Read Online Equal Affections by David Leavitt - Free Book Online Page B

Joey did something called “Talking Blues.” This meant that someone in the audience would shout out a topic, and Joey would sing about it. Usually the topics were political. “Governor Reagan!” someone shouted, and Joey strummed his guitar and sang:
    â€œGonna sing you a song ‘bout Gov’nor Ron,
He’s got ice cream in his head,
He’s got a wife named Nancy who dresses fancy,
And he wears his cowboy hat to bed!”
    The game thrilled Danny. Song, it seemed, could be born from anything, any topic, any word. All one had to do was speak it, and Joey, like an old-fashioned magic lantern, would grant the wish. “Turkey!” Danny shouted. “Pizza! Bowling!” By this time Joey was getting annoyed. “Whipped cream!” Danny said, and a mischievous look came over Joey’s face.
    â€œI wonder what erotic dreams
This young boy has about whipped cream!”
    As intended, this shut Danny up for the rest of the evening. He cowered between Phyllis and Paula and tried to avoid looking at Joey, who was now singing some dreadful love song he’d written called “When You Lay Me, Baby.” He hated Joey now, but he was determined to sit through his set, if only for April’s sake.
    And finally—remarkably, thrillingly late, it seemed (and yet his parents had given him permission, for the first time, to stay out as long as he wanted)—it was April’s turn. She strode onto the stage with what would later be called by reviewers “her characteristic performing confidence.” Danny was entranced. Here was his sister, with whom he had grown up sharing a bathroom, and she was on a stage, a famous singer. She had long blond hair brushed over her shoulders and was wearing a peasant skirt and an Indian blouse with dozens of little mirrors sewn into it. “Thanks,” she said to the audience, taking the guitar in hand. “I’m real happy to be here tonight with Conway’s Garage.”
    After finishing four or five of Joey’s awful songs—but were they awful, Danny asked himself sometimes now, or had he simply allowed April’s accounting of these events to influence his own memory?—April said, “And now I’d like to sing a song in sympathy with the people of Cambodia and Vietnam, which Joey and I wrote together. It’s called ‘No More Vietnams.’ And if you please, I’d like everyone to join in on the chorus.”
    She picked up her guitar; the lights faded to a crescent, surrounding her in darkness. Conway’s Garage disappeared; this was April’s moment; no accompaniment but her own would be necessary.
    She sang. It was the sort: of song that protest singers dream of writing—so vivid in its compassion, so powerful in its fury, that hearing it, Danny wondered how people could not be moved to change their lives. The song called for change. “Change!” April sang.
    â€œWill we never learn?
I am too young to watch young flesh being burned.
Well, as long as I’ve a voice to sing, I’ll cry out to the world,
I want no more Vietnams!
(Come on, everybody!)
I want no more Vietnams!”
    It seemed to Danny that night that hearing April sing, no human being could possibly keep from seeing the light of left-wing ideology.Not even Roger Krauss. Not even Roger Krauss’s father. Sitting there in the front row, he fantasized somehow sneaking April’s song over the public-address system at the National Rifle Association. How, after hearing it, could those men not be compelled to lay down their guns and join in?
    April finished with a triumphant bow. The audience was on its feet in seconds. And then, when the applause was at its peak, Danny noticed Joey standing in the background, on the little stage. He was smiling tightly, as if he were trying to keep from hiccuping. Danny could tell from his expression that April was simply being kind when she said Joey had cowritten that song