The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

  Especially a band like ours.

  Anyhow, we needed to do this fast, so we had three guitarists come on the same day. We’d already seen the first two—­both pretty good—­and then the last guy walks in. He looks old. I can’t remember who or what agency sent him over, but he’s wearing a ski cap and carrying a case. He doesn’t even open it. He sits down, sees a ­couple loose guitars in the studio, picks up a Japanese electric model, a Riverhead, little diamond-­shaped body, and says, “All right if I use this?”

  And we said, “What’s the matter with yours?”

  And he said, “Ah, that’s just an old acoustic.”

  Already I’m thinking, “You’re kidding me. That’s what you bring to a KISS audition? Let’s just go home now.” But he pulls off the ski cap and pushes his hair back and I lean forward and say, “Holy crap,” and Gene Simmons says, “What?” and I say, “That’s Frankie Presto!”

  Now, I should tell you that, as a kid in New York, Frankie Presto was it for me. I liked voices like Dion and the Belmonts, Bobby Rydell, Jimmy Clanton. They could all sing. But Frankie sang and played and wore cool clothes and could really dance. I watched him on American Bandstand. He did that move with the mike stand where he’d push it forward, then pivot it back with his foot—­Joe Tex was famous for that, too. So cool.

  I was like eight years old when “I Want To Love You” came out, and it was the first record I ever owned. I must have played it until it shredded. A year or two later, when “Shake Shake” was big, I convinced my parents to take me to see Frankie at a rock and roll show. The Fox Theatre in Brooklyn. He only did a few songs, but he played guitar and just killed it. He took a solo that I can still remember. Not only were his fingers flying, but at the end he hit these four big chords that just rang out, one after the other, bang, bang, bang, bang! And it filled the place up. It was like the Sermon on the Mount for me. To this day, when I play, there’s nothing like exploding one big chord and just owning the building.

  Anyhow, the other KISS guys didn’t even want to audition Frankie. “He’s too old,” they said. But I said, “Let’s give him a shot. He was there when it all started.” He still had a good face, strong cheekbones, all his hair. I thought it could work.

  We played him one of our older tracks called “Creatures of the Night,” and told him to try something like the solo on that. And I swear, he played that solo back note for note. I don’t know how. He only heard it once. But he made every note scream right where it had screamed before, hit the whammy bar perfectly, almost like he was tracing the music.

  So I said, “Okay, this time do what you want.” And he laid out a solo that was even better. What impressed me most was that he didn’t show off his speed. One or two licks proved how fast he was. But he made it musical. You could almost sing the solo once he’d played it.

  We didn’t need to hear any more—­not as far as his playing went. But age was still an issue. And what was he like? Gene was busy that night, so I offered to have dinner with Frankie. Deep down, I wanted to ask him about the old days.

  We went to a little hamburger place in Santa Monica, and I confessed to seeing him in the sixties. He was pretty shy about that, like it was from another life. He said he’d been away from the stage for a while, and he hadn’t had a recording deal in a long time. I said, “Is that why you want to be in KISS?” And he looked down, almost sheepish, and he said, “No. To be honest, my daughter loves you guys.”

  I said, “How old is your daughter?”

  He said, “She’s eight. She loves the outfits and the makeup you guys wear. And she’s never really seen me onstage. So I thought, if I were in a band that she liked, that would be a good memory for her.”

  And I said, “Are you kidding me?”

  And he smiled and said the older you get, the more you want your kids to know about you.

  Well, I’d heard a lot of ­people say why they wanted to be in KISS, but that was a first. I wasn’t sure how to respond. But I did tell him, “You know, Frankie, we’re not wearing the makeup anymore.” And he was stunned, like his daughter would be heartbroken.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “Some ­people think makeup means we’re not serious.”

  “Little Richard wore makeup,” he said. “Jimi Hendrix wore makeup. David Bowie, too.”

  I said, “You played with those guys?” And he said oh yeah, he’d played with all of them.

  I couldn’t believe it. It was like talking to rock and roll history. Finally, I said, “Where have you been, man?” And he said, “On an island.” I thought he was joking, but he was serious. I said, “You flew in all the way for this?” And he said his family was taking a long trip, working their way to Europe, and someone he knew in L.A. told him about the auditions. Then he looked at me and said, “You’re really not wearing the makeup anymore?”

  To be honest, I wanted him in the band—­I thought it would be cool to have some history in KISS—­but in the end, obviously, it didn’t work out. He went wherever he was going and we went with a guy who was, like, twenty years younger than Frankie, and that was that. But a ­couple weeks later, I got a letter from him thanking me for the opportunity to audition and wishing us well. You know how often that happens in rock and roll? Never.

  And at the bottom, in some crayon scribble, was a line from his daughter, saying “I love KISS!”

  It’s funny. In 1999, I got a chance to play the lead in Phantom of the Opera in Toronto. I’d never tried anything like that. But I went for it, partly because my son at the time was about five years old. And I remember thinking, “I want him to see me in this.”

  And then I remembered Frankie talking about his little girl. And he was right. At a certain point, your life is more about your legacy to your kids than anything else.

