Read Online The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mitch Albom
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this, Baffa told the truth, even if he didn’t realize it. And then, with his head pounding, he shut down the tale.
“No more questions, Francisco.”
“What did she look like?”
“Please.”
“Is this her?”
Frankie held out a photograph. In it, a younger Baffa had his arm around Danza, his sister, a plump woman with light hair and dark lipstick. The picture was from years ago, the last time he had seen her, before she left for Mexico.
“Where did you find that?”
“In the closet.”
“Why were you in the closet?”
“Is this Mama?”
Baffa sighed. “Yes. That is her. No more questions, all right?”
Frankie gazed at the photo. So the plump woman hugging his father was his mother, the saint, who had died in a car crash in a faraway country and was buried in the ground so she could live with God.
He had his story. Years later, inspired by this tale, he would write his first guitar composition, which he called “Lágrimas por Mi Madre.”
“Tears for My Mother.”
Truth is light. Lies are shadows. Music is both.
11
SPEAKING OF ME, YOU HAVE MANY WORDS FOR HOW I SHOULD BE PLAYED . In classical music, most of them are in Italian. Adagio. Moderato. This goes back to what you called the Renaissance, when Italy was at the center of creativity and musicians who went there invented hundreds of phrases for my tempos. Vivace. Andantino. Prestissimo. So far in Frankie’s story, we have been going largo , slowly, or at least larghissimo , as slow as it makes sense. But with the looming funeral service, we must employ accelerando , going faster, perhaps reach adagietto or allegro.
The next three years of Frankie’s life—from the day he stole the phonograph to the day he left Spain in the bottom of a ship—contained the following developments: he grew nine inches, lost six baby teeth, got in four fights at school, took his first Holy Communion, mastered a soccer kick, put pomade in his hair, had a girl plant a kiss on his ear (and run away laughing), learned to ride a bicycle, pray in Latin, and make bocadillos with sausage and olive oil. He wore his first bathing suit, saw his first tank, asked Baffa, constantly, to point out America on a globe, and slept with that photograph of the light-haired woman under his pillow every night, the one he believed to be his mother.
He also practiced his guitar at least three hours a day in the garden, learning more than a hundred songs and serenading the hairless dog with arpeggios and finger drills.
Of his lessons with El Maestro, I can attest that he made extraordinary progress, measured by the fact that his blind teacher actually smiled sometimes when Frankie played. El Maestro even gave up smoking cigarettes, although this may have been due to the time when Frankie, using the lighter, accidentally set fire to a tablecloth, then doused it with wine before his teacher could warn him that alcohol might set the whole place ablaze. (It did not. But such a scare can break a habit.)
Frankie spent more and more time in that flat above the laundry on Crista Senegal Street, learning the proper classical techniques, turning the guitar neck away from his left shoulder, tilting it upward, putting his foot on a stool. El Maestro made him hold an orange in his right hand for hours to simulate the proper setup position for plucking the strings, and he constantly grabbed the boy’s fingers to show him the fleshy part of the thumb and the angle of the nails that would bring out the purest sound. He taught him every inch of the guitar, the piercing high sounds of playing up on the neck, the volume and tone relative to the sound hole, how each string vibrated and could be picked, tapped, plucked, fingered, or strummed.
Frankie also learned to work the phonograph he had stolen from the curb. El Maestro, at first, was furious. He insisted they throw the machine away. (“If the policía shut down the store, what do you think they would do to me, stupid boy?”) But when
“No more questions, Francisco.”
“What did she look like?”
“Please.”
“Is this her?”
Frankie held out a photograph. In it, a younger Baffa had his arm around Danza, his sister, a plump woman with light hair and dark lipstick. The picture was from years ago, the last time he had seen her, before she left for Mexico.
“Where did you find that?”
“In the closet.”
“Why were you in the closet?”
“Is this Mama?”
Baffa sighed. “Yes. That is her. No more questions, all right?”
Frankie gazed at the photo. So the plump woman hugging his father was his mother, the saint, who had died in a car crash in a faraway country and was buried in the ground so she could live with God.
He had his story. Years later, inspired by this tale, he would write his first guitar composition, which he called “Lágrimas por Mi Madre.”
“Tears for My Mother.”
Truth is light. Lies are shadows. Music is both.
11
SPEAKING OF ME, YOU HAVE MANY WORDS FOR HOW I SHOULD BE PLAYED . In classical music, most of them are in Italian. Adagio. Moderato. This goes back to what you called the Renaissance, when Italy was at the center of creativity and musicians who went there invented hundreds of phrases for my tempos. Vivace. Andantino. Prestissimo. So far in Frankie’s story, we have been going largo , slowly, or at least larghissimo , as slow as it makes sense. But with the looming funeral service, we must employ accelerando , going faster, perhaps reach adagietto or allegro.
The next three years of Frankie’s life—from the day he stole the phonograph to the day he left Spain in the bottom of a ship—contained the following developments: he grew nine inches, lost six baby teeth, got in four fights at school, took his first Holy Communion, mastered a soccer kick, put pomade in his hair, had a girl plant a kiss on his ear (and run away laughing), learned to ride a bicycle, pray in Latin, and make bocadillos with sausage and olive oil. He wore his first bathing suit, saw his first tank, asked Baffa, constantly, to point out America on a globe, and slept with that photograph of the light-haired woman under his pillow every night, the one he believed to be his mother.
He also practiced his guitar at least three hours a day in the garden, learning more than a hundred songs and serenading the hairless dog with arpeggios and finger drills.
Of his lessons with El Maestro, I can attest that he made extraordinary progress, measured by the fact that his blind teacher actually smiled sometimes when Frankie played. El Maestro even gave up smoking cigarettes, although this may have been due to the time when Frankie, using the lighter, accidentally set fire to a tablecloth, then doused it with wine before his teacher could warn him that alcohol might set the whole place ablaze. (It did not. But such a scare can break a habit.)
Frankie spent more and more time in that flat above the laundry on Crista Senegal Street, learning the proper classical techniques, turning the guitar neck away from his left shoulder, tilting it upward, putting his foot on a stool. El Maestro made him hold an orange in his right hand for hours to simulate the proper setup position for plucking the strings, and he constantly grabbed the boy’s fingers to show him the fleshy part of the thumb and the angle of the nails that would bring out the purest sound. He taught him every inch of the guitar, the piercing high sounds of playing up on the neck, the volume and tone relative to the sound hole, how each string vibrated and could be picked, tapped, plucked, fingered, or strummed.
Frankie also learned to work the phonograph he had stolen from the curb. El Maestro, at first, was furious. He insisted they throw the machine away. (“If the policía shut down the store, what do you think they would do to me, stupid boy?”) But when
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