The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

  Frankie stopped.

  “Qué canción es esa?” Baffa asked.

  Suddenly the door opened. A tall man with dark sunglasses, thick stubble, unkempt dark hair, and a sleeveless undershirt with a large coffee stain over the belly was gripping the doorframe like a guard.

  “It is called ‘Lágrima,’ ” he said. “By Francisco Tárrega.”

  He lowered his chin in the direction of the boy.

  “He does not sound seven.”

  Darlene Love

  Singer, solo artist, member of the Blossoms, the Crystals; inductee, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

  YOU SEE THIS PICTURE? THAT’S ME AND FRANKIE AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL. I kept it all these years. Silly, isn’t it? But when you’re that age and love hits you, you want to keep every little thing, every ticket stub, every flower petal, every kewpie doll you win at the arcade, whatever makes you think of it, you know?

  I was just eighteen, still in high school, and completely new to the music business. I was singing with some girls from my church choir and we’d won a contest to back up Nat King Cole during his Hollywood Bowl performance. It was our first time singing in a place like that, and even the drive up through those fine neighborhoods was an eye-­opener. We didn’t know ­people could live in houses that big!

  Backstage, while we were waiting, that’s where I met Frankie. The girls and I were laughing, we were so nervous, we’d shush each other and then we’d laugh and shush again. And suddenly, from the next dressing room over, I heard a man laughing and shushing, too—­imitating us, you know? And that made us laugh harder. His voice sounded young but deep, and even laughing, it was sexy. I yelled, “Who’s there?” And he yelled, “Frankie,” and we giggled and my girlfriend said, “Frankie who?” And the door opened, right on cue, and he stepped in and said, “Presto.”

  And I lost my breath.

  I had never seen a boy like that. None of us had. Not in our neighborhood. Those dark eyebrows, those baby blues, that sweep of hair that was as close to black as I’ve ever seen.

  “Presto?” My girlfriend laughed. “Like the magic?”

  “Presto, like the magic,” he said, and she stopped laughing. I mean, that boy froze you in your tracks. He was wearing this bright yellow sports coat and a black shirt and pants and he said he was one of the opening acts, he was supposed to sing one song, because the record company had put him on at the last minute—­I think it was Capitol, the same label Nat King Cole worked for. I said he looked a lot like Elvis, and he looked down and said, “There is only one Elvis,” and someone said it was too bad Elvis had to go in the army.

  Then a photographer came by to take our picture and Frankie went to leave but all of us girls said, no, don’t go, take a picture with us, and I got one by myself and here it is. I still have it, all these years later. I didn’t know he would become a star, but I had a sense he was going to be special. Sometimes you can just tell.

  After the show was over, we were driving back along Hollywood Boulevard, and my girlfriend pointed out the window and said, “That’s him! That dreamy singer!” And sure enough, Frankie was walking all by himself, holding a guitar case in one hand and his yellow sports coat in the other. We rolled down the window and yelled, “Where are you going?”

  “To the ocean,” he said.

  “You’re walking?”

  “Yes.”

  And we laughed again because he was a long way from the ocean. I said to our chaperone, “Can we drive him? We know him.” And the chaperone said all right, and Frankie got in.

  It was Saturday night and the weather was good and we drove to the Santa Monica Pier and promised the chaperone we’d be back in half an hour. Of course we weren’t. There were parties on the beach, small bonfires and teens playing radios and dancing and making out. We ran into some kids we knew and the other girls went to sit with them and Frankie and I wound up alone, walking on the sand. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. We were both barefoot and he had his pants rolled up and every time the waves reached our feet I jumped back, but he stood dead still.

  “The ocean’s so big,” I said, something silly like that. And he said, “I sailed across it once.” And I said, “This ocean?” And he said, “Another one.” I asked where he came from and he said, “A lot of places.” I asked where his parents lived and he said, “They’re gone.”

  All this time, by the way, he was carrying his guitar case. He wouldn’t let it go. He hadn’t played it at the Hollywood Bowl, he’d just sung with a band, so I teased him and said, “Do you only carry a guitar to impress girls?” And he smiled (Lord, those teeth!) and said, “No.”

  And that’s how I got my own private Frankie Presto concert, in the sand by the Santa Monica Pier.

  To this day, I will never forget it. He put the guitar over his knee, and he turned his ear to the ocean. “Listen,” he said. I could see lights from a faraway ship, way out there, but Frankie had his eyes closed. And he began to tap, real softly, once, then twice, and I realized he was finding the beat of the waves.

  And then he played a song. I thought he’d play some rock and roll—­everyone who had a guitar played rock and roll back then—­but it was a classical piece. Slow, delicate, played up high on the strings. And when he finished, I was crying. I’d never heard anything that beautiful. I asked what the song was called and he said, “ ‘Träumerei,’ ” and I asked who wrote it and he said, “Schumann,” and he saw my tears and—­I know this sounds strange—­he said, “Don’t cry, you’re a great singer.” And I kind of burst out laughing.

  “How would you know that?” I said.

  “I heard you.”

  “We were singing in a choir.”

