“Even you?”
“Especially me.” It didn’t seem to bother him too much. He seemed accepting of the fact. Resigned to it. We walked in silence, his big hand sheltering mine, and he didn’t complain about the chocolatey residue or my slower steps. We turned onto Arthur Avenue, and the lines of laundry stretched across the side streets, from terrace to terrace, waving to us.
“I’m sorry you had to see my rotten today, Benito. I try hard to be a good father. A better father than my father was, but I’m not always a good man.”
“Can’t you cut it out? The dark spots, I mean. Mrs. Costiera cuts the mold off the cheese.”
“I can’t cut it out. No. There’s too much of it. I’d bleed to death.”
“Am I rotten?”
“No. You ain’t rotten.”
“But someday I will be?”
He sighed like he’d gotten himself into a mess he didn’t know how to get out of.
“Yeah. You probably will be. It’s just life.” He shrugged and shook his head.
“You don’t care if I’m rotten?” I squeaked.
“Depends on why you’re being rotten. If you have another choice . . . then yeah. I care. Gino owes Uncle Sal money. He’s been stallin’. Avoidin’ me. I was patient until I couldn’t be patient no more. He left me no choice.”
“Why can’t Uncle Sal get his own money? Why do you have to do it?”
“That’s my job, Benny. I work for Uncle Sal. My job is to make sure people meet their obligations. Sal’s a busy man. Runs a big operation. I work for Sal. You know that.”
“What’s an . . . obligation?”
“A responsibility. A duty. You know. Sal was Mama’s brother. So we’re family. And family is our number-one responsibility.”
“Our number-one obligation?”
“Yeah.”
I decided then and there, walking down the street where I was born, toward the building where I was raised, among people who were just like me, that I didn’t want a family if that’s what family meant. I decided the chords I liked most were the ones with notes that didn’t belong. Over the years, those were the chords I kept going back to, the chords I built my melodies around, the chords that spoke to me.
“I tried to cut you out. Now I’m bleedin’ to death,” Izzy McQueen wailed at the mic, and I was catapulted back from the memory of ugly chords, simple songs, and the day, long ago, when I saw my pop for what he was.
“I tried to cut you out, baby. Now I’m bleedin’ to death,” Izzy repeated, so mournful, so convincing, no one in the audience could doubt his impending demise.
Funny. I’d written “Can’t Cut You Out” for Izzy a year ago but hadn’t made the connection to that conversation on the way home from Gino’s until right now. Maybe I’d buried it deep like I did with so many things concerning Pop, but those lyrics were his.
I would have to write him a check.
“Can’t Cut You Out” had been my biggest hit so far, and I got a little thrill every time it came on the radio. It wasn’t me singing—I doubted it ever would be—but it was my song. Pop’s song too, I guess. I’d been writing songs on the same theme my whole life.
“You took a little here, and you took a little there, and I’ve given all I can,” Izzy moaned, and my hands flew over the keys. I didn’t usually do this kind of gig. I was a behind-the-scenes man, but I’d been having a drink, listening, and Izzy called me up on stage, announcing me like I was a hometown hero. Next thing I knew I was backing him up.
I was hot, and I’d loosened my tie and lost my coat a few measures into the first verse. The Murray’s in my hair was holding up, though, all except for the lock that clung to my brow in a damp swirl. The smoke and the music made the world soft and soundproof, where nothing and no one existed beyond the keys and the curling ring around my head.
But I was never alone in New York. Pop had eyes and ears everywhere. Especially at La Vita. So I wasn’t surprised when my father sat down at a table right in front of the stage. He didn’t get a drink or unbutton his coat. He just sat, listening.
I hadn’t seen him in months. I’d been in Detroit and LA and Chicago and Miami. I’d been all over, writing songs for everybody from Elvis Presley to Smokey Robinson. Smokey didn’t need anyone writing songs for him; he was churning out hits for himself and everyone else too, but he said I kept his sound fresh. Berry Gordy, the president of the up-and-coming Motown Records, had taken ten of my songs for his artists just last month.
“Smokey writes light, and you write dark. Sunshine and rain. You should team up,” Mr. Gordy said. “Call yourselves Smokey Lament. It could be huge.” But I wasn’t much of a family man, and Motown had that feel. Like family. Plus, like I said, Smokey really didn’t need me.
Izzy didn’t really need me either. Especially not tonight. Between his voice and his horn, the piano was an afterthought. But I was better with the “lyrics and the lamentations,” Izzy said, and he liked my songs. Luckily his label did too.
There was a time, not so long ago, when Izzy McQueen headlining at places like La Vita wouldn’t have been possible. I’d been in the audience when Harry Belafonte performed at the Copacabana, Sal’s biggest competitor, in ’58. But they wouldn’t even let Harry into the Copa in the forties. They turned him away at the door. No Negros allowed. Took him a while to forgive and forget, but Harry came out on top. Nobody refused him entrance now. At least not in New York.
Berry Gordy had a whole roster of artists he wanted to book at La Vita. He asked me to arrange a meeting with the manager, Jules Patel, but I didn’t know if I could do that. I sure as hell didn’t do it for Izzy, though I wondered suddenly if he’d dropped my name. The thought made me sweat. I would have to talk to Izzy and set him straight. No more pulling me up on stage.
It’s not that Patel wouldn’t hear me out. He would. He would bring up my father and my mother—God rest her soul. She sang like an angel, that woman—and that would be my cue to reinforce my connection to Uncle Sal. The name Salvatore Vitale always got the skids greased. Then Gordy would get his meeting and his bookings, and I would have to pay up at some point. I tried to explain it to Gordy, but he just laughed and said, “That’s how the world works, Lament. Don’t tell me you don’t know that.”
I knew it. But I didn’t think Gordy knew what paying up looked like in my family. I didn’t want anyone at La Vita thinking they’d done me a favor and asking for something in return. Start calling on the family connections, and family obligations soon followed.
Pop waited until the number ended, and when I walked off the platform to greet him, he stood, impatient.
“Get your hat. I got someone I want you to meet,” he said.
Just like that. No hello. No guilt. No “Where’ve ya been, kid?” And I was relieved. Maybe that’s why I didn’t argue. I retrieved my coat, straightened my tie, and picked up my hat from the girl at the coat check. Pop hurried out the front doors and into the cold air. I followed him, surprised.
“You’re leaving Sal?” I asked. My father never left Sal. When Sal was out, Pop was in position. The best, most faithful guard dog in the world.