I'm Glad I Did (6 page)

I leaned across the expanse of tablecloth. “Then tell me honestly: are you the bad guy my mom thinks you are?”

Bernie heaved a weary sigh. “Some people would say I am.” He started in on his lunch. “I've done some bad things in my time, but I don't think of myself that way. What I am is a guy who loves songs and this nutty business, who's sometimes done stuff he's not proud of.” He met my gaze. “Is there anyone who
hasn't
done stuff they're not proud of?”

Before I could answer, a feminine voice cut in: “Sweetie, I knew you'd go nuts when you realized you forgot this.”

I found myself staring up at one of the tallest and most beautiful women I had ever seen in my life. My jaw went slack. She was at least six feet in heels, with skin like
porcelain and dark red hair that tumbled in waves around her shoulders. She looked like a younger version of Suzy Parker, the fashion model. Around her neck she wore a diamond grace note on a platinum chain. In her hand she clutched a small gold cylinder.

“Marla, baby, you're the best,” Bernie murmured, taking the cylinder from her. With his free hand he pulled over an empty chair from a nearby table, and Marla deposited her beautiful self in it. “Justice, this is my wife, Marla.”

Wife? I had thought she might be one of his grown kids. Uncle Bernie was five years older than my mom, so that made him forty-eight. She looked twenty-four, tops.

“I've heard all about you, honey,” Marla said to me. She was one of those people who looked directly into your eyes and managed to smile and talk at the same time—like a Miss America. “Bernard thinks you're going to be a great songwriter some day.”

“I … uh … um … hope he's right,” I stammered as Bernie unscrewed the gold capsule, removed a gold toothpick and engaged in some serious dental house cleaning—just like he'd done at Jeff's bar mitzvah.

“Uncle Bernie,” I stage-whispered, “don't you know that is considered very rude?”

Bernie laughed so loudly that he drew a few stares. “From one rebel to another, JJ. That's why I love to do it.”

Marla rolled her gorgeous hazel eyes. “If you can put up with your uncle's bad manners, I'd love you to come for dinner at our place,” she said warmly. “Pick an evening and let Bernie know.”

“I will. I definitely will.” I stared down at my plate, grinning foolishly, not hungry in the least.

The rest of the lunch was a blur. I walked out of the restaurant floating on air. I was on the high of someone who had found a believer. My uncle had managed to give me more confidence in forty minutes than the rest of my family had in an entire lifetime.

Out in the real world, it seemed that something horrible was happening every day. George Wallace, the governor of Alabama, stood on the steps of the state university to stop two Negro students from registering. It wasn't until President Kennedy called in the National Guard that Governor Wallace was forced to step aside and let them in. The next day, Medgar Evers, one of the leaders of the NAACP, was shot and killed outside his house in Mississippi. It felt as if the country were losing its mind. I began to tune out my parents' discussions of the headlines at breakfast. Everything was so depressing. But a part of me worried about those students in Alabama. I wondered if I could ever stand up for what I believed in with that much courage.

Good Music wasn't just a haven where I could forget about all the chaos beyond the Brill Building. It was also a place where nobody seemed to think that skin color was anything to get upset about. Janny and Jules were self-proclaimed “Civil Libertarians” and fierce advocates
for Negro rights, but they didn't have any close colored friends. Neither did Jeff. Neither did I. Radio was still divided between the rhythm and blues stations—the ones that played Wilson Pickett—and the white stations, the ones that were starting to play more surf stuff now that summer was here, like Jan and Dean and The Beach Boys.

But music was beginning to break down racial barriers on the airwaves. And everyone at Good Music could feel it.

WHEN I WASN'T COPYING
or filing while listening to my Sony transistor radio, I ran errands for the songwriters. I always took a few minutes to stand outside their cubicle doors, eavesdropping before I brought in their coffee. I wanted to hear their writing process. Bernie was absolutely right; I had a lot to learn. A whole lot of new curse words, for one thing. I found out that lots of romantic love songs were born in a not-so-romantic atmosphere. I also picked up some chord changes and suspensions I had never dreamed of, much less tried.

My second week on the job, Rona told me I could even borrow demos overnight if I returned them the next day. Demos were short for demonstration records and that's exactly what they were. The songwriters recorded basic versions of their songs to demonstrate what they hoped the final recording would sound like. They wanted their 12-inch vinyl demos to be the basis of the more elaborate final record. Bobby played these demos for singers, record producers, and record companies to show his writers' work. They were his ultimate sales tool.

Good Music was famous for its great demos. The songwriters were given a small allowance to record them.
Anything over the budget came out of their own pockets. So one of them usually sang and played piano—and hired a guitarist, bassist, and drummer from a regular crew of professional demo musicians.

Now that I had the chance to listen to and learn from them in my very own bedroom, I rarely slept more than four hours a night.

Every bleary morning I would see Green Eyes in the elevator. We were both loaded down with folders. Unfortunately, my folders didn't seem to make me any more attractive to him. He was in his own world and wanted to keep it that way. Those eyes were dazzling but distant. And sad somehow. But that wasn't my problem. I wasn't here to meet a boy. I was here to learn how to be a songwriter.

MY SECOND WEDNESDAY ON
the job, Bobby began a practice that would become a weekly ritual. He'd stick his head in the copy room and ask, “Got anything, JJ, babe?”

Translation
: Do you have a song to play for me?

