I let her cry. I wanted to leave, but Renee took a deep breath and continued. “Shelly’s always liked me,” she said, marking the word “liked” in quotes with her fingers. “After Donny died he kept calling me up, trying to get together. I’d change jobs and he’d find me again. When I got married he disappeared for a while, but now that I’m divorced he’s back again.”
It occurred to me that Shelly might’ve wanted on some level to be rid of his brother so he could have Renee to himself, the possibility might have seemed more than a fantasy to him then, but I took the high road. “Maybe he just wants to be forgiven.”
“I won’t ever forgive him.” She wrenched her head side to side, her makeup streaked from tears. “He killed Donny.”
27.My Boy Lollipop
ONE DAY AT A GARAGE SALE IN POWAY I FOUND A 78-FORMAT BEATLES single of “Please Please Me,” pressed in India on Parlophone Records. Several countries continued to press 78s long after the format was obsolete. The records were almost unheard of. The lady was liquidating the collection of her son, who was going to prison for four years on an embezzlement charge. Lucky lad, they weren’t sending him to Napa State. She understood that a Beatles record might be valuable and felt that ten dollars was a fair price. It might’ve been worth upwards of five thousand. I paid her the ten and hoped it wasn’t a counterfeit.
Immediately I drove to Shelly’s house to show him. His truck was not out front, but the lights were on and I heard music playing inside. As I got closer I recognized the song “My Boy Lollipop,” Millie Small (the Blue Beat Girl) on Smash Records, 1964, released in Europe on Fontana, one of the few ska hits in the history of early pop music, worth about ten bucks in good condition, and it was really blasting.
Curiosity aroused, I knocked. No answer. You make my heart gooo giddy-yup. “Shelly?”
You ah my one de-siah.
I knocked again.
The door opened a crack. It was that same single eye peering down on me. The hair bristled on the back of my neck.
“Shelly?” I shouted over the music. “Is that you?”
The door opened wider. The figure before me was thin and stooped and wore a rubber Ronald Reagan mask and a pin-striped, oversized New York Yankees jersey. There were several gold chains hanging from his neck. An elaborate gold watch had slid down his skinny arm to the back of his hand. His other arm was shrunken into his chest. For a moment I thought the rickety caricature before me must be a joke, Shelly in Halloween garb. “Shelly?”
“Come on in, negro,” said the hollow voice inside the mask.
I need ya I need ya I need ya soooo.
No one had ever called me “negro” before, not even in the nuthouse. “Is Shelly here?” I pressed.
“No, Chuck ain’t here,” came the reply.
Bap Bap: my boy lollipop.
“I’m a friend of his,” I explained. “I’ve found a Beatles record on Parlophone. I was wondering . . . is he around?”
The figure tipped his head at me in what initially suggested curiosity until I realized he was inclined this way by the arrangement of his spine.
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“Any minute. Went to Gag in the Bag.”
You make my heart gooo giddy-yup.
He lifted the hand with the watch on it, then swung the door completely out and limped away, dragging his left leg behind him, his carriage popping up like the weasel in the children’s song every other step. I followed looking around for Shelly the mad scientist. Murdered probably. I had finally stumbled into one of his Taboo Zones. A glass eye peered up at me from Shelly’s work table, the iris in it brown. The arm of the record player kicked over, rested for a moment, then swung back and dropped again into the groove. Bap Bap: My boy lollipop.
“Do you mind?” I said, lifting the stylus from Millie Small and switching off the player.
I heard a car door slam outside, the gate creaking, now the sounds of footsteps up the walk, hard soles. Ronald Reagan retreated to the foot of the hall. The sun did its best to penetrate the grime of the ancient curtains. The front door clunked open. Expressionless, Shelly looked back and forth between us, two white Jack in the Box bags in his hand. His tone was plaintive. “Donny, I thought I told you not to answer the door.”
Donny’s head fell, which made him all the more hunched looking, the delicate paralyzed hand pressed into his body almost chin high.
“He didn’t,” I said. “I came in. I heard the record playing over and over. I thought something was wrong.”
“It’s cool, Chuck,” said Donny.
Shelly nodded, sighed, closed the door behind him with his right foot. He set the bags of food on the kitchen counter. The strong odor of hamburgers, onions, and French fries drifted to my nose. “Why don’t you go to your room, Donny?” Shelly said. “Go on. I need to talk to Eddie for a minute.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“No, nothing like that.”
The mask nodded and Donny turned and dragged away, rising each time his weight shifted from the dead leg to the ball of his good foot.
Shelly drifted around idly picking things up and then took a chair at his work table with the glass eye looking up at him, crossed his arms over his chest and said, “So now you’ve met my brother.
