairless dog barked in agreement.
“Idiot,” Frankie repeated.
Baffa laughed and rubbed Frankie’s hair. That made Frankie happy, even if he didn’t know what “idiot” meant. They walked home with Frankie humming “A-Tisket A-Tasket” and the hairless dog singing silently along with him.
That night, Baffa returned to the taberna where he had once seen the blind guitarist play. The bartender remembered him as well, but said the man had been fired several years ago. Too much drinking. Too many late arrivals. He believed he was staying in a flat above a laundry on Crista Senegal Street—if he wasn’t already dead.
“Dead?” Baffa said.
The bartender shrugged. “He drank like a man who wanted to get this life over with.”
The next day was Sunday. After attending morning mass, Baffa took the boy and the hairless dog to Crista Senegal Street, hoping to catch the guitar player in a good mood. Even a drunk, Baffa reasoned, might give Sunday to God.
He found the laundry. Above it, he saw faded blue shutters, latched shut. The bell button was covered with a long piece of masking tape, so the three of them had no choice but to walk up the steps. It was a hot day, and Baffa, still in his church suit, was dripping sweat when they reached the landing. He wiped his face with a handkerchief, then knocked. Nothing. He knocked again. Nothing.
Baffa shrugged at Frankie, who stepped up and banged with his small fists, two at a time, as if playing a conga drum.
“Señor, I would like to speak to you about teaching.”
“Teaching what?”
“Guitar?”
“Go away.”
“It is important.”
“Go away.”
“I will pay you.”
“Teaching who?”
“My child.”
“Girl or boy?”
“Boy.”
“Girls are better students.”
“He is a boy.”
“How old?”
Baffa paused, remembering the music school.
“Seven.”
Frankie looked up.
“Small for his age.”
“No boys.”
“He is very talented.”
“No boys.”
“He is very talented.”
“So am I.”
“I would pay you.”
“Of course you would pay me.”
“So you’ll teach him?”
“No.”
“Señor—”
“Go away.”
Baffa turned to Frankie. “Sing something,” he whispered.
Frankie shook his head.
“Sing something,” Baffa repeated.
Now, most children will not sing when asked. At the early ages, talents yield to fear. (Sometimes at the later ages, too.) But this moment, I knew, was too important in the overall map of Frankie’s life. So I gave the child another nudge.
“Da-da-dah, duh . . . ,” he began, slowly.
Baffa raised his eyes. He had never heard this tune.
“Da-da-dah, duhh . . . ,” the boy continued.
It was a simple melody, childish but haunting. It went high and came down on the major notes, like something you might hear played on a xylophone. “Duh, duh, duh, da-da-da, deh duh, dah, dahhhh . . .”