On Wednesdays, publishers would call
Cashbox
and
Billboard
, the trade papers, to find out the chart numbers for the following week. It was the day when Bobby's song lust was at its peak. Maybe because it was the day he learned whether his writers' songs went up or down on the Top 100 chart. Since writers and publishers shared the royalties that the records earned, his business was literally going up and down with them.

On that day I could tell by everyone's face what kind of news they had gotten that week. Good Music was its own world within the world of the Brill Building. The
songwriters worked with, played with, gossiped with, flirted with, and romanced one other. It was like a musical soap opera, with secrets, scandals, and intrigue. A smoky soap opera. Everyone smoked their brains out. I reeked of cigarettes so much that I had to convince my parents I hadn't taken up the habit myself. But other than blowing smoke at me, the writers didn't acknowledge my existence. They were all a few years older, so I sort of understood. But it made me angry, too, which in turn made me more determined to earn their respect by writing a song of my own.

On Wednesdays, Bobby also posted a list of who was looking for songs to record. I pretended I was a real staff writer and tried to write for someone on the list, but nothing I came up with sounded half as good as what I was hearing from the Good Music songwriters. I began to stay late so I could write on what I called the “magic pianos,” the uprights in the cubicles where the real writers wrote their hits. The office was so quiet at night, I could feel the creativity in the walls. None of it had yet seeped into my fingers, but I knew if I was going to write, that was the place to do it. Janny and Jules gave me permission to stay late, as long I came home no later than eleven. I think they were both relieved that I wasn't hammering on the keyboard in the living room. And I made sure to always make it home on time so they wouldn't have an excuse to forbid the late hours.

THE FRIDAY AFTER BOBBY
first poked his head into my cubicle, I accepted Marla's invitation to dinner with her and Bernie.

They didn't live far from the Brill Building, so I was able
to walk there. I planned to come back and try to write after we ate. Of course, I didn't say a word about the dinner plans to my mother. She had no idea I'd even
seen
Bernie. As far as the Green family was concerned, I hadn't had any direct contact with my no-goodnik uncle since Jeff's bar mitzvah. I wanted to keep it that way.

Bernie and Marla's apartment was even more spacious and music-biz fabulous than I'd imagined, the walls lined with expensive art and gold records. When a singer or songwriter under Bernie's management went gold for sales of half a million by the record company, it seemed that Bernie somehow managed to get a gold record, too—just like he was the recording artist. He was very good at his job and clearly had a ferocious sense of entitlement.

Best of all was the Steinway Grand in the living room. It was the most beautiful piano I'd ever seen, polished mahogany, and arranged on it were silver framed photos of Bernie with every music star you could imagine—from Elvis Presley to Frank Sinatra.

By the time we sat down to dinner, I was buzzing. They did most of the talking, but I was happy to listen. I found out that they had met in Las Vegas, where Marla was a showgirl—in other words, “someone who just walked around the stage looking beautiful in a skimpy costume with a huge headdress.” It had been love at first sight for both of them, Marla claimed. The two of them had gotten married at the Little White Wedding Chapel after knowing each other for less than a week. Three years later they still acted like playful newlyweds.

After dessert, Bernie insisted on giving me a pile of
records he wanted me to study. Like Bobby, he wanted me to get in tune with what was popular: Bobby Vinton, Bobby Rydell, and groups like The Drifters and The Shirelles.

“Listen, Justice, baby,” he told me, gripping my shoulders, “what I want you to always remember is that it all begins with the song. Without the song, there's nothing for the singer to sing, nothing for the record company to release, and nothing for the public to fall in love with. If you're really one of the lucky ones blessed with the gift to create music, you've got to stick with it, not just for yourself but for the rest of the world.”

I swallowed hard. “I will, I promise. But you have to promise that you'll only help me with advice. I want to succeed or fail on my own. Do you promise?”

“He promises,” Marla said sweetly. She gently pried my uncle away and added in a mock-menacing tone, “Don't you, Bernie?”

Uncle Bernie laughed, throwing up his hands in defeat. “I'm outnumbered.”

“You just tell me if he doesn't behave, JJ,” Marla whispered with a wink. “I have ways of getting him back in line.”

For the first time in my life, I hated to leave a “family” event. They were like champagne, and the Greens were like tap water. But they also understood that I had work to do. They both insisted on walking with me right up to the Brill Building elevator where they turned me over to Nick.

A HALF HOUR LATER
, alone at an upright, the magic still hadn't transferred itself to my fingers. It wasn't easy to get back into writing mode. I was stuffed and sleepy, but I had a
deadline. I'd started fooling around with some of those new chord progressions floating around the office, experimenting with a melody that had been flitting through my brain that wasn't half bad.

I was getting tired, though. I finally lifted my fingers, arched my back, and stretched.

At first I thought someone had turned on a radio. But the radio never plays a solo vocal with no backing. Besides, the sound was too rich and too real. It was live. I knew that song. I knew that soulful aching sound. It was a voice from long ago, somehow here with me right now, right outside my door. The song was “Good Love Gone Bad,” a hit in the late forties or early fifties, right around the time when Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan were putting out hit singles.

I jumped up and peeked out the door. The only person out there was the cleaning woman. Her back was toward me. She sang as she emptied the wastepaper baskets and wiped off the desks in the big room, oblivious to everything but the glorious music she was making. I left the door halfway open and slid onto the piano bench again. My hands automatically found the chords to support the melody and the voice, and we became one—one sound, one being, in service of the song. The voice grew louder. I could tell she was moving closer to my cubicle. I turned just as the door swung all the way open.

“It can't be,” I gasped, not believing my eyes. “It's you!”