1966. For years, our long-suffering neighborhood had put
cotton in its ears and turned up their television sets, trying to drown out the
sound of my voice and guitar and bongo drums, which I played with drumsticks.
I, you see, had fantasies of being a music star, a recording artist, a teen
idol. I had started to write songs—my first, “I’m a Wanderer At Heart,” was a
brazen imitation of several songs recorded by Ricky Nelson, but not at all as
good. “I’m a wanderer at heart./ I must go, it’s time we part.”
Now, it seemed to me to require a singular chutzpah to declare that I wanted to
make musical waves in the world. It was like demanding that people pay
attention to me, and that they even pay to do so. But it didn’t require a great
deal of courage, cloistered in my bedroom, to sing along with Ricky—“I’m a
Travelin’ Man,/ made a lot of stops/ all over this world”—at a volume and pitch
that would carry my voice travelin’ throughout the neighborhood. Besides, maybe
an agent, the same guy who discovered Fabian in front of a fire station, would
drive by one day, stop, listen with keen interest, recognize the obvious talent
and knock on our door, asking me to come and sing for a few guys in a Hollywood
studio. More incredible things had happened, after all. Elvis had saved up the
money to make a recording for his mother, Gladys. “Old Shep,” for heaven’s
sake. That worked for him. This might work for me.
So I played along with “Bongo Rock,” a ferociously flawed
but successful hit for Preston Epps. I sang along with Elvis, Bobby Darin
(“Bing-bang, I saw the whole gang”), Carl Perkins, Ray Charles and the Big
Bopper (“You know what I like!”).
Less obnoxiously—or, at least, more quietly—I watched American Bandstand most afternoons and Saturday evenings and sang
and danced along.
But life wasn’t merely about music and the possibility of
stardom. I also looked forward to being a football player whose gravity-defying
antics translated into hundreds of touchdowns. And I wanted to give some of my
time to baseball, setting new records for home runs.
One of the home runs I managed to hit by way of practice in
my own backyard sent a tennis ball high into the air—you could almost hear it
whirring—until it crashed through the bedroom window of the neighbors who lived
two houses away from us. A laudable hit, yes—but the cost of a new window wept
its way like tears out of my allowance.
The neighbor, though, was extremely kind. We called him
immediately. Yes, he knew about the broken window. Yes, he had looked it over.
Yes, you know, kids will be kids. Yes, it will be very kind of Billy to apply
his allowance for a several weeks to the cost of a new window. Yes, it’s fine.
Really.
He was a man named Westmore, acting like he’d been to
kindness school and graduated summa cum
laude. I wanted to run down to his house and do a thank-you dance, or sing
a song perhaps on his front law. Dad suggested, though, that I just let it go.
So I did. But I’ve remained grateful to him to this day.
>>>
Which Westmore it was is beyond my memory. Mom told me in
mildly reverent tones that the Westmores were all famous make-up artists in
Hollywood. But this one was extremely kind and forgiving. Michael, perhaps.
I saw very little further of him, and my musical work moved
on from Ricky Nelson to the Kingston Trio, and soon I was pounding on my guitar
and singing, “Greenback Dollar” and “They Call the Wind Mariah.” My best friend
Salty Sutton and I formed a group that we called Nothing in Particular and we attempted to impress our girlfriends
with our contributions to the so-called 60’s Folk Music Revival. My parents
asked us to play at family gatherings.
One day, while making our music at the home of my
girlfriend, a neighbor of hers who managed a local pop music station came by
and listened to our version of “Mariah” and “Sweet Peggy-O.” I knew even then
that we had added nothing to the body of work surrounding these often-played
songs, so when the neighbor offered to get us in front of a guy at Liberty
Records, I had my doubts.
“Maybe we should drop ‘Peggy-O’ and sing, “’But I don’t give
a damn about a greenback dollar,/ Spend it fast as I can.’” Salty didn’t care.
“Let’s just do this thing,” he said.
The meeting never took place, of course. Liberty Records ran
out of money not long thereafter. The world would have to wait for the
enthusiastic guitars and vocals that added up to Nothing in Particular. And we
would have to wait, too, though our lives were moving inexorably forward toward
college and marriage and other activities that seemed inevitable yet outside of
our control.
>>>
Soon it was indeed time to go to college. I went to one
school, Salty to another. He dropped out after a year or two and went into the
Coast Guard. Soon he was stationed in Alaska somewhere. It was many years
before I saw him again.
Before my first drive to Stanford, though, my mother asked
me to sit and talk for a few moments. Sit and talk? It worried me.
But we sat, and she composed herself. “You remember our
neighbor down the street?”
“You mean Mr. Westmore? Yes—very nice guy.”
“Yes,” mother responded. “Nice guy. And a remarkably
talented family.”
“Make-up,” I said, smiling. “Making beautiful people even
more beautiful and creating terrifying monsters that won them Oscars.”
“Gone With the Wind,
too,” Mom added.
“Frankly,” I said, trying to be witty and failing utterly.
“Frankly, Scarlet, you don’t give a damn,” Mom said,
smiling. “But I’m afraid you’ll give a damn about this.”
“About what?”
“Well, one day about two years ago, there was a knock at the
door and there stood our neighbor.”
“Did he come because we didn’t pay enough for his window.”
Mother didn’t even smile. “He came,” she said, “because he’s
been listening to you all these years, singing up there in your bedroom.”
The room grew silent and heavy. “Something wrong?” I asked.
“Well, he just wanted to know if maybe he could take you to
some people at Dot Records—I think that was the name.”
My face began to burn, my scalp prickly. She rose to her
theme. “Dot Records,” she repeated. “He thought they might want to train you,
to groom you to be a star. You know, the next Ricky Nelson or something.”
“And what did you say?”
“I told him that we wanted you to finish your education
first.”
That was all she said. The living room descended into a
mournful silence for several minutes.
“But,” I said, stifling emotion, “you never asked me.”
“No, but I’m telling you now, and now you’re leaving for
Stanford, and you can take your guitar and play your songs and find other
people who like your music.” She looked at me with reddened eyes. “It’s a hobby, Bill. That’s all it is. A hobby. And you’ve got to make a living. Do you understand?”
“You never asked me,” I repeated. “It’s my life but you never asked.”
She looked at her hands.
I stood, feeling utterlyly defeated. “We don’t ever need to
talk about this again. Ever.”
“But you could still become a recording star after, you know. After college.”
“Thanks so much,” I said.
“Don’t be bitter. I only want the best for you.”
“I know that. I really do. But I want the best for me, too.”
I excused myself, leaving Mom spread over the couch like
yesterday’s wash.
“Have a wonderful time in college,” she called out.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m sure I will.” I threw a few more
records and piles of clothing onto the back seat of my car, which was piled
high with the detritus of a teenage life.
She wandered out by the car and gave me a $20 bill for lunch
on the road.
“Thanks,” I said, “but I already have some money, Mom.”
“Take it,” she demanded. “And remember—these kids you’ll be
going to school with are some of the smartest in the country. It’s all right if
you only get ‘C’s.’”
“It’s what?” I demanded, feeling a complete disconnect from
my own mother’s alien thinking.
