Unexpectedly, Milo - Matthew Dicks [60]
That association had yet to cease, so for the last two years, each time he performed on Jenny’s stage, it was in German, singing the one-hit wonder that was emblematic of the cold war of the 1980s. He often wondered if the image of the German U-boat commander in his mind, or his preference for German pop music, had somehow influenced the choice of song.
He carried three extra copies of the song in the glove compartment of his car (and had taped one to the bottom of the passenger seat in Christine’s Jetta) in case the one that he had given to Jenny two years ago became scratched or he found himself out of town and suddenly in need of the music.
If it had to be just one song, Milo didn’t think “99 Luftballons” was a bad choice. Since the song was sung in German, few people understood the words (including Milo, who had memorized the pronunciation but not the meaning), and certainly no one in Jenny’s. Therefore, expectations were low. As he opened with the somewhat dramatic line—
Hast Du etwas Zeit für mich
Dann singe ich ein Lied für Dich
Von 99 Luftballons
—he was often greeted with curious and amused smiles but little more. Milo had visited many karaoke bars and had seen the people who took their performances to heart, closing their eyes and belting out a Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston tune as if performing in Giants Stadium. No one enjoyed watching a hack posing as a professional, failing to reach the high notes and missing many of the others as well. But when Milo sang “99 Luftballons,” people might laugh at the oddity of the choice, but more often than not they would simply ignore his performance, finding it difficult to invest themselves in a song sung in a foreign language.
After his fourth or fifth performance of the song, the regulars at Jenny’s had come to expect it. They teased him at first for choosing the same song over and over again, and a guy named Dick had threatened to “pop him one” if he sang it again, but Jenny stepped in, threatening to cut Dick off, and eventually Milo’s performance had become a staple in the bar. It saddened Milo to know that this was a world from which Christine was excluded. Though he would hardly characterize any of the Jenny’s regulars as friends, he had gotten to know these people over the years and had shared in their life stories.
Pete was the New England backgammon champion who collected soda bottles in his spare time. He had lost almost twenty-five pounds over the past year but still weighed more than three hundred and fifty pounds. He spit when he laughed and had a bum knee, and, not surprisingly, he had been a bachelor his entire life.
Carmine was a retired barber who now spent his days gardening and watching Italian television by satellite. His wife was a fine cook who would sometimes send her husband to the bar with meatballs for Jenny, though she herself had never set foot in the place.
Rosy was a down-on-her-luck divorcée with an eating disorder and an affinity for vanilla vodka. She looked much older than her forty-one years and worked part-time as a cashier at the sex shop down the street. Of all the regulars, she was the one who Milo knew the least. Speaking to Rosy always made him sad.
These people, and the half dozen others who inhabited the bar on a regular basis, had seen Milo sing hundreds of times, had shared untold numbers of drinks with him, and had become fixtures in one another’s lives.