My Sharona Summer

A Floriduh Story

Stressing each syllable in my name, adding extra oomph to the third, my mother yells from the top of the stairs.

“CHRIS-TOE-FUR! PHONE!!”

Steve Majors silently tosses a vending machine in slow motion at a fleeing bad guy as I match her volume.

“HANG ON!”

Jumping up from the low-slung couch, I hustle over to the Zenith, turn down The Six Million Dollar Man and hurry back to the wire-spool side-table (salvaged by Dad) to lift the phone’s receiver. Covering its mouthpiece, I finish the well-worn sequence with yet more yelling.

“MOM?! I GOT IT!"

I wait for my mother’s heavy footsteps and subsequent CLICK of the kitchen wall phone.

“Hello?”

I don’t know what to do.

“Glenn? You never call this late. Why are you whispering? You don’t know what to do about what?"

I was going to call you earlier and I picked up and heard my father.

“Yeah?”

He was talking to another woman.

“What?!”

I listened. They were… they were talking like they… he said ‘I love you.’ I don't know what to do.

I picture Harvey–Captain’s hat, salt & pepper hair, big mustache, bigger grin holding a chomped cigar–helming the cabin cruiser Glenn and I scrape clean of barnacles one May while singing along to a Beatles ’65 cassette. Sheila–tiny, fine-featured, bobbed hair, tanning on a towel on deck–shields her eyes and shouts toward her husband.

Harvey?! Can you make the boat not rock so much?!

Sheila, what would you like me to do? I don’t control the waves.

It was a Sunday and what my brother derisively refers to as “The Jewish Navy" is out en masse on the Great South Bay. Thirty or more modestly-sized cabin cruisers bob and drift over a small patch of sea not far from shore. My family also lives on the South Shore of Long Island but we don’t own a boat with inboard motors or a downstairs. My brother Mario has a center console fishing boat, my other brother Marc owns a small aluminum utility boat, both favor Mercury. When Glenn and I meet in guitar class just prior to his Bar Mitzvah, we bond over Cat Stevens. The first time I ride my Schwinn to his block–the newest in Lindenhurst–I’m struck by one conspicuous absence.

“Where are all the telephone poles?”

Everything’s underground.

Glenn continues to whisper into the phone, growing increasingly agitated.

Do I tell my mom?

“That you heard your dad talking with another woman? And then what?”

I don’t know. She’ll get mad. But I can’t do nothing. Should I say something to my dad?

“Like what?”

Maybe ask him who the woman was?

My dad’s up in Scarsdale with second wife Pig Nose, only a few years older than my sister Diana. Stephanie didn’t break up my parent’s marriage but we hate her nonetheless.

"What if he just makes something up? It’s your word against his.”

Harvey’s a lawyer. He’s used to mounting a defense. And, apparently, other women.

So what do I do?

“For now? Keep it to yourself."

Don’t tell Steven?

“Why would you tell your brother?!”

I have to tell someone.

“You’re telling me.”

I can’t believe it. Why did I have to pick up the phone?

I feel guilty. If Glenn hadn’t been calling me he might never have found out.

“Did you father hear you on the extension?”

I don’t think so…

Buried lines, all. No poles in sight on roomy Wellbrook Ave. The houses are all new construction, BIG, with two-car garages complete with automatic openers. The first time Mr. Katz picks me up from our small brick ranch house (on a block festooned with telephone poles) and delivers me to Wellbrook, I marvel as the garage door silently rises, beckoned by a button push. Mr. Katz glides his new coffee-brown Lincoln Monarch in as phantom pain ripples up my arm from all the times I thought it’d be torn clear raising our recalcitrant non-automatic garage door. The sleek fiberglass Katz garage door closes behind us and it sinks in: Glenn’s world is vastly different than mine.

Now, just a few years later, it’s about to crumble.

Glenn sobs. I don’t know what to say. When my parents split there was no daylight between Dad’s home and Dad moved out. My father had been making himself increasingly scarce for years. He was either fixing cars and pumping that good Gulf at his gas station or–when that failed (his partner, my uncle, had been embezzling)–teaching auto repair at Lincoln Tech in the Bronx. Always arriving home late, tired, angry, my mother would press him into becoming Disciplinarian Dad. Whichever kid was in for it would fruitlessly attempt to avoid him him and the back of his hand or looped-over belt. But Harvey? He was a thoughtful calming presence and I’d never seen him hit his sons. The more time I spent on Wellbrook, the more I longed to swap my family for Glenn’s.

