There are plenty of things wrong with me, I can make a long list. But there's one thing I can brag about: I have perfect pitch. When the train whistles while lumbering over the bridge near the dry cleaners I work at, I know it's B flat. It's a few cents short, but it's close. When the steam press at my work station lets out a squeal, I know it's F sharp. When the spotter cracks open a new can of perchlorethylene - well, you see how my world of sound works.

I could identify music intervals from a very young age, even before I learned the notes had names. When I was six my uncle bought me a cheap piano, a toy almost, but it was playable. Christmases and birthdays brought instruments that were increasingly less toy-like. But I didn't get a real piano, an upright Yamaha, until I was fifteen. Then I went to town, exhausting The Beatles' catalog. The Yamaha had to be tuned every few months or I went nuts, which worried my mother. But it was the only thing that I acted a fool about, so she spent the twenty bucks each time and I was off her back. She was a nurse, worked a lot of double shifts at D.C. General, and I was often alone.

My father died when I was very young, in a drunken barroom brawl. Ma said that she knew drinking would take him one way or the other, but she didn't figure it would be like that. "Calvin, I don't care what else you do in your life, just don't hit anybody," she said. Over and over. It put the fear of God into me to avoid fighting. Actually, I was a big kid, and she was more afraid of me hurting somebody else than the other way around. So I didn't fight.

Not fighting became a problem early on when kids started picking on me. The style back then in the mid-sixties was tight pants, and Ma sent me to school in oversized corduroys that the wind would flap around my legs as I walked. Kids really gave me a hard time about my pants. It's like they could just smell that I wasn't going to fight back, not even verbally, and they worked on me mercilessly. Even the girls would get their digs in. They howled about my clothes and the weird way I walked. I think it's kind of like when a flock of birds senses that one of them is different - they all drive it off or kill it outright.

I tend to wobble slightly when I walk, always have. I've seen doctors, they found nothing wrong. One even thought it was just a behavior, something that I would grow out of. I have a weird theory about it. I think I wobble because I am wearing the universe as an immense but snug helmet, and it is a tough balancing act. It's a strange concept, I know, but that's how I've come to explain it. There's so much going on up there around my brain. Most of it is musical; some of it is 'the meaning of life' crap. The rest is girls - not much but sadness there.

I did poorly in school and ended up in the work program my senior year. That's how I got the job at the dry cleaners. I didn't have any friends. Not until Lenny Gurvitz happened along. I met him one day when he came to my rescue, walking home from school in the jean jacket I wore year-round. A greaser was leaning against his Mustang and tripped me as I passed. The girls that were with him laughed.

"Oh my God, look at him!" said one of the girls as I fell to the ground. "What a spaz." I tried to get up but the greaser did something very tricky, took my feet out from under me, and I was on the ground again. That's when Lenny Gurvitz came onto the scene. He was short and stocky and wore a brown leather bomber jacket. The back of it had so many scratches on it, it was practically torn to shreds.

Lenny told the greaser to lay off and pretty soon they were going at it, wrestling all over the ground. The greaser got on top of Lenny and was there a good long while. I thought it would just be a matter of time until Lenny said "I give!" and that would be the end of it.

But the strangest thing happened. The greaser passed out and slithered off to Lenny's side. He was out cold. Lenny grabbed the greaser's key ring from his hand. "Lookit this," he said. "The son of a bitch was trying to brass knuckle me." Lenny took the keys and opened up the Mustang's trunk. He pulled the tire iron out from it.

"Oh my God," screamed one of the girls, "he's gonna kill him!" But Lenny merely used the tire iron to pry off the hubcap on one of the Mustang's wheels. Then he put the hubcap on the greaser's head.

"Here ya go, buddy," Lenny said. "Wear this glamour ring like a gorget, and the baby moon can be your coronet. You're the king of hoodlum punks." Again, a girl screamed that the greaser was dead. And I was afraid of the same thing, except he finally started to come around. He got to his feet and flailed feebly at the air. But Lenny and I walked away together from the scene. There would be no more fighting.

