Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

If it wasn’t my best work of the tour, it was close to it. But about halfway through, I realized for the first time that every single one of my songs makes me sound like a real loser. In all of them I’m either asking a girl if she likes me or sad that a girl turned me down. Even on “Summa Fling,” it’s a fling because the girl wants it that way, not me, and she dumps me at the end when school starts. It’s never me telling a girl I can’t be with her anymore or saying I’m sorry for breaking up with her. I guess most songs are like that, and it helps craft my one-girl image for my fans, but still, it’d be nice if in one song I sounded like a cool guy who was fighting off girls and kept moving on to the next one. That’s what every song is like in Mi$ter $mith’s library. I didn’t want my father to go from thinking his son was this famous singer at the beginning to a lame whiner whose songs were all about girls telling me I got served.

I was getting near the end of the show and I had no clue, even if he was there, how I’d be able to meet him. Just saying “Al” again wouldn’t work, because there was no way he’d have gotten a front-row seat at the Garden. It was such a stupid idea, emailing him. It could’ve been a child predator who made a fake ID on his computer, or anyone else faking it, and if it was my father, we could be breaking the law by writing to each other. And it was all Jane’s fault. If she’d let him see me, or even talk to me, I wouldn’t have to do it this way. I could just meet him, like taking a regular business meeting.

Then I knew how to do it. It would mean Jane would figure out I’d been in contact with him, but it was the only way. And I realized I didn’t even care anymore if she knew. Stacy wouldn’t like it, either, but who gives a fuck. I was just another client to her.

When it was time for the final medley, right before I stepped in the heart-shaped swing to sing “U R Kewt,” I ignored the interlude banter I was supposed to say as the swing descended. “I’m looking for someone,” I said, which was a mistake, because a line in “Summa Fling” is “I’m looking for someone, someone I can crush on,” so the crowd sang, “Someone I can crush on!” even though I already sang “Summa Fling” earlier in the show. But crowds love repetition, the way really young kids do.

“No, seriously, I am,” I said. “I’m looking for Albert Valentino. If your name is Al Valentino, please show your ID to security and come onstage.”

Everyone in the Garden started talking and looking around. Not everyone would know or piece together that Al Valentino was my father’s name, so that was a smart move. Except Jane would be pissed. If my father was there, he could get onstage at least while I sang the medley.

I scanned for him, but it was too dark and the lights were all on me. The swing lifted me up and I had to focus. I got through “U R Kewt,” but I kept worrying that if my father was trying to get up onstage, Jane would intercept him. Or if he was there, I bet he was in the cheap seats and it would take him forever even to reach the floor.

So after “U R Kewt,” to buy some more time and to make sure the security people knew what to do, I forced an interlude, which I’m not supposed to do to keep the momentum going, and said again that security should let a guy named Al Valentino onstage. I sang “Roses for Rosie,” and I threw all the petals down. Some of them could have been falling on my father’s head as he walked toward the stage.

There was still no sign that he was coming when I finished it. I switched to “Guys vs. Girls,” and I was looking down the whole time to see if anyone was coming up onstage. No one was, not even any impostors pretending they were named Al Valentino, though there weren’t many guys at the show anyway, and the ones who were were probably child predators and the last thing they’d want to do is offer themselves up to security. I got annoyed, which constricts your vocal cords, that he’d made me all worked up for this and hadn’t figured out a way for us to meet. I was eleven years old, it shouldn’t have been up to me and I definitely shouldn’t have had to interrupt the biggest concert of my career, he should’ve just called Jane and worked it out with her instead of making me sneak around on computers.

The swing set me down with no sign of my father. The dancers and singers and I took our bows, but instead of going offstage with them before coming back for my encore, I stayed where I was and let them go, because I didn’t want to run into Jane. “I’m gonna sing an a cappella song to y’all,” I told the crowd, even though the set list called for me to do “Love Is Evol” and “Kali Kool” as encores, so that the band wasn’t with me and I could sing as long as I wanted in case he showed up. I launched the first verse of “Crushed”:

Like an empty can of pop

Like snow and sleet and slush

Girl, with you I can’t stop

From feeling like I’m crushed

And when I was about to switch to the chorus, four security guys walked as a group in the darkness of the stands toward the stage. They got closer, and I waited a few seconds as they came down an aisle, but I couldn’t make anything out. My breathing and heartbeat sped up, which was bad since this song had slow pacing and I could feel myself rushing the lyrics. I sang the chorus:

I got a crush on you, it ain’t funny

Got a crush on you, under your pinkie

You do what you want, girl, it’s plain to see

I’m not on your mind, but you’re crushing me

People think good singers are just born with strong pipes, but the best singers are creative interpreters, too. Like with the last line of the chorus, I emphasize the hard c in crushing, like ka- rushing, so it’s like the pain when you first get hurt, then I soften and draw out and deamplify the rest of the word, ruuusssshing, like, This is what’s left of me, this gooey inside that you’ve beaten up, and so I whisper me where you can’t hardly hear it, because you’ve destroyed me and you probably don’t even think about me anymore.

By the time I finished it, they were at the base of the floor, where all the other security guys were lined up, and one of the four new guys discussed something with one of the guards who was lined up. There was a person in the middle of them, and just enough light from the stage that I could make out the purple bags under his eyes. Our purple bags.

I stopped singing. “Let him come up,” I said into the mike.

My father’s face was still in the shadows. One of the guards put his hands on his back and walked him around the stage to the little stairs and past a set of security guys, over to my elevated stage and through another line of security, up a last short flight of stairs, and finally over to me. The Garden has top-shelf security.

“I have to stay here between you,” the guard said to me. I nodded. I don’t think I could have spoken right then if I’d tried.

The crowd was talking now, and I was in danger of losing them if I didn’t sing again soon. But I couldn’t do it yet. I had to look at the guy standing four feet away on the other side of the security guard.

He was better-looking than he was in his driver’s license, which most people are. His chestnut hair was thin but he had all of it, which was good for me even though Jane says what matters most is what her father had, and he went bald young, so we’ll explore medication for me eventually. And he dressed kind of cool, with these beat-up black boots and a brown leather jacket that was sort of like Zack’s except more rugged and warmer and not as stylish. He looked like someone who could hitchhike anywhere and be fine.