“Listen… it’s going to be okay. Get some sleep and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

I didn’t know if it was going to be okay. I had to say something.

The next day in school Glenn seems calmer, though his eyes are red like he’s been up all night crying. During lunch we sit across from each other in the cafeteria but he won’t discuss what happened.

I can’t eat. You want my pizza and Jello?

“Sure.”

Since when does a fat kid turn down free food? Glenn passes me his tray, grabbing his chocolate milk. He sips forlornly.

Do you want to meet up later?

“OK. Let"s ride to the hobby shop. I need flat black paint.”

When we get to the hobby shop I buy a bottle of Testor’s from Doug at the front counter.

How’s it going with that helicopter?

“It’s gonna be cool. I'll bring it in when I’m done.”

Doug has a few of my completed models on display. A Big Daddy Don Garlits front-engine dragster. A custom Chevy Van. A Harley-Davidson chopper. I've gotten good at model-building, cutting out the parts correctly, not overdoing it with the glue, following instructions intently and painting everything authentically. I even used real carpet in the Chevy Van interior. I take great pride in my handiwork. Doug needs displays so he’ll cut me a break on Revell–my favorite brand and the most accurate–and will occasionally toss me a Monogram (acceptable) or–God forbid–AMT kit for free.

Glenn’s parked himself by the large-scale slot-car track and watches a half-dozen plastic approximations of famous race cars scream around the circuit. I drop two quarters in the jukebox and punch up Radar Love. The combined noise screen assures we won’t be overheard.

Everything seemed normal this morning. I don't think my dad knows I picked up the phone.

“That's good."

A tiny red Camaro hits a turn too fast, launching itself up a bank and landing in pieces on the floor.

Shit!

Its driver hustles over to the Camaro. Doug turns and admonishes him.

Vinny! Clean up your fucking language or leave!

“Glenn, maybe keep this quiet for now? See what happens?”

What else can I do? If I tell my mother, my father will hate me.

“And if you say something to your dad he’ll just deny it. It’ll be your word against his.”

Maintaining status quo is partly selfish. It means I’ll still be able to escape to Glenn’s, drink unknown quantities of Diet Pepsi, eat anything in the fridge, play guitar and earn a few bucks baby-sitting Steven. Steven is ten and baby-sitting means keeping him from anything on TV that could cause nightmares.

I probably should’ve watched The Exorcist on HBO alone.

Our plan works for a month. Then the phone rings again.

“CHRIS-TOE-FUR!”

I get on the line and Glenn’s crying.

“Glenn? What’s up?”

My father… he had… my dad… he’s in the hospital.

“Why?!”

He had a heart attack.

"Shit. When?"

Last night.

"Did he… is he…?"

He's in intensive care.

"Is he going to be okay?"

I don’t know. But it all came out.

“The woman?"

Yes. And more.

"More?"

He was embezzling. From my mother’s family. All of them. Her father. Her brothers. Everybody.

Like my uncle.

Harvey was doing fake land deals, selling investments in property he didn’t own or that didn't exist. He’d taken Sheila’s relations for a hundred grand. I couldn’t understand. Didn’t he make lots of money? Was it not enough? Did he gamble? Was he showering the other woman with luxuries?

"Oh my God. Glenn, I’m so sorry.”

After he recovers, Harvey’s disbarred, tried, convicted and imprisoned. Sheila divorces him. I’m not sure if that’s before or after she attempts suicide. This wealthy, successful family with their cabin cruiser, bottomless Diet Pepsi, HBO, new Lincoln and automatic garage door opener unravels in the span of a few months.

All my envy, all in vain.

I don’t see Glenn the rest of the summer. Then he calls.

We’re moving to Florida. Plantation.

“Who names a town ‘Plantation’?!”

I know.

“So you won’t even go to high school here?”

No.

"Florida? Why Florida?"

My mom has family there. We’re packing up now. We’ll be there beginning of July.

“I went down there five years ago. We were supposed to spend three days at Walt Disney World. Then our car broke down in Virginia and by the time we got to Florida we had one day to see everything. And it rained that day.”