"How did you do that?" I asked Lenny. "He was on top of you, I thought he had you beat."

"Jiu-jitsu. My father learned it in Japan and taught it to me. I cut off the blood supply in his neck and he got real nappy."

"That's incredible. Thanks, nobody's ever helped me like that before."

"No problem. I get tired of those greaser punks. They probably got crappy parents that made them that way, but it's no reason you or anyone else should have to suffer for it. I see you coming out of the choir room sometimes. You sing?"

"Madrigals. And I play piano."

"You must be pretty good to make madrigals. I got a guitar, I like singing Dylan songs. I don't have much of a voice but then neither does he."

"You have a voice like a deejay."

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

"I like the Beatles. No, I love the Beatles."

"Can you play 'Martha, my Dear?'"

"Actually, I learned it in a few minutes."

"You learned 'Martha, My Dear' in a few minutes?"

"Yeah." We ended up walking to my house and I played "Martha, My Dear" for him and sang, too. I could tell he was pretty impressed. Then we watched some TV together and we liked all the same shows. Ma only left enough dinner for one, so he went home because he was hungry. And that was it. I didn't see him again for a few years. I got my job at the cleaners and took a D.C. Transit bus to it every day.

I graduated and went to full-time at the plant. I wrote songs and dreamed about girls. All those early Beatles songs, I took them so seriously. I hoped one day to hold a girl's hand, dance with her, maybe go steady. This was at a time when most people my age were having sex like no generation before them. But somehow I was borne back to the carnal deprivation of the previous era.

I was alone a lot and it started to work on me. I got obsessed with "#9 Dream." John Lennon really blew my mind with that one. I played it over and over, day and night. Started hallucinating. What was happening to me? I wasn't a drug user. Somehow I was trapped inside a giant lava lamp and my body was stretching, morphing, blending into the blobs. I knew I needed help in a big way. I called an ambulance and had them cart me over to Sibley Memorial's psych ward. That was where I met Lenny Gurvitz again. He still had that scarry, brown leather bomber jacket, he was wearing it indoors. (What is it about mentally ill people and their coats?) He didn't recognize me as he slid onto the couch I was sitting at. It was thinly cushioned, and seemed to have more air in it than anything else.

"How ya doing, name's Lenny Gurvitz. I'm an inpatient of many an infamous house of mentally ill repute. Whattaya in for, schizoid, paranoid, or just plain annoyed?"

"I'm not sure, they're giving me Mellaril. I was seeing things that aren't there."

"Hey, I know you! It's your voice I remember. That soft voice for such a big guy, who could forget it? Lenny Gurvitz, remember me? How's the Mellaril treating you? Run your name by me again, my memory's the pits."

"Cal LeBain. I'm groggy all day. I've never taken anything but aspirin my whole life until now."

"Welcome to the wonderful world of phenothiazines. I was on them until they figured out I was manic-depressive.

"Well, I don't seem to be hallucinating anymore. I just want to get out of here and get home."

"Yeah, I'd like to get out of here, too. They put me away for talking to people at the library. I knew they were big on things being quiet there, but I never knew they'd put a guy away for striking up a conversation or three. Okay, the truth is they called the fuzz on me and I got a little rough with them. But I was feeling fine. I still feel fine."

"If you feel fine, why are you here?"

"Shrinks don't want manic-depressives to feel too good. They're trying to even me out. But if they go too far in the other direction, take me too low, I will end up depressed. And then, Lord have mercy, hide all the cutlery and the bedsheets. I will not want to be in this world. Look, if we both get out of this place relatively intact, let's record. I've got some gear and a bunch of songs I just need to write down instead of keeping them bouncing around in my head.

"Have you heard '#9 Dream'?"

"Yeah, sure."

"That's what put me in here. I played it over and over and the next thing you know, I was seeing stuff. Weird stuff."

"You were tripping naturally, man."

"It...it took me over. It wasn't fun."

