The Music of Your Life

by John Rowell

  “New York City is OK, I guess,” Eric tells you in the lunchroom one day, over fish sticks and chocolate milk. “It’s big, that’s for sure.”

  “Did you go see Broadway shows?” you ask between bites. “Or the Rainbow Room, have you been to the Rainbow Room?”

  “Nah, I never heard of the Rainbow Room,” he says, which immediately disappoints you. “But we did go see a show once, for my sister’s birthday.”

  “What show?”

  “Uh … I don’t remember. It was … something with a lot of kids in it. It was OK, I guess.”

  Your mind races. “The Sound of Music?” you offer. “Or Oliver!?”

  “Maybe. I don’t really remember. My dad used to take us to Yankee games, though. Those are really cool.” This finally lights him up.

  “Wow,” you lie. “I wish I could have done that.”

  And Eric launches into a breathless description of a Yankee game he recalls in vivid detail, and you give him your undivided attention, ever the accommodating host and gracious ambassador.

  The feelings you have for Miss Kenan probably amount to a crush of some sort; most days, she reminds you of movie magazine starlets, like Sandra Dee or Annette Funicello. Plus, it’s obvious she likes you as much as you like her. You stay after school and help her with classroom maintenance, you dust the erasers against the sidewalk or on the sides of the Dempster Dumpster. You water the plant, you feed the turtle. And Miss Kenan seems to have intuited that you prefer indoor activities to outside ones; she probably realizes how much you dislike the playground. Late one morning, as the other boys are gearing up to play football, she asks you if you would mind staying in from recess to help her put up a new bulletin board.

  “I think we’ll do an orange background, with a black crepe paper border, for Halloween,” she muses aloud. It’s just the two of you—alone together in the classroom—which has suddenly become hushed and quiet now that all the other children have gone outside. It is warm too, with the heat from the radiators, turned on now because of the newly brisk fall days.

  “Yes, ma’am,” you say, and then you add something you heard a Hollywood guest say on The Mike Douglas Show: “I think that will look divine.”

  She smiles at you uncertainly; she holds her gaze for longer than a moment, then looks away again. You offer to cut out jack-o’-lanterns and back-arching, torpedo-tailed cats from orange and black construction paper. While scissoring ever so precisely, your heart begins to beat, and you start to breathe in quick breaths. Is now the time to bombard Miss Kenan with questions about her past? To finally find out all the things you’ve longed to know about? Her rumored days with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey? You want to ask aloud if she wore tight white leotards and smoked and drank with the other circus people in the off-hours, if she dated handsome, but possibly slippery, carny types. You want to know if she ever had her heart broken. But you’re too afraid to ask anything, especially if it might mean finding out that none of it was true at all. You don’t really want to hear the possible cold hard facts about Miss Kenan, about Miss Rosemary Kenan. What if she is nothing more than a nice North Carolina girl from a good middle-income home, raised Methodist, an A student in home economics, an elementary education major at Saint Mary’s College in Raleigh?

  You keep scissoring, pasting, taping, and watching Miss Kenan out of the corner of your eye, wondering …

  But you don’t speak. You decide it’s better to keep pondering the rumors.

  After Halloween, Miss Kenan and the music teacher, Mrs. Curtis, choose you to do a solo song in the December assembly program. You are thrilled and hope that they will ask you to perform “Misty” or “Winchester Cathedral” or “Melancholy Baby,” one of the standards you’ve heard on the Lawrence Welk program. This is it, you decide, your big break, and on the Linden Hills Elementary cafetorium stage you will perform and the children and parents and teachers will whoop and cheer and you will become an Overnight Sensation. You are certain Miss Kenan, with her show business past, probably knows an agent or two, and will arrange for them to be there for your performance.

  The song Miss Kenan and Mrs. Curtis eventually give you to sing is called “Long John,” and it’s a children’s folk tune about a legendary, Paul Bunyan-ish explorer and hunter in the Pacific Northwest. This is a little disappointing; you can’t quite imagine that “Long John” would be a selection on the Welk show, or that this would be the type of number you would be asked to do at celebrity-drenched parties in Beverly Hills or at the Rainbow Room. Still, you accept the task with gratitude, and it does genuinely excite you to think about performing a solo in front of an audience.

