For Mike Patterakis, director of the Peterson High School Men’s
Glee, and for Erica “Jan” Errico, high priestess of the Creekside
Inn karaoke bar.
With thanks to Brian Turner, for giving me the insider’s view.
The Title: “Outro” is the term used to describe the point in a
karaoke song when the singing is over, but the music plays on.
Cover Photo: Warmth, by Paula Grenside.
Chapter One, Part I
Channy
Traditionally, when someone leaves my hometown, there’s drama. Big family arguments, occasional fistfights, two or three stabbings. I was the exception. We weren’t the closest of families, but my folks were elated that I had gotten through school without the common surrender to boredom and drugs. The reason for my success was largely a mystery. Whether instilled or innate, I possessed an iron sense of self-worth, and a horse-trader’s notion that I could swap the mediocrities of today for the glories of tomorrow. Once graduation arrived, a journey Outside (which is what Alaskans call anywhere not in Alaska) was seen by all as my just reward.
Because of my patience and choosiness – and the slapping away of several pairs of hands belonging to drooling jock lotharios – I earned a reputation as a prude. The few times I did give away the goodies, this served to elevate the pleasure and surprise of my happy recipients. Surprise was a natural reaction, anyway, because my candidates were not on the roster of Boys Who Get Laid. He had to be nice, he had to be someone I could control, and he absolutely had to use a condom, because my autobiography would not be titled Knocked Up in Anchorage. Most importantly, although some attraction was necessary, I didn’t want it to reach the narcotic level – because, the day after graduation, I had a date with the lower 48 (I used this phrase so often that my friends began to sing-song it back to me).
Looking back on my patterns (as more people should do), I realized that most of my boys were musicians. The last was James Kitagawa, who was also the best musician. He was a stocky Japanese boy with a broad Buddha-like face, skin the color of a toasted marshmallow, and a grin that could light up the whole quad.
The highlight of our graduation ceremonies came when the choir sang its commencement song. The song was chosen by a vote of the senior choir members, which always carried an element of suspense. After four years of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Brahms and madrigals, they were usually anxious to do something pop or rock, and I always expected some particularly squirrely class to do something like “Sympathy for the Devil.”
For the class of 2001, the choice seemed obvious: “Beautiful Day” by U2. It had an anthemic quality that seemed naturally choral – like Carmina Burana with guitars – and the hook was celebratory and hopeful. The bonus came in the verses, which contained all these references to being stuck somewhere, aching to get out – muddy roads, small towns. Because really, those were our hopes. Singing them out loud to our parents (knowing that most of it would go right over their heads) was the perfect gratuity to our teenage sense of rebellion.
Problem was, choral arrangements were not exactly on U2’s priority list, so we called on our resident Mozart (in fact, that was his nickname, “Mozart”). James had his own after-school jazz ensemble, so surfing this musical no-man’s land was right up his alley. He already had the basic rock ‘n’ roll lineup – drums, bass, guitar, himself on keyboards, so all he had to do was throw some of The Edge’s ringing guitar explosions to his horn section and then get to work on the vocals.
Bono’s one of those classic double-gear singers who likes to start low and then jump the octave when things get exciting (think Orbison, Isaak, Prince). James gave the low intro to the bass and alti, then handed the chorus sforzando (that’s “sudden forte”) to the tenors and soprani as the lower voices supplied echoing harmonies.
The master stroke arrived with the accelerated lines that Bono sings in the bridge (U2 always has these – they’re masters of construction). James worked these into a counterpoint fugue, like a damn Haydn in leather pants. From there, he built it to a climax by repeating the chorus with verse lines draped over the top, growing in volume and chaos until he cut us off, leaving the horns, drums and guitars to finish it off with three big crunchy chords, so like Don Giovanni that I figured it was James’ private joke, sort of a nickname signature to his high school thesis.
I’m sorry if I go on about this, but being a part of that performance, standing in the alto section in the middle of our football field on a bright spring afternoon, might have been the single event that hooked me on music for good. And I was screwing the arranger.
I almost got all the way through school without meeting him at all. I met him two months before, during Breakup (which refers to the ice in the rivers, not to relationships). I was lollygagging on the senior lawn, where underclassmen are allowed only by express invitation, when two ideas came into glorious collusion in my head: 1) the baseball-like hardness of the oranges that came in our lunch boxes, and 2) the inexplicably deep and dangerous hole that was drilled into the ground at the far end of the lawn. I sprang to my feet, struck a classic bowler’s pose and rolled my orange across the grass. It traveled thirty feet, took a slight left-to-right break, and dropped into the hole with a thud.
James, who was crouched over a chessboard directly behind the “green,” looked up from his bishop just in time to witness the entire thing. When he saw what happened, he jumped to his feet and yelled “Genius! Fucking genius!” Then fell to the lawn and disappeared most of his arm so he could retrieve my orange and roll it back. Thus are Olympic events and friendships born.
James was a classic nerd – all that much cooler because of the way he reveled in it – and extremely surprised, two weeks later, when I added a friendly crotch-rub to our makeout repertoire. I assumed he had heard the stories about Channy the Chaste (also Miss Tightzipper, which, I had to admit, was pretty clever).
“Don’t get me wrong,” I said. “I am picky. But the kind of boy I pick is also the kind of boy who keeps a secret. Am I understood?”
“Small price,” he said, and smiled. I undid his buttonfly and removed my chewing gum.
After commencement, I waited for James at the senior lawn. He arrived in his gown, too rushed by loading his keyboard and accepting praise to bother changing. He strode my way exactly like a man with a freshly inflated ego, grabbed me by the waist and swung me in a circle, then planted me with a kiss. I don’t know if it was good hygiene or natural chemistry, but I could kiss that boy’s mouth for hours, he was like human candy. After a minute, though, he deflated a bit and gave me a sad look.
“You’re absolutely sure.”
“What did I tell you?”
“Yeah – ‘day after graduation.’”
“Don’t say I didn’t give you an expiration date.”
“Let me go with you! I’ll go home and pack right now.”
I kissed him on his broad nose.
“No way. It’s the trip of my life, and it’s strictly solo. Besides, you’ve got a muse to chase.”
“Yes.” He smiled. “And her name is Ann Arbor.”
“Does anyone from here ever go further south? Like, I don’t know – Arizona State?”
“You kiddin’ me? They’d melt!”
I ran a finger along James’ upper lip and finished it with a kiss.
“I see that you still have one punch left on your ticket, Herr Mozart. Is there anywhere you’ve always wanted to…?”
I stopped when my customary crotch-rub landed on something unexpected.
“God, Jimmy! Did you have an operation?”
After a spell of epileptic laughter, Jimmy reached under his gown and pulled out a pair of rock-hard oranges.
“That’s not all,” he said. “I also have the keys to the music room, which I neglected to return after our last rehearsal. I have heard that Mr. Paris’s grand piano is capable of supporting quite a bit of weight.”
“You know, Freud would have a field day with you, Maestro. And so would I.”
That’s the last time I saw him. Late that summer, a landscaper was driving the freeway outside Minneapolis. A rolled-up tarp fell out of his truck. Just behind him, a tow-truck driver pulling a transit bus swerved to miss it and jumped the meridian. James was driving the other direction, on his way to the University of Michigan. He never had a chance. “Beautiful Day” shows up on a song slip about once a month, and I still have a hard time listening.
Next: The Signpost Forest
Purchase the book at: http://www.amazon.com/Outro-Michael-J-Vaughn/dp/1440111405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231020486&sr=8-1
Hear the podcast of this episode at: http://www.gcast.com/user/michaeljvaughn/podcast/main
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