Tara Ison - Rockaway

But Do it for your mother, Sarah , her father says, She needs this right now, do it for her , and so of course she did, of course she does, give her mother her birthday, and it’s a day spent holding her breath among her friends’ ice-cream-drunk giggles and balloon-twist hats, waiting for the awful thing, her mother laughing too loudly too festive too grim, her father clapping his hands too hard with forced gaiety, clap clap clap. She sees her mother pouring vodka into her Tab from a purse-sized plastic bottle meant to hold Jean Naté body splash, she sees her father see it, sees her father’s face tightening darkening, wait it’s coming, yes, her mother’s laughter turning slack and weepy, there it is, her mother’s hands shaking as she carries in the bright-iced cake, everyone singing the inharmonious “Happy Birthday” too loud, ice cream parlor bells and whistles, her mother shaking, stumbling, the cake sliding, dropping to break and smash on the floor.

Gasps, wails, mock-clapping, awkward laughter. She sees her father tipping into the release of anger, grabbing her mother, his grip brutal on her arm, Sarah, come help me, come here! , but which of them even said that at that moment, which of them was pleading Sarah, do something, come help , demanding her to help clean it all up, to make everything all right? She won’t do it, no, is looking down, away from her parents, her mortified friends, she is studying all those pink plastic mermaids hanging from glass mugs, the chartreuse monkeys hooked from their skinny plastic tails, and she hates her crying slumping mother, her raging father, hates candles and cakes, hates her little brother for dying, hates her pretty friend from school with the prettiest curly hair, Emily, hates her for her pretty look of pity and the well-packed nutritious lunches she brings to school. She hates herself for having a birthday. She grips a tiny acid-pink mermaid in her fist, feels a tiny plastic arm snap off like a wishbone, and, later that night, when the day is over with and done and cleaned up and never again please be forgotten forever, in the quiet of her bedroom she sits on her bed, presses the pink plastic bone edge of a mermaid arm against the skin of her thigh, deeper, feels the quick hot pierce, begins to carve S , then AR, AH into her flesh, each bleeding letter in happy bright red focus, she is here, yes, she is here, she is here.

A surge of applause startles her; she looks up to see Russell the DJ leap onstage to embrace Marty, and the two guys quip with each other, Yeah, we go back, huh? I’ll tell you folks, I knew this guy when. . A perm’d, fleshy woman in her late forties begins yelling out requests. The sheepdog guy hoots. Marty and Tony and Frankie and Sammy laugh, bobbing their heads, waving, then Marty starts to sing, the other Satellites backing him on keyboard and bass, their voices in support of his. And Sarah blinks because she sees it, suddenly, sees the music of their voices like pure white light through a prism, split into all the colors of sound.

Harmony, she thinks, oh . I get it now. Marty sings the ruling color, intense, dominant, red purple, maybe, an ultramarine mixed with alizarin crimson, and Tony, Frankie, Sammy sing the complements, they’re yellow orange, yellow green, blue green, the perfect meld to balance, texture, highlight each other, all the hues swirling together, the relationship of note to note, that’s what music is, we should have been listening to music in all those art classes, trying to grasp color, refraction, translucence, perspective, the illusion of depth, and, okay, you know what, Sarah? You have had a lot to drink. No wonder this is so bearable.

She unbites the cup and breathes, tries to just listen and know the harmony is a stable, tangible thing. It isn’t going to go away or suddenly clash, she can trust it, hold on. She breathes, peaceful and wildly relieved, watching music. The jacket over her left shoulder floats up a smell of oil-rich leather, and citrus with a touch of salt; she slides her arms into the sleeves and pulls it around her, warm as a sun-hot towel, a palm of coconut lotion. She tucks her nose in the collar, huddles like a crustacean. She resists the urge to wave at Marty, up above onstage.

“Having fun?” Russell the DJ is standing next to her.

“Oh, sure,” she says. “This is completely great.” I love these guys, she thinks. These old guys singing in their little black fedoras and shades are good, this is a completely charming thing. This is so sweet. She smiles happily at Russell. “I never heard them before this.”

“No? Never?” he says, surprised.

Oh, right, she reminds herself. I’m the girl with the band. She laughs to herself; she has never, ever, this she knows, been the type of girl to be the girl with the band.

“Well, I’ll tell you, they’re the best, these guys. Never made the charts or anything, you know, but they’re the real thing. Look at this crowd. They’re all in love. I see some of these people all the time, they follow these guys around to every gig.” His voice layers over the music like glaze.

“That’s nice.” She swallows what’s left in her cup.

“And that one, he’s my boy. Marty,” Russell nods enthusiastically. “We go back a long time.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, I’ll tell you, you should’ve seen that one twenty years ago. Gorgeous.”

“Really?” she says. “Him?” She wishes, suddenly, that she had bought the album of his they’d found that day on the street. She wishes she’d looked more closely at it.

“Sure. That wild hair, and the voice, and that face. Look at that face. He’s beautiful.”

She watches Marty a moment, trying to superimpose that older, younger image. No, he’s just some shlubby old singing guy, she thinks. Who shoves the Torah at me and davens and eats green onion stalks like pretzel sticks and whom I can’t figure any angle of, I can’t fit into any frame. She watches him standing out in front of the others, singing, with his beautiful hands up, caressing the air, looking ardent and happy and full of light. Oh, no, she thinks. He is. He is really, really beautiful, and you’re all caught up and ridiculous and hearing colors like some strung-out groupie, and now it is too late, something has started, has begun.

The sheepdog guy keeps hooting. She wonders if he’s a normal, enthused fan, or beyond that. Beyond actual . If he’s really deranged, unhinged, lost, and there’s a shotgun sewn into the big stuffed dog, rounds of ammo tucked inside his commemorative Marty Zale T-shirt. If maybe he’s just waiting for the perfect, musical, vulnerable moment to snap and start spraying, to turn on her, take her out, obliterate and make everything end right now. She can’t decide which way she’d like it to go.

SHE WAITS FOR him in the car, still wearing his jacket, watching him finish up autographs for the lingering fans. He glances up, sees her, waves. She waves back. Take your time , she mouths. But he says his good-byes, bear-hugs Russell, and hurries over.

“So?” he says, climbing into the driver’s seat next to her.

“So?” she asks, smiling. He glances at her a little too casually, as if to say her reaction warrants a polite inquiry but doesn’t really matter all that much. “So, that was great,” she says, laughing, nodding. “You guys were really great.”

“That was good, right?”

“Yeah. I’m. . I have to say, I’m surprised. It’s another whole different side of you. Like a glimpse into your soul.”

“Yeah?”

“I really enjoyed it.”