Hey mama, don't you treat me wrong/Come and love your daddy all night long...

As Cory and I unpacked our things in the upstairs room in my parents' house in Charlotte, my knee bumped into the edge of the amplifier.



We've been blessed with some semblance of musical genius. My father, brother and I can all pick up an instrument, and after tinkering around for a few minutes, can play a few things by ear. My dad can also sing really well. Me, not so much.

My dad bought some guitars a lonnnnng time ago, and he and my brother would play 'What'd I Say' by Ray Charles for hours, with the amp up at its highest limit in the basement.



I remember being 7 or 8 and feeling the hum of the bass line resonate within the thin walls of our house in Colorado, and I'd come downstairs, and watch them.

They would sit facing each other with the amplifier between them. My dad's leg would thump out the rhythm and he and my brother would compete, to see how long they could keep up ad-libbing with the guitar, making it wail out what Ray had put to wax so many moons ago. Sometimes my dad would would belt out his own invented lyrics, perhaps conjuring some memory from his days as a youth.

See the girl with the red dress on
She can do the Birdland all night long
Yeah yeah, what'd I say, all right

I was the girl, unable to penetrate this bond of boys, but to feel as though I belonged, I would drop the latest Babysitter's Club book on the floor, push my glasses up on my nose, sit down cross-legged behind the amp, and place my hands and face near the hollow of the rear of the amplifier, to feel the cold air of sound and rhythm tickle my fingers and puff my hair out as if I were walking briskly in some faint breeze. I'd soon become bored, and retreat upstairs to the kitchen, to meet my mother pursing her lips and groaning over the steam of rice cooking away in its red pot, after hearing them play from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., worrying that they'd disturb the neighbors. But I think, deep down inside, she was happy that some family bonding was taking place.

Every time we packed up and moved, the basement would be their refuge, their place to get away from 'The Women;' my sister, my mother, and I.



These days, the guitars sit against the wall, untouched, gathering dust. In terms of bonding, a pool table has replaced the music sessions, whenever my father comes up from Charlotte to see all of us. We now hear the clack of pool balls and hollering, instead of an old dusty amp resurrecting Ray.

Hey, don't quit now! (c'mon honey)
Naw, I got, I uh-uh-uh, I'm changing (stop! stop! we'll do it again)
Wait a minute, wait a minute, oh hold it! Hold it! Hold it!

Posted by Marlene at 11:58 AM