Chapter Sixteen

"Holy shit!" shouted Joey Anthony Francesco, as he barreled through the door with his hand truck loaded with a shipment of assorted packages. He joined our little congregation at the front counter, where my dad and Marshall and I were standing, stupefied, listening to the waning moments of the track. Hot Rod Shimley followed up, in his best morning deejay voice and his typical greeting,

"Yo fellow magnetoids, what do you say? That was Mario Flambeau, yes, THE Mario Flambeau of The Flaming Pigs renown, with his newest song, hey, his FIRST new song in more than twenty years. It's called 'Stoplight' and I want to hear what you think. Give us a call at 772-KKAS! I think it's pretty something myself. I want YOU to fill in the blank!"

He moved on to another more typical song in his rotation, while the four of us exchanged stupid grins and couldn't think of anything to say for a moment. Then suddenly my dad unexpectedly burst out laughing.

"At least he didn't drag you guys into it!"

"Hey, what do you mean?", Joey Anthony asked. "I thought that sounded all right. Especially the bass and the drums", he added, winking at me.

"I'll go along with that", Marshall said, "but I'd say ONLY the bass and the drums. My god, who was that singing? Was that your Bobby?"

I shrugged and signed, "he's not MY Bobby", and my dad laughed again.

"That's our Bobby all right. Haven't I heard enough of it already? But what I'. laughing at is the whole "Mario Flambeau" thing. The man's a vegetable. I hate to say that about anyone, but in this case it's just true."

"Weird ass sounding guitar noise", Marshall nodded.

"I don't think it's even what he was playing when we recorded that", Joey Anthony added. "I think Roy just mixed and matched. Hard to tell for sure, though. Noise is noise and that's pretty much all I was hearing from that side of the room!"

We talked a little more about it, then got on with the rest of our day. Joey Anthony and I agreed once more to find some time to get together and jam. I did enjoy the way he played, and we did sound pretty good together. I was still happy that mom had finally come around on getting rid of Bobby, and the excitement of hearing our little tune on the radio kept me smiling all morning. I figured that would be that. We wouldn't be hearing any more about it, and with any luck, Bobby would ever even hear about it. My dad and I had made a deal not to bring it up until he was out of the house for sure.

Those plans all came to nothing, though. Roy Everson dropped by with the bad news around about lunchtime. According to his source, none other than Hot Rod Shimley, who'd done him the favor of spinning the disk in the first place, we had a genuine phenomenal hit song on our hands. It had to be a fluke of nature, one of those inexplicable twists of fate. The machinery of popularity is mysterious and wild. If you throw a thousand weird things at a wall, one of them will stick, or I mean something like that. According to Roy, the calls came pouring into the station immediately. Everyone wanted to hear the Mario Flambeau resurrection. In truth, if it hadn't been for that name, none of it would have ever happened. He may have been a vegetable, but he was a famous one, perhaps the most famous legume of his time, and in the same inexorable fashion that the rich get richer, the famous beget more fame.

We were all completely surprised. Roy told us it was just the beginning, that who knows? Anything could happen! He couldn't stick around, just dropped by to tell us the news. He had arrangements to make, appointments to keep. He'd keep us filled in, just stay tuned! With that he was out of the store, leaving myself and my dad in a state of bewilderment. I had the strangest mix of good and bad feelings. I knew that my mom would be thinking that my "ship" had finally "come in". I already knew what my dad thought, that this was a fluke and I think he was nervous. He was a practical man who did not like surprises. He liked to make plans and then have those plans turn out just as he'd planned them to. This had the feeling of being out of control. And speaking of out of control, what about Bobby O'Bannon?

It turned out there could be no hiding of the fact from him anyway. He had heard the song on the radio just as we did. We had turned it off in the store, in favor of some classic Russian folk dance interpretations, but he was at home, glued to KKAS until finally he couldn't take it anymore and got his ass out of the house and somehow made it down to the store. He came rushing in and found me in the store room sorting sheet music.

"Pablo, dude! Bro! Did you hear? Do you know? We're number one with a bullet, man. Number fucking one!"

I nodded and tried to appear as cool as I could.

"They keep saying it's Mario Flambeau", he went on. "But it's Bobby and the Bedouins, You and I know that! Roy knows it too. How many times did I tell him? That's my song, bro, it's mine! I wrote it, not Mario Flambeau! Only thing Mario Flambeau did was sit there and make some kind of noise with his fingers. Did you hear that guitar? Fucking weird. Fucking trippy. He sounded like shit! It's the rest of us, man, it's the band, it's the bedouins, that's what it's about. You and me and that drummer man, what was his name? WE made that song. It's OUR song. Number one, man, numero uno, and not no Mario Flambeau. We've got to be talking to Roy, get it straight. I called up the radio and told the guy there. He said he'd forward the message to Hot Rod himself! Mario Flambeau!", he spat, "what's up with that?"

There was no getting a word in. I thought about blowing my whistle, holding up the Stop sign, but settled on trying to ignore him and got back to work. He didn't notice, just kept talking and followed me around the store as I did this and that, trying to keep busy, trying to shake him. Eventually he decided to go down to the radio station in person, talk to Hot Rod in person, let him know his mistake. It wasn't no Mario Flambeau. It was Bobby and the Bedouins. He just had to set them straight.