The same people. The same smells, the same confusion. But at Mom’s funeral, I had still had Pop.
I sat at the piano in a forest made up not of trees but of people dressed in black and wearing shining shoes instead of roots. Pop was close by. He was the biggest tree of all, and when I looked up at him—up up up—his eyes were red rimmed. He took a step and sat down on the bench beside me, his back bent, his shoulders hunched, and he watched my little fingers on the keys.
I played quietly, stroking the keys that were directly in front of my eyes. Seven notes—C, D, E, F, G, A, B—and then the sounds started all over. I didn’t plunk or pound. I listened, feeling the bounce in the keys, though I touched them so softly I could hardly hear the sound beneath the murmur of voices and the occasional sob. Some people cried because they felt sad. Others cried because they thought they should. I didn’t cry because then I wouldn’t be able to play. And when I touched those long white keys, Pop listened, and he didn’t feel so sad.
This time, the keys did not comfort me, and they didn’t bring Pop to my side. But I still didn’t cry. I still didn’t want people to stare. I just nodded and played and waited for it all to be over. When Enzo stopped behind me, his hands on my shoulders, and spoke in my ear, I slowed but didn’t stop. I didn’t want to encourage him or anyone else.
“Benny, I’m sorry about your Pop, kid. But I gotta tell you somethin’ important.” Enzo kept his voice low and his hands on my shoulders, and my hands stilled on the keys.
“I saw the paper today. It had a picture of your father, a real nice write-up on Jack. His boxing days, all of it. But they had a picture of the other guy too.”
“The other guy?” I asked, my eyes on my hands.
“The son of a bitch who got him,” Enzo muttered in my ear.
Ah. The dead “nobody.”
“I recognized him, Benny. He was the guy that came to the gym a while back, asking about Bo Johnson. The guy who said he was doing a story on him and your dad.”
A few people had noticed the music had ceased and had turned toward me. I played a few bars, softly, slowly, and the eyes drifted away.
“Guess he was lyin’. But I knew that. He looked like a snitch to me. Or a cop. I don’t know what the hell it all means. But I wanted you to know. Be careful, kid.”
The Barry Gray Show
WMCA Radio
Guest: Benny Lament
December 30, 1969
“Our audience may not be aware, Benny, but your father was murdered,” Barry Gray says.
“He was.”
“The police records, which are public, say it was a home invasion gone wrong.”
“That’s what the police records say, yes.”
“The man who killed him had a record,” Barry Gray presses.
“Yeah. And so did my father. Two bad guys took each other out, as far as the cops were concerned. Nobody lost much sleep over it,” Benny Lament says.
“Some say it was connected to organized crime. A mob hit.”
“That’s what some people say,” Benny answers, tone neutral, and Barry Gray changes the subject.
“Everything was happening at once. Minefield gets a big break. Stations are playing ‘Any Man,’ and listeners are loving it, requesting it. It’s a huge, overnight hit. At the same time, your father is murdered. What was going through your mind?”
“I only knew that suddenly things had gotten bad. I didn’t know who to trust. The only person in the world I trusted was gone. And Esther didn’t trust anyone. Not me. Not herself. But it was too late to do anything but stick together.”
“What did you do?”
“I did the only thing I could think of. The one thing I never thought I’d do.”
“And what was that?”
“I went to my family.”
12
FRIENDS LIKE US
The hardest part of that first week was the slow drip of moments I could not fill. I walked. I slept—badly. I ate. I showered, and I sat, only to look at the clock to find I had hours left to fill before I could do it all again. The rooms were too quiet, and unlike with my mother’s death, the piano did not comfort me and the keys did not call to me. I played, but the songs all revolved around Pop, around things he had said or