The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto (27 page)

“Thank you.”

“Now can I play your guitar?”

“You’re too young.”

“No, I’m not.”

Frankie remembered being in a Villareal music school, Baffa Rubio arguing with the owner.

“No, you’re not,” Frankie mumbled. “You’re right.”

He thought about Aurora on the blanket. What was he doing out here? Why wasn’t he with her? Who were these children? What were the lyrics of this song he was hearing? Take it? Take it? The stage.
Keep moving.

“Go find your mother,” he mumbled.

“But we want the guitar.”

Frankie rubbed the mud back in the boy’s hand and stood up. He stumbled off in the direction of the music, and another little piece of the heart being taken.

36

1956

FRANKIE AND AURORA’S SECOND MOVEMENT.
ADAGIO.

The slow turn.

Frankie’s talent put him in high demand. Live performances. Studio recordings. He played with, by my count, forty-six bands between the years 1955 and 1958. At first, this was not a problem (at first, it is never a problem). Aurora joined him wherever she could, and in between she cozied inside their small apartment, which featured a balcony with an iron railing and old wooden fixtures in a pastel-tiled kitchen.

Aurora was happy there. She cut Frankie’s hair and helped pick out his clothes. At the concerts, she began to notice that the girls who came to scream for Jimmy Clanton or Sam Cooke would also make eyes at her husband, the sultry guitar player with the grape black pompadour. It did not bother her. She waited for Frankie after the shows and he always took her hand and they walked through the city and got home in the wee hours and listened to records until they drifted off, curled around each other. Aurora would wake with the sun strong in the sky and make tea and nudge him, saying, “Get up, sleepy. You have to practice.”

It was about this time that Frankie told Aurora about the strings. Leaning against their mattress one night, he showed her his guitar and recounted the three incidents: the docks with Django, the hospital room with Hampton, and, of course, the night Aurora was threatened by a knife until Frankie distracted her attacker.

“You saved me.”

“I guess.”

“I would have died.”

“Don’t say that.”

“And the string turned blue?”

“Yeah.”

“For how long?”

“A few seconds.”

“Why blue?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you predict when it happens?”

Frankie shook his head.

“What does it mean?”

“That I can affect things, I think.”

“Whenever you want?”

“No. Just . . .”

“What?”

“If it really matters, I guess.”

“So I really mattered?”

Frankie smiled. Aurora moved closer.

“I think it’s something else, Francisco.”

“What?”

“Where did the strings come from?”

“My teacher.”

“Before that?”

“His wife.”

“Where did she get them?”

“Who knows?”

“That’s where your answer is.”

“Three of them have broken.”

“The three that turned blue?”

Frankie nodded.

“Maybe they’re used up. Maybe you’re getting six chances.” She looked off. “Six souls.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In the woods, remember? You made your strings into flowers? And we put them on the graves?”

“So?”

“You did something for strangers. A kindness for six strangers. Maybe it’s coming back to you.”

“I doubt it.” He shrugged. “I’m just a guitar player.”

Aurora held his gaze.

“No, you’re not.”

37

1957

AS THEIR
ADAGIO
CONTINUED, FRANKIE AND AURORA INCREASINGLY SAW THE SAME THING DIFFERENTLY
. One day, he got a call to play at Pontchartrain Beach, an amusement park on a lake near New Orleans. Elvis Presley was scheduled to perform, and the band wanted a backup guitar player, because while Elvis wore a guitar, he barely used it. Aurora attended that show. The screams were deafening. After the final number, she tried to get backstage, but there were so many hysterical young girls, she gave up and went home.

When he returned that night, Frankie was relieved to see her. “Where were you? I looked all over.”

“It was too crowded,” she said.

“Did you like the music?”

“I couldn’t hear it.”

“They want me for more jobs.”

“At the beach?”

“Shreveport.”

“That’s a little far.”

“It’s not too bad.”

“What was it like?”

“It was crazy!”

“Is Elvis nice?”

“He didn’t talk much. He said he liked my haircut.”

Aurora smiled. “Of course.”

In the simplest harmonies, notes move up and down together, keeping the same distance, like the edges of a railroad track.

A more complex version is counterpoint, where two musical lines move independently of each other, still a harmonic balance, but no longer attached as if by an axle.