My best friend, a thousand miles away. Who will help me reenact entire scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Or piece together the chords to Father and Son? Or lay side-by-side beneath a boat with me, scraping and repainting the hull, singing Mr. Moonlight?

"Maybe I'll come down for a visit…"

Really?

"Ask your mom. I’ll ask mine."

Mine was only too glad to get me out from underfoot. Sheila says After we’re settled in. It’ll be a year before they’re sufficiently in place and I save up enough from my Woolco stock-boy and Cieslak’s Modern Bakery jobs to afford a roundtrip Delta ticket. It’s my first time on a plane and I end up in the smoking section. I don’t smoke.

Sheila, Glenn and Steven pick me up at the Fort Lauderdale airport in a small Pontiac station wagon. Sheila hides behind large sunglasses and seems pensive but no worse for wear. Steven, entering puberty, his face covered in zits, mumbles and refuses to make eye contact. Glenn? He’s wears a white and orange high school football jersey with the letters K-A-T-Z on the back. I can’t believe how buff he is. I’m still fat but he’s transformed from pale, skinny kid to deeply tan jock with a massive neck. Jocks were our kryptonite back on Long Island, as witnessed by our Simon & Garfunkel parody:

A summer's day

In my IROC Camaro

I am crew-ooh-ooh-zing

Looking for a chick

Some girl to suck my dick

I conquer them

& beat up all their guys

I am a jock

I’m from

Long Guy-I-I-land

It’s balmy and bright and we make strained small talk on our way to Plantation. Pontiac windows rolled down, the summer’s ubiquitous song drifts in from surrounding cars.

Ooh, my little pretty one, my pretty one…

When you gonna give me some time, Sharona?

We arrive at Glenn’s apartment and I find a spot for my luggage, spying a battered guitar case in the corner.

"Whose guitar?"

My neighbor’s. I borrowed it.

"You still have that acoustic?"

No. I smashed it before we left Long Island. I hated that Epiphone.

I note the silver Gibson logo on the case. Gibsons are what my favorites play. Jimmy Page. Steve Howe. Pete Townsend. Tony Iommi. Marc Bolan. Mick Ronson. As close to a Gibson as I ever get is when Nana buys me a new white Ibanez Les Paul copy at the Sam Ash music store in Huntington Station. Plugged into my trusty Univox amp, that guitar and I massacre the hits of 1978 in my cover band, Cobra.

I point at the guitar case.

“What's in there?”

You can check it out if you want.

I retrieve the case, unlatch it, open it and find a cherry red Gibson SG Jr. with vibrato. I try a few chords and a cheesy blues riff. A glorious plank of wood, the notes spring from the fretboard loud and clear unamplified. I noodle away as Glenn fills in the blanks since last we spoke.

So my mom has a boyfriend now…

"Wow. Do you like him?"

He's okay. I guess. He usually doesn’t come around here.

"What about your dad?"

He's still in New York. Out of prison. Living with his brother. We don’t talk much. Your dad?

"Still in Scarsdale. With Stephanie. Haven’t seen him in awhile."

Something’s off. Our easy camaraderie is gone. Glenn’s guarded. An awkwardness settles over us, exacerbated when we meet up later with Glenn's fellow football players. They tower over me. Some wear the same football jersey as Glenn’s. The biggest kid–nicknamed "Mongo" after the Alex Karas character in Blazing Saddles–is like a human wall. I’m still obsessed with Mad and my guitar but all they crave is beer and pussy. The drinking age is 18 here but Mongo looks 30 and no one cards him. He buys cases of Busch–the cheapest beer available–and we chug can-after-can of the swill poolside until we can barely stand. Everyone goes shirtless, jumping in and out of the pool to cool off.

Even in the brutal Florida heat I don’t dare unveil my girth. Accompanying the Busch beer are barely-cooked hastily scarfed cheap-ass hamburgers and hot dogs. The combination coming back up isn’t unpleasant but bakes hard in the Florida sun. The next morning Sheila angrily rouses a hungover Glenn.

Which one of your disgusting friends threw up near the pool?! You have to clean it up NOW before we get EVICTED!

Glenn snakes a garden hose out to the pool and hands me the sprayer. I blast the reddish lump into the water for the filter to deal with.

Guess where we’re going today?

"The beach?”