  But he said he could hear a voice within voices, and mine was beautiful, and I could be a famous singer one day.

  Well. I was wondering what to do with my life at that point, should I pursue music, should I just finish high school and find a job? And what he said was exactly what I needed to hear. It gave me the confidence to keep singing.

  We looked at each other, all goofy. And I bet you think we kissed, because that’s how these little moments go. But I never kissed Frankie. I thought about it. I wanted to. But he hooked his arm around my arm and I leaned my head against his shoulder and we sat like that, kind of intertwined, with the waves crashing, and honestly, for that night, it was perfect. I felt so relaxed and so safe, like I’d known him all my life. I was totally, head over heels in love with him.

  And with music.

  We promised to stay in touch and I gave him my phone number and when I got home—­after my mom and dad let me have it—­I shut the door to my room and I wrote in my diary, “Today I met the boy I’m going to marry,” which, a few years later, was actually the name of one of my biggest hits. When the songwriters first showed the lyrics to me, I smiled inside because I knew I was meant to sing it.

  Of course I didn’t marry Frankie. I didn’t see him again for forty years. But when I heard he died, everything came rushing back. That’s why I’m here, I suppose. You’re never in love with anyone the way you are when you’re eighteen, on a beach, at night, with your shoes off.

  I still can’t believe he’s gone.

  6

  AH, LOVE AND FRANKIE PRESTO. PERHAPS LATER I WILL EXPLAIN WHY WOMEN ALWAYS FELL FOR HIM. (Or were they falling for me?) But right now our story has reached a critical moment.

  In every artist’s life, there comes a person who lifts the curtain on creativity. It is the closest you come to seeing me again.

  The first time, when you emerge from the womb, I am a brilliant color in the rainbow of human talents from which you choose. Later, when a special someone lifts the curtain, you feel that chosen talent stirring inside you, a bursting passion to sing, paint, dance, bang on drums.

  And you are never the same.

  It was a blind guitar player who did this for Frankie on a Su
nday afternoon in the kitchen of the small flat on Crista Senegal Street, while Baffa and the hairless dog waited in the laundry downstairs.

  “Set two chairs across from each other,” the blind man said that day. His sleeveless undershirt hung loose over his dirty tan trousers, and he did not wear shoes.

  “Now what, teacher?” Frankie asked.

  “Are you ready for your first lesson?”

  “Yes, teacher.”

  “Good. Learn how to light a cigarette.”

  The man pulled a crumpled pack from his pocket. His fingers found a single cigarette and he put it in his mouth. Then he took out a silver lighter and flicked it open. A flame appeared.

  “You see what I did, boy?”

  “Yes, teacher.”

  “You do it.”

  Frankie took the lighter nervously. Baffa had told him to never go near fire. But he’d also said to do whatever this man told him to do.

  “Go ahead, boy.”

  Frankie snapped the lighter open.

  “Is there fire?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now take the cigarette and light this end for two seconds. . . . One, two . . . then shut it.”

  Frankie did as told, then snapped the lighter shut. It fell to the floor.

  “Give me the cigarette,” the man said.

  Frankie gave him the cigarette.

  “Pick up the lighter.”

  Frankie picked up the lighter.

  “Congratulations. You have passed your first lesson.”

  “Thank you, teacher.”

  “Now what do I call you?”

  “Francisco.”

  “Francisco.” He grasped for the chair, steadying himself as he sat down. “Like our great Francisco Tárrega, whose music you were singing.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “What? Stupid child!”

  He rapped his hand along the kitchen table until he found an open bottle. He gulped a mouthful, and slammed it down.

  “Why are you singing his music if you can’t say his name?”

  “I don’t know—­”

  “Again, stupid boy! Did the song write itself?”

  “No—”

  “Did it fall from the sky?”

  “No—”

  “No. That is right. It did not fall from the sky.”

  He snuffed out his cigarette on the kitchen table (which was full of burn marks from previous cigarettes) then reached to find his guitar in its stand, nearly knocking it over. Frankie felt badly for this man, flailing around for everything. He wondered why he wore dark glasses if he could not see.

  “Listen, now, very carefully,” the man insisted, hunching over the instrument, lifting its neck, placing his fingers by the frets. “Listen to the great Francisco Tárrega.”

  He took a deep breath.

  And began to play.

  The song, of course, was “Lágrima,” the same one Frankie had sung by the door. The blind man played it passionately, with great care, pausing for emphasis, shaking his head at certain notes as if absorbing their smell. Frankie stared at the fingers moving deftly up and down the neck of the guitar. He heard the sweet, warm tones of the strings, the way the high notes seemed to blow gently across the lower ones, the way it sometimes sounded as if two ­people were playing at once. His mouth fell open slightly.

  The blind man finished.

  “Now, tell me, boy. Does that composer deserve to have his name remembered?”

  Suddenly, he felt two small arms hugging his neck. Frankie was resting his head on the man’s shoulder, the way he once rested against his mother. Hearing “Lágrima” had lifted a curtain not only on Frankie’s future, but on his past.

  “Get off me,” the blind man grumbled. Frankie hugged tighter. The teacher could smell the scent of soap in his hair.