  But already you hear some of the boys in the class start to snicker and jeer about your being selected to sing a solo—even Eric—and you realize, or should have realized, that it was only a matter of time before he would move on, what with his firsthand accounts of big-league baseball games and his burgeoning athletic ability. But it doesn’t matter, you tell yourself; he couldn’t remember the names of Broadway shows anyway.

  Your grandmother, whose name is Agnes but whom everyone calls Perky, spends more time visiting your house now that she and Grandpa Joe have split up for good, but she doesn’t seem sad or moody, as you expected her to be. Instead, she seems her typically happy, upbeat, good-time-gal self, living up to her nickname, bedecked, as always, in diamond rings and rhinestone bracelets, with upswept, beehivey blond-gray hair and jewel-encrusted cat-eye glasses, as though she is always on her way from the beauty parlor or the country club. Often, she is.

  “Hello, dah’lin,” she rasps, kissing you on the lips (something Connie will never do), and blowing big smoky puffs of her Virginia Slim, bracelets jangling and sliding up and down her arms. This fall, Perky has indulged wholeheartedly in the current fashion trend of paper dresses. She features many different styles: a big white one with a red geranium pattern, a purple short one with yellow polka dots, a hot orange above-the-knee number. Connie has said be careful when you hug Perky that you don’t tear her dress or go near her with a Popsicle because paper won’t hold up in the washing machine. (Ray: “Connie, if you ever start wearing paper dresses, I’m leaving out the back door. I swear. Stupidest damn thing I ever heard of.”)

  One evening, as you and Perky sit side by side on the love seat in the family room, she tells you: “Dah’lin, the Capitol Department Store wants me to model my paper dresses for a photo spread in the newspapah. Isn’t that wuunduhfulll? At my age?”

  You agree with her that it is wonderful, wunnerful, wunnerful, and you’re thrilled that your classmates, and especially Miss Kenan, will see what a mod, trendsetting grandmother you have. You and Perky sit together and thumb through new issues of her movie magazines, which she has brought over just for you to see, since Ray won’t allow Connie to buy them for you directly.

  “Which movie star hairdo do you think I should get for myself, dah’lin?” she asks, as you flip the pages.

  “Like Elizabeth Taylor,” you say, fixating on a page with the headline: Liz and Dick: The Jig Is Finally Up. “Or like this,” you say, pointing to a raven-haired Natalie Wood, posing coquettishly in a “Toni Girl” flip, a publicity still from one of her old movies, Sex and the Single Girl.

  “Sex and the Single Girl, oh my goodness,” says Perky. “Well, dah’lin, that’s what I am now, a single gal.”

  “Hey, Mother, why don’t you take him out to the yard and throw baseballs with him?” Ray bellows from his tilt-back relaxation chair. “That’s what he needs.”

  You look down quickly, pretending not to hear him. You know he’s right; you probably should be trying to get the hang of throwing and catching instead of feeding eagerly on tales of Hollywood. You pretend to be engrossed in an article about how Doris Day’s last husband has squandered all her money and left her penniless. The caption reads: America’s Sweetheart Turns Beggar Woman Overnight!

  Perky pulls a Virginia Slim from her ruby lips with carefully manicured, orange-lacquer
ed nails, and narrows her false-eyelashed eyes at Ray.

  “Now Ray-Boy …” she says. “He’s just being a good little Grandma’s helpah to give me his opinions. Don’t say nothin’ bad about my grandbaby.” Ray eyes you both and goes back to reading his own magazine, the alumni journal Tar Heel Pride, smoking his newly acquired pipe, formed in the shape of a ram’s head, the mascot of the North Carolina Tar Heels. This was a recent gift from the alumni organization as a thank-you to Ray for successfully chairing a local fund-raiser. Connie has confided to you proudly that Ray is moving up, “way, way up,” with the alumni group.