God, I hope it isn’t the beach. There’ll be girls and me in a goddamn shirt.

We're going to buy me a car!

"Really?"

My mom is tired of driving me everywhere. And she doesn't trust me with the station wagon.

Back home I’d just gotten my Learner’s Permit and bought a $300 1967 Mercury Cougar from Cobra co-founder Billy Kammerer (who still lives on Glenn’s old block). The Cougar’s dented on every body panel and the hood has to be locked down via bicycle cable or it’ll fly up over thirty. But it’s a massive improvement over that Jawa moped that nearly got me killed coming back from the bakery when I go sliding in the snow directly in front of Adam Tese’s car.

No self-respecting Florida high-school football player is without wheels, so–after breakfast–Sheila drives us to a huge Toyota dealership just off the highway. With down-payment money from his grandparents and a co-signed loan, Glenn picks out the cheapest two-door on the lot: a white Corolla with blue interior and standard shift. It has the only amenities that truly matter: air-conditioning and a decent stereo.

After the paperwork’s dispatched and Sheila’s gone, we climb into the Corolla. Glenn starts the car and tries to get it into gear. The Toyota stalls. He tries a few more times with the same result.

"You never drove a standard?"

Nope.

“You're going to learn now?"

Yep.

“We’ll get killed."

The Toyota stalls again and again. But Glenn somehow drives us off the lot and on to the highway. Glenn thinks the gear-grinding noise is hilarious but I sweat bullets as fuming Floridians swerve around us, shooting us the finger while that same song Dopplers around us.

Ooh, you make my motor run, my motor run…

Got it coming off o’ the line, Sharona

Glenn eventually gets the shifting down. We go all over in the white Corolla, including to a triple bill of Molly Hatchet, .38 Special and The Outlaws nearby. Pre-gaming in the parking lot with Mongo and the other jocks, we down a case of Busch, tossing the blue cans wherever. When it comes time to enter the venue, Glenn hands me my ticket. I check for a row and seat number and see FESTIVAL SEATING.

"Wait. Festival seating? We don’t have seats?!"

No. There are seats. They’re not assigned seats. If you want a good one, you gotta be fast.

“Didn't a bunch of kids just get trampled at a Who show with festival seating?!"

Yeah. In Cincinnati, right?

As Mongo leads us through the crowd to the massive doors, people part ways or are swept aside.

Hey, asshole! Stop pushing!

What are YOU gonna do about it, faggot?

The doors open and there’s a frenzied dash for the best seats. I think of Cincinnati and those dead kids and run like hell. We end up in the front row for sub-Skynyrd Southern Rock in its Florida prime. I’m huffing-and-puffing but alive.

The next time I see Mongo and company we’re headed to mini-golf. Of course, Busch comes along. And that song.

Come a little closer, huh, a-will ya, huh?

Close enough to look in my eyes, Sharona

It isn’t Sharona but some other teenaged girl that spurs warring factions of horny boys to brawl in the mini-golf parking lot. I stand on the periphery, unable and unwilling to become involved. I've been in enough fights with my own brothers and didn’t fly to Florida in the smoking section to get punched in the face. I don’t even know these people.

Glenn emerges disheveled from the conflagration, football jersey askew, and runs at me, shouting.

GET IN THE CAR! GET IN THE CAR!

We jump in the Toyota and join a caravan of cars already peeling out of the parking lot. Chasing a small Dodge at high speed through residential neighborhoods, Glenn swerves while shifting furiously, like he’s done this all his life.

MOTHER-FUCKING-PIECE-OF-FUCKING-SHIT!

He pounds the steering wheel.

"What?! What happened? Last thing I know, we were playing mini-golf…”

The chase ends at a corner lot where a high ranch commands an expanse of front lawn. Before we've skidded to a halt, car doors swing open and kids tumble out to pursue each other like rabid wolves. I get out and stand near the passenger door of the Toyota, aghast at what’s unfolding. All over the lawn of this immaculate suburban home kids are beating the living shit out of each other. I focus on Glenn. He’s straddled some kid flat on his back and is repeatedly punching him in the head. Then, all in one motion, the kid grabs Glenn's football jersey, pulls him down, tears the shirt and bites Glenn’s chest. Glenn screams at the sky–AAAAGGGHHH!–shoves the kid back into the grass, leans over and bites off a chunk of his ear. Then he spits it onto the lawn.

