The Barry Gray Show
WMCA Radio
Guest: Benny Lament
December 30, 1969
“You say you were hooked, Benny. You say you’d met your match. But when did it become love?” Barry Gray asks.
“I was hooked, but I wanted nothing to do with her. And it wasn’t just her. It was attachment in general. I’d always been able to walk away from entanglements. A pretty face turned my head, but it didn’t slow me down. And then Esther Mine entered stage left. I’d never been in love before. Or since, come to think of it. So it wasn’t something I had a lot of experience with.”
“But you’d written songs about love.”
“Not really. I’d written songs about avoiding it. About being irritated by it. About being saddled with it. I wrote songs like ‘Beware,’ ‘Can’t Cut You Out,’ ‘The Wrong Woman,’ and ‘I Don’t Want to Love You.’ None of them were about commitment.”
“And why was that?” Barry presses.
“I wasn’t interested in settling down or tying the knot. Ever. My mother died when I was young, and my father never remarried. Maybe we Lomento men only love once.” Benny Lament pauses. “All I know is that I fell in love very . . . reluctantly.”
“That’s not very romantic. All our female listeners are very disappointed in you right now,” Barry Gray says.
“But it’s true. And even as I felt myself slide, I knew it wasn’t wise, but I couldn’t help it. I was terrified it would end badly, and on the way to an ending, it would be hell. I’d spent my whole life treading carefully, purposefully, knowing that each time I put my foot down there existed the potential for detonation.”
“It must have struck you funny then, that this woman who hooked you, so to speak, was Esther Mine, and she sang with a trio that called themselves Minefield.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
4
THE WRONG WOMAN
When I woke, the night was gone. My father was no longer in his chair, my left shoulder ached from being pressed against the old couch springs, and daylight crept through my mother’s window.
I had missed Esther’s show.
I’d slept with the reassurance of a babe in its mother’s arms. No fear, no future, no past. Just sleep and safety. It happened every time I slept beneath my father’s roof, as though I took the weight of my life from my shoulders and hung it in the coat closet where the scent of my father would guard it until I shrugged it on again.
Sometime in the night he’d placed a blanket over me, and his bedroom door was closed. I used the bathroom, shaved with Pop’s razor, and used a toothbrush that I was pretty sure was mine from the last time I’d stayed. Then I straightened my clothes and hair and left, needing to retrieve my car and the things in the trunk.
The cars parked along the streets had cleared with the Monday exodus to work and school. I bought a coffee and a bagel at the corner and downed both in less than a block. I wasn’t in any hurry, and the morning was sunny but cold. No wind. No rain. Just brisk and bright, waking me up and unwrinkling my thoughts. I tried not to think about Esther Mine. I’d failed to do what I’d said I’d do, and my conscience was uneasy, despite the comfort of familiar surroundings.
I was distracted, and I realized suddenly that my feet had taken me down a well-trodden path, as if returning to my neighborhood catapulted me back to my old routines. I stood in front of Enzo’s Gym. His red door and sign needed repainting. The cartoonish gloves were barely visible on the faded wood. A stranger to the neighborhood would pass it by without a second glance; the red door was boxed in between the butcher and a pawnshop. Those businesses had changed hands through the years, but the gym was still Enzo’s, far as I knew.
I wondered if he was still hitting the bags and training hoodlums from the Bronx. I’d spent as much time in his gym as any kid in the neighborhood, and I’d never wanted to be there. Pop made me. I could still remember him coaxing me up the stairs.
I can’t lay a hand on you, son. I can’t do it. I promised myself when you were born that I would never lay a hand on you. And I never will. But you gotta learn how to use your hands for something besides playing the piano. I set you up with Enzo. He’ll teach you.
Enzo had been excited that first day, thinking I was going to be like my dad. A fighter. I’d done everything he told me to do and kept my mouth shut, but when he put me in the ring to spar about a week after our lessons began, I’d refused to fight.
“You’re stubborn. You know that? And you’re wasting my time. Get outta my gym,” Enzo had said.
I was embarrassed, and I’d cried when I got home. I also thought it was over, but Pop must have paid Enzo a visit, because I was back at it the following week. Pop marched me in, stuffed a wad of cash in Enzo’s hand and said, “He doesn’t have to be a fighter, Enzo. But he’s still gotta know how to fight.”
Enzo put me right back in the ring. It was a game, he told me. Four of the other boys and me.
“Your job is to keep ’em off you. You’re bigger than all of ’em. Stronger and quicker too. Keep ’em off.”
They had circled me, their faces lit with curiosity. I recognized the expression. I’d felt the same emotion when I watched my fifth-grade teacher, Miss Morgan, walk slowly down the aisle while we were taking our tests, her hips swishing under her pink skirt, the smell of roses wafting around her.
“You as tough as your old man?” one yelled. That was always the question. You as tough as your old man?
I went cold inside. Not the kind of cold that feels mean. Not the kind of cold that feels empty. The kind of cold that comes from dread. I knew what I had to do, and I didn’t want to do it.
“You gonna fight us, Benny?”
I wasn’t going to fight them. I wasn’t going to throw a single punch.
The smallest kid came at me first, darting in and swinging wildly. I braced, tucking my arms against my sides and shielding my face the way Enzo had taught me. But I didn’t dodge and parry the way I did against the big bag. I let the boy land the blow. He whooped and the other kids swarmed. I stayed on my feet, even when the biggest kid kicked at my kneecap. I stayed on my feet and took their abuse, doing my best to protect my hands, my heart, and my head. A flurry of punches, both heavy and hesitant, rained down, and for a moment our grunts—theirs of effort, mine of pain—made violent music.
“He’s soft!” one kid spat. “This isn’t any fun.”
“He’s not soft. He’s hard as a rock,” another muttered.
“He’s a big, dumb pansy. That’s what he is. This ain’t no fun.”
Enzo cleared them all out of the ring and handed me his handkerchief. It was grimy, but I swiped at the blood from my nose, glad I couldn’t stain it worse than it already was.
“If you don’t fight back, those boys will never let you forget it. They’ll never let you in,” Enzo said.
“I don’t want to be part of their goddamn group.”
Enzo cuffed the back of my head. “Watch your mouth, kid.”
The blood from my nose was now in my throat, and I spit into the bucket at Enzo’s feet.