The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

by Mitch Albom

  17

  1969

  * * *

  “CAN I HELP YOU?” THE MAN BEHIND THE COUNTER ASKED.

  “Eggs,” Frankie whispered.

  The man put a finger to his ear. “Can’t hear you, fella.”

  Frankie was unshaven, his eyes glassy behind aviator sunglasses. As he leaned in, his long black hair fell over his angular cheekbones and you could barely see his face at all.

  “I need to buy . . . some eggs.”

  A grinning teenager suddenly pushed up to the counter, jostling Frankie’s shoulder. He wore a floppy green hat.

  “Hey, man, you sell beer?”

  “The eggs are over there,” the man said, ignoring the teen, pointing at a refrigerated shelf behind a crowd of young ­people, men with scruffy beards and headbands, alongside women in print dresses or blue denim shorts, many of them shoeless. The store’s floor was covered in muddy footprints.

  “Sixty cents for the eggs.” The man pushed up his glasses. “Do you have sixty cents, fella?”

  Someone screamed, “I’m so high!” and others roared in approval. A ceiling fan spun overhead. Frankie reached into his pocket and went wobbly on his heels. He could feel his guitar in its soft case on his back, but he couldn’t see the man in front of him anymore. He felt as if he were in the middle of a balloon being squeezed from the outside.

  “Here,” Frankie mumbled, fingering a twenty-­dollar bill off a wad in his hands.

  “Can I have one?” the teen asked.

  Frankie let another bill drop.

  “I’ll take twenty beers!” the teen announced.

  Frankie found a carton of eggs and stumbled away. The man yelled after him, “You want your change?” but Frankie was pushing out the screen door into the sticky summer air.

  This was America, the calendar year 1969, the month of August, the state of New York, during the three-­day music festival known as Woodstock, where half a million ­people gathered on a six-­hundred-­acre dairy farm. Frankie, now thirty-­three years old, was tall and lanky, with deep blue eyes, high shoulders, large hands, and dark stubble on his chin and cheeks. His life at this precise moment was, in musical terms, lontano—­distant, or from a distance—­and in such erratic time signatures it is impossible for me to notate. This was due to something he drank or swallowed behind the festival stage. I cannot tell you what it was. I doubt Frankie knew himself.

  In a moment, I will explain why we have advanced our story so far, and why Frankie’s journey at Woodstock would mark a major turning point in his life, his music, and his love affair with Aurora York, the little girl in the tree whom he would spend much of his youth pursuing.

  But first, I wish to say something about being in an altered state, like the one Frankie was in now. It does not bring you closer to me.

  It just makes me dizzy.

  For centuries, musicians have sought to find me at the end of a needle or the bottom of a drink. It is an illusion. And it often ends badly.

  Take my cherished Russian disciple, Modest Mussorgsky. In 1881, he lay facedown in a St. Petersburg tavern. This man once composed marvelous works, Pictures at an Exhibition and Night on Bald Mountain (later made famous through an animated film called Fantasia). He composed nothing on that barroom floor, believing alcohol made him an artist. He died at forty-­two.

  I was there to collect his talent.

  I was there at the hospital deathbed of my beloved Billie Holiday, just forty-­four, her liver destroyed by drinking; I was there inside the hotel room of Charlie Parker, my singular jazz saxophonist, who died in his midthirties, but whose body was so ravaged by drugs the coroners thought he was sixty.

  Tommy Dorsey, the bandleader, choked in his sleep when he was fifty-­one, too deep in pills to awaken. Johnny Allen Hendrix (you called him Jimi) swallowed a handful of barbiturates and expired. He was twenty-­seven.

  It is not new, this idea that a purer art awaits you in a substance. But it is naive. I existed before the first grapes were fermented. Before the first whiskey was distilled. Be it opium or absinthe, marijuana or heroin, cocaine or ecstasy or whatever will follow, you may alter your state, but you will not alter this truth: I am Music. I am here inside you. Why would I hide behind a powder or a vapor?

  Do you think me so petty?

  But let us return to Frankie’s dazed journey through a muddy dairy farm, carrying a guitar and a dozen eggs. A band named Santana was on a stage far from view, and the lead singer’s voice seemed to come out of the sky:

  You’ve got to change your evil ways . . . baby

  Frankie was lost. The chemicals in his system, which he’d ingested just before sunrise, had led him to wander far from the musicians’ area. This is all he remembered:

  He had been with Aurora York, who was now his wife, and she was sleeping on a cotton blanket, pregnant with their first child. He did not want to wake her, but he did.

  “Francisco?”

  “Aurora,” he whispered.

  “It means dawn.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m hungry, Francisco. If you love me, you’ll get me breakfast.”

  She crinkled her eyes and smiled. Frankie told her to wait there, he would get some eggs and cook them for her. But after that, things got foggy. And now, outside the grocery store, he was not sure how long ago that was.

  “Was she a fairy?”

  “I don’t think so, Maestro.”

  “Did she have strange eyes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she kind and helpful?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was a fairy.”