That’s when I hear the racking of the shotgun.

The homeowner, who must be the father of one the hapless assholes receiving a beating, stands on the front steps, shotgun pointed to the sky.

GET OFF MY LAWN OR GET SHOT!

The Plantation football team straggles to its feet. Glenn’s covered in blood and grass. We get into the Toyota and speed away. I can’t comprehend what just unfolded.

"Holy fucking Jesus. We could’ve been killed."

That fucking guy? He wasn’t gonna do anything.

"He had a SHOTGUN."

Everyone down here has a shotgun.

When we get to the apartment we’re grateful Sheila’s out and won’t ask questions about the ripped jersey covered in blood and grass stains. And the bite marks. Applying iodine to his chest, Glenn paces and mutters.

That was my only jersey. Now I have to get a new one. Fuck. That was my only jersey. FUCK!

All I can think of is the kid missing part of his ear.

The next few day Glenn runs around town with the football team, kicking ass and taking names as I demur, spending my time indoors with the AC on, playing the SG. I’ve fallen in love with the guitar and ask Glenn if there’s any way the neighbor will sell it to me.

Nah. I don’t think so.

A day later Glenn drives me to the airport in the Corolla, windows down, that goddamn song drifting in again.

Ooooooo-ohhh, my Sharona

Ooooooo-ohhh, my Sharona

Ooooooo-ohhh, my Sharona

We pull up to the curb, say our goodbyes.

It was good to see you, man.

“Yeah, you too. Keep in touch.”

I board Delta back to JFK and return to life on Long Island. Glenn and I talk a few more times by phone but it’s not the same. I keep picturing him biting off that kid’s ear. Or find myself thinking more about the SG than him.

It’s senior year, Cobra’s dead and Billy and I no longer hang out. But I’m still thrashing away on my Ibanez, sometimes over at Mike’s in North Lindenhurst. We met in Junior High but don’t have much contact until after Glenn and Billy fall away. Then I find myself spending more and more time at Mike’s. He wants to learn how to play an instrument, so I convince him to pick up bass, accompanying him to Music Land to help him pick out a cheap one. He ends up with a battered black Hagstrom.

Never Mind The Bollocks soon supplants A Night At The Opera on my mother’s stereo. With Mike’s friend Neil on vocals and my old Cobra bandmate Richie on drums, Mike and I bang out Sex Pistols, Ramones and Damned covers at parties. In a few months we're out of high school, writing original songs and searching for a permanent singer and drummer. Eventually, we bump into Ron–literally–at Legz night club and I find Troy through a work friend. When I stumble on the word “nihilistic” in a book purloined from the Salvation Army on Route 109, I finally bestow a name on our new band.

Glenn and I fall far out of touch and don't speak again for years. When he heads north to visit his father in the Bronx, he reaches out. I put him and Steven on the guest list to see Nihilistics at CBGB. Twenty years later, Steven hears me on my SiriusXM talk show and alerts his brother. Just as we’re wrapping up, Glenn calls our 800 number. He’s living outside Washington, DC with his wife and three kids and works in management for a big cable TV company.

"Listen, we’re heading to DC for a remote broadcast. Let’s get together."

If you haven’t booked a hotel yet, you’re welcome to stay with us.

We make plans. I take the Acela to DC, arriving early for our 11 am show with none other than The Outlaws as special musical guest. There are a few different members in the band but when I tell them I’d seen them in Florida in 1979 and mention the mad dash for seats after The Who stampede, their jaws collectively drop.

That festival seating… we hated it. You sure are OLD SCHOOL if you were there in 1979!

As they launch into their final number I think of Glenn and I trying to play along with Green Grass & High Tides in his bedroom, Steven just outside the door, begging to join in.

Fuck you, Steven! Get out of my room!

When we’re off the air, Glenn and his family come and pick me up at the studio. We drive to a nearby Mexican restaurant and get caught up over margaritas and burritos. I’m regaling his family with the My Sharona summer story when I realize Glenn forgot the part about the kid’s ear. He turns bright red.

Holy shit. Did I really do that?

"Yes. I’ll never forget it."

Glenn’s wife elbows him. His kids stare wide-eyed, fear and awe on their faces.

Then they ask to hear that song.