  52

  FOLLOW ME.

  Up these steps.

  The seats below are filling, and the priest is greeting the mourners. The funeral mass will begin shortly. Our story must soon finish. But there is a history in this basilica that we need to complete it.

  Look inside this empty chamber. See the concrete floor and naked walls? This is where Frankie was born. It is also where, nearly four hundred years ago, a man named Pascual Baylón died. A poor Spanish monk with little education, Baylón was later canonized for his humble devotion to God—­and the small miracles that happened around him. It is said that during his own funeral ser­vice, his eyes popped open to observe the Eucharist ceremony.

  For centuries, his body lay interred in this church—­until the night it was burned to ashes, the same night Frankie’s mother, Carmencita, lost her life giving birth in this very chamber, bestowing Pascual’s name on her son—­Francisco de Asís Pascual Presto—­in the hope that it might protect him.

  But it already had.

  There is a reason more ­people were not killed that night, a reason the church was nearly empty when the raiders arrived. Hours before, San Pascual performed one last miracle, this time from the world of the dead.

  He signaled the church members to flee.

  By clapping inside his tomb.

  They heard the sound clearly.

  Clap. Clap. Clap.

  And they ran.

  Warning music.

  When Frankie returned to Spain, it should have been sounding again.

  “Maestro, could we visit the river today?”

  “Why would we do that?”

  “My papa took me once, to see the Pastoret statue. The little shepherd boy.”

  “So you have seen it. No need to go again.”

  “Do you know the story of the statue, Maestro?”

  “Everyone in Villareal knows that story.”

  “Is it true?”

  “Get the guitar.”

  “Is it true a little shepherd heard music from a cave?”

  “The guitar—­?
??

  “And inside he found a statue of the Blessed Mary?”

  “Francisco—­”

  “Is it true he brought the statue to the city—­”

  “Such foolishness—­”

  “And the next day it disappeared?”

  “Enough—­”

  “And when the ­people went back to the caves, they heard music and found the Mary statue again?”

  “Enough! Does music come from caves?”

  “No, Maestro.”

  “No, it does not. It comes from practicing. Which you are not doing.”

  “So the story is not true?”

  “I will tell you what is true. If Mary wanted to stay in a cave with her music, why does the shepherd need to disturb her?”

  “Yes, Maestro.”

  “Why do ­people need to disturb other ­people?”

  “Yes, Maestro.”

  “Don’t go back looking for things. Leave well enough alone in this life. Understand?”

  “Yes, Maestro.”

  “Now start playing. I am not getting any younger.”

  The family stepped out of the airport and into the blinding sunshine. Frankie’s eyes began to hurt. He found his sunglasses, and as they drove down the coast, he gazed out the window, realizing he had forgotten much of his country’s color; the pastel houses, the orange groves, the whitecaps breaking up the blue Mediterranean Sea. What he had not forgotten, he had buried in his mind, including all his memoires of Baffa Rubio, having never forgiven the man’s deceptions.

  It was Aurora’s idea to return. They had already visited California, New Orleans, and London, where Aurora saw her mother for the first time in years. Around an oblong wooden table, they shared a dinner of roasted beef and cabbage, and Aurora endured her mother’s glares at the foreign child they were calling their own.

  “If I can handle that,” Aurora told Frankie that night, “you can handle Spain.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Do you think your father is alive?”

  “He’s not my father.”

  “So you won’t see him?”

  “He’s not alive.”

  “What if he were? Wouldn’t you speak to him?”

  “And say what?”

  “And say you lived. Say you have a wife and a child. Say thank you.”

  “You don’t thank ­people for lying.”

  “Francisco—­”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “We’re going.”

  “Why is this so important for Kai?”

  “Not just Kai.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  She hooked her fingers in his.

  “You said that already.”

  On his own, he would never have made the trip. But with his wife holding one hand and his daughter holding the other, he was led back to this hot country.

  And all the secrets it held.

  Spanish life had changed dramatically since the 1940s. The dictator Franco was dead, and the country he’d held down for so long was slowly rising. Frankie barely recognized Villareal. The streets were paved, and cars commanded the roads where horses and bicycles once traveled. There was a sports stadium now and a large hospital and many new shops along the Calle Mayor.

  Frankie walked his family through a busy plaza, past a weeping willow garden, and along an irrigation canal into which Francisco Tárrega had once been thrown by his caretaker, just as Frankie had once been thrown into a river. He avoided sharing any stories about Baffa Rubio, although he could feel Aurora’s silent urging as she walked beside him.

  In the end, it was young Kai who changed Frankie’s mind. They had gone to a park to see La Panderola, the old steam train that had stopped running decades earlier. Only the engine and a passenger car remained, lodged under an awning.

  “We used to chase this train,” Frankie told Kai.

  “Who?”

  “The children.”

  “Why?”

  “It was fun.”

  “What if you fell on the tracks and the train was coming?”

  “That would not happen.”

  “What if you ran like this”—­she darted in front of the old car—­“and you fell, ooh.”