  He shook his head to clear El Maestro’s voice, which often popped into his brain. He tried to locate the stage area where he’d left Aurora, but could see only an ocean of spectators, some of whom appeared to have comet tails as they moved. He stepped awkwardly over sleeping bags and blankets.

  A man’s voice blasted over the loudspeakers.

  “WE GOT A FEW ANNOUNCEMENTS TO MAKE, PEOPLE . . . ALL RIGHT, THIS IS COOL . . . THE NEW YORK STATE THRUWAY IS CLOSED! WE CLOSED THE THRUWAY, MAN!”

  There was a sweeping roar of applause and Frankie rolled his head. Everything was too loud. In the midst of the ­people slapping hands in celebration, he stared at the egg carton until his ears detected the music.

  Lord knows you got to change . . .

  He stumbled toward the sound, trying to use me as a compass, and to remember when—­and with which band—­he was supposed to play.

  18

  1946

  * * *

  “PLAY SOMETHING. JOUE.”

  Frankie looked up. He was ten years old, wearing tattered clothes, sitting by his open guitar case on the docks of Southampton, a port on the South coast of England, two hours south of London. A French-­speaking man with a thin mustache had wandered over.

  “Joue,” the man said again, shaking his wrist. “Pompe.”

  “Beg your pardon, sir?”

  “Pompe. Your geetar. Like dees.”

  The man made a pumping movement, as if scratching his chest. It was already dark, and Frankie glanced at the two coins in his case. It was not enough to buy a single potato, which was all he had eaten since morning. The ships were in for the night. This foreigner was his last hope.

  “Please, sir. I’m hungry. I can play a song for a shilling.”

  The man bit on his cigarette and pulled a coin from his pocket.

  “Joue,” he said, dropping it. “Something happy, oui?”

  Something happy. Even the idea seemed foreign to Frankie. It had been more than a year since he’d left Spain on that ship. After three days below deck, he’d been awakened at night and told to crawl beneath a dirty red blanket.

  “For your protection,” one of the sailors said.

  “Where is my teacher?”

&nb
sp; “He is coming.”

  “My guitar—­”

  “We are bringing your things. It’s a fun game, yes?”

  “I want El Maestro!”

  “Lower your voice! This is how you play. You hide and then he finds you.”

  “But—­”

  “Quiet! If you speak, he will not come!”

  Frankie inhaled as the world went dark. Enveloped in that blanket, he was carried off the boat by two of the men. He heard splashing water, the creaking of wood, flapping sails, his own accelerated breathing. He was laid upon a hard surface, and the guitar case was slid under the blanket. He grabbed it with one arm, holding on as if it might keep him safe.

  “Your teacher comes soon,” a sailor whispered. “Stay in the blanket until you hear him.”

  Of course, his teacher never came. Nor did anyone else. The sailors abandoned him on this British port, and in the months that passed, young Francisco Presto joined a long line of talented predecessors, begging, through his music, to keep himself fed. How far back does this go? Francesco Corbetta, my Italian virtuoso of the baroque guitar, had to play in the streets of Florence in the seventeenth century; three hundred years later, Irving Berlin was singing for pennies on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. You should be ashamed to treat my children this way, no better than dogs pleading for scraps.

  Frankie, with his omnipresent guitar, rarely wandered beyond these docks. He knew from the note that he was supposed to find his aunt in America. But the smugglers had taken his money, so that was imposssible now. Each night he dreamed of seeing El Maestro stepping off a ship, led by Alberto the conga player; Frankie would run to his teacher and take his hand and the blind man would ask, “Have you been practicing, Francisco?” and things would be good again. So the boy remained, waiting in this smelly harbor, playing for travelers, dancing if they wanted him to. He went from musician to performer, and some days he ate and some days he did not.

  Now he adjusted the guitar on his knee, which was bone thin. His fingernails were uneven from biting to keep them short. Something happy. He chose an upbeat song called “Billets Doux,” by the Belgian-­born Django Reinhardt, the famous gypsy who was widely considered the greatest jazz guitarist in Europe. (El Maestro had once said of him, “He is not of this earth.”)

  The song was quick and lively, like a child skipping, and it demanded Frankie’s full attention—­so as he played, he didn’t notice the Frenchman’s stunned expression, or see the cigarette fall from his lips.

  “What is name, this song?” he asked.

  “ ‘Billets Doux.’ ”

  “Who write it?”

  “Django Reinhardt.”

  “Who he?”

  “A great guitar player.”

  “What mean? ‘Billets Doux’?”

  “I don’t know. I just know the names.”

  “You play nice.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Where you mama?”

  “Dead, sir.”

  “Where you papa?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  The man lit another cigarette and looked at the water.

  “I go on trip. Far away.”

  “You’re lucky, sir.”

  “No want go.”

  “Why not, sir?”

  “Have baby. Boy like you.”

  “That’s good, sir.”

  “Baby die. Two month ago. No want to go on trip.” He tapped his hand on the rail. “No want to do anything.”

  Frankie didn’t know what to say. The water lapped against the wooden pylons.