"Just stay on your meds, man. That's my problem, I don't want to stay on my meds. I embrace the mania. Let me tell you something, you might laugh at me. It's about music. You know who really gets me off, man? Don't laugh. Burt Bacharach."

"I'm not laughing."

"He's so unhip, but damned is he melodic. That's what I dig about him. He studied under a very famous composer, Darius Milhaud. French guy. Milhaud told him, 'Never be ashamed to be melodic.' And he lived by that, wrote by that. There's a guy who plays piano at a bar near here, I want to take you to meet him. He does Bacharach, rat pack stuff, he's great."

"Well, sounds good if we ever get out." We exchanged phone numbers and I was released from the hospital, but I didn't hear from him for nearly a year. In that time, I got serious about getting a girlfriend. Lenny told me that even the ugliest sons of bitches on the planet have girlfriends if they're in a band. I couldn't get into a band, but I started doing open mics. And sure enough, I met a girl. Molly was really tall but I didn't mind. She seemed thrilled with me at first, but then she got cold feet. I remember every delicious moment with her. We kissed a lot, and a couple times, I copped a feel. But she was gone, just like that.

Then I started going to Singles Night at the Unitarian Church. I met a string of girls there who would give me their phone number, but never return my calls. It bothered me to be twenty-four, virgin, and without a driver's license.

Lenny finally called me. "Man, I had a tough year, I don't want to bother you with the details, but the low end of manic-depression ain't pretty. Seriously, I would have called, but I was no fun to be around and I have enough sense to stay away from people when I'm like that. I'm on lithium, it makes me thirsty all the time. When I go to a restaurant, I tell them to bring me a pitcher of ice water. No joke, I kill the whole pitcher before dinner is through. Did you get in a band like I told you to? Believe me, musicians coast."

"I keep trying. The only thing I ever do is open mics."

"Open mics are good, that's experience. You'll get in a working band eventually."

"I don't know, I went to a tryout two months ago. The singer just looked me up and down and said, 'you can leave.' He never listened to me play a note, he just didn't like the way I looked. It's frustrating. I've learned guitar now, too, so there's a lot I can offer a band. I think I'm even better at guitar than piano. But that particular tryout really busted my confidence."

"Well, let's do some recording. The Y8 bus would take you right to my place in ten minutes." And so I started spending a lot of time with Lenny. He had a small apartment so we eventually moved all his recording gear to my house. Ma was working her double shifts and Lenny and I were able to play late into the night on weekends. He had some kind of office job, editing documents. Like me, he didn't have a car. I was still at the dry cleaning plant. Somehow, years went by like that.

The subway opened and Lenny had us going downtown. I learned all about strip clubs. They made me nervous, but I admit I liked to look. I’d order a soda, which irked Lenny. Before you get the wrong idea, I was not one of those guys who was unrealistic. I wasn't holding out for some unattainable goddess like so many lonely men do. I would've been very happy with a very average woman. But even unattractive women blew me off. It got to be a really raw nerve, something I couldn't even talk about. Seems I was destined to be lonely and virgin all of my days.

Lenny, on the other hand, would meet a woman once in a while and then disappear out of my life. A few months would go by without hearing from him and I would really stew about it. But eventually he would be on the phone wanting to play music together again. I was tempted a few times to tell him to fuck off, but I always managed to chill out about it and let him back into my life. It still bothers me when I think about it. He was my only friend, but sometimes he wasn't that good of a friend. On the other hand, he did something for me I'll never forget.

"Look, man, you're twenty-seven years old and you're still a virgin. I got an idea. Sometimes you gotta prime the pump. Once you get your first shot, once you get one under your belt, you'll be able to get laid with some kind of regularity. I know a girl, I met her in the psych ward at Sibley. She ain't much to look at. And she's got a ton of mental problems. She makes you and me look like a couple of Normal Norms. Now, when she's in the manic phase, she's a very liberal lady, shall we say. Basically, she'll fuck anyone."

"What's the catch?"