  She dropped, laughing, and Frankie swooped in and lifted her high.

  “Then my papa would save me at the last second!” he bellowed.

  When he put her down, he noticed Aurora looking at him, her eyebrows raised. Frankie sighed.

  “Come with me, Kai,” he said. “I’m going to show you where I grew up.”

  The house on Calvario Street had been painted a lemony shade, and the windows were new. The lower door frame still contained two slots for cart wheels. Otherwise, the place seemed as modern as the homes surrounding it.

  “There it is,” Frankie said.

  “You lived there, Papa?”

  “As a boy.”

  “Who else lived there?”

  “The man who took care of me—­and our dog.”

  “Where were your mama and papa?”

  “In heaven.”

  He opened his palms to Aurora as if to say, “Enough? Can we go?” but the child darted free and banged on the door.

  “Kai, why did you do that?” Frankie yelled, grabbing her arm.

  “Stop,” Aurora said. “She’s just curious.”

  The door eased open. A smallish woman with a shawl on her shoulders peeked out.

  “Sí?”

  Frankie straightened up, then spoke in Spanish.

  “I am very sorry, señora. We did not mean to disturb you. My daughter was—­”

  “Do you speak English?” Aurora interrupted.

  “A little,” the woman said.

  “No es necesario—­” Frankie said.

  “My husband used to live here as a boy. In this house. Your house.”

  “Sí?” The woman looked at Frankie. “Ah,” she added, her expression widening, “I see you before.”

  “Where?” Aurora asked.

  The woman held up a finger. She disappeared for a minute, leaving the door open, then returned dragging a large box along the floor.

  “Come, come,” she said.

  The three of them stepped inside, Frankie last. His heart was beating quickly. He glanced around, expecting to be hit with a wave of emotion. But everything was different. The paint. The photos. The furniture. Rooms are rooms, after all, as a music staff is a music staff. How you fill them is what makes them your own.

  “Mira,” the woman said. She lifted a thin blanket from atop the box, and pulled out an old record album. “Is you, yes?”

  It was the cover to Frankie’s first release, a Spanish import.

  “Papa, look!” Kai exclaimed, grabbing the record. But Frankie’s eyes had already shifted to some other contents of the box. An old radio. A dog leash. And his braguinha.

  “Was that your guitar?” Aurora whispered.

  “Where did you get this?” Frankie asked the woman.

  “A man bring. Long time ago. He say leave in house if family come to get. No family come.”

  “Which man?”

  She wiggled her fingers, searching for the word in English, then gave up.

  “El hombre del cementerio.”

  “What did she say?” Aurora asked.

  “The man from the cemetery,” Frankie said.

  Music has long been a part of your death rituals. Requiem masses. Hymns. A bugler blowing “Taps.” As a talent, I cannot grieve. But you certainly grieve through me. Your most passionate compositions are often inspired by loss.

  The requiem for Baffa Rubio arrived late, in the form of his adopted son, Francisco, who wandered through the Cementerio Municipal, searching crypts for a name. It was not a place you
ng Frankie had ever visited. During his childhood, the Franco forces would pull citizens from their homes and line them up against the cemetery’s exterior walls, then shoot them dead. Many of them carried pieces of my talent, and were buried with their songs unsung. Their bones fill an anonymous tomb, and bullet holes in the walls are their only markers.

  Baffa had kept his son away from such a place. But now, inside it, Frankie searched for Baffa’s name, walking past burial vaults stacked four high, some marked by images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary, others boasting fresh flowers. He found nothing. No record of a Rubio. And no one could recall who might have delivered a box of his possessions to the house on Calvario Street. Too many years had passed. All clues had vanished. The son was left wondering, once again, where his papa could be.

  Aurora and Kai had waited outside, to allow Frankie his private discovery. When he emerged, as vacant as he had entered, he saw them sitting on a bench in the sunshine, little Kai clinging to his old record album. He tried to imagine what Baffa must have thought when he first saw that disc. Did he discover it in a store? Did someone give it to him? Did he wonder why Frankie’s name had been changed? Why he never got in touch? Did Baffa listen to the music? Could he hear inside the slick production the voice of a boy who once sang in his garden?

  Frankie grew dizzy from the breadth of it all and leaned back against the cemetery’s wall. When he touched it, he felt a sudden rush of horrible memories, as if those bullet holes were screaming a thousand silent stories into his soul. One of them, he sensed, belonged to Baffa.

  He jerked away.

  “Francisco?” Aurora said, seeing him. “Are you all right?”

  He staggered forward, embraced her, and held her for a full minute. He saw Kai staring up at him lovingly, the record album leaned against her mouth. He realized, at that moment, that this little girl was not his flesh and blood, yet the way she looked at him was the way he once looked at Baffa Rubio, wide-­eyed, trusting, loving, secure. He also realized that, had it not been for the fat sardine maker, Frankie might have never heard music, never learned guitar, never known the hairless dog, or been in the woods to meet Aurora—­and if that had never happened, there would be no little girl right now, holding his album and squinting in the sun.