  “Honey, tell Perky what Miss Kenan has asked you to do in the assembly program,” says Connie from the kitchen, cleaning off the dinner table and noticeably troubleshooting through Ray’s mood.

  “I’m gonna sing a solo,” you tell her proudly. “‘Long John.’”

  “Oh, dah’lin, that’s wuunduhfulll,” Perky says, blowing smoke. “When is that?”

  “In two weeks. On a Friday.”

  “Well, you can give me a special private performance, in case I can’t make it,” she says. You know that Perky goes to the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings every day, trying to be very involved, though you’ve overheard Ray say that he suspects she still has a nip or two late at night before going to bed, and that she’s just going to AA for the social aspect.

  “Why don’t we go in the living room and do that now?” Connie suggests. “Perky, you can play for him.”

  “Dah’lin, I can’t read a note of music, and you know it,” she says, and it’s true: she can’t, she plays completely “by ear,” and by ear her fingers fly over the keyboard in a way that reminds you of your other favorite pianist, Miss Jo Ann Castle from the Lawrence Welk program, who always plays on abundantly decorated “theme” pianos. (Connie has nixed your ideas for doing this in her home.) Whenever you place a piece of sheet music in front of Perky at the piano, she stares at it blankly for a long time, then finally manages to plunk out a few notes. Soon enough, she stops to light up a cigarette.

  “But maybe I can read enough to pound out some chords for you, dah’lin.”

  “Ray,” says Connie, standing in the doorway and drying her hands on a dish towel. What she means is Will you please join your family in the living room and try to show some enthusiasm while you’re at it?

  As usual, you set the sheet music on the music holder at the piano for Perky. She adjusts the bench for height before sitting down to play, and pushes her jangly bracelets up her arm. She does, in fact, manage to pound out some prompting big chords, and you stand next to her, singing: “With his shiny blade, got it in his hand; gonna chop out the live oaks, that are in this land …”

  You haven’t perfected it yet, of course, but there’s plenty of time for rehearsal; the assembly program is still two weeks away.

  “Real good, sport,” Ray says, looking bored.

  “Yes, honey, you’re absolutely wonderful,” says Connie, visibly excited. “You’re a natural. As good as anybody on TV.”

  You love her for that. You love her for everything. You’d run and throw your arms around her right now, but you know that would look like you were playing favorites.

  “Now how about playing something else, Mother?” Ray asks. “Let’s have some real music.”

  “Well, lemme see,” Perky says, flicking the flame of her gold lighter against the tip of a Virginia Slim. “I just know my theme songs, you know.” She launches into a medium-tempo drag of “Red Sails in the Sunset.”

  “I’ll never understand how anybody can play the piano simply by ear,” Connie says admiringly, bringing you over to the couch, and positioning you between herself and Ray. They are both drinking gin and tonics, which always seems glamorous and movie starish to you, but you wonder if it makes Perky feel bad to see them drinking, since she can’t join in.

  “I swannee it’s true, it’s the only way I know how,” says Perky, into another chorus, her tough, shiny nails clacking on the keys, as if to add percussion. Perky, a one-woman band. Ray has told you she once held a steady gig playing cocktail piano in the Capri Lounge of the Rembrandt Motor Inn on Highway 301, “before it went to seed and she was ashamed to be seen there, as who wouldn’t be?”

  “‘Up a Lazy River,’ Perky,” you say, wiggling away from Connie and Ray, and pouring ginger ale for yourself into the magic champagne flute.

  “Don’t you know any other songs?” Ray asks, looking agitated.

  “Ray,” says Connie.

  “Sing with me when I play it through the second time, dah’lin,” Perky barks to you from the piano bench, and of course you will. You’d obey any command that came from her noirish cigarettes-and-scotch voice. Perky pounds the keyboard hard, her head thrown back and her eyes closed, hands flying and bracelets jangling, high heels pumping the pedals below. You imagine her in her musical heyday on Highway 301: “The Capri Lounge takes great pride in presenting for your listening enjoyment, the one and only, Miss Perky!” How you wish you could have been one of her regular ringside customers, shouting song requests above the roar, and emptying change out of your piggy bank to tip her in the double old-fashioned glass on top of the piano.