"You gotta tie her up first. And it ain't just rope. She's got a bunch of latex lariats she likes you to use. It's the only way she can have an orgasm - if she's bound up like a rodeo calf. I will confess that during some periods of involuntary sexual inactivity, I have sought her, er, companionship. I'm not proud of it, but I'm a man with needs. And I ain't Hollywood material in case you haven't noticed. I get dry spells like most men. But for you, in this time and place, I think she's just what the doctor ordered."

"Oh, man, I don't know, Lenny. That ain't the way I hoped it would happen."

"I know, but we're just priming the pump. One session with Lorraine and then we'll send you out the door. You're on your own."

"Oh, geez. Lorraine, huh? What's she like?"

"Get this, she's just a sweet little country gal. If you're picturing some statuesque German with a whip, you'd be totally wrong."

"Country gal. You say she's not much to look at?"

"She ain't. She's a porky little thing. But she's fuckable, trust me. Get two or three beers in you and you'll be good to go."

"Does she like the Beatles?"

"Johnny Cash is more her thing. What does it matter, you ain't marrying her."

"Man, I'm really gonna have to think about it and get back to you."

I ended up deciding no about Lorraine - Lenny was bummed out. He kept pestering me about it. Then one night we were practicing music and he handed the phone to me.

"Hey Cal, this is Lorraine. Lenny told me all about you, you sound sweet. Why don't you come over and visit me tonight? I'm all by my lonesome." I tried to hand the phone back to Lenny but he pushed it away. I kept trying and he finally took it on the third pass.

"Lorraine, this is Lenny. He's a little shy, but he'll be there in about 45 minutes. Alright, girl, take her easy."

"Lenny, I can't do this. She sounded nice, but.."

"Look. I'm gonna give you the cab fare, there and back. I already called Diamond Taxi. I even bought some carnations for you to give her, they're up in the refrigerator. She likes flowers. Really, she's just a normal, everyday girl. Except for the latex. And the mania. Think about it this way. She's one of us. Who better, than one of us?"

Well, Lenny can be pretty darned persuasive, and sure enough, he got me in that cab. I got to Lorraine's apartment and she was playing some God awful country crap. But she didn't look so bad - I had danced with worse at the Singles Club. She offered me a Pabst Blue Ribbon, but I said no. I didn't want it to mess with the Mellaril. We talked for a bit and I started to settle down some. I was still nervous as hell, don't get me wrong. I was about to do something I'd never done before.

Lorraine made it real easy for me by making the first move. We started kissing and hugging and in no time she maneuvered us into the bedroom. Then she got down to business. She stripped down and I could see she had some rolls around her waist. I didn't mind. Then she reached in her closet for the latex box.

"Alright, cowboy," she drawled. "It's show time." I knew what I had to do, but fumbled my way through it. She was helpful. I may have rendered her arms useless, but her mouth was still free, and she really knew how to use it. She got me ready for the main act. I added one more piece of latex from my wallet: a rubber. Lenny had insisted on that. It took me forever, but I finally found my way in her.

I lasted less than two minutes. All those years of build-up - for that. I suppose it felt good, but it wasn't better than my own hand, that's for sure. I untied her and got dressed.

"Men never want to stay," sighed Lorraine. "They always want to squirt and run."

"I'm sorry, Lorraine, but I've already called the cab. If I had known, I would've waited. I'll stay next time."

"There won't be a next time. There never is." And she was right. But the deed was finally done. I Was No Longer A Virgin. However unromantic it had turned out to be, I felt a weight lifted. I realized that all along I had been pretty damned afraid to have sex and that was the main problem. Now I had done it and I could hopefully work on the fine points with someone some day. Do it proper, as the Brits say. Lenny was right - I just needed to get one under my belt.