  “Look, boy, I am sorry I yelled. But you cannot go forward without knowing your history. Do you understand?”

  “Sí,” Frankie whispered.

  “Learn the names of musicians you would study.”

  “Sí.”

  “Say ‘Tárrega.’ ”

  “Tár-­re-­ga.”

  “He was a Francisco, like you.”

  “Francisco.”

  “How do you know that song, ‘Lágrima’?”

  “I just know it.”

  “Did your papa teach you?”

  “No.”

  “Your mama?”

  “I don’t have a mama.”

  The blind man swallowed. His own story was rising in his throat.

  “I am sorry to hear that.”

  “Can you see anything?” Frankie asked.

  “No,” the man replied.

  “How come?”

  “I just can’t.”

  “Sometimes my eyes hurt.”

  “My eyes do not hurt.”

  “I rub them a lot.”

  “My eyes do not hurt. I am blind. That is all.”

  “Are you Francisco, too?”

  “No.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Get off me now.”

  The child pushed back and touched the man’s face below his dark glasses. It was wet with tears. He returned to his chair as the man wiped his cheek with his palm, then fumbled again for the bottle.

  “You will call me El Maestro,” he said.

  7

  TALENT IS A PIECE OF GOD’S SHADOW. AND UNDER THAT SHADOW, HUMAN STORIES INTERSECT.

  Young Francisco Presto shared a story with another Francisco—­Tárrega, the great Spanish guitarist born in this very town back in 1852. There is a street named for him just behind this church, and two statues honoring him, one depicting him sitting in a chair, guitar on his knee, fingers ready to play. Children in Villareal run around that statue and grab at Tárrega’s bronze feet.

  Like Frankie, Tárrega took a fat handful of me upon entering your world. Like Frankie, he was mistreated by a caretaker early in his life—­a nanny, from whom he ran away, landing in a drainage ditch and injuring his eyes. And like Frankie, he came to the guitar because his father thought he could earn a living should blindness overtake him.

  As a child, Tárrega lived in a convent adjacent to the church, where his parents served the nuns. Perhaps they envisioned a similar life for their son. But once the boy became infatuated with me, he (naturally) thought of nothing else. He ran away to Barcelona, where he attempted to play in taverns until someone returned him to his father. He was only ten years old.

  He ran away again, a few years later, to Valencia, where he made music in the street with gypsies. Again, someone returned him to Villareal.

  A few years later, he ran away once more.

  His wandering would affect his music. Tárrega—­who eventually became famous and in demand all over Europe—­found himself in London once, alone and depressed. He missed the sunshine of his country. Someone encouraged him to capture his sadness in music, so he wrote a composition that embodied his yearning.

  That composition was “Lágrima”—­“Teardrop”—­the beautiful melody hummed in Frankie’s ear in the church chamber, the one that kept him from crying, the one that, in truth, saved his life. It was a favorite of Frankie’s real mother, Carmencita, because, like others raised in Villa­real, she knew the music of her city’s most famous son.

  So did El Maestro, the blind teacher in the sleeveless undershirt, who played Frankie many Tárrega compositions. This is how talents weave from generation to generation, how the shadow stretches, and how an artist born nearly a hundred years earlier begins to fill the soul of a child who shares his name.

  For the longest time, by the way, that was all El Maestro did during their lessons. Play. Frankie sat in a kitchen chair, mesmerized, absorbing every note, watching the man’s fingers and won
dering if his eyes were open or closed behind those dark glasses. After every song the man would smoke or drink from a bottle of red wine or the cheap but higher-­alcohol aguardiente (“burning water”). When at last he’d drop his head back and lower his arms, Frankie would rise from the chair.

  “Good-­bye, Maestro.”

  “Yes, yes, good-­bye.”

  Frankie would walk downstairs to find Baffa and the hairless dog and they would go home together, no sheet music, no assignments.

  No guitar.

  “Señor,” Baffa asked El Maestro one day, “why is the boy not playing the instrument?”

  “Go sit in the laundry,” El Maestro growled.

  Two weeks later, Baffa asked again.

  “Señor, shouldn’t the child be playing by now?”

  “Go away. Your dog smells.”

  Baffa dared not get angry, for he had great respect for an artist’s talent, something that always endeared the fat sardine maker to me. But he was persistent. Two weeks later, he brought Frankie to the door and raised the issue again.

  “Señor, I must insist—­”

  “No, you mustn’t.”

  “But I am paying for lessons.”

  “Do you want an artist or a monkey?”

  Frankie felt himself smiling. A monkey.

  “Of course, señor, I want an artist, but—­”

  “Then stop talking. I am getting a headache.” He scratched under his armpit. “Do you have my money?”

  Baffa sighed. “Yes.”

  Frankie watched Baffa hand him some bills, which El Maestro stuffed into his pants pocket with his cigarettes.

  “You cannot write if you do not read,” the blind man said. “You cannot eat if you do not chew. And you cannot play if you do not”—­he grabbed for the boy’s hand—­“listen.”

  He yanked Frankie inside and slammed the door.

  8