In the three years following their wedding, Frankie and Aurora moved from harmony to counterpoint, as the
adagio
completed its slow turn. Frankie made a trip to New York City. Aurora took a job in a flower shop. Frankie secretly replaced Elvis for a show in Vancouver. Aurora joined a church. Frankie went to Los Angeles, met the agent Tappy Fishman, and signed a contract. Aurora learned to cook crawfish.

When he came home, Frankie said, “I’ve got big news. We’re moving to California.”

What followed was a two-week argument, common to human couples when one wants to go somewhere and one does not. Finally, at the end of the month, they packed up boxes from their apartment over the drugstore and, with grim expressions and little conversation, filled the back of a used Plymouth Belvedere that Frankie had purchased after Tappy Fishman helped get him a driver’s license.

As they pulled out of New Orleans, only Aurora looked back.

In earlier days, they would have spent the ride holding hands. But the car was cramped with instruments and clothing and two very different ideas of the future. They drove for three days, from the American South to the American West, and when they reached the coast, just before dusk, Frankie noted that the sun looked like a giant orange.

38

1958

“YOU’RE
NOT
GOING TO PLAY YOUR GUITAR?” AURORA ASKED
.

“Leonard doesn’t want me to,” Frankie said.

This was just before Christmas, in an undecorated apartment on a treeless street in Los Angeles.

“Why doesn’t he want you to play?”

“It interferes with my dancing.”

“But you’re a guitarist.”

“I sing, too, Aurora.”

“You sing wonderfully. But . . .”

Frankie held out his palms.

“What?”

“I like when you play guitar.”

“I play when I’m in a band.”

“Won’t you be in a band?”

“The band will be behind me.”

“Behind you?”

“Like Canada. I sang some songs without the guitar that night.”

“So?”

“It felt different. I liked it.”

“You weren’t being you in Canada. That’s why it felt different. You’re not him, you know.”

“I know.”

“You’re not Elvis Presley.”

“I know.”

“But you felt like you were.”

“Why do you say things like that?”

“Because they’re true, Francisco.”

He frowned. “Frankie.”

“Frankie. Another idea from Leonard. Or Tappy. Whatever his bloody name is.”

Aurora grabbed her bag and fished through it. “Why do people need more than one name?”

“He’s helping me.”

“What did your teacher call you?”

“ ‘Boy,’ mostly.”

“What did your father call you?”

“He wasn’t my father.”

Aurora found a pack of cigarettes.

“Do what you want,” she said.

“It’s not what you want?”

“Does it matter what I want?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s not what I want.”

Frankie’s leg tapped quickly.

“I won’t forget how to play the guitar.”

She plopped to the floor.

“No. I don’t imagine you could.”

“Leonard has ten shows booked already. With lots of people. The Drifters. The Everly Brothers. Big shows with big crowds. They don’t care if I play guitar. They want to hear me sing. I have the recording session coming, and—”

“All right.”

“A record could make a big diff—”

“All right, I said.”

Aurora’s voice had softened.

“All right?” Frankie asked.

“Do what you want.”

“Are you sure?”

“Can we stop talking about it?”

Frankie forced a smile.

“You’ll see. It’s going to be good.
Fantástico.
”

“How long is this tour?”

“I might get famous—”

“How long?”

“One or two months.”

Aurora lit her cigarette. “You mean three.”

“Why do you smoke?”

“I miss New Orleans.”

“This is a nice apartment.”

“It’s too new. I like old things.”

Frankie walked across the room and opened his case.

“Look. A guitar,” he said, trying to joke.

“ ‘Parlez-Moi d’Amour,’ ” Aurora said.

“That
is
old.”

“Please. Play it for me.”

“All right.”

Frankie strapped the guitar over his neck and picked the strings gently. Then he kneeled down and sang the song Aurora requested, written nearly thirty years earlier by a French composer.

“Parlez-Moi d’Amour,” the title states. “Speak to me of love.” But speaking of love is like sticking words to the wind. Aurora waited for the final stanza. A small tear formed in her eye.

Du Coeur on guérit la blessure

Par un serment qui le rassure

It means, “We heal the wounded heart, with an oath that reassures it.”

Frankie promised he would call when they reached the first stop.