I had my chance soon enough. Lenny was studying to become a deejay and was never around. I took a bus to Singles Night at the Unitarian Church. I danced with a woman who was older than me and overweight. But I thought she looked just fine. She drove us back to her place and we did it. No rubber. I probably didn't last ten minutes but it felt like a genuine fuck - the real thing, as it were. I found myself praising Lenny as she lay in my arms post-coital. I truly believed I owed it all to him. This was everything I ever wanted, a woman lying in my arms naked.

Of course, I wanted to see her again as soon as possible, but she played games with me. She didn't blow me off completely, she just had things to do in her life and I would have to be squeezed into it as events allowed. After several frustrating phone calls, we finally got together again. I wasn't happy with that at all and I let her know it, acting all hurt. Looking back, most women would've blown me off for being so needy, but I think she took it as a compliment.

Nonetheless, it was more and more difficult to get together with her as time passed and finally things just fizzled out altogether. I ended up having sex with her five times. When it was over, I realized I hadn't talked to Lenny in several months. The shoe was on the other foot. He seemed happy to hear from me.

"Cal, we have to go see Charlie Breedlove at the Roma Lounge. I've been meaning to take you there for ages. It's not that convenient bus-wise, that's the only reason we've never been. He's a walking encyclopedia about music, you'll love him. Now, he thinks rock and roll is the devil, I'll tell you that ahead of time. But man, does he know music from the thirties and forties. Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern. The only contemporary songwriter he seems to like is Bacharach. He plays a Fender Rhodes; he's not a great singer but he stays in pitch. At least I think he does, your golden ears may disagree."

We went to the Roma Lounge a few weeks after that conversation. We had to transfer on the bus line, which I always hate doing, but it wasn't too bad. We got inside and sat at a small round table with a red and white checkered table cloth. I was a little leery about drinking because doctors always tell you not to mix alcohol with psych meds. But Lenny insisted I order a drink, that it was time to grow up. I could just "nurse it." So I had a Tom Collins just because that was the only drink name I could think of. I took some in through a tiny straw and it burned. I really couldn't recall having a mixed drink before. Surely I must have, but I didn't know when. Maybe during the Christmas party at the plant. But no memory came forward.

Of course, in short time, my mind was absorbed with Charlie Breedlove. He sang reasonably in tune. His Fender Rhodes, however, was not particularly well-tuned. They are finicky little pianos so I didn't hold it against him, but it bothered me nonetheless. His voice wasn't great, but he was a working musician, so who was I to criticize? I wasn't familiar with most of what he played, but I did identify "Anything Goes." However, I knew it as a hit by Harper's Bizarre in 1967. I didn't know Cole Porter wrote it in 1934.

I got a little bit of a musical education that night talking to Charlie Breedlove. I took him to be well into his thirties. He was kind of intense and smoked a cigarette almost constantly. He had on a dinner jacket that was a hoot: blue floral brocade with satin lapels. Once in a while we get one at the plant and you gotta be real careful with them. I guess it was perfect for the Roma Lounge. The people around us were different from what I was used to. A lot of neckties. Older types. It was strange. I shook Charlie Breedlove's hand and he just went right into it.

"You like Gershwin? "Summertime?" Did you know the Flintstones theme is just Gershwin's "Rhythm Changes?" Most famous set of chords ever. Do you know "All the Things You Are" by Jerome Kern? The most beautiful song ever written - Judy Garland sang it on the radio at age seventeen, it was magic. Everybody knows his song "Old Man River" but nobody knows "All the Things You Are." The great composers are all gone, all I've got left is Burt Bacharach and I thank God every day for him. What a wonderful, melodic writer. He survives in this day and age of noise because his talent is so great. If you really want to learn music, study Bacharach's chord progressions. If there's anything I can tell you to help you as a musician, that's it. Study Bacharach."

"Never be afraid to be melodic," added Lenny, which I had heard from him before.

"That's right, you cannot be too melodic. If you write a melody and it's imminently hummable, you got a winner. 'Make it Easy on Yourself'. 'Walk On By'. 'You'll Never Get to Heaven if You Break My Heart.' The list goes on. Stevie Wonder did 'Alfie' on chromatic harmonica - not the little tin sandwich Bob Dylan plays, but a serious instrument. He recognized a great melody when he heard it. Go listen to it sometime, 'Alfie' by Stevie Wonder. Beautiful."