  “Here we go,” she says, and you are ready; you know just when to come in. She has taught you, and all your instincts are musical anyway. The two of you do a bang-up rendition of “Up a Lazy River,” complete with hand gestures you’ve created to indicate paddling, slow-moving river water, and an old mill run.

  Even Ray applauds at the end, with more gusto than usual, which gives you a surprising little electric charge in your chest. The two of you meet each other’s gaze, and he gives you a little nod and smiles, but then he cuts it short, as if catching himself, and you look away too, embarrassed.

  “Y’all ought to go on the road, honey, you’re so good,” Connie says, beaming.

  “Yeah, you might could reopen the Capri Lounge,” Ray says, and snorts at his own joke.

  “Oh, Ray,” says Connie, with a sigh. “Now will you please go and see your son off to bed? I’ve still got a mess to clean up in the kitchen.” She winks at him, and then she kisses you good night, and Perky kisses you good night, and you wonder why Ray has to see you off to bed.

  It makes you feel nervous, almost embarrassed, to have Ray traipsing up the stairs behind you, neither of you saying anything. You open the door, and he follows you into your room . He rarely comes in here … what does he want?

  He walks over to your closet and opens it. From a high shelf he pulls down a brown paper bag; in big letters on one side, it says Nash’s Sporting Goods. Ray looks at you and makes a silly little “surprise” face. A surprise face? You don’t really know how to react to that, you’ve never seen him make a surprise face before, so you just stare at him, with no reaction. After a second or two, he drops the surprise face and then glances away from you.

  “Um … I have something for you, sport,” he says.

  He reaches into the bag and pulls out a brand-new baseball glove, stiff and shiny, tan-brown, the color of Sugar Babies. He holds the glove himself for a minute, looking it over and punching his fist a couple of times into the center of it; then, with a big smile, he hands it to you. You stare at it, in his hands, for a second or two, then, realizing that it’s a gift and you should accept it, you do so. In your hands, it feels large and cold; the mild, aromatic scent of new cowhide leather fills your nostrils.

  Ray clears his throat. “I know they’ve started to play softball in your grade at school this year, at recess …” he says. “Your mother told me … and … I thought … well, I thought you should have your own glove, sport. So … there it is.”

  “Oh …” you say, looking down at the glove, and not at him. “OK. Thank you.”

  “We can practice sometime, if you want to, out in the backyard.”

  “OK.”

  He clears his throat again. “OK,” he says.

  He picks up the Nash’s Sporting Goods bag from the floor, and holds it.
The two of you stand there; from the light socket, Rocky and Bullwinkle stare out, watching, unblinking. You hold the glove, it’s still in your hand. Should you put it on your hand?

  “Oh, and there’s this. I got you this, too.” He reaches into the bag again and produces a small 45-rpm record in a slick-surfaced envelope with a photograph of a baseball player in mid-swing. The song title is written above the picture: “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

  “They had this there, too, so I … I know how much you like music and all.”

  He hands you the record, which you take in your other hand and you say again: “Thank you.”

  “OK, sport,” he says. “Well … good night.”

  “Good night.”

  And you remember to give him a hug. And he lets you.

  On his way out of your room, he flicks off the light and shuts the door behind him, leaving you standing alone and still in the middle of the floor. The low, muted beams of the corner street-lamp filter in through your window, forming a silvery pool of light on the floor. You stand completely still in the circle of light, in the full-moon shape of it; you stand in it as though it were a spotlight, clutching the baseball glove in one hand and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in the other. Your room glows with the bluish, watery light, and suddenly you feel like you’re living inside an old black-and-white movie, you’re like a kid character in an ancient two-reeler. But you’re another kid—a kid who carries a prized baseball glove, a kid who plays baseball with his dad, a kid who makes his dad proud of him …

  And you stand there in the spotlight, holding your props, staring out the window at the streetlamp, not moving, as if waiting for your cue to begin the scene.