Read The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto for Free Online

blues, that sweep of hair that was as close to black as I’ve ever seen.
    “Presto?” My girlfriend laughed. “Like the magic?”
    “Presto, like the magic,” he said, and she stopped laughing. I mean, that boy froze you in your tracks. He was wearing this bright yellow sports coat and a black shirt and pants and he said he was one of the opening acts, he was supposed to sing one song, because the record company had put him on at the last minute—I think it was Capitol, the same label Nat King Cole worked for. I said he looked a lot like Elvis, and he looked down and said, “There is only one Elvis,” and someone said it was too bad Elvis had to go in the army.
    Then a photographer came by to take our picture and Frankie went to leave but all of us girls said, no, don’t go, take a picture with us, and I got one by myself and here it is. I still have it, all these years later. I didn’t know he would become a star, but I had a sense he was going to be special. Sometimes you can just tell.
    After the show was over, we were driving back along Hollywood Boulevard, and my girlfriend pointed out the window and said, “That’s him! That dreamy singer!” And sure enough, Frankie was walking all by himself, holding a guitar case in one hand and his yellow sports coat in the other. We rolled down the window and yelled, “Where are you going?”
    “To the ocean,” he said.
    “You’re walking?”
    “Yes.”
    And we laughed again because he was a long way from the ocean. I said to our chaperone, “Can we drive him? We know him.” And the chaperone said all right, and Frankie got in.
    It was Saturday night and the weather was good and we drove to the Santa Monica Pier and promised the chaperone we’d be back in half an hour. Of course we weren’t. There were parties on the beach, small bonfires and teens playing radios and dancing and making out. We ran into some kids we knew and the other girls went to sit with them and Frankie and I wound up alone, walking on the sand. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. We were both barefoot and he had his pants rolled up and every time the waves reached our feet I jumped back, but he stood dead still.
    “The ocean’s so big,” I said, something silly like that. And he said, “I sailed across it once.” And I said, “This ocean?” And he said, “Another one.” I asked where he came from and he said, “A lot of places.” I asked where his parents lived and he said, “They’re gone.”
    All this time, by the way, he was carrying his guitar case. He wouldn’t let it go. He hadn’t played it at the Hollywood Bowl, he’d just sung with a band, so I teased him and said, “Do you only carry a guitar to impress girls?” And he smiled (Lord, those teeth!) and said, “No.”
    And that’s how I got my own private Frankie Presto concert, in the sand by the Santa Monica Pier.
    To this day, I will never forget it. He put the guitar over his knee, and he turned his ear to the ocean. “Listen,” he said. I could see lights from a faraway ship, way out there, but Frankie had his eyes closed. And he began to tap, real softly, once, then twice, and I realized he was finding the beat of the waves.
    And then he played a song. I thought he’d play some rock and roll—everyone who had a guitar played rock and roll back then—but it was a classical piece. Slow, delicate, played up high on the strings. And when he finished, I was crying. I’d never heard anything that beautiful. I asked what the song was called and he said, “ ‘Träumerei,’ ” and I asked who wrote it and he said, “Schumann,” and he saw my tears and—I know this sounds strange—he said, “Don’t cry, you’re a great singer.” And I kind of burst out laughing.
    “How would you know that?” I said.
    “I heard you.”
    “We were singing in a choir.”
    But he said he could hear a voice within voices, and mine was beautiful, and I could be a famous singer one day.
    Well. I was wondering what to do