I told him I liked the Beatles and that I thought they wrote some great melodies.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Charlie. "Don't get me wrong, the Beatles wrote some wonderful songs. 'Yesterday'. Great song, I do it. But those guitars, that distortion. I can't take it. Can't take it. I don't get rock and roll. For me, it's a cancer on music. That's really the way I think of it. A cancer. If you get a chance, read my music column in The Journal. It appears on Wednesdays, I do reviews mostly, but I just enjoy spreading my musical knowledge wherever I can."

Later on the bus, Lenny said something that surprised me. "I'm glad you finally met Charlie, but to be perfectly frank, as much as I like the guy, he's got one little bugaboo that really irks me. It's subtle, but it's there. I kinda feel like he patronizes me."

"I didn't notice that."

"You might not pick up on it. Let me tell you, we've talked for hours, and he's never given me advice, musician to musician. The way he did to you tonight. It's like he senses that I only know songs with simple chord progressions and I'm not worth his time. I may not have golden ears but I am serious about music. It just irks me, is all. Gets under my skin. That's all I'm gonna say about it. Oh yeah, I finally got my deejay license. I got a third-class license with broadcast endorsement. Now I just gotta find a station that will put me on the air. That's the hard part."

"Well, you got the gift of gab, that's for sure."

The next day I walked to the library and checked out several Burt Bacharach albums, as well as collections from Porter and Kern. I recorded quite a bit onto cassette. Charlie Breedlove had me percolating. I went through back issues of his column and learned he could be a pretty tough critic. "All The Things You Are" was truly a great song. I started doing it at open mics, but it didn't get a great response. I didn't care, I felt like one day that song was going to be recognized for its greatness and people would say there was this guy at open mics, he's been doing it for years.

I started to realize I was getting consumed with "All The Things You Are" the way I did with "#9 Dream." And sure enough, I was back in the hospital. They increased my Mellaril and it made me real groggy. I didn't do much except go to work for months. Finally I got used to the new dose. I hadn't heard a lot from Lenny. He was making demo tapes and taking them to radio stations, but not drawing any interest. He was frustrated with the whole process. Then one day he got the call he was hoping for.

"I'm on at WGTB! I know you've never heard of it but it's a big deal and at the very least, it could be a huge stepping stone. It's late night but that's fine with me, that's when I'm most creative.

"I don't imagine you could play any of my songs that we've recorded?"

"It's an open format station, so it's possible. Maybe one day when I feel secure jobwise, I might play one of your songs." I tuned in to Lenny's show each night and I have to admit that he played a lot of stuff that I was not at all interested in. He played stuff like Elvis Costello, Sex Pistols and Dead Kennedys. But he got popular. He started doing on-air appearances at head shops and independent record stores. He was actually becoming kind of a big deal. But he never did play any of my songs so far as I know.

Probably a year went by and he landed on WMAL, which was a major FM rock station in the D.C. area. He quit his job and became a full-time deejay. By all rights he could've blown me off and I would've understood, but he didn't and I always appreciated that about him. True, I didn't see him as much as I used to, but he would always bring me the coolest T-shirts promoting some of my favorite groups.

"Believe me," he said, "nobody at the station wanted those fucking Air Supply T-shirts. They're all yours." Now I happen to think that Air Supply is a very melodic group with great harmonies, but apparently Lenny was too cool for them. It got to be a bit of a pain in the ass, trying to figure out what was hip according to the great radio god Lenny Gurvitz. But I will tell you, he found his calling. He truly did. He was made for radio. He was funny on the airwaves and a lot of what he said went over my head but I could tell it was some brainy stuff.

