“He had that hit on the radio.Hey, Bo Diddley. ”
“And the new one.You Can’t Judge a Book by Lookin’ at Its Cover. He’s the best. He even builds his own guitars. You know I have four Bo Diddley albums at home, Dee?”
“That many! Tell me about the deeper meanings of Bo Diddley, Conrad.” Dee looked pretty good tonight. She wore a thin white cardigan, and a print dress with a Villager collar. Usually she wore sweatshirts.
“Well, my favorite song of his is calledCrackin’ Up . It goes like this.”
Conrad proceeded to sing the first few lines of the song, capturing the sense, if not the exact sound of Bo Diddley.
He sang it loud, with just the right number ofdit-duh-duh-dit-duuh-dit-dit-dits , his voice rising to a hoarse shout on the last line “You crackin’ up.”
“What’sbuggin’ you?” said Dee repeating the line from the song. “I should play that for my parents.”
Dee’s father was a career engineer for GE. He and his family were due to be transferred out to California in only one month. Conrad’s family was moving at the end of the summer. It was all ending fast.
“I first got that record when I was fourteen,” said Conrad. “I remember listening to it one day; it was the day that I really got the idea of rock and roll. I was alone at home, and I put onCrackin’ Up real loud, and I went and stood in front of my parents’ full-length mirror and danced a little, singing along, you know. As I watched myself, I realized that someday I’d be cool.”
“Are you cool yet?”
“I thought people might think I was cool after I wrecked the car. But no one outside my parents cared, not even Ardmore. And my parents didn’t exactly think it was cool.”
“How about your friends at St. X?”
“Oh, them. Thank God graduation is over.”
“Sue Pohlboggen told me you took her to the senior prom. She said it was awful.”
“She said that?” Conrad paused, remembering the prom. Normally he never socialized with the St. X
boys. It had been strange to see them all at a dance, probably with girls they were going to marry and not use rubbers with. A mixture of hope and cynicism had led Conrad to bring Sue Pohlboggen instead of Dee. Sue was supposed to be easy. “Are you good friends with her?”
“She was in my humanities class. She’s smart, you know. Did you make out with her?”
“Well, I ...” Conrad broke off, unable to tell the story. On the way from the prom to the St. X
breakfast, he’d parked with Sue Pohlboggen. She’d put up a struggle, but he’d gotten his hand down naked in her crotch. The problem was that she was wearing such a tight girdle that his hand had gone numb before he could figure out where her cunt actually was. He’d given up on that, and dry-humped her for a while, which was OK until the end, when her body started making strange, wetlowing noises.
Noises from her cunt, like it was farting! Ugh! Was this how grown-up sex worked? And then at the prom breakfast he’d thrown up after about three beers.
“Inauthentic,” Dee agreed and lit a cigarette. “Who else is going to play tonight? Besides Bo Diddley.”
“Lots of people. The Shirelles, James Brown, Avalon ... or maybe it’s Fabian, and I think U.S. Bonds is coming, too. It’ll be great.”
The stage was in the middle of the big arena-auditorium at the Kentucky State Fairgrounds. When he was ten, Conrad had come here to see the Shrine Circus. Today they had a lot of flags up, since it was the day after the Fourth of July.
Some people had reserved seats down on the coliseum floor, but everyone else was up in the bleachers.
It was a very mixed crowd. There was a middle-aged black guy with baggy pants right behind Dee and Conrad, and when the Shirelles came out, he danced so hard that you could hear his dick slapping his leg. Some lesser-known black groups played next, and then some white singers came on. One of them was Dee Clark.
“Same name as you,” observed Conrad.
“Let’s go over there in the empty part of the bleachers,” said Dee. “I want to really listen.”
The song wasIt Must Be Raindrops . Over in the empty seats, Dee and Conrad got into a kind of follow-the-leader game, balancing along on the seatbacks, childlike and free. The wonderful music spread out to fill all space and time, music for Conrad and Dee alone, centered in the eternal Now.
Conrad felt like he could fly Dee to the top of the coliseum, if he wanted to. Fly up to the top where the flashing circus acrobats had whirled, years ago.
Suddenly, finally, Bo Diddley and his band were out on the stage, red sequined tuxes and all. Conrad dragged Dee back to their seats. Diddley struck up a steady chicken-scratch on his git-box and began trading insults with his drummer.
“Hey.”
“What dat.”
“I heard yo’ daddy’s a lightbu’b eater.”
“He don’t eat no lightbulb.”
“Sho’ ’nuff.”
“Whaah?”
“I heard every time he turn off the light, heeat a little piece! ”
Conrad howled, and the man behind them stood up and slapped his dick against his leg again. Dee began looking around to see if anyone else from her class was here.
“Isn’t that Francie Shields down there?” “Shhh.”
Now the band was blasting an old tune called’Deed and ’Deed and ’Deed I Do , with the incredible Diddley sex-beat, and over it, the soaring alienation of Bo’s strange, homemade guitar. Bo Diddley, the man, right there, in the flesh, black as they come, sweating and screaming—for a few minutes, Conrad forgot himself entirely.
Bo Diddley was the last act before intermission, and Conrad hurried down behind the stage to get a closer look at his hero. Incredibly, Bo Diddley was right there, standing around talking to some black women. He was shorter than he looked on the stage, and uglier.
“Are you Bo Diddley?” blurted Conrad, pushing his way forward.
“Yeah. I’ll do autographs after the show.”
“Can I shake your hand?” “All right.”
They shook briefly. It was incredible, to be touching the actual meat-body, the actual living person that made the music Conrad loved so well. During the moment he touched Diddley, everything seemed to make sense. And then the moment was over, as usual, every moment over, over and over again. Conrad mumbled his thanks and wandered off, a bit dazed, looking for Dee. He found her with Francie Shields and Hank Larsen. Conrad had known Hank was coming but had decided not to double-date, since Hank and Dee didn’t like each other, although right now, Dee was glad to see Hank. It seemed like he was the only other white boy here who wasn’t a tough yokel soldier from Fort Knox. Hank, for his part, was drunk.
“Turd-rad,” he called genially. “How is your wretched ass?”
“Cool it, Hank. I just shook hands with Bo Diddley. What are you doing for our generation?”
“Feeling pretty good,” said Hank. “Around the edges. You want a belt, Conrad? Let me see that hand.”
Conrad had meant not to drink tonight, but he heard himself asking Hank, “Where’s the bottle?”
“Francie’s purse.”
Hank and Francie and Dee had all gone to the regular public high school together. Hank had been voted most handsome, and Francie had starred in the senior play. She was a bit overweight, but pretty in a straight-mouth-straight-nose-straight-hair way. Her voice was a lovely, purring lisp. “Conwad. Do you like it heyuw?”
“It’s communion,” answered Conrad. “You know? We’re all people, and Bo Diddley’s a person, too.
Let’s go over in those dark bleachers and have a drink.” “Well, Conwad, I just saw Sue Pohlboggen and Jackie Pweston. Dee and I can wait with them.” Francie liked to stir up trouble. It seemed like everyone in town knew about Conrad’s gross prom date with Sue.
Hank took a half-full pint of gin out of Francie’s purse and stuck it under his untucked shirt. “Let’s roll, Paunch.” “I’ll come with you,” said Dee. “I’ll get drunk, too.”