  “Parles-­tu français?” the man asked suddenly.

  “No, sir. Just English.”

  “You are no English.”

  “Yes, sir, I am.”

  “Hablas Español?”

  Frankie didn’t respond.

  “Bueno,” the man said anyhow, and from that point on, he spoke in broken Spanish. “Now where are you really from?”

  Frankie shrugged.

  “Spain, yes? What part?”

  “I’m not from there anymore.”

  The man tapped his foot against Frankie’s guitar case.

  “Listen to me. Where I am supposed to go, I need someone to speak English. My English is bad.”

  “So?”

  “Your English is good. You come? Translate my words? Then maybe I go.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I pay you.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Give you bed.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Give you food.”

  “Why are you going?”

  “To make music.”

  “You’re a musician?”

  “Oui. Not as good as you, perhaps.”

  The man held out his right hand, motioning at Frankie’s guitar.

  “Let me try.”

  “Don’t break it.”

  The man adjusted the strap around his shoulder. He placed his left hand on the neck. Only then did Frankie notice the man’s fingers were badly damaged; two of them were mutilated, and only his first and second digits lined up by the frets.

  “Is good guitar.”

  “I know.”

  “Where you get such strings?”

  “My teacher.”

  “Of what they are made?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He purred as if stroking velvet. “Magnifique.”

  “Do you really play?” Seeing the two fingers, Frankie had his doubts.

  “I try ‘Billets Doux,’ ” the man said.

  He rolled his chin, exhaled deeply, then played the same song—­but so fast that Frankie stopped breathing. The man’s two fingers shot across the frets, holding a note then springing to many others, spilling octave runs as smoothly as oil poured down a funnel. Those two fingers produced more music than any five fingers could, and he finished with a sweeping of chords, using the “pump” technique he’d been trying to explain, a syncopated strum that made the guitar sound like a train engine.

  “ ‘Billets Doux,’ no?” the Frenchman said, handing back the guitar. “It means ‘love letters.’ ”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I write it.”

  The man smiled for the first time, his mustache lifting.

  “I am Django.”

  “You?”

  “Oui. I just said so.”

  Frankie took the guitar. He felt goose bumps.

  “What happened to your hands?”

  “A fire.”

  “You got burned?”

  “When I was young.”

  “You play with two fingers?”

  “I play with this.”

  He touched his chest near his heart.

  Frankie couldn’t believe it. He had listened to this man’s recording so many times, sitting beside El Maestro in the flat above the laundry, both of them imagining a guitarist with large, powerful hands and incredible reach. It was the first time my child realized the utter disconnect between a man’s body and the music he can make.

  “You are gypsy?” Django asked Frankie.

  “No.”

  “I am gypsy. Come with me, I show you how to play like gypsy.”

  Frankie bit his lower lip. He was so hungry. And this was Django Reinhardt!

  “When?”

  “We leave in morning.”

  “Tomorrow morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why so fast?”

  “I play with band. They are waiting.”

  “What band?”

  “Duke Ellington.”

  “The Duke Ellington?”

  “Oui.”

  “Where?”

  “America.”

  Frankie shi
vered. America? Where his aunt was?

  Django held out his palm.

  “You go, I go?”

  “Okay,” Frankie said.

  They shook hands. Frankie looked at his guitar.

  The bottom string had turned blue.

  19

  1969

  * * *

  “WHIP, WHOP! WHIP, WHOP! WHOOO!”

  As the sun set over Woodstock, Frankie passed a large group of spectators screaming, dancing, and banging on drums.

  “Whip, whop! Whip, whop! WHOOO!”

  Some wore ponchos and some were shirtless and two blond men who might have been brothers had wrapped green towels around their necks like capes. They were passing a bottle as they chanted. One brother handed it to Frankie and motioned for him to drink.

  “Whip, whop, man!”

  Frankie took a swig.

  “Whip, whop,” he said.

  “Join in! Play!”

  The man pointed to Frankie’s guitar.

  “C’mon, man. Rock us!”

  “Rock us! Rock us!” the crowd started chanting. The drumming continued.

  “Hey, I know you! You’re Frankie Presto!”

  “Whoa!”

  “Really?”

  “Who?”

  “Frankie Presto, man! Shake, shake! Remember?”

  Frankie, even in his cloudy haze of consciousness, felt a flight reflex kick in. You’re Frankie Presto! He was supposed to move away when someone said this.

  “Shake, shake, Frankie! Shake, shake, Frankie!” They passed the bottle and banged the drums and now all of them were chanting, calling him in. “Shake, shake, Frankie!” He turned and staggered off, hearing “Booo!” and “No!” and “Awww!’ and “He’s freaking out.” He felt his heart racing and once he was safely away, he fell to the muddy ground in an area of yellow buses, each of them spray painted with colorful messages. He breathed heavily, in and out, letting his ears find the music in the sky, another band that he could hear but not see, Canned Heat, singing something called “Going Up the Country.” Was that a flute? Frankie thought. Yes. A flute.