The Songbook of Benny Lament - Amy Harmon Page 0,2
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