I also kept up with Charlie Breedlove's weekly column in the Journal. It was right down my alley, I loved it. So it surprised me when I read a very bad review from him about Lenny. I didn't understand why Charlie would pick Lenny, out of all the deejays in the city, to hammer home his anti-rock and roll message. But he did it. He was forthright, wrote that he knew Lenny personally and that Lenny had "received a great deal of guidance from him over the years" as to what good music is. So that's why Charlie felt compelled to make an example of him. Of course, it was a very small column in a community newspaper and had no effect whatsoever on Lenny and his popularity. And Lenny didn't say a lot about it.

"I told you there was a side to Charlie that isn't immediately obvious. I told you."

"Yeah, you were right. He's just jealous, dontcha think? Whatever, guess I won't be going to the Roma for a Tom Collins anymore."

"Up to you, Cal, up to you. But I won't be tagging along. By the way, I got free tickets for "Promises, Promises" if you want to go with me. It's only a dinner theater, but it's Bacharach. Just don't tell anybody, I got a reputation now to uphold. Whattaya say?"

"Yeah, cool. I can't get used to going places with you in your car now. It almost seems like some kind of brotherhood violation."

"I don't even want to think about those days. Riding buses, phew!"

"I still ride a bus, man."

"Wish I could help you with that, truly I do. Maybe someday, if I get to be program director."

"The money for a car is one thing, but I can't see myself behind a wheel. I just can't see it."

"Neither can I, since you mention it. Man, you just weren't made for this world." That stung a little, but I wouldn't deny it.

We went to see "Promises, Promises" on a Saturday afternoon. Lenny was more talkative than usual, but I just thought he was in deejay mode for some reason and didn't pay it a lot of mind. He kept going on and on about the big dance number called "Turkey Lurkey Time" or something like that and that they probably would screw it up. I had never been to a musical before, so I thought the singing and dancing were great. After the show, Lenny kept harping on the big dance number, that he'd seen a touring company do it and he knew what it was supposed to look like and that what we saw wasn't good at all. Not at all.

Then of all terrible things we ran into Charlie Breedlove. Well, of course he would go see a Bacharach show, but damn, did we have to run into him? Their eyes met and I expected some sparks to fly, but no way would I have ever guessed the horrific event that was about to unfold. Lenny got into Charlie's face. Charlie didn't back down. Lenny took Charlie to the ground. He was on top of Charlie and he had him in a strangle. It was not a choke, which involves cutting off the wind. Lenny had explained it to me a long time ago: a strangle cuts off blood to the brain. It's not dangerous if you know what you're doing, but Lenny's face was full of rage and he wasn't letting go.

I felt powerless as I always do in any conflict, big or small. All the training I had received from Ma not to use my strength had been a powerful force all my life. But somehow, somehow, I overcame it. I reached down and pried Lenny's grip off of Charlie's neck. I am a big guy and I do know my own strength. It was fairly easy for me to neutralize the hold. I had ended the conflict. Who knows, I thought at that moment, maybe I even saved Charlie's life.

Well, I didn't save Charlie's life. He died. The autopsy revealed that Charlie's medical history included a "hypersensitive carotid sinus," which prompted "severe heart arrhythmia." Which killed Charlie. I'll never forget the look on Lenny's face when I undid his grip. Yes, he was manic and beet-red and wild looking. But he was shocked at what I had just done. Neither of us ever thought I had that in me. Just wish I had done it in time to save Charlie. Lenny was put in St. Elizabeth's where Hinckley, the guy who shot Reagan, was placed. I'd like to visit him some day but I'd probably just get lost.

So what became of me? I'm still at the drycleaning plant, but in the evenings, I'm doing Charlie's old gig at the Roma Lounge. I hate the bus transfers to get there, but it's worth it. No way was his fancy jacket going to fit me, so I called the company who made it and they sent me a much larger one. I also got to where I could tune a Fender Rhodes piano in an hour. Occasionally I get some company for the evening, some older gal with a love for the melodic and too much alcohol in her. I wish I could get a real girlfriend, but I guess that's too much to hope for. Like Lenny said, I wasn't made for this world.